This is the second in a two-parter about public affairs. Hans Hack is a Senior Managing Director and the head of the Brussels office for the public affairs practice at FTI Consulting. Hans' background is in policy making and strategic advocacy and he supports clients facing challenges with governments, regulators and the wider stakeholder environment. Prior to joining FTI Consulting, Hans was the Dutch financial attaché to the EU. Previous to that role he was a coordinating policy officer at the Dutch Ministry of Finance. Hans has a background in financial services regulation and policy and has more than 15 years experience covering all sub-sectors of financial services: banking, capital markets, asset management, retail financial services, financial infrastructure, insurance and audit.

We talked about Brussels and the challenges of lawmaking and regulation, including contrasting the American and European approaches. We also talked about skills and career management for those looking to build a career in public affairs.

Stephen Aaron is the Founder and CEO of Perspective Strategies. He is a public affairs strategist and influence expert with almost twenty years of experience in Washington D.C. transforming the way his clients are understood by elected officials and the general public. With a career that has included stints at top DC public affairs firms, Stephen talked to me about how companies try to get heard in Washington, the real vs. the perceived influence of money in politics, and how to launch and manage your career in communications if politics is something that excites you. We converged on our sadness about the political divide, and on our shared belief in the importance of personal contact vs. e-mail (or worse, social media).

Samantha Flynn is president of Junipr Public Relations in Chicago, and has been featured in PR Week, Forbes, The Wrap and Authority Magazine, sharing expertise in best practices in public relations, reputation management, crisis communications, entrepreneurship and the continued advancement of women in the workplace. She and I talked about career progression, including her time as an in-house resource and the differences between in-house and agency work. We also talked a fair bit about what young people can do to stand out and survive in this very tough business. For someone so young Sarah is a little bit old school in her approach, and she and I bonded on that: some things in PR have changed, but some very crucial things have not. She's the author of the recently-released The EntrePReneur Advantage: Turning Chaos into Clarity, so check it out.