Aretera is a leading independent public affairs advisory firm operating across Central & Eastern Europe, Turkey, Ukraine, Central Asia and a growing number of global emerging markets. We advise a wide range of leading multi-national corporations, providing counsel on all aspects of public policy, public affairs and reputation management.

Aretera works to the highest international standards of transparency and compliance, partnering with global and local client teams, lawyers and global agencies, to serve our clients’ needs in our regions.

Our diverse team is highly experienced across the legal, regulatory, policy and media landscapes in our countries of operation and helps clients navigate often complex and opaque markets. Our leadership team brings decades of regional experience across the corporate and agency world, combining international, cross-market expertise with local industry leaders in our countries of operation.

Aretera’s sector experience includes: digital/ICT, healthcare, agriculture, FMCG, financial services, infrastructure, automobile, platform economy, micro-mobility and beyond.

We offer a fully-integrated mix of public policy and strategic communications/issues management support, and often operate across a range of countries for single clients.

Firm Specialty

PUBLIC AFFAIRS & GOVERNMENT RELATIONS

• Insight: market, regulatory and policy monitoring, intelligence gathering and impact assessment 
• Strategy: stakeholder engagement strategy development 
• Outreach: securing client representation in relevant policy discussions to maximise opportunities and mitigate threats

CRISIS & ISSUES MANAGEMENT

• Full suite of crisis management services across all government, institutional, media and other relevant stakeholders 
• Issues analysis and risk assessment 
• Crisis and litigation communications

CORPORATE REPUTATION MANAGEMENT 

• Corporate communications strategy development 
• Positioning and messaging 
• Media and social media engagement

Firm Contact

Chris Dobson began his career in the London agency world within a private consultancy specializing in C-suite issues management consultancy. In 1999, he relocated to Central Europe, where he has been based variously in Budapest, Belgrade, Bucharest, Istanbul, Moscow and Warsaw, playing a key role in establishing and growing Mmd, the largest emerging markets corporate communications consultancy of the times. Throughout this time, Chris combined a lead management and operations role with that of client counsel to a number of major investors into the region, within the energy, financial, B2B and healthcare sectors in particular.

Chris became CEO of Mmd in 2009, steering it through its sale to Huntsworth plc, where he became a Board member of Grayling, the international agency created by the merger of Mmd with two Huntsworth agencies. In 2011, he departed for Edelman, the world's largest PR firm, where he joined the EMEA leadership team, directly managing a cluster of EMEA markets and personally establishing the firm's ground-up offices in Moscow & Istanbul.
Chris joined Kesarev from emerging markets consultancy Speyside, which he led for four years and across four continents until late-2019.

In March 2022 Chris led the move to establish the CEE & Central Asian divisions of Kesarev as newly independent company, Aretera, which he leads in conjunction with our in-country management teams.

Chris advises a number of our large multi-country clients on key strategic issues in the region. He has been a regular speaker at a wide range of events across emerging markets in Europe and further afield about the particular communications and outreach challenges facing MNCs in fast-moving, complex and often opaque business environments.