A public relations firm helping to burnish Hong Kong’s tarnished international image has employed former advisers to police forces in Australia and Scotland.

United Kingdom-based Consulum won a HK$50 million (US$6.3 million) public relations project to revive the city’s image as a global hub following a year of mass protests that took control of the streets and grabbed headlines worldwide. The little-known firm snared the contract after several leading PR firms judged the task of restoring the city’s reputation would be too hard against the backdrop of Beijing tightening its grip on the city and eroding its freedoms.

Eamonn Fitzpatrick and Rob Shorthouse – who had previously served as media adviser for New South Wales Police and Director of Communications for Strathclyde Police, respectively – will join a three-member senior executive team, according to industry news portal PRovoke.

Shorthouse also served as director of communications for the “Better Together” team to advocate for Scotland remaining part of the U.K. ahead of the 2014 independence referendum. Apart from serving the New South Wales government, Fitzpatrick was formerly a reporter for the Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post newspaper.

Among the woes faced by the Hong Kong authorities, the city’s police, once known as “Asia’s finest,” were criticized for their hard-line approach as demonstrations turned violent. The force was also accused of being too quick to deploy lethal weapons to crack down on protesters.

Consulum has in the past supported governments accused of authoritarianism, notably Saudi Arabia following the high-profile murder of dissident reporter Jamal Khashoggi in 2018. Other regimes it has assisted include Bahrain and Djibouti.

Agnes Tsang, a former assistant to pro-Beijing politician Bernard Chan, has been appointed as the other executive in what PRovoke termed a “high caliber team of high professional standard.”

Tsang has also served as a researcher at the Hong Kong government’s Central Policy Unit and as Director of Government Relations and Public Affairs at the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong.

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