On a sweltering afternoon in early July, Sonia Khan – recognised by the PRCA in 2026 as ‘Trailblazer of the Year”– was co-hosting VIP political guests on the Commons terrace at the Parliamentary Party of H/Advisors, the public affairs agency that was throwing a glitzy champagne and Pimm’s afternoon tea party to re-launch its brand (formerly being H/Advisors/Cicero). 

As a senior partner at H/Advisors, and a special media adviser to two UK Chancellors, Khan has built extensive experience and relationships across Westminster, which have come in handy in compiling the guest list. Khan and CEO John Rowland’s guests included MPs, clients, business leaders, trade body chiefs, think-tanks heads and Pippa Crerar, political editor of The Guardian, the guest speaker at the gathering of politico movers and shakers. 

Such a gathering, however, is far from Khan, now 34, was used to experiencing in the Black Country, in the West Midlands as a young teenager growing up. Over coffee at her King’s Cross office, she tells me that her motivation for going into the political world is rooted in her growing up in the “left behind” town of Smethwick, just outside of Birmingham.

“There was a lack of political engagement” she says. “Smethwick is a very industrial part of the UK. Seeing the area become progressively worse, seeing things like hit and runs, losing friends and seeing elections come and go with nobody knocking on your doorstep, that was what made me want to make a difference.” 

“Everyone was coming to us because we were the original Red Wall”

With heavy immigration around neighbouring Dudley, the area became something of a media bell-weather hot-spot for politicians – such as Gordon Brown and Nick Clegg – to visit, saying they would turn things around.  “Everyone was coming to us because we were the original Red Wall, so I would see BBC trucks arrive or politicians like David Miliband walking around.” 

Today, she is one of Westminster’s most effective public affairs strategists where she bridges the gap between high-stakes politics and global corporate strategy. Her early career began taking on the role of Grassroots Coordinator at the TaxPayers’ Alliance where she honed her skills in local communications. She also did work experience with Iain Duncan Smith in his press team. “I really loved it and first got a sense of how government comms lines are put together and then how they’re translated by political parties.”  

By 2014 she was working in the heart of government developing comms skills dealing with complex social and domestic policy issues. Next came a high-profile job in Number 10 working under David Cameron where she helped launch the flagship National Living Wage campaign. She then became Press Secretary to Liam Fox at the Department for International Trade (DIT), where she expanded her comms experience in Singapore, Hong Kong, and the USA. 

“She served under Philip Hammond, navigating the economic complexities of the dying days of the Theresa May administration”

Next step up was being made a special adviser (SpAd) to the Chancellor of the Exchequer. She served under Philip Hammond, navigating the economic complexities of the dying days of the Theresa May administration, being retained by his successor, Sajid Javid. 

But her time at the Treasury ended in dramatic media circumstances in August 2019 with Khan’s face being splashed over the newspaper front pages. In the early days of Boris Johnson’s premiership, his chief of staff, Dominic Cummings, sacked Khan over alleged phone communications with the former Chancellor Philip Hammond’s team. Cummings accused Khan of lying and claimed to have found evidence on her mobile phone, allegations she has always strongly denied. 

“I quickly focused on how to ensure financial stability, not just for me but for my family”

How did she react? “My initial emotion was shock because everything just happened so quickly that you’re almost struggling to, to process it, and then I thought I just had to pull myself together. I quickly focused on how to ensure financial stability, not just for me but for my family”.

At the time her husband Dan Horricks, who works as a Parliamentary researcher, had been suffering from a rare form of cancer so the brutal sacking could not have come at a worse time (Her husband has faced cancer five times over the past 15 years, including brain and spinal cancer.). Khan brought an employment tribunal claim against the Treasury alleging unfair dismissal and sex discrimination. Her legal team argued that she had been dismissed without any proper process being followed. In November 2020, the case was settled out of court for a reported five-figure sum.

Khan then transitioned into the private sector, joining Cicero/Amo (now rebranded to H/Advisors) in May 2020 as a director, quickly adapting her political skills to the corporate advisory sector and being a commentator on several shows including BBC’s Newsnight. She has helped guide leading FTSE organizations in the financial services, transport, health, and fintech sectors navigate through the Westminster political policy maze. She also oversees work on political risk tracking and political advisor mapping. Her clients have included Accenture, Barclays UK, BlackRock, Unum and the Oversight Board.

With the two-party system seemingly bust, how does her agency decide which – of five or six – party conferences to attend? “Yes, it’s made it much more complex, but I would say it’s far more interesting. It has kept us on our toes as public affairs professionals because we have to adapt to every single party, and we can’t assume that the structures of the main political parties are the ways that smaller parties operate.” 

“Newer parties can be open to outside expertise and engagement”

Of course, what constitutes a “smaller party” is open to debate these days with the Greens and Reform both having more members than the Tories and Labour.  She adds that there is “more of a chance to engage on policy” and newer parties can be “open to outside expertise and engagement as they develop their policy platforms. You can engage more, especially on issues that the established parties don’t always have the time or space to focus on.  In a way it’s probably sharpened the industry.” 

This year, H/Advisors will be sending teams to all major conferences including Reform where they have booked a space. Although, alas, she won’t be at the Conservative conference in Birmingham – close to her home turf – due to being on maternity leave. Her tip for effective conference lobbying and engaging with prospective clients: “It’s a brilliant opportunity to invest in and nurture relationships, which is critical to what we do. I prefer smaller drinks receptions, where you can have proper one-to-one conversations and really get to know people”. 

A key, she says, to successful lobbying is seeing the bigger picture beyond the short-term. Sometimes you have to have a strategic vision and strategic brain that factors in that “sometimes there are losses to be made for bigger gains.” 

Working in front-line politics for well over a decade has meant meeting most of the colourful political cast that have shaped the political landscape over the Cameron/Johnson era and Brexit years. One stand-out person she learned from was Matthew Elliot – now Lord Elliot of Mickle Fell – co-founder of the TaxPayers’ Alliance, admiring his sharply strategic “political brain.” 

“You could see the early thinking that would later shape the Brexit campaign”

“Seeing how he navigated politics and how he got his insights was fascinating” she says. “Matthew was a relentless hustler. He has a huge amount of resilience and always saw the bigger picture. I was working for him in 2013, and even then, you could see the early thinking that would later shape the Brexit campaign.” 

How difficult is it to recruit as a lobby firm so that you have all political parties covered in your ranks? Whilst there are dozens of ex-Tory and Labour MPs and SpAds out there, is it more difficult to develop relationships with newer, insurgent parties? 

“We are lucky as an agency because we have always recruited on a cross-party basis” Khan says. “So we’ve people who are members of the Labour Party, Conservative Party, people who’ve been very active in the Lib Dem and Cons, you know, someone who worked for Robert Jenrick, someone who supports the Greens. We align people with the political areas and issues they understand best and share knowledge across the team. It never works trying to force people into a box.” 

Do former special advisers make good political consultants or lobbyists? Is the constant revolving between government and agencies a good thing for the industry? 

“Those of us who’ve spent a good amount of time in government understand how government operates. We understand the interplay between different departments. We understand how decision-making works, and we’ve been lobbied, so we know what good and bad lobbying looks like. But you also have to use that experience responsibly. It should be about making the strongest evidence-based case, not trading on privileged information.” 

“A good campaign needs to identify the right stakeholders and knows when and how to engage them.”

An example of the former is her work on the Rare Cancers Bill which was a form of deeply personal advocacy which involved complex understanding how many government departments had to be involved. “You could see it narrowly as a very DHSC campaign, but there’s also a big funding element to it, so bringing Treasury on board was also important…a good campaign needs to identify the right stakeholders and knows when and how to engage them.” 

Using rules from her own lobbying playbook, she brought together some 40 charities—including Pancreatic Cancer UK and The Brain Tumour Charity—into a coordinated coalition. Her team worked pro bono to manage weekly parliamentary briefings, coordinated cross-party support, and mobilized the public to send 200,000 constituent emails to MPs in a single day. This campaign reached 16.2 million people and set the stage for long-term policy and research funding improvements. 

The campaign went on to receive significant industry recognition. H/Advisors’ work won Best Proactive Lobbying Campaign for an Issue or Cause at the 2026 inComms Corporate Affairs Awards and was also a finalist for Excellence in Pro Bono Working at the Communiqué Awards. Judges praised its “incredible outcomes”, the team’s handling of different audiences and its impact on patients, highlighting the achievement of bringing together the MP and around 40 partners to help turn the campaign into law.

Khan’s own industry recognition began before the Rare Cancers campaign, when she was named PRCA Public Affairs Woman of the Year in 2025. In February 2026, she received a second PRCA accolade when she was named Trailblazer of the Year. On top of all this, she is also passionate about animal welfare and volunteers at the Battersea Dogs & Cats Home. It’s difficult to imagine London’s abandoned pets having a stronger welfare advocate.