Faculty of International Management and Business

Dr. György Szondi joined Budapest Business University’s Faculty of International Management and Business in September 2022. He graduated as an economist from the same university in 2000, specialising in Public Relations. He completed an MSc in Public Relations from the University of Stirling, UK in 2001. He holds a Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Salzburg, Austria where he researched the concepts of Public Diplomacy and Public Relations for the European Union, adopting an interdisciplinary approach through diplomacy, marketing, branding and international communication.
In 2003, he joined Europe’s biggest and most prestigious PR Department at Leeds Business School as a Senior Lecturer in Public Relations. Apart from teaching a variety of courses on the BA and MA programs, he was the program leader for the MA International Corporate Communication degree. In 2013 he joined the School of Media at Bournemouth University where he delivered modules on corporate and crisis communication. His teaching experience covers a wide range of Public Relations, Corporate Communication and Research Methods courses at BA, MA and professional levels, including courses for the British Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) in the UK, Russia and Bulgaria.
His research interests have centred on international public relations, public diplomacy, nation branding, crisis communication and strategic corporate communication. His articles and book chapters have appeared in the Journal of Public Affairs, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, The Handbook of International Crisis Communication Research, The Routledge Handbook of Public Diplomacy, The Global Public Relations Handbook and The Handbook of Global Public Relations. He is the editorial board member for the academic journal of Place Branding and Public Diplomacy (Q2 ranking). He has also reviewed book proposals and draft chapters on corporate communication, public relations and research methods for Routledge and Sage Publishers.
He has been a lecturer at several universities across Europe, including the UK, Austria, Italy, Hungary, Poland and Estonia. He has designed and led communication and PR training courses and workshops for several for-profit as well as public sector organisations in London, Brussels, Warsaw, Budapest, Riga, Tallinn and Tunisia. These included the School of Government in the UK; the Government of Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Social Affairs, and public diplomacy workshops for the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the European Union’s European External Action Service in Brussels. Prior to academia, he worked for Hill and Knowlton, the international PR consultancy in Budapest and in its international headquarters in London.
He is a member of the European Public Relations Education and Research Association and an honourable member of the Hungarian Public Relations Association as a recognition and appreciation of his efforts to promote the Hungarian PR profession abroad. He is fluent in English and Italian and has a good command of Polish, German and Estonia.