My friend and former work colleague Peter Hehir, who has died aged 77, founded Countrywide Communications, one of Britain’s largest public relations companies.
Driven by his own levelling up agenda, Peter rejected the London agency norm and set up Countrywide in Banbury, Oxfordshire, in 1973, guiding it over the next 25 years to become one of the most highly rated communications groups in the UK.
By the mid-1990s Countrywide had nearly 250 staff operating in the UK, Paris and Brussels, with clients ranging from ICI to Rolls-Royce and from Kraft General Foods to Quaker Oats. All benefited from Peter’s unwavering conviction that “communication is the force that drives human progress”.
He was born in Trowbridge, Wiltshire, to Paddy Hehir, a soldier, and Hazell (nee Ethell), a housewife. After a family move to Scotland he attended Paisley grammar school near Glasgow, where in the sixth form he wrote a weekly column for the local newspaper.
His early career was in journalism, but he soon switched to public relations, moving at the age of 20 to Surrey to work as a trainee press officer with the Milk Marketing Board and becoming chief press officer there at 23. After a return to journalism as news editor of the Grocer magazine in 1969, he decided to set up Countrywide four years later, with a £1,500 loan.
Initially operating with two employees, his early clients, including Londis, reflected Peter’s background in writing about food and agriculture. But by the 80s he worked for businesses across a range of sectors.
In 1995 Countrywide was acquired by Omnicom, the American advertising and communications group, and merged with its public relations subsidiary Porter Novelli to create the world’s fourth largest communications group.
Peter stayed with the company until he retired in 2000, when he moved with his wife, Alison (nee Newport), to Wellington in New Zealand. However, he quickly found himself back in business there, co-founding another PR company, SenateSHJ, which is now one of Australasia’s leading communications businesses. He was the company’s chairman until 2016, when he stepped down to be an independent group board director.
A former chairman of the Public Relations Consultants Association and chair of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation, Peter remained a fierce advocate for the profession until his death, but was never afraid to criticise it for ethical lapses or a lack of professionalism.
His work-based passion for communication and problem solving was matched only by a love of his family, golf, and of West Bromwich Albion football team.
He is survived by Alison, whom he married in 2004, her daughter, Amanda, three sons, Alex, Stuart and Christopher, from his first marriage to Fiona (nee Mills), which ended in divorce, and four grandchildren.