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.

Maria Cryan: Partner

Maria has ten years’ experience of government, international relations, public affairs and lobbying, as well as media relations and strategic communications solutions. Her expertise lies in managing campaigns for Irish, UK and global brands in the energy, retail, professional services, health, property, sport, telecommunications and financial sectors.

Maria joined Hume Brophy in January 2010 having worked for both Dublin and London-based agencies, prior to which she worked as a public sector consultant on projects for the UK Ministry of Justice and HM Revenue and Customs. Maria also spent two years working in Paris as Irish Attaché to UNESCO and the OECD, and as an Analyst at the OECD in the Environment and Development Directorates.

Maria holds a BA in History and Politics and an MA in European Studies from University College Dublin. She also has a Diploma in International Political and Social Sciences from the Institut d’Etudes Politiques (Sciences Po) in Paris.

Conor Foley: Partner

Conor joined Hume Brophy in 2006 and manages HB’s Brussels office. He is an experienced government relations consultant with specialties in energy, financial services and tax policy. His clients at HB include agri-business conglomerates, clearinghouses, commodity traders, hedge fund managers, inter-dealer and energy brokers and insurance companies.

Prior to joining HB, Conor worked for TOTAL – the oil and gas company. In this role he advised senior management and country directors on government and stakeholder engagement strategies on exploration and production activities in Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Previously, Conor worked in the European Commission and was a consultant with the Brussels practice of another government relations consultancy. He began his career with the Washington, DC office of Eurasia Group. Conor is a graduate of Trinity College, Dublin and Georgetown University. An Irish national, his working languages are English and French.

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.