Paul McErlean is Managing Director and founder of MCE. He has worked across a vast array of sectors from consumer products to government and he is engaged across MCE’s client base with a particular expertise in business strategy, crisis management and the design, integration and delivery of public relations and digital solutions within wider marketing strategies.

Paul previously was joint Managing Director of another major Northern Ireland PR agency and spent a number of years advising the Industrial Development Board and InterTradeIreland in his previous consulting roles – including being the lead communications advisor on the 11 city investment roadshow of North America after the signing of the Good Friday/Belfast Agreement in 1998. His career started in broadcasting research and news facilitation with leading independent TV company, Macmillan Media and he also spent two years as Head of Communications for one of Northern Ireland’s main political parties. He has degrees from Queen’s and Cambridge Universities and completed an Executive MBA from the Smurfit School of Business, University College Dublin, in 2002.

On a voluntary basis, he is Chairman of leading environmental regeneration charity, Groundwork NI and is also Chairman of the Cathedral Quarter Trust – a government and Belfast City Council backed stakeholder group charged with developing the regeneration strategy for Belfast's most vibrant and historic city centre district. He is a member of the Chartered Institute of Public Relations having served as its Northern Ireland Chairman in 2006, is the current Chairman of the Public Relations Consultants' Association (PRCA) in Northern Ireland and was listed in PR Week's UK PowerBook 150 in 2011.

Outside of work, Paul still tries to relive his former sporting career as an international basketball player and inter-county footballer, mostly he's dreaming though.