Toby Bates has 11 years of international corporate and financial communications experience having worked in-house and on the consulting side in industry-leading, global organisations.

At Merlin his focus is on the Financial Services and Leisure sectors and providing financial PR for corporate clients. Before joining Merlin he was with Goldman Sachs for seven years providing media relations advice to the Investment Banking, Equities and Asset Management Divisions. That involved working on M&A, Private Equity and ECM transactions as well as managing campaigns for specific financial products and developing international media strategies.

Prior to Goldman Sachs, Toby was with Burson-Marsteller where he provided strategic and tactical communications advice to a wide range of clients across various industry sectors. Toby graduated from Newcastle University in 1995 with a BA Hons in History and Social Studies and holds the Chartered Institute of Marketing Diploma.