People

Influence Group > People

People of Influence

Sir David Richmond

Chair

Sir David has over 30 years’ experience as a diplomat before moving to the private sector. He spent more than ten years working on EU issues including two postings at the UK Representation to the EU in Brussels: from 1987-91 when he led the UK team handling the EEA negotiations, and from 2000-03 when he was appointed the first UK Representative to the EU’s then new Political and Security Committee, playing a prominent part in developing the EU’s Common Foreign and Security Policy.

In 2004 he became the UK’s Special Representative for Iraq. In his final posting, he was the Director-General for Defence and Intelligence in London and a member of the Foreign Office Board.

After leaving the FCO in 2007, he was a senior advisor at Bell Pottinger where he worked with corporate clients and overseas governments on communication and engagement strategies.

Sir David is now an independent political consultant.

Peter Wilding

Managing Director

In 25 years of working in European affairs, he practices as a solicitor specialising in EU law. He has practised in London, Brussels, Gibraltar and the Channel Islands having worked at law firms Withers and Hill Dickinson.

He has stood for Parliament twice and was appointed by former Prime Minister, David Cameron, as Media and Policy Director of the Conservative Party in the EU from 2005-2008.

He has worked extensively in public affairs having been Director of the Brussels-based lobbying firm, Cabinet DN, and Europe Director of BSkyB.

He has had a high speaking, writing and media profile having appeared regularly on national and international television and radio. He is the author of “What Next? Britain’s future on Europe” and is credited with coining the term Brexit. Peter is proficient in Spanish.

Sietske de Groot

Operational Manager

Sietske de Groot has over 15 years of experience in EU and government affairs. She is founder of TradePeers Ltd., a specialised market-access service for medium-sized businesses in the UK. Before setting up TradePeers Sietske was the lead on EU and International Affairs for the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) in the UK.

Sietske is a firm believer of internationalisation and digitisation of small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). She has been instrumental in shaping the Small Business Chapter in the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP). In 2016 she organised an award-winning event at the International Festival for Business “From Northern Powerhouse to Global Trade – Small Businesses and the Global Trade Agenda”.

For over seven years Sietske advocated the interests of UK firms in Brussels. She specialises in Digital Single Market policies. For example, she lobbied on the General Data Protection Regulation, Geoblocking, and VAT on e- services.

Previously, Sietske worked in policy roles for the provincial government of North-Holland (The Netherlands) and at West Sussex County Council. She also represented the Airport Regions Conference (ARC) in Brussels. Sietske has lived in The Netherlands, France, Belgium and the UK, and worked with several other countries, including the USA. She holds a double Master’s degree in Political Science and French and speaks several European languages fluently.

Nick Crosby

Nick is a management and government affairs consultant, specialising in EU issues and in particular Brexit.

He has worked in the City and for the leading professional services firm PwC; and in-house for GSK Consumer Health. His industry experience covers financial services, healthcare and the environment.

Based in Brussels, Nick helps clients both set strategy and implement it on the ground. He is comfortable in a variety of roles and can offer a full range of consulting services, including facilitation of brainstorming sessions, conducting bespoke research,monitoring and analysis, drafting and coaching for communications briefs and event chairing. For Brexit he has designed a bespoke methodology to help identify and crack its core challenges.

He serves on the board of Pro-Europa, a cross party campaigning coalition and was formerly Director of the European Movement UK. He holds an MA from Cambridge University and an MBA from the University of Michigan.

David Angell

Digital Communications

Has worked in digital marketing, SEO and communications since 2004. David holds an MA (Distinction) in Conflict Resolution (International Politics).

He worked as an award-winning member of the AdWords team at Google’s EMEA HQ advising companies from SME to multi-national. He was responsible for the launch and management for Google’s UK programmes for Google Grants, Google Earth Outreach and the YouTube non-profit programme.

He ran Online Communications for former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg prior to and through the 2010 election.

Since then he’s been a Digital Analytics and Communications Consultant for multiple people and organisations as Director of Wordsmith Digital and Associate Director of Brand Response.

Charles Marquand

Legal

Charles Marquand is a member of the English Bar and also of the French Bar. He practises in both jurisdictions. He has considerable experience of legal and public affairs.

Charles’ principal areas of expertise are financial services law and regulation, company and commercial law (UK and EU). He is recognised as a leading practitioner for his advisory work in financial services and regulatory law in the Chambers & Partners Directory of the Legal Profession.

Charles has advised several governments on legal and regulatory reform in the former Soviet bloc, and in parts of Asia, and has drafted legislation for those jurisdictions.

Before starting private practice as a barrister, Charles was a legal adviser at HM Treasury. Whilst there, he assisted in the negotiation of a number of EU Directives and drafted implementing legislation. He also drafted a number of pieces of UK financial services legislation, including the legal framework for the dematerialised settlement of securities transactions in the UK.

Charles is on the steering committee of UK Legal Future, which provides information on Brexit related issues to members of the House of Commons and the House of Lords.

Charles is a columnist on European affairs for the English language Indian national newspaper, the Asian Age.

He is a visiting lecturer at the University of Freiburg, teaching a course on British politics and UK relations with Europe. He speaks French fluently.

Prof Alan Riley

Legal

Professor Alan Riley is one of the leading competition law scholars in the United Kingdom. He chairs the Competition Law Scholars Forum www.clasf.org. He has written widely on competition law issues in major law journals such as the International & Comparatively Law Quarterly, the European Law Review and the European Competition Law Review. His principal interests are in regulatory reform; effective enforcement of the competition rules against international price-fixing cartels and due process.

Professor Riley has advised a wide range of British and European companies and governments in respect of competition law issues. Professor Riley’s other major area of interest is energy law and policy, particularly EU energy market liberalisation, opening up of the EU and Russian gas markets and the supply security issues arising from the market dominance of Gazprom in certain EU Member States. Professor Riley has written extensively on energy security issues in academic journals and more widely. He is currently working on a book on EU energy security and liberalisation. Professor Riley writes regularly in the Wall Street Journal on energy and competition issues.

He holds a PhD in competition law from the Europa Institute, Edinburgh University, is a Solicitor of the Supreme Court of England & Wales, a Associate Research Fellow of the Centre for European Policy Studies, Brussels and is a Professor of Law at the City Law School, City University, London.

Jonathan Lis

Policy

Jonathan read English at Trinity College, Cambridge before completing a Masters degree in social sciences at the London School of Economics.

In 2012, Jonathan became the senior assistant to Charles Tannock MEP, the Conservative coordinator on foreign affairs and human rights at the European Parliament.

Following a period working for the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation, Jonathan began working with British Influence, and wrote its pre-referendum report on Brexit and the Commonwealth. Following the referendum, he became Deputy Director, and works on the Brexit process, and its implications for British and European foreign policy, security, and diplomacy.

As part of the organization’s work on the single market, Jonathan conceived of the legal challenge regarding Britain’s apparent automatic withdrawal from the European Economic Area, which is now being brought before the courts.

Glenn Cezanne

Brussels Office

Glenn Cezanne specialises in the development of communication strategies and their implementation at EU and Member State level.

He has experience in the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU, carried out the full spectrum of Public Affairs activities at a prominent consultancy for a variety of high-level clients, represented Lottomatica Group (now IGT) in Brussels, and was Executive Director of the European Casino Association.

Glenn is fluent in English, German, Romanian and French. He also speaks Dutch and Italian.