Constance Balsamo and Bob Hughes have joined the board of the Advertising Standards Authority of Ireland.
Balsamo (pictured above) is the head of alcohol policy and public affairs at Diageo Ireland and was previously Diageo’s head of the EU internal market in Brussels. In her current role, she focuses on alcohol regulation and drives the development and implementation of responsible drinking initiatives while also overseeing marketing compliance. Prior to joining Diageo, she spent a number of years in Brussels and Zurich, where she worked with global communications agency Kreab, and as a public policy advisor with financial services firm UBS.
Hughes, meanwhile, has recently been appointed as executive director of Local Ireland, the association which represents 42 paid-for weekly news publishers around the country. Before taking up the role, Bob Hughes worked a special adviser across two departments in the last Government. He began his career in weekly and daily journalism in the UK, was a sub-editor with the Press Association in Fleet Street, a producer for Channel 4 News at ITN, a programme editor with Reuters and Sky, an editor at Radio Ireland/Today FM, Deputy Director of TV3 News Ireland for 16 years and a consultant in strategic management and media, working in Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
The ASAI has also appointed Celene Craig and Paula Kelly to its independent Complaints Committee.
Craig is currently deputy chief executive of the BAI, a role which she has held since its establishment in 2009, in addition to having worked with its predecessors the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland (BCI) and the Independent Radio and Television Commission (IRTC). A significant dimension of her work in the BAI has been her responsibilities for the formulation and review of a wide range of broadcasting/media-related policies and for advising on the implementation of legislative and policy changes in the audiovisual field at national and European levels. More recently, she has led the development of the BAI’s Policy Position on the Implementation of the revised Audiovisual Media Services Directive and on the Regulation of Harmful Content on Online Platforms.
Paula Kelly has over 20 years’ experience in business, brand and communication development, and is currently head of account management, TBWA/Dublin. Having worked for a number of years in PR and technology, she joined TBWA (then Cawley Nea\TBWA) in 1998 and was appointed head of account management in 2004.
“We’re delighted to welcome Constance, Bob, Celene and Paula to their new roles. All appointments bring a wealth of experience and insights from their respective careers and illustrate the high calibre of talent contributing to the ASAI’s Board and Complaints Committee. On behalf of myself, our Chairman Sean O’Meara and the ASAI executive, we would like to wish Constance, Bob, Celene and Paula the very best of luck in their new roles. We would also like to take this opportunity to thank the outgoing members, Tom Morgan, Edel McCabe, Johnny O’Hanlon and Michael O’Keeffe for their contributions to the ASAI,” says Orla Twomey, chief executive of the ASAI.
