About me
My name is Aidan Muller.
I am a consultant in strategic communications. I live at the intersection of politics, society, data and digital technology.
Trained as a political journalist in the early 2000s, I have been on the front line of the digital revolution from the outset. Over the last two decades, both the nature and the shape of the public debate have been transformed by digital technologies.
Over that same period, the evolving focus of my work has reflected the digital innovations of the day – from journalism to digital content, to social media, analytics and paid campaigns, to strategy and advocacy.
Now AI is set to transform our information environment. Once again, organisations are going to need experienced advisors to help them navigate the disruption of the next few years.
“I’ve been helping organisations shape political and policy conversations for almost 20 years.”
A career drawn to innovation
When I first started as a journalist in the early 2000s, many of the jobs I went on to do later did not exist. As a future-gazer, I found myself drawn to these industries where standards were in the process of being set, and practices in the process of being codified.
I was excited about breaking new ground. So in the last 20 years, I have been lucky to be able to indulge my passion for politics and digital innovation, while shaping an industry through both my work and my thought leadership.
Industry-shaping
I was one of a small vanguard of social media pioneers in government in the mid-2000s.
I helped set the standard for government’s visualisation of open data.
I helped codify the practice of digital public affairs in the UK lobbying industry.
I developed a new model of policy communications centred on storytelling, widely used among think tanks.
I defined a new segmentation for policy comms audiences, based on levels of political engagement.
In government…
Where I spent 7 years – initially as a web content specialist, and then as the Ministry of Justice’s first digital engagement advisor, and finally in Number 10, where I was hand-selected to deliver specialist digital projects.
As a consultant…
At Edelman, the world’s largest global PR firm, who headhunted me in 2012. In my three years at the company, I ran digital and social media programmes for some of the most high-profile organisations in the corporate and energy sector. There, I started to define building blocks for digital public affairs.
As a business owner…
Since 2015, as a freelancer, I have helped half a dozen lobbying firms define their digital public affairs offer. In that time, I also co-owned and co-ran for five years a mid-size policy communications consultancy, for whom I pioneered a policy storytelling approach which shapes the sector to this day.
