* Philippa King, head of business affairs at Rhombus Media for the past five years, has been made partner at the company, joining Niv Fichman, Daniel Iron, Sheena Macdonald, Larry Weinstein and Barbara Willis Sweete.

* Richard Longpre has joined the Vancouver law firm of Heenan Blaikie as a labor and industrial relations lawyer. Previously, Longpre was VP of industrial relations for the B.C. branch of the Canadian Film and Television Production Association and vice chair of the BC Labour Relations Board.

*Jan Miller is leaving her post as VP, operations and development, at imX communications in Halifax in favor of returning to life as a freelancer. Miller joined imX two years ago and says she will continue to work closely with imX on various projects including the animated Crafty Cow. With her fresh start in the freelance world, Miller said in a statement, ‘I want to tackle new challenges in a broader realm.’

* Irish transplant Sean Travers has joined Vancouver’s Post-Digital Works and sister company Pilot-West Video Services as editor. His previous Canadian credits include visual effects compositing work on Stargate SG1, Dark Angel, First Wave and So Weird with additional effects work for the feature films Antitrust and Ripper.

* Vancouver-based HollyWord Publicity has hired Karen Woodward as its L.A. representative. Woodward has worked for the William Morris Agency, Fine Line Features, Baumgarten-Prophet Entertainment, and Destination Films. As part of her agreement, Woodward will also represent HollyWord’s spinoff company, EPK Interactive, which specializes in the production of CD electronic press kits.

* Anne-Marie Lemay has been appointed sales executive for Canada and Latin America, for Montreal-based Distraction Formats. Lemay joins Distraction from Cinar Corp., where she previously held the position of sales executive for Latin America.

* Mike, from Canmore, is hanging up the phone. Yup, John Morgan, who has made more than one generation of Canadians laugh at the expense of the dim-witted call-in guy – that would be Mike, from Canmore – is retiring from CBC’s Royal Canadian Air Farce series. While Morgan, a long-time Farce cast member with Luba Goy, Roger Abbott and Don Ferguson, may be sorry to hang up on Mike, he adds in a statement he won’t miss 14-hour production days or weekend writing deadlines. Morgan has declined to do interviews.

* Robin Smith joins the Toronto office of Lions Gate Films, effective July 3, as director of marketing and distribution for the company’s theatrical and video divisions in English Canada. Smith is moving to LGF from Blackwatch Releasing, which has been in difficult financial straits.

* Rose Mangone is leaving Astral Television Networks at the end of June to return to a broader base of communications assignments within the film and television industry, restarting her consulting firm, Rose Mangone Communications. *