Brent Balloch, President

profile photo Brent is an expert in cross-cultural communications, and a lawyer by profession. He has over 20 years of experience working in strategic communications and corporate and reputation/crises management across Asia, Africa, Europe, and North America. Brent started his career working in public education campaigns in post-conflict areas for several NGOs.

His involvement in public education campaigns inspired him to establish Balloch & Roe, the first print, media and advertising company in Baghdad immediately after the fall of the previous regime. Brent worked closely with the Coalition Provisional Authority, the UN, the US military, the Iraqi Electoral Commission, and the Iraqi Governing Council to strategically develop, run and manage many of the Coalition's media communication campaigns in Iraq.

In 2004, Brent cofounded Babylon. Since then, Brent has headed up the company's business development and networking (including developing relationships with advertising, public relations and digital communications firms, think tanks, governments and international organizations), overall project strategy, and staffing and client advisory work.

Brent advises a broad range of clients across governments, FMCG, travel and tourism, industrial, retail, media and property sectors on high-profile and often complex situations. At Babylon, he manages a multi-disciplinary, culturally diverse team to create long-term strategies and short-term tactical responses to reputational threats. Brent has specialties in:

  • Advising government and corporate clients to develop and implement strategies to counter malign foreign influence and disinformation in the public and corporate spheres.
  • Advising governments and international organizations on extremism and developing and implementing strategies to counter extremist groups.
  • Supporting country-stabilization, democratization and institution-building.
  • Advising major international corporations on crisis management and strategic communications.

Brent has deep respect for measurable, science-based — including data and social science — multi-disciplinary approaches, which he constantly implements in his work to enable his clients to successfully adapt to a fast-moving and sometimes hostile communications environment. Brent has an LLB from Victoria University of Wellington.