Brunswick brief a bellwether for change in Dubai

Alan Parker, the founder of the communications group Brunswick, has a little motto about the role of financial public relations in the delicate pas de deux between the business world and the media: “You must always avoid getting in between the actors and the footlights.”

Mr Parker, who built London Brunswick from scratch in the 1980s to become one of the biggest PR firms in the world, with offices in 15 countries, meant that he and his fellow communications executives should never become the news themselves.

Their job was to facilitate transmission of information between companies and executives, and the press, broadcast and web-based organisations that try to shed light on the business world.