Meet the Speyside Team
We’re a diverse team of senior consultants and local experts helping clients shape reputation, policy, and growth across emerging markets. Get to know the people behind our global network.
Leadership
Marlisa Soepeno
Marlisa is a seasoned government affairs and public policy professional with nearly 20 years of experience spanning government relations, diplomacy, strategic partnerships, business development, and community development. She brings a multidisciplinary perspective to regional strategy, business growth, stakeholder engagement, and operational effectiveness, underpinned by a deep understanding of Indonesia and the broader Southeast Asian landscape.
She concurrently serves as Country Manager, Indonesia, at Speyside Group and previously, she held leadership roles at Mandala Consulting and Vriens & Partners, where she drove strategic partnerships, business development, and government affairs strategies for multinational clients.
Marlisa was a former diplomat with Indonesia's Ministry of Foreign Affairs and served as the presidential interpreter team; these provides a distinctive perspective on government engagement, international relations, and high-level stakeholder management. Her work across G20, APEC, ASEAN, and bilateral forums, alongside her diplomatic posting at the Indonesian Embassy in Singapore, has equipped her to navigate diverse institutional environments and build relationships across public and private sectors.
Beyond her corporate leadership, Marlisa is an entrepreneur committed to inclusive economic development. She founded Manessa, a fashion and accessories business that collaborates with women-led small and medium-sized enterprises across Indonesia, and co-founded the Makassar Interpreter Training Initiative (MINT), which develops local interpreting capacity in Eastern Indonesia. She also mentors emerging professionals, reflecting her commitment to talent development and long-term regional capability building.
Simonetta Ballali
Simonetta has over 16 years' experience in medical affairs and scientific communications, advising global and emerging pharmaceutical companies on medical strategy, launch planning and stakeholder engagement. She has worked in-market in six countries across Europe, Asia and Latin America and leads multi-country programmes with remits spanning numerous markets. Her therapy area experience covers oncology, rare diseases, neurology, ophthalmology, infectious diseases and metabolic health.
She began her career in research delivery coordination, managing international public health projects for Prochild, non-profit organisation focused on children health. She went on to hold senior roles at leading healthcare communications agencies in the UK, including Lumanity and Avalere Global, before joining IQVIA, where she led the Medical Affairs Communications practice.
Simonetta joined Speyside as Deputy Head of Healthcare and Medical Affairs Director in March 2026. Based in Lisbon, she leads senior project delivery and consulting for international and global clients, oversees the team, and drives growth and strategy for Speyside's medical affairs work. Her key role is to integrate Speyside's healthcare pillars, to support delivering programs that are medically credible, stakeholder-specific, policy-aware, and access-oriented.
Rahul Sharma
Rahul has two decades of experience across corporate public affairs, strategic communication, and journalism. He has executed programmes and advised C-suite, including of Fortune 500 companies, on multi-stakeholder strategy and engagement, market entry and policy advocacy, regulatory affairs, reputation management and crisis communication, coalition/alliance building, sustainability, & CSR, and thought leadership.
Rahul has worked with clients from a range of industries, including technology, FMCG, energy, healthcare, fin-tech, BFSI, e-commerce, spirits, aviation, oil & gas, chemicals, agro-chemicals, and fertilizers, amongst others, at both federal and state level. He began his career as a journalist, working with leading national and business media brands, including India’s first 24*7 parliament channel, Lok Sabha TV, reporting on legislative matters and political developments. Prior to Speyside, Rahul worked with Burson, part of WPP, and was head of its public affairs and advocacy division. He also has experience in political and government communication.
As a journalist and later as a corporate affairs professional, he continues to contribute to discourse around policy related issues through articles and participation in seminars/roundtables. He has also authored an academic working paper on “Greening India’s MSME’s: A co-innovation approach” published by the Bharti Institute of Public Policy, Indian School of Business.
Rahul holds a graduate degree in economics from University of Delhi, a postgraduate diploma in journalism from Indian Institute of Mass Communication, a certificate in digital competition law, & has an advanced management in public policy from the Indian School of Business. Based in Delhi NCR, Rahul leads India operations for Speyside and overseas projects in other South Asian countries.
Matthew Lloyd
Originally from Canada, Matthew leads Speyside’s work across Africa, the Middle East, and Central & Eastern Europe, coordinating teams in more than 50 markets. He advises multinational companies and investors on policy, political, and license-to-operate risks throughout the entire investment lifecycle—from pre-investment due diligence and in-market risk analysis to mitigation planning, proactive policy and stakeholder engagement, and crisis management.
Matthew brings wide industry experience, including extensive work in the mining sector and on complex cross-national projects. His portfolio spans sectors such as energy, infrastructure, manufacturing, and natural resources, often in challenging regulatory and geopolitical environments.
Before joining Speyside’s EMEA practice in 2020, Matthew worked across Asia and Latin America, building on earlier experience at a leading global management consultancy.
Silvia Ardila
Silvia brings 18 years of experience to her role as Latin America Regional Director, where she oversees the team and operations across all countries in the region.
Her track-record in corporate affairs and public policy includes senior counsel and support for leading companies in both Latin America and Europe: working across a spectrum from corporate reputation building to stakeholder relations and issues management. Client experience includes mining, energy, healthcare, financial services, and new emerging digital-disruptor sectors such as mobility & fintech.
Before joining Speyside in 2016, she spent several years living in Italy and France, where she worked in healthcare-specialized consultancies and led projects for companies such as Novartis Corporate in Basel. In Latin America she has also worked as Corporate Affairs Director for HC-Human Capital and as external relations leader for Latin America at IBM, positioning the company among key stakeholders. Besides her work at Speyside, she has worked as Corporate Affairs and Reputation Professor at Universidad El Bosque and Universidad Sergio Arboleda in Colombia.
Fiona McCollum
Fiona brings 28 years of experience to her role as Global Chief Client Officer. Having spent 15 years on the ground in various emerging market hubs, she is currently based just outside London.
She has particular expertise in corporate affairs, public policy, risk management, crisis management, and corporate reputation management.
Although Fiona has experience supporting multinational companies in emerging markets in the travel and tourism, manufacturing, energy, agribusiness, sustainability, resource management, tech, and food and drink sectors, her main areas of specialty include the disruptive digital sector and the healthcare sector. Her most recent experience includes work for Airbnb, Alibaba, AWS, Blockchain.com, Bolt, Dell, Doordash, Entain, Tribal, GSK, and Pfizer.
Alistair McLeish
Based in Switzerland for nearly two decades, Alistair has lived in CEE and the Americas.
As a corporate affairs specialist, he has advised MNCs, private equity and disruptive technology firms, and hedge funds in all aspects of M&A, FDI, crisis management, and internal communications.
A pioneer in emerging market communications, Alistair founded and led Mmd Central & Eastern Europe. As Central & Eastern Europe transitioned from a command economy to a market economy, Mmd laid claim to be the world’s first multi-country emerging market communications specialist with 21 offices and working on over 100 privatizations and purchases of state-owned assets in the 1990s. Mmd CEE also advised many US MNCs in how to develop their region-wide market access and stakeholder communications, and he also helped them develop complex supply chains in a rapidly shifting market environment. Mmd played a significant role new in the legislative change in the region, particularly around the EU early-accession Visegrád countries.
Speyside Group owes much of its DNA and ability to operate in difficult—and often protectionist countries to Alistair and his Mmd years, as he has penetrated barriers in highly regulated sectors and gained the technical license as well as the social license to operate to operate.
Alistair has played a key role in establishing Speyside’s global network and structure and travels, widely advising senior clients and internal teams as well as lecturing and other external roles.
He is a member of Arthur Page, the leading global organization for global COOs and agency leaders.
Ian Herbison
Ian has over 25 years’ experience advising leading global companies and organizations on corporate affairs and public policy. He has lived & worked in 12 countries in Asia, Latin America and Europe and has overseen work in more than 50. His work has largely focused on supporting leading US and European multinational companies with entry into global emerging markets or helping top-tier enterprises in those markets with global growth, including M&A, IPO, and regulatory affairs.
He started his career in management consultancy for PwC before joining the management team of Mmd, the leading corporate affairs consultancy in Central and Eastern Europe and Eurasia that played a central role in supporting FDI into the region during the 'golden years' of liberalization in the 90s and 00s. In 2009 he co-founded Speyside.
After a decade of building teams on the ground in Latin America - and a brief period in Washington DC - Ian relocated to Singapore to oversee Speyside's fast growth in Asia. Today he serves as Group CEO, with operational responsibility for the business while providing senior counsel to a select group of key clients.