The Founder

Auster Communications Founder & Managing Director Paul Lyon brings more than 25 years of experience in corporate communications and financial journalism, including senior communications leadership roles within some of the world's leading financial services, FinTech and enterprise technology organisations.

Lyon began his career as a financial journalist, spending seven years in senior editorial roles at Risk.net, including as Founding Editor of Structured Products, covering financial markets (equities, fixed income, rates, FX and debt capital markets), with a focus on derivatives, regulation and financial technology. He subsequently moved into corporate communications, holding senior leadership positions as Head of Key Media at NatWest Markets and Head of Communication & Marketing at Daiwa Capital Markets. He then spent more than a decade in increasingly senior positions at Euronext-listed Wolters Kluwer, the €6.1 billion (2025 revenue) global leader in information solutions, software and services for professionals, with some 21,000 employees across 40 countries.

At Wolters Kluwer, Lyon was most recently Senior Director, External Communications: Global Branding, Communications & Marketing, operating across the enterprise and advising senior executives on corporate reputation, media and analyst relations, financial and M&A communications, AI transformation and issues management as Chief Spokesperson. Previously, as Global Head of Corporate Communications for its Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC) division, he led communications for a €1 billion-plus international business. Most recently, he served as Chief Marketing & Communications Officer for a RegTech business with strategic investment from Moody's Corporation, leading a communications and brand transformation programme. Across his career, Lyon has served on Board Committees and Regional and Global Senior Leadership Teams.

A perspective from both sides

That combination of experience shapes Auster's approach. Having spent years deciding which corporate stories were genuinely interesting as a journalist, and two decades advising organisations and senior executives on how to tell them, Lyon understands communications from both sides of the conversation: what an organisation needs to say, what its audiences will actually find interesting, and what ultimately earns attention and shapes reputation.

Experience and expertise

His experience spans corporate reputation, media and analyst relations, executive communications, thought leadership, financial and M&A communications, crisis and issues management, brand narrative, industry recognition, and change and transformation communications. Based in London, he has built and led international communications and brand teams, advised senior executives and Boards, and developed communications programmes across Europe, North America and Asia.

How Auster works

Auster is deliberately different from the traditional PR agency model. Clients of the advisory firm work directly with senior counsel throughout an assignment, combining strategic advice with hands-on execution where required. For larger or more complex programmes, Auster can assemble trusted specialist teams, drawing on experienced writers, media relations practitioners and other communications specialists according to the needs of the assignment.

Assignments range from focused projects and executive counsel to retained support, crisis communications and substantial communications transformation programmes.

Current clients include financial technology businesses and financial media groups.

Why "Auster"? 

The name Auster takes inspiration from the late American postmodernist Paul Auster, the subject of Founder Paul Lyon’s MA thesis. Auster's novels, poems and screenplays frequently explored identity and storytelling, but also chance and coincidence: the unexpected events that alter the course of a story and change how it is understood.

There is a parallel with corporate reputation. No organisation can control every event, external influence or interpretation of its actions. But much can be shaped: the strength of its narrative, the clarity of its voice, the relationships it builds and, critically, how intelligently its communications adapt as events unfold.

Reputation is therefore neither entirely within an organisation’s control nor simply left to chance. It is a story continually shaped by what happens, what an organisation does and how it communicates when it matters.

That idea sits at the heart of Auster Communications:

Every reputation tells a story.