Prior to this, Ayesha spent over five years with AstraZeneca as Global Media Relations Director and latterly Director of Business Development and Partnering Communications. This followed eight years with communications consultancy Fishburn Hedges, where Ayesha built and led the agency’s Health Practice, supporting clients on issues ranging from NHS reform to the introduction of the smoking ban in England to medicine shortages. Ayesha’s early career included a focus on consumer technology, both in agency and as Press Officer to the Minister for e-Commerce in the then Department of Trade and Industry.