DevComms opens Manchester office and promotes Jack Boyce to MD for Midlands and North
The built environment engagement consultancy has also hired Katy Isaac as associate director as it moves its Northern work out of Birmingham.
DevComms, a political and stakeholder engagement consultancy focused on the built environment, has opened an office in Manchester and added to its team in the North.
The firm already has clients across the region, but its Northern work had been run from its Midlands office in Birmingham. According to the consultancy, having a Manchester base means its team will be permanently close to the councils, communities and clients it serves.
It described the opening as the next stage of its growth ahead of its tenth anniversary in 2027.
The Manchester team will provide strategic communications, political insight and stakeholder engagement to clients in the North, with the aim of helping to unlock development opportunities.
Under the expansion, Jack Boyce becomes managing director for the Midlands and North, a promotion. Katy Isaac has joined as associate director.
Isaac has close to ten years’ sector experience spanning transport, logistics, energy and power, urban regeneration and residential work. She has a record of handling sensitive stakeholder issues, including on high-value Greater Manchester projects.
The office has been planned for several months. The consultancy linked its timing to a change in where decisions about growth are taken, pointing to the government’s opening of No10 North in Manchester in July, which shifted responsibility for devolution and for local economic growth strategy away from Whitehall.
DevComms expects decision-making to become more regionalised and said its network of offices puts it in a good position to support clients.
“We’ve been working with clients in the North for some time and more of the decisions that shape development are now being made in the regions,” said Rob Allaway, CEO of DevComms. “Having a team based in Manchester means we’re part of those conversations every day.”
Boyce said: “I’m delighted that DevComms now has a permanent base in Greater Manchester, supported by a best-in-class team and it builds on a decade of my advising clients in the North.
“We’ll be growing our team, embedding ourselves in the region’s communities and politics and helping schemes get Local Plan allocations through planning and into delivery. I’m excited to see what we can do together.”
The Manchester office adds to DevComms’ offices in the capital and the South of England, as well as its Midlands base.
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