The future of advertising MDA Consulting certainly knows when to time an event to maximise excitement for a gathering of the industry’s great and good.

The firm’s annual cocktail bash at the House of Commons, where the contracting force that is Ray O’Rourke made an appearance, coincided with Fathers 4 Justice campaigner Guy Harrison climbing on the roof of Westminster Hall displaying a “Does Blair Care?” banner for five hours. “If only we’d handed him an MDA banner, he could have given us some free advertising,” quipped chairman Charles Johnston to the gathered crowd.

Where are they now?

Where was he? Director at QS and project manager Haleys (formerly Haley Somerset) for nine years. Departed in the spring of this year full of kind words for the firm and looking forward to “future opportunities in the construction industry”. Many tipped a move to a client organisation.

Where is he now? Sure enough Diviani turned gamekeeper in the summer, joining infrastructure behemoth Network Rail, which is currently swallowing up plenty of project management and QS talent. Diviani is heading up estimating in the major projects division of the rail client, which appears to be changing its spots of late in terms of its dealings with the construction industry. The client may well be ditching the use of retentions in future schemes claiming they are “useless”.

Fan Club

Broomfield on Neil Young
Andrew Broomfield, chairman at WT Partnership, has been a worshipper at the altar of Canadian rock legend Neil Young since the age of 13.

“I had the best paper round in Salisbury when I was a teenager and earned £2.50 a week. It meant I could buy a lot of albums. I got in to him in the late 60s when he started working with Crosby Stills & Nash. I was one of the few people who bought his first record (pictured). I must have seen him live around a dozen times, including at Wembley stadium in September 1974 with The Band and Joni Mitchell and at the Hammersmith Odeon in 1976. The album On the Beach is my favourite album of all time. A lot of people hate his voice but I love it. He’s prepared to move on and change things – that is what has made him so great. He has written some crap though – the album Everybody’s Rockin’ is one of the worst of all time. ”

Source

QS News