About Us

Chelgate is an independent, international strategic PR agency, headquartered in London, with branches in Brussels and Bucharest, and a network of associates around the globe.

Chelgate combines great strength in traditional PR, public affairs, crisis management and media relations with an exceptional understanding of social media, digital PR and international PR.

The firm has also built an outstanding reputation for its work in acute issues and crisis management, often dealing with exceptionally sensitive and challenging issues. Chelgate’s discreet and low key approach to issues management, backed by a great weight of experience, has often proven central to the resolution of situations which otherwise might have posed grave threats to our clients.

Other specialist services include issues and crisis management, public affairs, government relations and financial communications. Business to business promotion also represents an important part of Chelgate’s work, as does PR support for marketing campaigns for both products and services.

About Chelgate – Our history

Since its founding in 1988 Chelgate has demonstrated its own discreet and low-profile style to work with a broad spread of governments and major multinational businesses. At the same time, the firm is equally at home working with small and medium size companies, professional bodies and associations, as well as distinguished individuals.

International PR is one of the firm’s strengths. In addition to its headquarters in London, Chelgate has branch offices in Bucharest, Romania, and in Brussels, Belgium, as well as a network of carefully selected associates throughout the rest of the world, ensuring the effectiveness of its multinational programmes.

Chelgate’s management team offers a wealth of professional expertise. Every Chelgate executive has a track record of proven, relevant experience and this ensures that client business is never delegated to inexperienced or unqualified personnel. Programme management and account handling structures are very flat: the approach is closer to a law partnership than a typical PR firm.

 

Our work

Lean overheads and tight financial management are also reflected in realistic fees to clients. While Chelgate pays well for the best executive talent, and invests readily in the resources needed to service our clients, flamboyant expenditure and runaway expense budgets are no part of the Chelgate style.

So what kind of clients does Chelgate represent? You may notice that there’s no client list on this site. There’s a reason for that. There’s a reason, too, why we say very little about specific activities on behalf of individual clients.

We think that when clients appoint Chelgate, they have the right to expect professional discretion. Many of our assignments involve acute issues and crises, and very often the last thing needed in a delicate situation is the high profile announcement of the appointment of public relations advisors. In fact, more than half our client relationships are subject to formal confidentiality agreements. But even when that’s not the case, we think our clients should always have the right to expect professional confidentiality.

 

Discretion

Also, when a crisis is past, and the dust settled, you won’t find Chelgate claiming credit for its brilliant crisis management. If there is credit to be claimed, we think that credit must go to the client. We may have advised, and we may have implemented, but the client directs, carries the risks, makes the tough decisions. That’s truly where the credit lies.

Often, too, when a crisis is past, it’s in the client’s interest for the event to fade from the public mind. A PR firm that keeps the memory of the disaster alive through articles, case studies, conferences, seminars and events celebrating its own crisis management skills can only be doing its client a damaging disservice.

From time to time, the news that a client has appointed Chelgate can be used to the client’s benefit. Where this is the case, we make no bones about wringing the maximum publicity benefit from the announcement. For example, one small community campaign group in North Yorkshire won national media coverage from the appointment announcement.

Many of our clients, and plenty of our assignments have no great sensitivity or confidentiality. Even here though, we tend to be low-profile. We don’t believe in standing between the client and the spotlight. Time and again, Chelgate has demonstrated an ability to deliver publicity in bucket-loads! But if there’s publicity to be won, we want that publicity for our clients, not for ourselves. We don’t make a particular secret of these clients, and these assignments. In fact, a casual browse through this site will turn up plenty of clues. But nor do we provide a formal list, because, by its nature, in excluding many of the most difficult and challenging assignments we work on, the list would be unrepresentative and misleading.

Experience and expertise

Potential clients have the right to ask about our relevant experience, and in the confidential environment of new business discussions, we are able to talk in a little more detail.

Even so, prior sector experience is not always the best guide to the best PR firm for the job. Some of our most successful campaigns and rewarding client relationships have been with clients where we have had no previous experience of the sector. PR expertise, rather than sector experience, is what made the difference.

That said, the Chelgate team do bring to bear a rich and varied fund of expertise across a very broad range of sectors.

Contact us

For more information on about Chelgate and how we can help you or your organisation with any public relations, public affairs or media relations services, please do not hesitate to get in touch by calling us on 020 7939 7939 or emailing us here.