Stephanie Ayres began her career in the UK House of Commons where she worked for two senior Labour MPs and for the central party during the 1997 General Election Campaign. After four years working within the political system she moved to one of the UK's most successful government relations consultancies where she used her experience to advise clients in a number of highly regulated sectors including the defence and aerospace sector, privatisation and utility regulation and government procurement.

Government procurement has always been highly political because of the size of the contracts, their sensitivity and their importance to both national security and the economy. Stephanie ran very successful practices at GJW Government Relations and APCO UK during her time as a consultant and helped her clients to secure extremely high value projects, often in excess of a billion pounds. She has advised many of the largest defence and aerospace companies on a variety of issues and specialises in business development, campaign management and government relations.

Stephanie was involved in the extremely political utility privatisations of the late '90s. During this time she worked with a large number of newly privatised companies and helped them to work with the Government to establish effective regulatory regimes. During this period she helped the various players develop their sensitivity to the challenges faced by those they might feel were naturally hostile to their position. This experience stood her in good stead for her future work in the area of Government procurement.

Before setting up her own consultancy in 2007 Stephanie spent five years as the Executive Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications for Raytheon in the UK. Combined with her consultancy experience this gave her a good understanding of the pressures faced not only by a large global company but also by those responsible for managing reputation in a sensitive sector at a difficult time.