Reputation management

Sarah Sands, who yesterday left the BBC 'with puzzled affection', has landed as a board director with a consultancy that says it helps senior leadership teams 'make sense of complexity.'

After three year not quite understanding Auntie, the former Today editor is now on the books of Hawthorn Advisors, started in 2013 by John Evans 'to help institutions and individuals to navigate complexity and risk, bringing together an ambitious senior team with acclaimed expertise from the highest levels of the corporate, political and media worlds.'

What drew Sarah to Hawthorn ? The team includes Poppy Trowbridge, former special advisor to Philip Hammond as Chancellor, said to be the current squeeze of BBC News thought leader Kamal Ahmed; Guto Harri, former BBC political correspondent; and Julian Payne, former BBC comms man now polishing the reputation of the The Man Who Would Be King is a non-executive director.