Noel Rock, a former Fine Gael TD who narrowly lost his seat in the 2020 general election, has sold his Pixel Strategic Consulting lobbying company to Karl Brophy’s Red Flag Consulting group of communications businesses. Mr Rock has also joined Red Flag as its director of public affairs.
Ballymun native Mr Rock lost his seat in Dublin North-West after a bruising campaign for Fine Gael just mroe than two years ago, when his campaign was also hampered by the redrawing of the constituency’s boundaries.
He subsequently set up Pixel, which lobbies politicians on behalf of technology companies. Its clients include Google and Bobby Healy’s Manna drone delivery business.
Red Flag, which is chaired by former Independent News & Media chief executive Gavin O’Reilly, will maintain Pixel as a distinct business unit within the group, further expanding Red Flag’s reach in the tech sector.
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Mr Brophy, a former senior INM executive, has joined the board of Pixel which will operate as part of Red Flag’s Irish division, which is run by former Labour Party and ministerial adviser, Deirdre Grant.
Mr Rock said Pixel was “working well” as a one-man operation, but joining Red Flag buttresses its growth opportunities – Red Flag has offices in Dublin, London, Brussels, Cape Town and Washington DC.
He said he has no immediate plans to return to politics and “for the time being” he is focused on business. “You never definitely rule yourself out of these things,” he said, when asked if he might consider running for election for Fine Gael again.
[ Red Flag expands lobbying operation in Washington DCOpens in new window ]
Mr Brophy, a former Fine Gael party official, said he and Ms Grant have known and admired Mr Rock for several years and he decided to try to buy Pixel after working “adjacent” to the former TD on several tech-related issues.
It is Red Flag’s second acquisition in less than a year, after it paid a seven-figure sum last summer to acquire US trade lobbying group, International Business-Government Counsellors (IBC) in Washington.
Mr Brophy said there is currently a “boom” in consulting and the pandemic, while initially a challenge, gave Red Flag the opportunity while working remotely to compete directly with US firms.
He said the acquisition of IBC, whose client list includes blue-chip firms such as IBM and Ford, has proven to be “very strong” for the Irish-headquartered group.
“Last year ended up being our strongest year ever. Covid allowed us to compete with US firms in their own market and we actually picked up a lot of business in the pandemic. The market is hot on the consulting side of things now,” said Mr Brophy.
Red Flag employs about 70 staff across its network of offices.
Mr Brophy, who has a majority stake, and Mr O’Reilly set up Red Flag in 2013, shortly after their exit from Independent News & Media, where they had fought against Denis O’Brien’s attempts to gain control of the newspaper publishing business.
