Paul Downes is a joint founder of Merlin, and has over 25 years of experience in financial and corporate communications in London. Paul is the senior strategic counsel to a number of Merlin clients.

Paul was formerly Deputy Chief Executive in the UK of Georgeson, the world’s largest specialist financial communications group, responsible for its European investor relations operations. Prior to that he was Director of Financial PR at Valin Pollen. He has managed mainstream financial communications programmes on behalf of major global corporations,   including Man Group, BP, GE, Pitney Bowes, Virgin, Matra-Hachette, Abbey National, Royal Bank of Scotland, Royal Insurance, Manweb and BT. He is senior counsel to clients in the Financial Services, Private Equity, Leisure and Media Sectors, as well as on M&A, IPO and fund raising transactions more broadly. Paul graduated from the University of Nottingham (English) in 1981.