Former prime minister Kevin Rudd (Image: AAP/Mick Tsikas)

Consultancy firm 89 Degrees East has continued its hiring spree, announcing yesterday that it had brought in former Consumers Health Forum of Australia CEO Leanne Wells and veteran political journalist Alison Carabine who, in her 30-year career — including more than a decade at RN Breakfast — has maddeningly avoided getting into Crikey for anything other than positive reasons.

The pair join Rebecca Huntley, Australian media’s go-to social trend researcher, who was hired last month as head of research.

89 Degrees East is run by Alister Jordan who, if nothing else, may go down in history as the only person to consistently enjoy working for Kevin Rudd — he lasted in Rudd’s office from 2002 to 2010 as countless others were churned out, and he served as his chief of staff for the last two of those years. According to a profile in The Sydney Morning Herald, Jordan and Rudd shared a “father-son relationship” and Jordan “effectively ran” the Rudd/Julia Gillard campaign to take over the ALP leadership in 2006, “chairing the thrice-daily telephone conferences to count the numbers and plot subsequent moves”.

So we’re guessing stamina is a pretty big prerequisite for this gig.