London - 25 September 2006

Pan-European technology specialist PR agency AxiCom has appointed Amanda Metti as the new head of the agencys Consumer practice, reporting to agency principal Helen Ridgway who has led the Consumer practice to date.

Amanda's experience includes being global head of the GN Mobile account and local head of the TomTom and Steria accounts with ABC Hill & Knowlton Denmark and as Business PR Manager for O2 UK. She previously worked with AxiCom from 1998 to 2002.

This appointment formalises AxiCom's UK Consumer practice and provides additional senior-level support for our existing consumer clients including PC World, Linksys, TopUp TV and Sling Media, said AxiCom CEO Julian Tanner. Amanda knows AxiCom well, and is a great client handler. Her international consumer PR experience strengthens both AxiComs UK consumer capabilities and our pan-European consumer capability.

"AxiCom already has a strong Consumer team and client set, so this move is both a challenge for me to build on those strengths, and a pleasure to work with a team who are already producing excellent results", Amanda Metti said.

Amanda started out as a research fellow with Edinburgh University, working on early trials of interactive TV and voice response call centre systems. She joined AxiCom as an account executive in 1998 and left after four years to work as Business PR Manager for O2 UK where she worked on the launch campaign for the O2 XDA. From 2004 to early 2006 Amanda was an account director at ABC Hill & Knowlton Copenhagen managing international clients GN Mobile (Jabra branded products), and GN Netcom and working with other clients such as Nokia and TomTom. She joins AxiCom from GCI London where she was head of the Dell UK account. Amanda has an MSc in Social Sciences, Science and Technology studies from Edinburgh University. Other AxiCom consumer clients across Europe include ABBYY, Hitta.se, Icelandair, LaCie, Logitech and Habbo Hotel.