Andy Coulson

Spear’s Review

When it comes to crises, Andy Coulson has ‘created them, managed them and lived them’, he once told Spear’s.

Coulson Partners, which he founded in 2016, focuses on corporate strategy, reputation management and communications for CEOs, founders and other leaders. His own past casts this work in an interesting light.

Coulson was the editor of the News of the World before leaving journalism in 2007. He became an adviser to David Cameron later that year, holding the post of communications director for the Conservative Party. Following the party’s victory in the 2010 general election, Coulson took on the equivalent role in government. In 2014 he served time in prison, having been found guilty of one charge related to the phone-hacking scandal that had embroiled News International, the publisher of the News of the World. 

‘As someone who has been poacher, gamekeeper and, for a while, game, that gives me and the people that I work with a unique perspective as trusted advisers,’ Coulson said. ‘My experience is a value. You either want advisers who have been up and down the hill a few times or not. If it’s the former, then I think we’ve got something to offer.’

The firm provides ‘frank’ advice to its clients. Trust, he added, is ‘the absolute key to good advice’.

On his podcast (Crisis What Crisis?) Coulson has interviewed former colleagues (George Osborne, William Hague), journalists (Andrew Marr, Fergal Keane) and entrepreneurs (James Timpson, Martha Lane Fox).