Consolidation often means compromise. In the summer of 2004, increased competition in the global storage industry led to consolidation and job cuts at US networking storage giant Brocade. One of the unfortunate casualties of the process was the post as head of regional marketing – a role responsible for co-ordinating the Brocade’s eight PR agencies across Europe.

In order to fill the gap created by his departure, Brocade charged its then UK-only PR agency Hotwire with co-ordinating Brocade’s PR agency network and campaign across Europe, managing messaging and ongoing liaison with its US headquarters.