Dick Fedorcio

Dick Fedorcio, is Director of Public Affairs and Internal Communication for the Metropolitan Police Service, a post he has held since September 1997. He manages nearly 150 staff, on a budget of £7m a year.

He started in local government, joining the GLC straight from school, in 1971. 12 years later, he became county information officer for West Sussex County Council in 1983. Thence, in 1986 to Kent County Council as director of corporate communication, where he stayed for 8 years (he still lives in Weavering, near Maidstone), before joining the Electricity Association in 1994 as director of communication. In 1996 he moved into consultancy with Westminster Advisers.

He was President of the Institute of Public Relations in 1992, and was awarded an OBE in 2006.

As well as fixing lunch and dinner engagements (he shares a love of The Goring with the Middletons, and enjoys vintage burgundy) for his police employers, he's occasionally taken a more direct approach with the press.  Nick Davies has written about a meeting in November 2002, at which he, and others, confronted Rebekah Brooks.   Dick probably organised the tender process by which Neil Wallis' Chamy Media turned out to be the lowest bidder for a contract for pr services to the Met - Sir Paul Stephenson's resignation made a point of saying he had nothing to do with it.

Dick featured in PR Week's power list of 2011 - will he make it to 2012 ?