John Hume: Partner

John has over fourteen years experience working with the EU institutions and specialises in managing pan-European media and political campaigns.

Prior to co-founding Hume Brophy, John served in Brussels as Deputy Director General of Airports Council International (ACI) Europe, the representative body for the European airports industry from 1999 to 2005, where he played an instrumental role in achieving success for the airports industry on many crucial political issues. During this time, John built an expert lobbying team from across Europe and successfully changed the strategic focus of the organisation to deal with modern political challenges.

Previously, John was Director of European Public Relations for the International Duty Free Confederation / Focus 99, a consortium of airports, ferry companies, and consumer goods companies, where he developed and rolled out the highly successful consumer awareness programme in 15 EU member states. John also worked as an adviser to the European transport trade union federation on press and political affairs and began his career as a management consultant with Deloitte and Touche.

Eoin Brophy: Partner

Eoin co-founded Hume Brophy with John Hume in 2005, and has over 16 years of international strategic communications and public affairs experience across the corporate, financial services, media and travel retail sectors.

Prior  to Hume Brophy, Eoin was responsible for Institutional communications at Gartmore Investment Management in London, and before this, he was Director of European Communications for the international online broadcaster, Servecast. Previously, Eoin spent seven years working in the European Parliament and as a senior lobbyist for the travel retail industry in Brussels. He started his career at the European Commission.

Eoin received an honours degree in Classics from University College Dublin in 1994 and also holds a first class postgraduate diploma in print and broadcast journalism from the London School of Journalism.

Conor Foley: Partner

Conor Foley is a Partner at Hume Brophy and runs the firm’s Brussels operations.

Prior to joining Hume Brophy in 2006, Conor founded and managed an independent Brussels-based public affairs company, advising leading multinationals in the oil and gas, financial services and security sectors on EU policy, competition, regulatory and communications issues.

Previously, Conor worked in the European Commission’s DG External Relations and was a consultant with the European public affairs practice of a top-tier consultancy where he worked for government clients and major multinationals including Microsoft, ExxonMobil, Dow Chemical and Volvo.

Conor began his public affairs career in Washington with the Intellibridge Corporation (now Eurasia Group) and has worked as a management consultant with Diageo and as a consultant for United Press International. He began his career as a research analyst with the International Crisis Group.

Conor received his undergraduate degree from Trinity College Dublin, specialising in European politics. He received his Masters degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, DC.

He speaks French and some Arabic.

Karl Brophy: Partner

Karl Brophy joined Hume Brophy Communications in October 2007 and now heads up our Irish Corporate Communications business.

Karl has unique experience both as an expert strategic communicator and as newspaper executive and publisher at the very highest level both in Ireland and abroad. He acted as the press spokesman and media planner for dozens of politicians including the Taoiseach, Cabinet Ministers, TDs, Senators and candidates for the Presidency of Ireland. Karl has organised, developed and implemented the media strategy for several successful election campaigns.

Karl has worked for the London Daily Mirror and has further experience in the Dail where he was a political correspondent for the Irish Examiner before being headhunted to join the Irish Independent.

In 2002, Independent Newspapers appointed Karl as the Associate Editor of the Cape Argus in South Africa. In 2004, he convinced the senior management of the multinational group, which has 180 individual newspapers to launch from scratch its first ever English language daily without joint venture support, the Daily Voice.

Karl was appointed Editor of the title in March 2005 and brought the paper to profit within 24 months. The title is now one of the biggest selling in South Africa.

Karl retains superb contacts in the Irish media, at all levels, and within the political sphere in Ireland.

Steve McCool: Partner

Steve joined Hume Brophy in May 2010, as Partner and Head of the UK business. He brings more than 19 years experience at Weber Shandwick, Credit Suisse, UBS, Merrill Lynch and Hambros Bank.

Steve specialises in strategic and financial communications, with experience across asset management, investment banking, private equity, wealth management, professional services and real estate. His work has covered media relations, investor relations, M&A communications, issues management, branding, internal communications, restructuring communications and profile management for senior executives.

His client engagements have included Cerberus Capital, Houlihan Lokey, HSBC, JM Finn & Co., Kingdom Zephyr Africa Management, Promontory Financial Group, and Temasek Holdings. Steve also supports Hedge Funds Care UK, the alliance of hedge fund industry professionals raising funds to protect children from abuse and neglect.

Prior to working in the communications arena, Steve held various roles in business management, corporate strategy and financial management, having completed his ACCA exams in 1993.

Steve has a Bachelor of Commerce (Banking & Finance) degree from University College Dublin.