Mr. Paul Taaffe is the Global Chairman and CEO of Hill & Knowlton Inc. His current clients are primarily international companies engaged in communications across borders or companies facing substantial issues. Clients advised include: Hewlett Packard, MCI, Deloitte, the Beijing Olympics, Medtronic, StatoilHydro and Better Place.

Paul was previously president of Hill & Knowlton in Europe, Middle East and Africa, and prior to that, chief executive of Hill & Knowlton UK.

Before joining Hill & Knowlton, Paul was managing director of Shandwick Consultants where he was responsible for financial public relations, corporate and business-to-business communications programs on both national and international clients.  Some of his major clients included Bass plc, 3i and Goldman Sachs.

Before joining Shandwick Consultants, he ran a group in a strategic communications consultancy where he developed communication programs for organizations such as General Electric, Unisys, Crosfield Electronics and Kodak.

Paul received his business degree in Australia and began his career in communications at Unilever.  Before moving to the UK, he headed up Unilever’s corporate relations, managing issues management as well as employee and corporate marketing programs.