O'Dwyer's August 2025 Financial PR/IR & Professional Services PR Magazine
WHY SUBSTACK IS THE NEW FRONTIER FOR
WHY THE FRONTIER FOR FINANCIAL
WHEN TO HIRE A PR AGENCY AND WHEN TO STAY IN-HOUSE
FIVE GLOBAL CHALLENGES FACING THE PR SECTOR
WHY AI HAS MADE PR’S ROLE MORE IMPORTANT THAN EVER
EDITORIAL
How AI leads to homogenization
REVENUES, PROFITS DOWN AT PR AGENCIES
Labor costs and budget cuts may be why PR firms lost profits in 2024.
GEN Z TAKES A TRADITIONALIST TURN
Some members of Gen Z are shifting away from progressive ideals.
TARGET B2B PITCHES TO ‘HIDDEN BUYERS’
Marketers should connect with stakeholders who aren’t primary users of a product.
UNDERSTANDING LIQUIDITY COMMUNICATIONS
Enhancing asset value in a challenging private equity exit market.
PR COMES OF AGE (AGAIN)
Why the rise of generative AI has made the role of PR more important than ever.
WEATHERING THE STORM
Why climate resilience is a corporate communications imperative.
WHY SUBSTACK IS THE NEW FRONTIER FOR FINANCIAL PR
How agencies are moving beyond traditional mass media to capture engaged, paying audiences.
FUTURE-PROOFING THE BRAND
Five global challenges facing communications pros and how to turn them into opportunities.
A
AI is creative poison
Several years ago, the writer Cory Doctorow coined the term “enshittification,” which refers to online platforms’ tendency to provide user experiences that get progressively worse over time. Artificial intelligence has supercharged this phenomenon. Google’s AI-powered Overview feature often provides users with incorrect answers to queries while effectively bringing the web traffic that online news publishers rely on to a halt. On social media platforms, meanwhile, AI is responsible for creating even more of a wasteland of misinformation than there was already. AI slop farms flood Facebook with nonsensical clickbait—for everything from recipes to political content—to earn cheap clicks from credulous Boomers with low media literacy. Deepfake videos of Joe Rogan and CNN’s Dr. Sanjay Gupta pitch products those individuals never actually endorsed. The news that Elon Musk’s AI chatbot, Grok, had christened itself “MechaHitler” and began making antisemitic comments was somehow the least shocking AI-related development last month. In an unexpected twist, some companies are now hiring writers to fix AI’s derivative, predictable and error-prone content. As prophesied, the web’s future just seems to get shittier and shittier.
As AI worms its way into virtually every facet of our lives, its benefits and detriments are becoming increasingly clear. Due to its sheer disruptive ability alone, AI has a habit of making the Internet’s previous challenges—which were manifold—seem trivial by comparison. It isn’t simply the fact that generative AI systems are basically plagiarism machines, feeding on copyrighted works without reimbursing the artists and publishers that created them. It isn’t the fact that students are widely using AI to cheat their way through college. (As it turns out, their professors are using it too!) It isn’t just the fact that AI data centers are causing electricity shortages in some parts of the country. One of GenAI’s greatest existential threats that few talk about is the tremendous cost it could have on human creativity. Everyone seems to concede AI is one of the most significant technological developments in the last century, but few want to consider the very serious philosophical implications that technology has when we begin relying on it for virtually every mental task that comes our way. What happens when we collectively decide to delegate our critical and creative heavy lifting to machines? What happens when we begin sounding like the chatbots that have been programmed to imitate us? And what’s the point in being creative anyway, once we’ve internalized the idea that AI systems can create content faster and more efficiently than we can? What happens to cultures when they stop creating?
For almost three years, technologists, marketers and AI devotees have shouted from the rooftops purely anecdotal claims about GenAI’s ability to enhance human creativity. I’m not going to argue that AI might augment some creative processes—research and concept development come to mind—but a spate of recent studies suggests AI isn’t the creative panacea we’ve been promised.
A 2025 study from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School found that while AI can bolster the quality of individual ideas, it also routinely generates the same concepts over and over again, creating results that lack diversity, variety and originality. Similarly, a recent MIT study split students into groups and asked them to write an SAT-style essay, with one group permitted the use of ChatGPT. (All students’ brain activity was monitored with headsets.) Once again, the students who used ChatGPT produced essays that repeatedly utilized the same words, phrases and ideas. Worse, the ChatGPT students also demonstrated lower brain activity than the other groups while penning the essays. AI isn’t simply a passive vessel we use to create content; it’s actively resulting in a kind of flattening, a homogenization where everyone’s creative output looks and sounds the same.
So, what happens when entire generations begin outsourcing their creative tasks to an algorithm instead of working on solutions themselves? A recently published study found that more than half—58 percent—of English majors at two Midwestern universities lacked the reading comprehension skills needed to understand the opening paragraphs of Charles Dickens’ “Bleak House.” It’s hard not to see these findings as anything other than a foregone conclusion. A 2024 Pew Research Center survey reported that a quarter of U.S. teens admitted to using ChatGPT for schoolwork, twice as many who’d said they’d used it the year before. OpenAI, the makers of ChatGPT, recently released its own report claiming that a third of college students now use its products. A 2024 survey conducted by the American Association of Colleges and Universities and Elon University found that more than half (59 percent) of university staff reported an increase in cheating since GenAI tools became available. We’re raising a generation of kids who lack the skills to think critically.
Short term, AI’s threat to human creativity can be heard in the debates surrounding the professions that technology is making economically redundant. (“Why pay writers when machines can do the work for free?”) Long term, the threat is more dire: If AI is disrupting the means by which we develop novel solutions, how will that hinder the future of human innovation?
The good news is that GenAI has shown us, by comparison, how uniquely creative people are. Thankfully, there isn’t an app for that yet.
— Jon Gingerich
EDITOR-IN-CHIEF
Kevin McCauley kevin@odwyerpr.com
PUBLISHER John O’Dwyer john@odwyerpr.com
SENIOR EDITOR
Jon Gingerich jon@odwyerpr.com
ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Steve Barnes steve@odwyerpr.com
CONTRIBUTING EDITORS
Fraser Seitel
EDITORIAL ASSISTANTS & RESEARCH
Jane Landers
Melissa Webell
Advertising Sales: John O’Dwyer john@odwyerpr.com
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Revenues, profits down at PR agencies
An industry survey suggests that labor costs and budget cuts may be at least partially responsible for PR firms’ lack of profitability in 2024.
By Jon Gingerich
North American PR agencies saw lower revenues and dwindling profits in 2024, according to results from an annual survey conducted by PR merger and acquisition consultancy Gould+Partners.
The Gould+Partners’ report, which tracked North American PR firms across 21 critical benchmarks, found that, on average, PR firms saw net revenue growth— calculated as fees plus mark-ups—of only 1 percent in 2024. That number suggests a downward trend, as it reveals a decline from 2023’s 3.1 percent, itself also a decline from 2022’s 9.4 percent.
Agency profitability was down last year as well. According to the survey, average operating profits—the key metric by which Gould valuates PR firms—was 16.6 percent. This was down 2 percent from 2023’s 18.6 percent and also another drop from 2022’s 18.7 percent. In fact, 2024 revealed
the lowest average profitability since 2019’s 17.4 percent.
According to the survey, operating profits were highest among firms with net revenues between $3–$10 million (19.5 percent). The largest PR agencies—or agencies boasting more than $25 million annually—came in second place, seeing operating profits of 18.6 percent. Firms accounting for between $10–$25 million in net revenues saw operating profits of 13.8 percent. The smallest firms surveyed—those with under $3 million in net revenues—witnessed operating profits of 6.4 percent.
Budget cuts and consolidation were among the reasons for firms’ declines in operating profits, according to Gould+Partners Managing Partner Rick Gould. Operating expenses averaged 21.2 percent in 2024, down from 22.2 percent in 2023. Gould also noted that average total labor costs increased last year among PR agencies
Gen Z takes a traditionalist turn
Some members of Generation Z are shifting away from progressive ideals and focusing on traditional values, according to a recent study.
By Steve Barnes
Brands aiming at Gen Z audiences might want to shift their focus from placing a priority on progressive ideals to tapping into a newfound interest in traditional values, according to a new study from Collage Group.
That interest is rooted in what “Trad Is Trending—But Not How You Think” refers to as “the Comfort of Convention”—a retreat at least partly driven by “disillusionment, digital fatigue, and a desire for meaning and stability.”
When it comes to their level of satisfaction regarding the current state of affairs in the U.S., Gen Z respondents were considerably more downbeat than the overall population. While 79 percent of the total sample said they had “good memories associated with living in the U.S.,” that number dips to 66 percent for Gen Z. In every question connected with perceptions of the U.S., Gen Z gave the country lower marks than the overall population did.
But the appeal of stability and simplicity is on the upswing. For example, almost two thirds of survey respondents (65 percent) call themselves “routine-oriented,” up 12 percent from a survey conducted last year. Almost as many (62 percent) said they were “risk-averse,” up 13 percent from 2024. Over half (55 percent) referred to themselves as “nostalgic,” a hike of 11 points.
Despite their desire for stability, Gen Zers also place a high premium on individuality. Many of them, according to the study “are nonconformist and exploring hybrid ideologies that resist easy categorization.”
That becomes clearer when different generations are asked to say where they see themselves on the political spectrum. The nonconformists (those who don’t see themselves as liberal, centrist or conservative) account for 36 percent of Gen Zers, far more than for any other generation.
How can marketers successfully negotiate Gen Z’s traditionalist turn? The study finds
to 62.7 percent, up more than 3 percent from 59.2 percent in 2023.
“That is too high to run a highly profitable agency,” Gould told O’Dwyer’s. Gould also said that account salaries were high last year: an average of 44.3 percent of revenues. According to Gould, the goal should ideally be under 40 percent.
Agency billing rates, meanwhile, remained roughly the same as last year.
The Gould+Partners report also found that, among the 10 regions ranked, PR firms stationed in the Midwest were the most profitable in 2024 (boasting an average operating profit of 21.3 percent), followed by firms in the Washington D.C. area (20.4 percent). Firms located in Canada came in third (18 percent), followed by the U.S. Southeast (16.2 percent), the U.S. Northeast (15.1 percent), the NYC metro area (14.5 percent) and California (14 percent). The U.S. Southwest bottomed out the list for the region with the lowest operating profits (12.4 percent).
Gould+Partners’ “2025 Best Practices Financial Benchmarking Report” was based on responses from 37 “model” PR firms based in the U.S. and Canada. Responses were collected between March and May and were based on 2024 financials.
that different sectors may each require a different emphasis.
For health and wellness brands, the report says, marketers need to focus on accessibility, helping Gen Zers feel empowered and able to take control of their own health. In the food and beverage sector, transparency is key, playing into Gen Zers’ need to feel that they are making informed choices. That transparency is also important in the personal care sector, in addition to an emphasis on the simplicity of personal care routines. And simplicity carries over into fashion, making sure that messaging gives Gen Zers room to create their own personal style.
But, according to the report, the best way of instilling the sense of security that Gen Z is craving is to take a straightforward approach.
“With institutions under suspicion,” the report’s authors note, “brands can step into the gap—but only if they lead with honesty, consistency and cultural awareness. Show that progress can be slow, uneven and still meaningful.”
Target B2B pitches to ‘hidden buyers’
According to a recent Edelman report, B2B marketers
should make a greater effort to connect with stakeholders who may not be the primary users of a product or service.
B2B marketers need to scratch a little below the surface when they are trying to maximize the effectiveness of their thought leadership efforts, according to a new report from Edelman.
The 2025 Edelman-LinkedIn B2B Thought Leadership Impact Report says that “hidden buyers” (internal stakeholders who influence purchases even if they are not the primary users of a product or service) can often be key to the final decision on whether or not a deal goes through—and marketers can reach them with good thought leadership.
The report finds that more than 40 percent of deals stall because of misalignment between the members of an organization’s buying group. Rather than simply focusing on the “target buyers” (those considered experts on the product or service being offered), the report says that those hidden buyers should also be a part of thought leadership planning.
For one thing, hidden buyers, like target buyers, are active and involved consumers of thought leadership. While 64 percent of target buyers spend more than an hour on average per week consuming thought leadership, hidden buyers are right on their heels, with 63 percent saying they spend that amount of time going over thought leadership.
Hidden buyers are also nearly as likely to
Gannett reaches deal with AI search engine
Gannett has reached a deal with AI-powered answer engine Perplexity to license content from USA TODAY and the USA TODAY Network.
As part of the agreement, Gannett joins the Perplexity Publisher Program. The content and journalism from USA TODAY and local USA TODAY Network publications will be integrated into Perplexity’s search experiences, including its newly released agentic web browser, Comet. Gannett will have access to Perplexity technology, including Perplexity’s Sonar API and Perplexity Enterprise Pro for all employees.
“This deal allows us to further accelerate AI opportunities as we share advertising revenue and leverage data to deliver shareholder value while providing credible content for users of the Perplexity platform,” said Gannett Chairman and CEO Michael Reed.
By Steve Barnes
use thought leadership to evaluate a vendor as target buyers are (55 percent vs. 56 percent).
For hidden buyers, thought leadership is a more effective way of gaining influence with them than traditional marketing methods are. More than seven out of 10 (71 percent) of the hidden buyers surveyed said that thought leadership is more effective than conventional marketing or sales materials at demonstrating a vendor’s potential value. Almost as many (64 percent) said they trust thought leadership content more than marketing materials and product sheets when assessing capabilities and competencies.
When it comes to what they want from thought leadership, hidden buyers are looking to expand their horizons. More than nine out 10 (91 percent) say that a hallmark of quality thought leadership is that it helps them uncover challenges or
needs they hadn’t recognized. That easily outpaces the 81 percent of target buyers who said they wanted that.
Hidden buyers also want thought leadership that questions their assumptions, with 86 percent indicating that they don’t want it to “just validate their thinking on a topic.”
More than half (53 percent) of buyers across the board noted that the quality of the insights offered by a piece of thought leadership matters more to them than brand name associated with it.
They are also craving accessibility, with 57 percent of hidden buyers saying they “favor quick takeaways over deep, academic-style content.”
The report also offers some tips on winning over hidden buyers with thought leadership. Among the strategies: leading with bold ideas; identifying internal obstacles to sales; giving messages a human tone; and equipping those consuming thought leadership to become advocates.
The Edelman-LinkedIn report surveyed 1,934 global business executives across a wide range of industries and company sizes between March 17 and April 3.
Media news brief
Understanding liquidity communications
Private equity is staring at a perfect storm of challenges: exit opportunities have narrowed, cash distributions to limited partners have dwindled, markets remain volatile and fundraising is difficult. As private equity investment firms face unprecedented pressure from their limited partner investors to generate liquidity from their aging portfolio companies and as the exit market remains very crowded, firms need to consider all tools to best position assets for sale.
Building a strategic public profile for the business well in advance of a sale process— ideally, 12 to 18 months before a desired exit—is an often-overlooked way to enhance business value. Liquidity communications refers to the strategic positioning, visibility and market relationship-building work private equity portfolio companies should undertake to enhance their perceived value among prospective buyers prior to their sale. Put simply, the assets that perform best are the ones that have created demand well in advance of a sale process.
Defining liquidity communications
Liquidity communications is a strategic approach to investor-informed communications and advisory that builds awareness, understanding and relationships to position private equity-backed companies for exit. Its primary objective is to help generate interest and demand well ahead of a planned exit, effectively “conditioning the market” for a future sale.
The premise of liquidity communications is that the desired response to a Confidential Information Memorandum isn’t “wow, this looks like an interesting business,” but rather, “Finally! We’ve been hearing about this company everywhere and are excited to now have the opportunity to invest.”
This approach complements, but precedes, the pre-sale positioning work of the sponsor firms themselves and their financial advisors. It includes not just public relations and visibility components, but also critical relationship-building activities with investors, analysts, market influencers, other private equity firms and potential strategic acquirers.
What distinguishes truly effective liquidity communications is the ability to understand how the investment community thinks and values companies. This investor insight—knowing what drives buyer interest and higher valuations—forms the
foundation for developing positioning and executing a program that will resonate with potential acquirers and public market investors.
How liquidity communications works Investor insight
The foundation of effective liquidity communications is a deep understanding of how investors think about a particular space or sector and what they’re looking for at a particular window in the market. This investor insight is perhaps the most crucial element of the entire process, as it informs subsequent decisions about positioning and communications strategy.
By leveraging expertise in investor relations, capital markets and investment community interaction, companies can develop a nuanced understanding of what will motivate buyers to pay premium prices. This includes identifying the metrics that matter most to investors in a specific sector, understanding current valuation methodologies, recognizing key industry trends and anticipating potential concerns or objections that might emerge during the diligence process. It’s important to note that this can only be properly developed with deep industry sector knowledge and active market connectivity because the tangible and intangible drivers of value differ from sector to sector, and they evolve across various economic and market cycles.
This investor-informed approach provides the strategic intelligence needed to craft messaging and determine the positioning and visibility initiatives that will most resonate with potential buyers.
Company positioning
Defining and articulating a company’s investment story requires strategic messaging that goes beyond simply telling a traditional corporate or product-focused story. It requires a comprehensive enterprise narrative that speaks directly to investors’ priorities. Effective positioning ensures that subsequent profile-raising activities are focused not on whatever seems interesting, but on those business variables and characteristics that matter most to potential buyers or investors: the underlying business model, key strategic initiatives, performance metrics, competitive advantages and management expertise, among others. It frames the company’s story in terms that resonate with prospective investors and provides a foundation to address potential concerns before
By Michael Fox and Chuck Dohrenwend
they become obstacles to a premium valuation or the sale transaction itself.
Liquidity communications also provides a process by which the portfolio company’s performance against its growth plan can be judged by investors, helping the company build credibility and trust among prospective future investors. As such, the pre-sale positioning program incorporates multiple touch points for the company with the investment community, so that prospective buyers understand the company’s total addressable market, differentiated mechanisms to scale and grow the business and management’s ability to successfully execute the strategic growth plan over time.
Awareness building
With positioning established, companies must generate strategic visibility and demand through various channels. This includes creating a searchable record of content that reinforces the company’s investment narrative and builds its profile among potential buyers. Tactical elements to support awareness building may include:
• Proactive media relations that’s specifically focused on creating visibility around the key investment characteristics.
• Executive leadership profile building.
• Securing business and industry award recognition for business attributes that align with investor focus.
• Website and LinkedIn company profile enhancements to reflect the investment narrative.
• Creation of new content assets that highlight the company’s unique value proposition.
• Targeted promotion of earned and owned content to reach key decision-makers.
• Speaking engagements at industry and investment conferences and events that will generate visibility with potential buyers.
• Securing analyst coverage reports or
Continued on page 17
Michael Fox
Chuck Dohrenwend
In the era of ChatGPT, PR comes of age (again)
Why the rise of generative artificial intelligence has made the role of public relations more important than ever.
We’ve been building our agency for thirty-five years, having been founded in early 1990. In the beginning, we were a public relations firm focused on delivering earned media and sharply written content. We measured our impact in column inches and where our clients’ stories fell in the publications. Did we make it above the fold? How many pages deep in the section was the story?
The value of being featured in a prestige publication like Forbes, Fortune or The Wall Street Journal was seen as a difference maker for brands and executives looking to make a mark on their industry and grow their business. The most eyeballs read these publications and there were fewer outlets for information sharing and gathering than there are today. Influence was synonymous with inclusion in these sorts of publications.
Richard Branson famously said, “Publicity is absolutely critical. A good PR story is infinitely more effective than a front-page ad.” Bill Gates had his own classic quote about PR: “If I had one dollar left, I’d spend it on PR.” Both of these men rose to prominence in the golden age of earned media and saw value in how it could impact brand visibility and credibility. There was no mistaking how important this was in our agency’s early days.
By the time our agency became a teenager, the ground beneath our business had already shifted tremendously. Google search and Facebook became forces that businesses had to contend with in terms of how information was served up to their audiences and how influence was gained. Traditional earned media venues had some competition as the Internet’s evolution took hold. Facebook’s arrival was just the tip of the social media iceberg as more channels and choices for social sharing emerged. Ten years ago, it was clear that earned media wasn’t the only place a brand could establish its credibility. We adapted to that change and brought forth more services and took on an integrated approach to our clients’ marketing and PR needs. The question loomed: What would happen to the value of old-fashioned PR?
Our agency evolved significantly over the past dozen years, building out full-blown service areas in social media strategy, digital marketing, creative services, video and photography to go along with our original
core services of public relations, content writing and investor relations. The questions came as we evolved. Will public relations and earned media lose their importance to our clients and the work we do? Given the shrinkage of newsrooms and the repeated arrival of new information channels, it was a fair question.
Three years ago, the world was gifted with AI-powered engines like ChatGPT and Claude. The torrent of change that has followed has forced agencies and the clients we support to think differently about how we approach content generation, what it means for thought leadership, what it means for digital marketing and how the arrival of AI impacts how we’re found in search. As we all wrestled with this, a funny thing happened.
The LLMs were learning on what was deemed to be the most credible, most reliable and authoritative sources of information. The prestige media outlets like The Financial Times, Barron’s, Wall Street Journal and Bloomberg were seeding the engines with information. Thought leaders promulgating well-researched, source-driven content on LinkedIn, Medium, Substack and Reddit were unwittingly steering the learnings of these LLMs, too.
The full extent of how LLMs are learning and serving up information is still a bit of a black box, but the evidence of journalistic content factoring in to answer engine results is undeniable. So, what does this mean for PR agencies?
Earned media, good old-fashioned PR, is back. And its trusty sidekick, thought leadership content, is still as important as ever.
As more people look to ChatGPT and similar platforms for answers to issues they’re confronting, showing up in answers to user queries is essential to brand visibility. This is a no-click search effort where the answers are teed up in a way that most don’t have to go off-page. And what shows up in those answers is very much shaped by those media outlets that have the most credibility and relevance.
For marketing leaders and agencies like ours, the evolution has reaffirmed the importance of earned media in the broader marketing mix. Search, answer engines and PR—and their collective overall impact— are now inextricably linked in how communicators and marketers need to think and plan.
By Joe Anthony
Chief marketing officers are forced to prioritize a game plan for their marketing around the influence of AI. “I was just thinking that just a year ago, I wouldn’t have been focused on AI. This wasn’t fully in focus until just six months ago,” shared Angela Giombetti, CMO at Wealthspire Advisors, during a recent episode of the Marketing Matchup podcast.
Joe Anthony
Recently, MuckRack conducted a study that honed in on the issue of “What is AI reading?” to provide insights into which publications were most often cited by Claude, ChatGPT and Gemini. Outlets like The Financial Times, Reuters and the Associated Press were among the top six most referenced publications by at least two of the three engines. Websites like CNBC, Good Housekeeping, Axios and Time also made the top end of most-cited outlets. This is consistent with the idea that the LLMs and average Americans are very likely finding the same outlets most credible for information gathering. Again, this underscores the relevance of inserting your firm’s voice in respected media.
There will be other developments and impacts attributed to the rise of AI on marketing and the work agencies do, but just because the changes are still happening doesn’t mean firms should wait to act. We’ve taken this head-on at our agency in terms of how this shapes our new website that we’re launching in the fall.
We’re developing tools and processes to help our partners revise how they’re engaging with media, setting up their website content and developing their presences most thoughtfully in places like Quora and Reddit.
The full story of AI’s impact on PR, journalism and the world of search is far from written, but the time for action is here. It’s never been more important for brands to engage positively with traditional media. For those PR lifers out there, there’s renewed excitement over the reemergence of earned media as a keystone for marketing and brand visibility success.
Joe Anthony is President and co-Owner of Gregory FCA.
Weathering the storm
Why climate resilience is a corporate communications imperative.
From record-setting heat waves and floods to historic wildfires and ice storms, North America is experiencing a relentless cycle of climate-driven disasters. In 2023 alone, the United States faced 28 separate billion-dollar weather and climate events—the most recorded in a single year. These are not isolated crises; they’re signals that the systems we rely on—transportation, energy, health, supply chains— are increasingly vulnerable.
At the same time that climate change is apparently intensifying, the public conversation is growing more polarized. Agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency, founded to protect public health and the environment, are now embroiled in distracting policy debates. What was once considered a civic and Federal responsibility is now filtered through a partisan lens for some.
Communicating with purpose in polarized times
The importance of climate resilience—as a business imperative, community safeguard and public health priority—can’t be overstated in this environment. Regardless of debates inside the Beltway, people in areas of risk—coastal floodplains, droughtprone forests and the Sun Belt—are wondering and justifiably worried.
Extreme weather isn’t new. The 1900 Galveston hurricane remains the deadliest U.S. natural disaster. In 1913, Death Valley recorded the hottest temperature ever measured on Earth—134°F. In the 1930s, the Dust Bowl devastated agriculture and displaced thousands. More recently, the 2021 Texas winter storm paralyzed the power grid and left millions without heat.
In July, tropical storms unleashed a horrific disaster on Texas. Those storms flooded creeks, ravines and streams that feed into the Guadalupe River, and flash flooding developed within minutes, wreaking murderous havoc. The heartbreaking and overwhelming human tragedy is still evolving.
From century-old records to modern megastorms, the takeaway is clear: climate always has—and continues to—shape our lives. But now, those forces are amplified by population density, aging infrastructure and interconnected economies. The result is a rising toll on both lives and livelihoods.
North America has endured some of its most severe climate events in just the last five years. The Pacific Northwest’s 2021 heat dome broke all-time Canadian tempera-
By Gil Bashe
ture records. Hurricane Ian in 2022 caused widespread destruction across Florida. The 2024 floods in the Southern Appalachians exceeded century-old crests. We’re not strangers to record-setting wildfires, tornado outbreaks and billion-dollar disasters.
Climate disruption is happening now, and businesses and homeowners are increasingly footing the bill. Supply chains are faltering, power grids are failing, premiums are rising and, in some cases, insurers refuse to cover homeowners in risk zones.
Ensuring clean air, water and environmental safety, the EPA mission remains foundational, and while Federal policies shift with each administration, the agency’s purpose has not. Environmental regulations should not become obstacles; they should be guardrails that encourage longterm economic growth while ensuring public safety and public health.
Reframing resilience as a business strategy
Right now, business leaders are not waiting for government action in isolation to their own plans. Resilience is becoming a core business strategy. C-suite executives frequently gather at industry-sponsored forums through groups such as Reuters Responsible Business USA and the Center for Sustainability and Excellence to discuss a path forward and determine best practices. Beyond corporate social responsibility, the effort is also about operational continuity, workforce and community safety and investor confidence in sustainable business planning.
Is your company prepared for extended power outages? Can your supply chain withstand transportation delays due to droughts or floods? Are your employees supported during extreme weather? Do your community stakeholders know your operational plans and how they intersect with their own? These are current boardroom questions, not future hypotheticals up for debate.
Too often, climate discussions get lost in abstract pledges and jargon. What matters now is clarity, proof and measurable impact. Stakeholders, including employees, customers and shareholders, want to know how your business prepares and contributes to community resilience. Those expectations and public eyes are why C-Suite-level leaders and their direct reports increasingly oversee sustainable business strategies.
The language of sustainability must follow this evolution. Executives must focus their
efforts on communicating their business objectives and operational strategy. Replace “net zero” with “risk reduction.” Talk to “resilient infrastructure,” “smart operations,” and “future-proofing.” Focus on efficiency, continuity and value creation.
For sustainability leaders, this moment demands more than messaging—it requires them to communicate transparently about responsible business stewardship. It’s time to focus on shared goals: safety, security and societal prosperity.
People connect most deeply with what they see and feel. That’s why national sustainability strategies must be paired with local relevance. Communications about our actions must reflect this. A heat wave in Phoenix, a flood in Nashville, or an ice storm in Chicago are not simply news about the weather; they’re stories about health emergencies, economic disruptions and tests of community and business infrastructure readiness.
Resilience is reputation
Business leaders should align their stewardship communications with local realities, engage with the community, invest in regional resilience and share stories of readiness, impact and recovery. These narratives build trust and inspire action.
We live in a time when misinformation is rampant and trust is fragile. Yet communicating about our climate readiness offers an opportunity to renew and secure that trust. That can take the form of designing housing and communities that withstand hurricane-level winds, protecting workers during heat waves, or ensuring adaptable supply chains. When companies act with foresight and communicate proactively, they demonstrate more than savvy business. They show leadership. Leadership is precisely what’s needed.
Economic resilience is a community and public health issue. It affects how we live, work and care for one another. It protects lives and livelihoods. In short, it’s a priority business mandate.
History will not judge us for the number of storms we endured but rather for how we prepared, responded and, when needed, rebuilt. They will ask whether we protected the most vulnerable, made decisions rooted in foresight or denial and understood that resilience isn’t about surviving the next
Continued on page 17
Gil Bashe
Why Substack is the new frontier for financial PR
How smart agencies are moving beyond traditional mass media to capture engaged, paying audiences.
By JP Letourneau
For all of PR history, you usually tried to get your clients into The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg News or The Financial Times. You did this because your clients at investment banks, hedge funds or insurance giants were operating under the assumption that their clients or investors were reading those newspapers as soon as they woke up.
In some cases, they still are—Jamie Dimon, Jerome Powell and others read the papers cover to cover each morning—but a significant shift has once again transformed our fractured media environment: Substack.
The writer-first digital publishing company just secured $100 million in funding and wooed The Atlantic’s Derek Thompson, fresh off his buzzy press tour for Abundance—the book he co-wrote with The New York Times’ Ezra Klein—over to its platform.
After the 2024 presidential election, we heard from PR luminaries like Richard Edelman that “news influencers” should be included in media plans, while another noted that “[PR] firms weren’t always quick to catch on to what’s percolating in Substack newsletters or on podcasts.”
Here’s the strategic question for financial comms professionals: Is your audience more likely to read a one-off story—amid a wide sea of stories—in the WSJ, or are they more likely to read the newsletter author whom they directly pay to receive their writing?
The Great Migration
Substack started in 2017 but picked up steam in the midst of the pandemic as ways of working shifted and the company picked up notable writers like Vox’s Matt Yglesias, who has authored his popular Slow Boring newsletter for the past four-plus years. The platform sports more than five million paid subscriptions, with more than 50 newsletters earning $500,000+ annually, according to a report in the Press Gazette.
If you haven’t been paying attention, you might have missed some of the financial journo superstars who now call Substack home:
• Sam Ro, formerly of Axios and Yahoo! Finance, now runs TKer.
• Matthew Klein, formerly of the Financial Times and Barron’s, now runs The Overshoot.
• Josh Barro, formerly of Business Insider,
now runs Very Serious.
• Lindsey Stanberry, a former personal finance editor at CNBC, now writes a financial wellness newsletter called The Purse.
• Alexandra Scaggs, formerly of The Financial Times, now writes The Hedge.
• Alex Konrad, the erstwhile Forbes venture capital scoop machine, recently launched Upstarts.
The list goes on, particularly in other topics and sectors like politics and tech.
What’s more interesting, perhaps, is how many markets and economics thought leaders have amassed large followings on the platform and view it as a vector to reach their audience.
• Paul Krugman (New York Times, Princeton University Economist): 403,000.
• Adam Tooze (Columbia University Economic Historian): 158,000.
• Kyla Scanlon, who came onto the scene with her viral TikToks on the state of the economy and is now a New York Times best-selling author: 112,000.
• Rx or Pari Passu is a newsletter published anonymously by a former distressed debt banker turned PE investor that covers private equity, distress and restructuring: 18,500.
• Petition, also run anonymously by corporate lawyers, covers bankruptcy: somewhere in the double-digit thousands.
There’s a confluence of factors that pushed these writers to Substack: the uncertainty of an ever-changing ecosystem, an entrepreneurial drive to build something, unshackled from corporate media and a desire by the thought leaders to continue to the “go direct” model offered by Twitter rather than being intermediated by a news outlet—but ultimately I think it’s a recognition that “the discourse” has moved away from legacy media and traditional social media spaces.
What I think Edelman was grasping at, but the anonymously quoted PR executive nailed on the head, is that the public conversation among people who matter—particularly in finance and markets—increasingly seems to have shifted from the mainstream and FinTwit to the newsletters of Substack.
And financial comms. pros who aren’t on Substack are missing the beat. Though before you dive headfirst into pitching your client to a newsletter on this rising platform, you should know what Substack is and what it isn’t.
A new take machine
With the exception of newsletter-based news outlets like The Free Press, Drop Site News, The Bulwark, Substack is primarily a vector for delivering takes.
These writers are directly competing against the Opinion sections of The New York Times or The Wall Street Journal pages and bourgeois magazines The Atlantic, The New Yorker and Businessweek or any outlet in the business of publishing what in the 2010s we would call “think pieces.”
You may have even noticed that some legacy outlets have bulked up this area of their business. At New York Times Opinion, Ezra Klein’s—and to a lesser extent Ross Douthat’s— platforms offer a more polished version of the content you’d find in Substack newsletters, complete with video podcasts (talk shows?) that have now become popular on Substack. In mainstream financial media, Bloomberg’s Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway have expanded their Odd Lots brand with a new daily newsletter that features Substack-esque essays (delivered via email newsletter) on what they’re finding interesting within the markets news of the day. Meanwhile, their colleague Matt Levine has enhanced his Money Stuff newsletter with a companion podcast that he co-hosts with Bloomberg TV’s Katie Greifeld.
Substack’s rise has helped birth a new sort of journalist. Edelman’s “news influencer” seems too sterile, though he succeeded in spotting the trend. I prefer the term “Super Journalist,” which Axios co-Founders Mike Allen and Jim Vandehei coined in a recent edition of their Finish Line newsletter:
“These are journalists with true domain expertise, top-notch sourcing and historical depth to tell people things they don’t know. They’re not your average journalist doing a dutiful job chronicling unfolding events. Those, we believe, will be displaced by an AI agent summarizing things to match— with precision—the tastes of each individual user. No, these are the journalists with a deep passion for a topic—be it politics, AI or a specific city—and deep sourcing, knowledge and credibility. They establish an authentic human connection, based on trust built over years.”
These writers infuse their content with a
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JP Letourneau
WHY SUBSTACK IS THE NEW FRONTIER
Continued from page 16
depth of analysis and opinion that enables them to start, shape and extend “the discourse” on the topics that they cover. Or put more simply, they set the agenda for readers—many of whom are also journalists—which means that other reporters are often interested in or actively covering the topics that these writers breathe into existence.
I charge comms. professionals with two critical imperatives:
1) Substack should be replacing or supplementing your Twitter digest to better understand what your target reporter and broader audience is reading
2) You might need to start pitching your clients’ stories to Substackers
Beware, though: the depth and breadth of these writers’ domain knowledge raises the bar for PR professionals hoping to pitch them and the spokespeople hoping to engage with them.
Formula: pay attention and pitch smart Comms pros have long gotten away with
LIQUIDITY COMMUNICATIONS
Continued from page 10
participating on private company panels.
The goal is to ensure that prospective buyers become aware of and interested in the company by consistently encountering a compelling narrative that aligns with their investment criteria.
Relationship building Liquidity communications should also focus on building direct relationships with key stakeholders who influence exit outcomes. This includes nurturing strong working relationships with analysts, participating in private-company-track panels, meeting with relevant institutional investors, attending industry networking events and developing strategic relationships with journalists and other media influencers. These relationship-building activities are particularly important in today’s market,
WEATHERING THE STORM
Continued from page 14
flood but creating a world that can thrive despite floods. As a collective, people will look to businesses and local community leaders to ensure essential enterprises re-
the “spray and pray” method of earned media: aim your pitch at enough top-tier publications during a breaking news event and your client is bound to be happy with the results. Substack challenges that model in two ways.
First, the shift toward specialized newsletter writers—or Super Journalists—has changed the game for PR. Because of how fragmented the landscape has become it takes quite a bit of PR elbow grease (reading) and industry knowledge (critical thinking) to identify which platforms are the right fit for your clients and their ideas.
As a PR professional, you’re responsible for understanding how and why a Substack is relevant for your client or spokesperson, which puts the onus on you to expand beyond the bounds of traditional outlets. Even more pressure: the journalists you are pitching your clients to at outlets like Bloomberg or The Financial Times are often reading and sourcing ideas from the Substacks they subscribe to.
The second challenge is one of difficulty: because Substack writers are often domain specialists in their own right, the bar to becoming a useful source for them is
where investors are more deliberate and follow an extended diligence timeline before making investment decisions, typically wanting to meet 3-6 times with company management before making an investment decision. These interactions provide opportunities for companies to demonstrate that their business model works and build credibility within the investment community by consistently delivering on predictions and expectations.
Deal communication
Ultimately, deal communication is an important step in the liquidity communications process because it serves as both a value preservation and value demonstration tool to highlight the value created to ensure that all parties recognize the achievements and improvements made. Positioning the announcement in alignment with the overall fund strategy provides concrete proof points of value creation expertise and a track record of success, both of which are
main operational, from online banking to stocked supermarket shelves to uninterrupted cellular service.
Weather severity has long been a reality, but so has our ability to lead, adapt and protect. It’s time for businesses, public institutions and communities to move beyond familiar talking points and communicate
extremely high. Your clients need to be talented and prepared to arrive at a conversation with a novel point of view—a take—on what they’re seeing. It’s not enough to offer a clinical explanation on how the Trump Administration’s tariffs might create challenges for M&A; you have to offer something new in the marketplace of ideas.
Key takeaways for financial PR pros
The shift of news influencers to a series of disconnected—but well-read—newsletters represents a fundamental change in how financial industry conversations happen. For marketing and communications leaders, this means rethinking media outreach plans and news consumption habits to include these influential, specialized voices alongside traditional outlets.
Success requires understanding that these authors demand higher-quality insights and more strategic thinking than traditional media pitches. The investment in research and relationship-building pays off through access to highly engaged, paying audiences who trust these sources.
JP Letourneau is a Vice President in The Bliss Group’s Financial Services practice.
key to raising funds from future investors. But ultimately, the preceding period of a focused and strategic liquidity communication program, informed by sector-centric investor insight, is what will allow for the most successful deal announcement.
Liquidity communications has become an essential tool for private equity firms and their portfolio companies seeking to increase asset values. The unprecedented exit backlog, extended hold periods and fundraising challenges facing private equity make pre-exit positioning more important than ever before.
Those that invest in comprehensive liquidity communications strategies will be better positioned to stand out in a crowded marketplace, attract premium valuations and achieve successful exits even in challenging conditions.
Michael Fox is Chief Client Officer at ICR. Chuck Dohrenwend is Managing Director at ICR.
clear plans. While weather is unpredictable, the actions of responsible companies aligned with their objectives, strategies and customer expectations can remain a steady force, trustworthy and reliable.
Gil Bashe is Managing Partner and Chair, Global Health and Purpose, at FINN Partners.
Future-proofing the brand
Five global challenges currently facing communications professionals—and how to turn them into opportunities.
After nearly 30 years working with brands of every size and sector, I can say this with certainty: communications has never been easy—and today, it’s harder than ever. Expectations are rising. Technology is evolving faster than teams can adapt. Crises hit without warning. And yet, amid all this complexity lies an opportunity for communicators to lead—not just to defend a brand’s reputation, but to build lasting connection, understanding and trust.
Now is the time for organizations to future-proof their communications—not to keep up, but to stand out. Not just to be heard, but to be valued.
The speed, stakes and stress of communications have intensified—and there’s no sign of things slowing down. The old playbooks aren’t just outdated; they can hold us back. Today’s communications leaders are doing more than telling stories or managing crises. We’re navigating misinformation, AI, polarization and fragmented attention—all while trying to build trust in an increasingly skeptical world.
Still, despite all that, this remains a moment of real opportunity. The brands that will thrive are those that face these challenges head-on, invest in readiness and lead with clarity and purpose.
Here are five of the biggest global challenges facing our profession—and how we can help our companies, clients and agencies turn each one into an advantage.
The trust deficit and misinformation crisis
Trust has always been the bedrock of what we do, but it’s more fragile than ever. The rise of misinformation, disinformation and AI-generated falsehoods has created a fog of confusion across nearly every industry.
Our role isn’t just to cut through the noise—it’s to be a steady, reliable signal. That starts internally. Transparent organizations tend to communicate more credibly. Externally, we need to be proactive: monitoring for misinformation, building rapid response protocols and equipping clients with the tools to defend truth in real time.
Elevating trusted, authentic voices is more important than ever. Leaders should be seen as human messengers, not just corporate spokespeople. Third-party validation—from respected media to expert
endorsements—can help rebuild trust, one fact-based story at a time.
AI disruption and the demand for authenticity
Generative AI is transforming how we create, engage and work. But while it boosts efficiency, it cannot replicate authenticity. And audiences know the difference.
The key is finding the right balance. AI can help scale, but it shouldn’t replace human insight. At FINN, we’re working with clients to develop brand voice governance: guidelines that clarify what’s AI-generated, what’s human and how the two can complement one another.
We’re also investing in AI training—ensuring teams use the technology ethically, transparently and strategically. This isn’t about resisting innovation. It’s about using it in ways that strengthen credibility and keep the focus on real people, real stories and real values.
Cultural polarization and reputational risk
We’re all navigating an increasingly divided social and political climate. Even brands that don’t take sides can find themselves caught in controversy. One misstep—or even silence—can lead to reputational damage.
Preparation is critical. Scenario planning and reputation audits are no longer optional. Brands must define what they stand for—and what they don’t. At FINN, we use a framework called “belief architecture” to help organizations align messaging with core values.
Equally important is practicing the response before the crisis hits. That means media training executives, testing messaging with diverse advisory councils and ensuring communications leaders are empowered at the decision-making table. These aren’t just best practices—they’re lifelines.
Attention scarcity in a fragmented media landscape
We’re all living in a world of content overload. Audiences are scattered across platforms, devices, time zones and algorithms. Even the best stories risk getting lost without thoughtful amplification.
That’s why we’re moving from one-sizefits-all messaging to modular storytelling—narratives designed to flex across paid, earned, owned and shared channels while staying consistent and personal.
By Ryan Barr
Smart targeting matters. Data, segmentation and behavioral insights can guide where and how we engage. But we also need to measure what really matters. It’s time to go beyond vanity metrics like impressions and likes. The real question: are we driving trust, loyalty, advocacy and action?
Talent gaps and the risk of burnout
Let’s acknowledge what many are feeling: communications is a high-pressure profession. We’re asked to do more faster—and often with fewer resources. The result? Burnout and attrition are on the rise.
We can’t future-proof our brands if we don’t support the people behind them. That means building teams with diverse, adaptive skill sets—from crisis comms to AI fluency. But it also means creating work environments where people can thrive.
At FINN, we’ve invested in mentoring, upskilling and building sustainable pipelines of talent. But culture matters too. Psychological safety, flexible workloads and room for creativity aren’t just perks— they’re prerequisites for performance. The next generation is here, and we owe them more than just opportunity—we owe them support.
Turning challenge into competitive advantage
These challenges are real—and yes, they’re complex. But they’re also galvanizing. They remind us that communications is no longer a support function—it’s a core driver of trust, relevance and long-term growth.
For those of us in the business of words, relationships and reputation, the road ahead demands more than speed or scale. It demands clarity of purpose, courage in the face of uncertainty and a relentless commitment to earning trust.
This is our moment to lead—not just with strategy, but with empathy. Not just with messages, but with meaning.
The future is already rewriting the rules. Let’s make sure we’re not just responding to change but shaping it.
Ryan Barr is Managing Partner and Global Financial Services Practice Lead at FINN Partners.
Ryan Barr
PR for startups: when to hire an agency vs. in-house
A list of factors startup founders should consider before bringing in PR resources.
By Tim Johnson
Startups must overcome an enormous range of challenges to survive and thrive. DemandSage noted that approximately 90 percent of startups fail—10 percent in their first year and 70 percent within the first five years.
Among the financial challenges that startup management teams face are a lack of capital, high operating costs, the inability to attract investors and/or secure loans and unpredictable revenue streams. Market pressure in the form of uncovering an attractive product-market fit, competition from more established companies and bringing the product to market too early or late are among the marketplace challenges.
Hiring the right talent and retaining them is another significant challenge, nowhere more so than for the marketing/public relations function.
Best timing for bringing in PR resources
There are multiple factors startup founders need to consider before bringing in PR resources, whether that means agency PR or in-house. For bootstrapped and early-stage startups that are still developing their products, identifying their core market niche and determining their ideal target customers, management needs to create its core value proposition before acquiring PR expertise.
Founders must also have clear goals for what they hope to accomplish by gaining media and influencer coverage. If those goals are unclear, founders won’t be able to give their PR teams adequate direction. In addition, they must have adequate time to take briefings with the media and participate in building media relationships.
Multiple milestones indicate when founders should hire PR resources to contribute to their startup’s growth. When a company is ready to launch its product or service, developing powerful positioning and messaging, creating website content and design to highlight and promote the offering, organizing social media and orchestrating a launch to earn high-quality, high-quantity media coverage can be a critical success factor.
Managing similar activities around the announcement of funding rounds creates additional credibility among current and potential investors, employees and customers. Well-coordinated PR campaigns to announce additional products, expansion into new markets, hiring recognized talent and similar milestones can also build credibility and differentiate the more market-savvy startups from others.
Beyond announcements of specific events,
areas of public relations that founders often overlook include the ongoing building of brand awareness and issues management. To maximize the impact of a PR program, the team must engage with journalists continuously and position themselves as valuable sources of ideas and information—not simply reach out to media when they have announcements.
PR teams must also have plans in place to protect the credibility they have built for their organization against a variety of reputational threats. Anticipating and planning for potential issues helps ensure that if they occur, the PR and entire management team will be ready.
Agency or in-house?
Before deciding on whether to build an in-house team or hire an agency, founders should hire a mid- to senior-level marketing person. Because marketing is a broad function, founders should be careful to match their needs closely to the specific skill set the marketing person brings to the table. Some are product development focused, others are engineers and others still have communications backgrounds.
Why hire a marketing lead before deciding whether to build a PR team in-house or outsource to an agency? Because without that lead, either team will likely flounder. Both need an experienced marketing lead to set the strategy for messaging, tactics employed, resources allocated and more.
There are benefits and challenges to hiring an in-house team or an agency.
Costs
With an in-house team, costs tend to be mostly fixed in terms of salary, benefits and healthcare. Founders also need to factor in costs such as media databases and other technology, professional development and turnover. Companies will also need to factor in the costs of scaling their in-house team in terms of size and skill sets as the company grows.
Agencies require different cost considerations. Most will ask for a retainer, which can vary widely based on the scope of services the company requires. They’ll provide access to and pass along a portion of the costs for software and other resources, and this should be spelled out in the retainer agreement. They’ll also continuously monitor and upgrade their technology and resources, removing that task from the company’s plate.
Company and product knowledge
Perhaps the most significant advantage of
an in-house team is the knowledge they’ll acquire about the company’s specific products, market and people since their entire focus is on one company. They can learn about the company’s products in great depth, gain a deep understanding of the market in which their company operates as well as the companies against which they compete.
PR agencies offer the flexibility of adding to the company’s team during peak periods. They can also provide experts in areas such as market research and crisis communications, which the company lacks. Unlike in-house teams that can be pulled into many directions within the company, agency teams focus on a set of services designated by the company. They tend to develop stronger expertise in core services than in-house teams. Agency teams also bring a fresh perspective to issues such as how a company positions itself or strategies to launch a new product.
Engagement
Another factor to consider is the ability to obtain necessary information and secure approvals. At some organizations, it can be difficult to reach, interview and secure approvals from subject experts. In-house teams often have an advantage over agencies in that they can get the attention of these experts either in-person or virtually to move projects to completion.
Agencies typically have a difficult time overcoming internal obstacles within client organizations. The organization’s marketing/PR contact may not want agency people reaching out to subjects directly. That contact also may not know how to work around a subject expert who isn’t providing the information needed to advance a project.
Ultimately, the optimal structure for an organization’s PR team should be based on a series of factors. The obvious ones include budget, PR goals and anticipated results. The less obvious factors include creativity and an ability to work within the company’s organization to get results. For many, a hybrid approach that mixes in-house and agency resources provides the best results. The holistic team includes in-house members who gain a detailed knowledge of the company and its products, with agency members more focused on media relationships and bringing creative ideas to the table.
Tim Johnson is Founder of UPRAISE Marketing + PR.
Tim Johnson
The tactical edge
Communications is much more than simply delivering messages. In special situations, communications is the strategy.
By Jon Henes
In boardrooms and war rooms, on earnings calls and in courtrooms, a company’s future often comes down to three questions: What is communicated? When is it communicated? And how is it heard by the stakeholders who matter most?
When you’re navigating a special situation—activism, Chapter 11, litigation, crisis—the line between business strategy and communications disappears. One reinforces the other. One can break the other. The riskiest move is to treat communications like a cosmetic layer instead of what it truly is: a tactical, operational force that drives clarity, confidence and control.
Communications isn’t about press releases. Communications is strategy; communications is tactics. And it’s often the difference between true success and merely getting by. Strategic communications must be approached as a mission: plan thoroughly, move precisely, adapt constantly and never leave your teammates behind.
Protect the process
Leaks are landmines. One misjudged statement or an internal message forwarded out of context can collapse a strategic plan. Tactical communications leaders don’t just write talking points—they protect against risk.
That means working in tight sync with legal, IR and the executive team to establish airtight message controls. It means planning for worst-case scenarios, modeling potential blowback and preparing rapid responses before the first question is even asked.
In special situations, silence can be a strength. But when you speak, every word must be earned—and every syllable planned.
Stakeholders aren’t just an audience
Employees, creditors, customers, regulators, media—these stakeholders don’t stand on the sidelines. In a crisis, they’re in the arena. Each one can accelerate your turnaround or complicate your exit. Each one must be communicated with precision, intentionality and care.
Great communications advisors don’t broadcast. They orchestrate. They tailor messages to each audience, understand what each stakeholder fears most and build trust on an emotional level. They know that a consistent and authentic tone and cadence, across internal and external fronts, isn’t a luxury. It is the strategy.
Prepare relentlessly
The company isn’t just delivering a message. It’s positioning itself for success in uncertain times.
From media interviews to courtroom testimony to town halls with anxious employees, the pressure is unrelenting. Tactical communications teams help executives move forward, coaching voice, tone and clarity under stress. Q&A is mapped out. Tough questions are rehearsed. No one walks in cold. Everyone is prepared. That’s how teams perform flawlessly.
Information is critical
In normal times, gut instinct might carry a message. In special situations, leaders need to gather information, understand the terrain and then communicate purposefully.
Elite communications teams test every key message before launch. They listen to employee leaders, take the pulse of top investors, anticipate journalist framing and stress-test assumptions. Communications must be honest, consistent and intentional. It can’t be off-the-cuff; it must be precise and tactical, rooted in feedback, data and real-time adjustments.
Control timing
In a special situation, timing determines messaging. A statement made two hours too early or a day too late can spark confusion or sink confidence. Communications leaders work backward from legal deadlines, board meetings, earnings calls
and media cycles to stage each move with precision. The cadence must be deliberate. The silence must be strategic. Every beat matters. Poor timing creates chaos. Precise timing creates control.
The team that wins the fight
In special situations, companies don’t simply need advice. They need expert teams.
Not a collection of individuals, but a mission-aligned unit that operates with shared urgency, mutual trust and zero ego. Where legal, IR, HR, finance and communications move together. Where no one breaks formation. Where people don’t protect their turf, they protect each other.
In these moments, communications isn’t an outsider waiting to be told what to write. It’s the connective tissue. It holds the message, the momentum and the mission together. Because in highstakes environments, trust is the strategy. And alignment is the key.
Today’s path
Special situations don’t reward playbooks. They reward clarity, coordination and command of the message. The best leaders know that communications isn’t a support function—it’s a strategic discipline. It doesn’t follow the business plan. It’s part of the business plan, translated in real time to the people whose actions will determine the outcome.
Jon Henes is Founder and CEO of C Street Advisory Group, LLC.
Number of local journalists plummets
The number of local journalists in the U.S. is dwindling rapidly, according to a new report from nonprofit organization Rebuild Local News and PR and communications software platform Muck Rack.
According to the report, there were 40 journalists per 100,000 residents across the country in 2002. Now, it says that two out of three U.S. counties have less than 10 of what the authors call “local journalist equivalents” per 100,000 residents. That translates into a drop of about three quarters.
The report also finds that out of the 3,141 counties in the U.S., more than a third of them—over 1,000—do not have
By Steve Barnes
the equivalent of even one full-time journalist. And while you might except the problem to largely limited to remote locations, counties in large urban areas are also affected.
For example, the Bronx (population 1.4 million) has just 2.9 local journalist equivalents per 100,000 people and Queens (4.3 local journalist equivalents per 100,000) doesn’t do much better.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, Vermont easily outpaces the other 49 states, with 27.5 local journalist equivalents per 100,000 people, with Wyoming coming in second at 19.6.
Jon Henes
Doyle exits Ketchum
Ketchum President and CEO Mike Doyle is stepping down after 30 years with the Omnicom agency, effective the end of July.
Doyle has held the top spot at the agency since 2020, previously serving in positions including Partner and President, North America. While Ketchum looks for Doyle’s replacement, U.S. CEO Tamara Norman and President of Global Markets Jo-ann Robertson will continue to lead their respective divisions, assisted by CFO and Chief People Officer James Peters. Omnicom Public Relations Group CEO.
Burson’s health chair shifts to Real Chemistry
Brenna Terry, Global Healthcare Chair at Burson, has joined Real Chemistry as a President within its integrated communications unit.
The more than 25year PR veteran led the WPP unit’s 1,000-person practice spanning 50 countries.
She also worked as Global Chair of Hill & Knowlton’s health practice, Senior Director Enterprise Engagement and Communications at Janssen North America, Senior Director of Executive Communications & PA at Johnson and Johnson, and Senior VP & Global Director for Global Health & Wellness at Ogilvy.
At Real Chemistry, Terry will evolve the integrated comms model by combining deep audience intelligence with bold storytelling.
She reports to Emily Poe, Group President & Chief Strategy Officer at the integrated comms practice.
ICR U.S. health head joins APCO
Michael O’Brien, who was most recently head of U.S. healthcare public relations at ICR Healthcare, is joining APCO as a Senior Director.
At ICR Healthcare, O’Brien advised private and publicly traded healthcare companies on narrative development, reputation strategy and corporate, science and financial communications.
Before coming to ICR in 2021, he was VP of Corporate Communications for the University of Maryland Medical System.
He has also served as Managing Director at JPA Health; Global Head of Corporate Communications at MedImmune and SVP, Healthcare Practice Leader at imre.
Annan-Brown takes top comms post at Gap Inc.
Gap Inc. has appointed Mame Annan-Brown as EVP and Chief Communications Officer, a newly created role.
Annan-Brown most recently was EVP, Global Communications and Public Affairs at Kontoor Brands, which includes Wrangler, Lee and Kelly Hansen. She was also President of the Kontoor Brands Foundation. Her previous posts include Head of External Relations at the International Finance Corporation and VP, Investment Bank, Marketing and Communications at J.P. Morgan. At Gap, Annan-Brown will oversee communications, the Gap Foundation and global employee engagement and volunteerism programs, in addition to driving the company’s narrative across public affairs, investor relations and ESG.
Kekst’s Shipley heads to FTI
Joseph Shipley, who was most recently a Partner at Kekst CNC, has been named a Senior Managing Director in FTI Consulting’s strategic communications segment.
Before joining Kekst CNC in 2019, Shipley was a Director at Brunswick Group. He was previously part of the in-house com-
munications team at global investment firm Permira.
Shipley brings extensive experience advising on transactions that involve significant political and regulatory scrutiny. He has worked with many of the world’s leading private capital investors throughout his career.
At FTI, Shipley will lead the firm’s work with private equity clients and their portfolio companies in London and across the Europe, Middle East and Africa region.
Teneo recruits Sloane & Co. vet White
Teneo has recruited TJ White, who led Sloane & Co.’s special situations practice, as senior managing director in its U.S. strategy & communications unit.
He will be part of Teneo’s transactions and strategic situations group. He will handle M&As, shareholder activism defense, executive leadership transitions, litigation and crises.
White has advised on more than $500 billion in M&A transactions by aggregate equity value and has helped clients navigate high-profile activist defense situations from small- to mega-cap.
Prior to Sloane & Co. White worked at Sard Verbinnen, which is now FGS Global. White adds depth to Teneo’s TSSG at a time when the deal environment is becoming increasingly dynamic and complex, said Stephen Cohen and Colleen Hsia, who cohead the unit.
Avoq CEO Cornish to Exit
Nicole Cornish plans to step down from the helm of Avoq by the end of the year to pursue new opportunities. She will remain on the board to support the transition to new leadership. Avoq has launched a search for Cornish’s replacement.
Cornish did a seven-year run as CEO of Subject Matter, which merged with Kivvit in 2023. Avoq emerged from that merger in 2024.
Robert Ford, Managing Partner, EVP, Corporate Communications
5W Public Relations (5WPR) is a top independently owned PR firm based in New York City. Since 2003, the agency has partnered with public and private companies, financial institutions, and high-profile individuals to deliver strategic communications that drive business results.
5WPR’s robust Financial Communications and Corporate Communications Practice specializes in IPOs, M&A, executive visibility, investor messaging, and issues management. With deep capital markets expertise and strong media relationships, 5W crafts narratives that resonate with investors, stakeholders, and the broader public.
Beyond financial and corporate, 5WPR serves a broad range of industries including Consumer Products, Food & Beverage, Health & Wellness, Beauty, Apparel & Accessories, Home & Housewares, Travel & Hospitality, Technology, Entertainment & Sports, Nonprofit, Crisis Communications, and Digital & Social Media. With 200+ professionals, the agency offers an integrated, results-driven approach across PR, digital, and branding, helping clients connect with their audiences and grow their bottom line.
5WPR’s notable clients include Webull, Q2, Fictiv, Zeta Global, RealPage, Criteo, SAP NS2, e.l.f Beauty, Sedgwick, and more. The agency was recognized as a Top Places to Work in Communications 2024 by Ragan’s and named to the 2024 DigiDay WorkLife Em-
ployer of the Year list; and 5W's innovative work has been awarded Consumer Product PR Campaign of the Year; Business-to-Business Campaign of the Year; and Travel & Tourism Campaign of the Year.
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847/892-6082 info@akrete.com www.akrete.com
LinkedIn: @akrete
Instagram: @akrete
Margy Sweeney, Founder and CEO
Nicole Stenclik, President
Aimee Val, Senior Vice President
Michelle Pittman, Executive Consultant
Jackie Keane, Managing Consultant
Akrete articulates and amplifies thought leadership that drives growth. In fact, “Akrete” derives from “accretion,” an accounting term for growth and momentum. Our unusually senior teams roll up our sleeves to help clients navigate opportunity and volatility alike. Sometimes, that means refreshing
corporate brand messaging; other times it’s partnering with individual executives to articulate their thought leadership in the media and owned channels. Our long-standing clients share similar stories: we’ve elevated brands and leaders with creativity and rigor in the moments that matter most.
In particular, the Akrete content studio is well-known for tackling tough topics. We generate thousands of pieces of original content each year across all forms of business writing from blogs to books, social media content to bylines.
Founded in 2011, Team Akrete is an elite PR, content and marketing agency specializing in complex industries including financial services and real estate (ranked 3rd on this year’s O’Dwyer’s list). We measure many client and team member relationships in decades, with retention powered by our “work where and when it makes sense” business model.
THE BLISS GROUP
230 Park Avenue Second Floor West New York, NY 10169 www.theblissgrp.com
Adam Schwartzman, Alana Gold, Meghan Busch, Meghan Powers, GVPs
Ben Davis, Courtland Long, Janice Miller, Jean Logerfo, JP Letourneau, Marisha Chinsky, Sarah Dougherty, Sarah Eisler, Emma Skultety, VPs
The Bliss Group is an insights-driven marketing communications agency that blends data science with the art of storytelling to target priority audiences with precision, empathy and purpose. Grounded in data and guided by deep expertise, our award-winning financial services practice delivers strong results for some of the biggest names in retirement, insurance, investing, banking, private equity and fintech. Since 1990, we’ve delivered marketing communications success for financial services firms—from emerging players to industry giants—by dis-
Akrete, a certified woman-owned business (WBE), is led by an all-women leadership team. Pictured in the front row (left to right) are Michelle Pittman, Abby Carr (retired) and Aimee Val; Pictured in the back row (left to right) are Becky Reno, Nicole Stenclik (President) and Margy Sweeney (Founder & CEO). Not pictured: Jackie Keane.
tilling complex business concepts into compelling narratives that resonate with both B2B and B2C audiences. This specialized expertise has been recognized through being named a finalist in the SABRE Awards for Superior Achievement in Brand-Building and a winner in the Financial Communications Portfolio Awards’ Website (Consumer) category. Our consultative approach and full-funnel marketing communications delivery model bring real, tangible outcomes that push our clients and the industry forward. Recognized as PR Week’s Outstanding Corporate Agency, PRovoke Best Agencies in the US and PRovoke Best Agencies to Work For, we continue to set the standard for innovative marketing solutions that drive meaningful results for our clients.
Client Sample: KeyBank, Morgan Stanley, and RapidRatings International.
BOSPAR
3335 21st St. San Francisco, CA 94110 844/5-BOSPAR results@bospar.com www.bospar.com
Curtis Sparrer, Principal Tom Carpenter, Principal Chris Boehlke, Principal Joe Krasinski, CFO
Paula Bernier, Chief Content Officer
Denyse Dabrowski, Senior Vice President
Bospar is a full-service PR agency providing everything from public relations & media training to digital content & video creation, integrated marketing & messaging, investor & analyst relations, crisis & reputation management and employee engagement & change management.
With deep experience in tech-driven, regulated industries —including fintech, insurtech, and compliance-focused tech—Bospar has helped elevate both highgrowth startups and publicly traded companies through thought leadership, product storytelling and strategic media placements. We excel at turning complex, data-rich products into compelling narratives that resonate across consumer, trade and business media.
Pairing a data-driven mindset with a “politely pushy” approach that drives consistent coverage in both proactive and reactive cycles, we bring strong media relationships across national, tech, business, insurance and financial outlets.
Some of the team members behind the “politely pushy” magic of Bospar.
Our financial PR and IR services include investor messaging and positioning, content development for earnings reports and IPO presentations and media training for executives.
Bospar’s expertise is supported by a team of experienced professionals who have a strong understanding of both traditional and digital media, as well as financial and analyst relations. Our strategic approach has helped various clients achieve significant media attention and establish authority in their respective markets.
C STREET ADVISORY GROUP
285 Madison Avenue Suite 1200 New York, NY 10017 www.thecstreet.com
Jon Henes, Founder & CEO
Michael Frishberg, President
Shira Weiner, General Counsel
Senior Team: Whitney Fogelberg, Jackie Rubin, Luke Wolf, Lisa Kornblatt, Katie Reimel, Ashley Roth, Emma Quigley, Matt Butler
C Street is the trusted partner to the world’s leading companies during their most complex financial, operational, and reputational moments. Built to redefine how companies communicate in special situations, we combine decades of legal insight with strategic communications expertise in a fully integrated model. In 2024, we launched the industry’s first dedicated liability management communications practice, giving
companies and sponsors a trusted partner to navigate complex capital structure transactions with clarity and precision.
We help leadership teams and boards engage critical stakeholders, including employees, investors, customers, and regulators, during high-stakes events such as restructurings, M&A, crises, and litigation. Our team brings strategic perspective, tactical execution, and business acumen to every assignment. Whether protecting reputation, managing through change, or positioning for long-term success, we operate with discretion, deliver with focus, and lead with purpose.
CALIBER CORPORATE ADVISERS
22 W. 38th St. New York, NY 10018 888/550-6385 harvey@calibercorporate.com www.calibercorporate.com
Grace Keith Rodriguez, CEO Kristie Galvani, COO Harvey Hudes, Founder & CIO
Caliber Corporate Advisers is the premier marketing and communications partner exclusively focused on financial services & fintech, insurance & insurtech, real estate & proptech, and related professional services. Integrating seamlessly with clients, our team brings deep industry expertise to deliver bestin-class strategies in public relations, content marketing, social
media and digital advertising.
From established global brands to dynamic startups, our clients trust us to tell their stories with passion and precision—building credibility and visibility with the audiences that matter most, and helping them achieve their business goals.
As a remote-first firm with more than 40 skilled professionals, Caliber’s commitment to a vibrant and supportive culture has earned recognition as a Best Workplace by Inc. Magazine and a Fast Company Best Workplace for Innovators. Additionally, Caliber was named by the Financial Times as one of the fastest-growing companies in the Americas three years in a row.
COGNITO
1040 Avenue of the Americas 14th Flr., #14B New York, NY 10018 646/395-6300 www.cognitomedia.com Instagram: @cognitomedia Substack: @inCognito X: @cognitomedia
Tom Coombes, Founder
Andrew Marshall, NY Managing Director + Vice Chairman
Jade Bestley, Senior Vice President + Head of Digital
Sam Barber, Taylor Fenske, Doug Hesney, Senior VPs
Angela Byrne, U.S. Director of Business Strategy
Cognito is your 25-year-old global partner for financial services and technology—with skillset in
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COGNITO
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communications, AI, digital marketing, social + media relations, consulting, creative design, professional services, and acknowledgment towards the impact of climate transition. We partner with organizations, from established leaders to startup challengers, and advise on how to enhance reputation, handle threats, and build value in competitive and disrupted markets.
Our team of 85+ Cognitians around the world brings our partners 20 languages from 15 countries. With both large agency and in-house expertise, you can find us on-the-ground in key financial markets—New York, London, Amsterdam, Paris, Hong Kong, Singapore, Sydney and DACH.
From the start, Cognito has been built on the assumption that finance is different. That’s why since 2000 we’ve consistently hired people with varied careers such as financial journalists, bankers, FS marketing executives, advertising planners and social media strategists. With creative content and an understanding of channel complexity, we protect and grow our clients’ businesses through purpose-driven communications and stakeholder engagement.
Whatever the differing needs, clients agree that part of what makes Cognito an effective partner for them is our specialization and our recognition that finance is different.
COLLECTED STRATEGIES
121 East 24th Street, 10th Floor New York, NY 10010 212/379-2072 www.collectedstrategies.com
Scott Bisang, Partner
Jim Golden, Partner
Jude Gorman, Partner
Ed Hammond, Partner
Nick Lamplough, Partner
Dan Moore, Partner
Collected Strategies is an independent advisory firm providing trusted, strategic communications counsel to Boards of Directors, C-Suite executives and IR/PR leaders. Founded on the principle that the best advice comes from the deepest relationships, we seek to work with clients as perpetual partners, offering senior-led counsel on the full range of corporate,
operational and media issues that companies encounter.
Based in Manhattan’s Flatiron neighborhood, we tailor solutions for our clients, providing pragmatic advice and actionable ideas to support them throughout the business lifecycle. From private funding initiatives, IPO preparations and transformative transactions through shareholder activism defense and financial restructurings, we leverage our deep experience and unique perspective to help our clients navigate today’s ever-changing media and investor landscape.
DUKAS LINDEN PUBLIC RELATIONS
240 West 40th Street Times Square New York, NY 10018 201/417-7730 info@dlpr.com www.dlpr.com
Dukas Linden Public Relations (DLPR) is a communications partner for leaders in finance, asset management, professional services, Web3.0/crypto and B2B technology. We create compelling narratives that expand our clients’ share of voice, enhance their brand value and engage the media, investors and other key audiences in a global marketplace.
Ranked #9 on O’Dwyer’s list of top financial PR firms, we’re driven by a passion for delivering targeted strategies and creative solutions that provide measurable benefits to clients and help their
businesses grow and succeed. Our full suite of integrated communications services includes comprehensive messaging and media relations across multiple platforms, content creation, media and presentation coaching, digital/social media, crisis and special situations communications, podcast/video production and promotion, and online reputation management.
DLPR’s clients include wellknown, large and middle-market companies in key areas of finance, including institutional investment, mutual funds, ETFs, wealth management, alternatives and private equity, digital assets, and banking. We have strong professional services experience in accounting, management consulting, compliance, economics, risk management, and law.
We are exceptionally strong at securing top-tier media results for our clients. Our broadcast group booked more than 1,200 interviews in 2024, primarily on CNBC, Bloomberg, Fox Business, Yahoo! Finance and popular, influential podcasts. We also placed more than 2,100 stories in leading business press including Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, FT, Forbes and within top trade outlets.
EDELMAN
250 Hudson St., 16th Floor New York, NY 10013
212/768-0550
Fax: 212/704-0117 www.edelman.com
Edelman is a global communications firm that partners with businesses and organizations to evolve, promote and protect their brands and reputations. Our 6,000 people in more than 60 offices deliv-
er communications strategies that give our clients the confidence to lead and act with certainty, earning the trust of their stakeholders. Our honors include the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for PR; Advertising Age’s 2019 A-List; the Holmes Report’s 2018 Global Digital Agency of the Year; and, five times, Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work. Since our founding in 1952, we have remained an independent, family-run business. Edelman owns specialty companies Edelman Intelligence (research) and United Entertainment Group (entertainment, sports, lifestyle).
Henry Feintuch, President Doug Wright, Vice President
Feintuch and fintech are synonymous when it comes to financial services and related tech service offerings. Our award-winning team has the experience and know-how to help brands achieve their business objectives—whether they are a start-up, a high growth challenger brand or the established marketplace leader.
Our fintech and financial services experience is broad—with decades of hands-on support to companies in virtually every facet of the business from payment technologies and blockchain to regulatory compliance SaaS software, forex, loan platforms, “buy now, pay later,” AI and more.
Cognito’s eight offices together on a recent global off-site.
We provide integrated financial communications services to privately held and public companies seeking to burnish their image, inform markets or raise capital. Our senior team helps companies to fine tune their corporate story and differentiate them to the business and trade press.
Whether your goal is raising brand awareness, generating sales leads, fundraising or meeting your own unique marketplace challenge, our hands-on experienced team is ready to partner on your behalf.
FINN PARTNERS
1675 Broadway New York, NY 10019
212/715-1600 www.finnpartners.com
Ryan Barr, Managing Partner, Global Financial Services Practice Leader
FINN Partners’ Global Financial Services Practice advises companies on strategies to navigate today’s highly competitive markets and complex regulatory environments. The global team serves B2B, B2C, public and private clients alike, across a range of sectors that include retail and commercial banking, investment and wealth management, trade finance, insurance, real estate, private equity, fintech and more. They work with clients to achieve successful business outcomes through purposeful storytelling and integrated communications. Focused on identifying the most meaningful ways for clients to engage key audiences, FINN creates programs that inspire action. Led by industry veteran Ryan Barr, the practice has continued to grow globally, working with clients in various stages of their lifecycle and attracting leading experts in the U.S., Europe and APAC. In today’s ever-changing environment, FINN’s senior counselors understand that modern companies must engage customers and clients in ways never before imaginable. Whether broadening brand awareness, building appreciation for clients transforming an industry or driving adoption of new products and services, FINN’s Financial Ser-
The October issue of O’Dwyer’s will profile Healthcare PR firms. If you would like your firm to be profiled, contact Editor Steve Barnes at 646/843-2089 or steve@odwyerpr.com
vices practice combines smart data and analytics with creative programing and flawless tactical execution to deliver bold, meaningful and amazing work for clients.
GOULD+PARTNERS
46 Woodbine Avenue, Suite #4
Northport, NY 11768
917/783-4500
rick@gould-partners.com www.gould-partners.com
Rick Gould, CPA, J.D., Managing Partner
Jack Bergen, Strategic Partner
Mike Muraszko, Jennifer Casani, Partners
Robert Udowitz, Senior Counselor
Yadi Gomez, Account Coordinator
Gould+Partners is an M&A Advisory Firm consisting of a team of very senior veterans of mergers & acquisitions in the PR industry.
We identify buyers for sellers, sellers for buyers, make the introduction and manage and facilitate the process.
We also, on a regular basis, perform Valuations and prepare firms for an ultimate sale. Our books on M&A and PR firm management validate our commitment to the PR profession.
GREGORY FCA
27 West Athens Ave. Ardmore, PA 19003 610/642-8253 info@gregoryfca.com www.gregoryfca.com
200 West 41st Street, 12th Floor New York, NY 10036
20 Park Plaza, Suite 1409 Boston, MA 02116
14-16 Great Chapel St. London, W1F 8FL
Greg Matusky, Founder & CEO Joe Anthony, Partner & President
Gregory FCA has become one of the largest, most trusted financial PR firms in the nation because we take a fundamentally different approach to our clients’ individual needs. Within Financial Services, we have VP-level team leads specifically focused and experienced in specific areas such as RIAs, private markets, ETFs, fintech, investment management, banks, insurance, investor relations, cryptocurrency and retirement.
We have cultivated strong relationships in all areas of financial services media, positioning our clients as experts on investment and wealth management strategies and telling their story in top-tier national business and consumer publications, in addition to industry trade outlets. We also provide in-depth media training and coaching to ensure each opportunity is optimized with strategic messaging and smart commentary.
Our Investor Relations team works closely with public companies and pre-IPO companies, with program teams that consist of content development, targeting and strategy experts who can elevate your IR initiatives and win the market exposure and credibility your firm deserves and potential investors respect. We can handle routine IR needs as well as non-deal roadshows, analyst relations, conference presentations and more.
Behind it all is our service. We are there when you need us. Never counting hours or going dark.
We are all available, accessible, accountable. All in the service to clients. To grow businesses. Build awareness. Create credibility. And ultimately build the value of an enterprise.
ICR
685 Third Ave., 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10017
646/277-1200 www.icrinc.com
Thomas Ryan, CEO (tom.ryan@icrinc.com)
Don Duffy, President (don.duffy@icrinc.com)
Jason Chudoba, Partner (Jason.Chudoba@icrinc.com)
Established in 1998, ICR partners with public and private companies to execute strategic communications and advisory programs, and manage complex transactions and corporate events to enhance long-term enterprise value and corporate reputation. The firm’s highly-differentiated service model, which pairs capital markets veterans with senior communications professionals, brings deep sector knowledge and relationships to hundreds of clients across more than 20 industry groups. With more than 400 team members, ICR is one of the largest and most experienced independent communications and advisory firms, maintaining offices in New York, Connecticut, Boston, Baltimore, San Jose, London, and Beijing. Learn more at icrinc.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and on X at @ICRPR.
Additional Offices: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and London
Jamie Diaferia, Founder & CEO
Zach Olsen, President Isabel Podda, COO
INFINITE is an award-winning strategic communications agency advising a wide range of domestic and international clients facing difficult scenarios in which reputational, legal and commercial risk is high.
Feintuch Communications President Henry Feintuch.
INFINITE
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We advise organizations and individuals, providing counsel and tactical support to mitigate risk and protect reputations when it matters most. We have broad sector experience managing our clients’ reputational risk, often involving active litigation, regulatory and political pressure, media attention and heightened public scrutiny. Infinite has an established data breach response practice that helps clients across a range of industries—including financial and legal services, education and healthcare— mitigate, prepare for and respond to the risks endemic to housing sensitive data.
Our work spans each phase of the crisis lifecycle: from pre-crisis preparation and planning, to rapid crisis response and post-crisis reputational repair.
JOELE FRANK, WILKINSON BRIMMER KATCHER
22 Vanderbilt Ave., 18th Floor New York, NY 10017 212/355-4449 info@joelefrank.com www.joelefrank.com Linkedin.com/company/joele-frank
One California St. #2275 San Francisco, CA 94111 415/869-3950
Joele Frank, Mng. Partner Matthew Sherman, Pres. Andrew Brimmer, Vice Chmn. Daniel Katcher, Vice Chmn. Eric Brielmann, Michael Freitag, Barrett Golden, Eric Kaplan, Jonathan Keehner, Tim Lynch, Jamie Moser, Aaron Palash, Leigh Parrish, Adam Pollack, Aura Reinhard, Jed Repko, Meaghan Repko, Andrea Rose, Arielle Rothstein, Joe Sala, Mahmoud Siddig, Andrew Siegel, Sharon Stern, Kelly Sullivan, Ed Trissel, Partners
Joele Frank is differentiated by the depth of our experience and reputation for delivering impactful results. We have been recognized with seven Financial Agency of the Year awards (PRovoke Media) and four Firm of the Year awards (The M&A Advisor); as the #1 PR firm in U.S. M&A since 2013 (The Deal) and the #1 shareholder activism defense PR firm since 2019 (Bloomberg); and as the #1 or #2
TLG’s experts have been recognized as communications and public relations industry leaders, receiving notable awards for their success and expertise including, “Communicators of the Year,” “Crisis Manager of the Year” and “Top PR People in Crisis Communications” from esteemed organizations.
PR Firm in bankruptcy communications since 2023 (The Deal). Our expertise extends to our bestin-class financial sponsors, ESG, digital and design teams, which integrate seamlessly with our client teams.
We are independently owned and operated by 25 partners.
KEKST CNC
U.S. Headquarters 1675 Broadway, 30th Floor New York, NY 10019 212/521-4800 www.kekstcnc.com
Jeremy Fielding, Co-Chief Executive Officer
Bernhard Meising, Co-Chief Executive Officer
Many companies and institutions around the world will confront unforeseen events that may well alter their future, pose unprecedented challenges, and potentially define their reputation for years to come.
What is required in these circumstances is an expert, experienced strategic communications partner to work with senior management and a Board of Directors to develop and execute the necessary integrated communications strategies to gain the trust and confidence of key stakeholders in this era of accelerated change.
Kekst CNC is ideally equipped to help global business and institutional leaders address these challenges ... as well as their opportunities. For over 50 years, our team of more than 300 experienced professionals in 15 locations around the world has partnered with leading organizations of all sizes to: articulate new business strategies and a vision for success; explain an enterprise transforming event and its significance; help navigate complex business challenges or crises; build support among key stakeholders; and, work to strengthen and protect our clients’ credibility, reputation, and brand.
As trusted advisors, Kekst CNC’s professionals bring to client engagements high energy, sound judgment and expertise on such high stakes matters as: M&A, shareholder activism and governance, crisis communications, restructurings, regulatory investigations / resolutions, litigation support, complex investor relations, IPO communications, issues and reputation management, leadership transitions, cyber security, employee engagement, public affairs, as well as digital and social communications—providing exceptional counsel and execution supported by objective insights, based on access to proprietary research, data and analytics capabilities.
TLG
200 Park Avenue South, Suite 402 New York, NY 10003
TLG (The Levinson Group) is a global strategic communications and stakeholder engagement advisory firm. In mission critical moments and uncertain environments, leaders and organizations count on TLG to help them navigate complexity, communicate effectively, and build and maintain strong bonds with the communities and stakeholders who matter most.
TLG’s team has been on the front lines of some of the most conse-
quential transactions, leadership transitions, restructurings, and issues of the past decade, delivering results for our clients and guiding them through evolving challenges and opportunities. TLG provides multifaceted strategies across issues management and preparedness, global financial communications, litigation support, cyber security and data breach response, sensitive investigations and government response, workplace and workforce engagement, and more.
Clients count on TLG to support leaders and their teams as they calibrate messages, craft narratives, and engage effectively surrounding a range of financial transactions and other corporate moments, including M&A, IPOs, and spinoffs. TLG ensures leaders are strategically positioned each day of the financial calendar and that every decision is framed to help protect and enhance investor sentiment and market value.
LONGACRE SQUARE PARTNERS
44 West 37th Street, 6th Floor New York, NY 10018 info@longacresquare.com www.longacresquare.com
Greg Marose, Managing Partner
Dan Zacchei, Managing Partner
Longacre Square is a communications and special situations advisory firm that is differentiated by our high-touch and senior-led advisory model with unique experience representing companies and investors in hundreds of transformative events, transactions, capital raises, crises and contested situations. As a full-service consultancy, our capabilities span strategic communications, investor relations, corporate governance advisory, capital markets planning and transaction support, litigation, media advisory, and crisis management.
Longacre has been ranked #1 for
IR/PR advisors on Bloomberg’s shareholder activism league tables since the firm’s inception and handled more special situations and activism campaigns than any strategy firm in 2024 and currently has over 87 representations through 1H 2025. The firm advises a global clientele from its New York City, Dallas-Fort Worth, Washington D.C., Tampa and Toronto offices with clients ranging from top, global enterprises to smaller, privately owned corporations.
LOWE GROUP
250 E. Wisconsin Ave., Ste. 875 Milwaukee, WI 53202
Jody.lowe@lowecom.com www.lowecom.com
Jody Lowe, President & Founder
Benjamin Bishop, Principal & Managing Director
Greg Joslyn, Executive Vice President, Media Relations
Pat Allen, Executive Vice President, LG Digital
Lowe Group helps investment firms go further, faster. Our experienced team—comprised of former investment professionals, hedge fund communicators, and financial journalists—is singularly focused on driving financial PR, digital marketing strategy and con-
tent marketing results and business growth. To asset managers, ETF issuers, wealth managers, RIAs, wealthtech/advisortech providers & firms specializing in alternative and sustainable investments, we offer a comprehensive suite of public relations and digital services including media relations, content development, website strategy and SEO, email marketing and automation consulting, web analytics, and training. Learn more at lowecom. com.
LYCEUS GROUP
Seattle, WA • New York, New York 206/635-4196 info@lyceusgroup.com www.lyceusgroup.com
Tucker Slosburg, Founder & President Pamela Granda, Senior Account Executive
Founded by Tucker Slosburg in 2016, Lyceus Group is an independent marketing communications firm that provides innovative and impactful solutions to private and public clients in global capital markets, legal, alternative and tra-
ditional asset management, fintech, climate/ESG, Blockchain/crypto, financial and professional services, and AI/Tech.
We build long term partnerships with clients as we work with them to build their reputation and brand through the media. Lyceus Group provides integrated and strategic communications from inception through execution. We put our clients first and measure our performance based on our clients’ success.
Recognized by HedgeWeek, With Intelligence, Institutional Asset Manager, and others, Lyceus puts clients first and measures our performance based on their long-term success.
Clients Include: Smead Capital, Clough Capital, F/m Investments, Rainwater Equity, Asterozoa Capital, Emerald Advisers, Spear Investments, and The Mather Group.
MONTIETH & COMPANY
685 Third Avenue 27th Floor New York, NY 10017 646/437-7602 www.montiethco.com
Montieth M. Illingworth, CEO & Global Managing Partner Perry Goldman, Global Senior Director, Financial & Professional Services, Issues and Crisis Management and Litigation PR Katarina M. Garner, Global Senior Director, Marketing Communications, Issues and Crisis Management and Public Affairs, Branding and Website Development Cameron Penny, Global Senior Director, UK/EMEA Joyce Lee, APAC Account Director/Hong Kong
Montieth & Company is a global specialist communications consultancy that provides a comprehensive set of marketing communications services and solutions that seamlessly integrate earned, owned, and paid media. We deliver high-value, measurable outcomes for organizations across sectors and global money and media markets. M&Co enables clients to assess and strengthen brand visibility in generative AI environments, including large language models (LLMs), as audience discovery shifts beyond traditional search. We also provide early detection of reputational risk through AI-powered narrative monitoring of legacy and social media.
M&Co’s flexible, integrated, and budget-efficient cross-border business model enables us to reach
into over 25 media markets via our global hubs in New York, London and Hong Kong, and our affiliates around the globe.
Our clients include companies in asset management, across all asset classes, financial research, risk-focused data and analytics, business intelligence/knowledge process outsourcing, cybersecurity, compliance, law, corporate shareholder services, renewable energy, online trading, fintech, proptech, insurtech, the art market, blockchain, AI and other emerging technologies.
We enable clients to achieve influence through strategic engagement with the media, to expand the reach of their expert voice, and solve their most critical communications problems. Central to our value-add is supporting key client corporate initiatives. These range from expanding profitable market share by moving into new markets globally to launching new investment vehicles, private equity transactions and making strategic acquisitions.
PROSEK PARTNERS
28 East 28th St., 15th Floor New York, NY 10016 212/279-3115 jprosek@prosek.com www.prosek.com Linkedin.com/company/prosek-partners
Jennifer Prosek, Mark Kollar, Russell Sherman, Andy Merrill, Mickey Mandelbaum, Caroline Gibson, Karen Niovitch Davis, Mike Geller, Neil Goklani, Brian Schaffer, Nadia Damouni, Thomas Rozycki, Dan Allocca, Jim David, Katie O’Reilly, Alex Jorgensen, Stephen Lewis, Partners
Prosek Partners builds—and protects—the top brands in business. We are a certified Woman-Owned Business and among the largest independent, integrated communications and marketing firms globally.
Specializing in providing a full range of communications solutions to financial and professional services companies, Prosek delivers business impact through an unexpected level of passion, creativity and marketing savvy. Services include media relations, thought leadership, social and digital media, public affairs, investor relations, financial communications, transaction services, crisis communications and issues management, content creation, conference
Clockwise from top left: Lyceus Group’s Tucker Slosburg, Pam Granda, Preston Newhouse and Katherine Camara.
PROSEK PARTNERS
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support, publishing, media training and more. Prosek’s strategic branding and integrated marketing arm— Prophecy by Prosek—offers brand strategy, award-winning design, digital and advertising capabilities. Prosek has been named PRWeek’s Best Place to Work, PRovoke Media’s “Global and North American Financial Agency of the Year” and a top-five global M&A and shareholder activism agency.
STANTON
909 Third Ave.
New York, NY 10022
212/366-5300
tfaust@stantonprm.com www.stantonprm.com
Tom Faust, Charlyn Lusk, Managing Directors
Liam Collopy, Matthew Conroy, Michael Goodwin, Josh Greenwald, Scott Lessne, Katrin Lieberwirth, SVPs
Stanton is a strategic communications partner to global firms, midsize leaders and entrepreneurial enterprises with a particular strength in financial services including private investment, investment banking, fintech, advisories and insurance. Our expertise has been recognized with numerous awards including a Top 10 ranking among firms specializing in financial PR from O’Dwyer’s. Our combination of smart strategy, innovative thinking and first-class execution produces business-changing results for our clients.
In addition to our deep sector experience, Stanton is a preferred partner of financial brands for our practitioner model where our senior professionals spend the majority of their time on client work. Our flexible and collaborative approach and responsive, bureaucracy-free service are the hallmarks of our long-standing client relationships.
With teams in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, Stanton supports clients through strategy, media relations, content development and marketing, design and production, executive visibility,
kind of model—one that breaks down barriers and assembles the best and brightest talent in the industry to answer a brand’s challenge. Notably, our team has deep PR expertise and specializes in corporate communications, global media relations, investor relations and issues management.
Current clients include a diverse mix of publicly traded companies across a variety of industries. Notable including Signet Jewelers and Appian, to name a few.
The agency has been awarded the below and more:
• PRNews 2023 Women Owned Agency of the Year
• PRovoke Media 2024 North American Boutique Agency of the Year
• PRovoke Media 2024 North American Capital Markets Campaign of the Year
• PRovoke Media 2024 North American Diamond Award Winner – Superior Achievement in Reputation Management
• PRNews 2024 Agency Elite Top 100
• PRNews 2025 Agency Elite Top 120
• 2025 PRovoke Media 80 Top Agencies in the U.S.
TIER ONE PARTNERS
thought leadership, crisis management, analyst relations, social media management and more.
Financial clients include: 3i, Allianz, Carl Marks Advisors, Leste Group, Makena Capital Management, Merchants Mortgage, The Mutual Group, Polar Capital, Toorak Capital Partners, Unity Partners, Vie Ventures.
THE SWAY EFFECT
Chrysler Building 405 Lexington Ave., Floor 8 New York, NY 10174 inquiries@theswayeffect.com theswayeffect.com
Jennifer
Risi, Founder and President
The Sway Effect is an award-winning global network of independent marketing and communications agencies focused on driving reputation while putting diversity, inclusion, and equity at the center of everything they do. In 2019, The Sway Effect’s Founder Jennifer Risi set out to change how the industry works by establishing a new
129 South Street Boston, MA 02111 617/918-7060
209 W. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL 60606 708/421-0083 www.tieronepr.com
Marian Hughes, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Chicago
Kathy Wilson, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Boston
Tier One Partners is an award-winning integrated marketing agency. We offer a comprehensive range of PR, content, and digital marketing services to propel B2B and B2C companies in financial services and fintech, AI and other disruptive technologies, professional services across numerous verticals, digital health, and energy tech into category leadership.
Recognizing that modern organizations require communications partners offering services beyond traditional PR, we’ve strategically built our agency around complementary practice areas. This integrated approach ensures all aspects of a client’s marketing strategy work in harmony, positioning us
Appian CEO Matt Calkins giving keynote speech at Appian World 2025 [The Sway Effect Client].
as a valuable, long-term partner for brands seeking sector leadership.
Our Content Studio serves as a one-stop shop for content and digital marketing needs. Our talented team comprises copywriters, editors, digital marketers, and graphic and UX/UI designers who collaborate to help clients think and act like powerhouse publishers.
Our differentiator is keeping our clients one step ahead. Our Agile Insights & Analytics practice uses proprietary methodologies and advanced listening tools to predict emerging business and cultural trends. Armed with these insights, we help clients cut through noise, connect dots, and share meaningful viewpoints through strategic media relations, thought leadership, and marketing campaigns that resonate with target audiences.
Co-headquartered in Boston and Chicago, we’re a certified women-owned business. We’ve successfully built awareness and category leadership for financial services leaders including Ally Financial, TradeKing, iVest+, Giesecke + Devrient, Nephila, Velocity Risk, Prophix, and others.
TREVELINO/KELLER
1042 Northside Dr. NW, Suite 960 Atlanta, GA 30318
Dean Trevelino, Founder and Principal, 404/214-0722 X106
Genna Keller, Founder and Principal, 404/214-0722 X105
Trevelino/Keller’s financial services market segment has operated as a complementary balance of fintech and traditional financial institutions. For more than five years, Trevelino/Keller has played a strategic role in Atlanta’s signature financial services event, FinTech South in collaboration with the Technology Association of Georgia. Utilizing the firm’s three core service areas—public relations, growth marketing and creative services—its mission is to help companies with one of three overarching strategies, go to market, accelerate growth or brand relaunches.
Well balanced in serving B2B and B2C markets, the agency’s noted experience includes working with Fiserv and the launch of its Popmoney peer-to-peer consumer payment platform; Paymetric and the thought leadership positioning of its tokenization technology
Tier One, founded and led by Managing Partners Marian Hughes and Kathy Wilson, is an award-winning woman-owned integrated marketing agency serving innovators in financial services, fintech and professional services. (Left to right) Marian Hughes, Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Kathy Wilson, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Tier One Partners.
that would lead to its acquisition by Worldpay; FactorTrust and the launch of its Underbanked Index that would eventually lead to its acquisition by TransUnion; and more recent go to market strategies in the NIL and NFT space with brands like Icon Source and The Players’ Lounge.
On the professional services side, the firm has an extensive history serving several market segments including legal, wealth management, venture capital, marketing services, human resources, accounting and executive search. In 2024, Trevelino/Keller acquired Marsden Marketing, a b2b growth marketing firm, a move that expanded the firm’s strategic and technological resources. Today, most of its financial and professional services clients leverage the firm’s growth marketing and creative services capabilities, in addition to its core public relations services.
VESTED
114 East 25th Street
New York, NY 10010 917/765-8720
82 Great Suffolk Street London, SE10BE +44 203 890 4750
Vested is a global, award-winning integrated financial services communications and marketing firm with offices in New York and London. Vested delivers results-focused programs for brands big and small including American Express, Bloomberg, JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley and more. The firm has been recognized as one of America’s Best PR agencies by Forbes and has won Gold for the Best Industry-Focused Agency by the Bulldog Awards. The Vested UK team was also recognized as the CIPR Specialist Consultancy of the Year and PRWeek Top 150 Consultancy.
We attract and retain the industry’s best talent through our equity ownership model and entrepreneurial approach—from unlimited vacation days to sabbaticals. Entrepreneurial to the core, Vested launched the industry’s first agency-run investment group, Vested Ventures; created a community for senior financial marcomms professionals to network and share best practices called Financial Narrative; partners with Qwoted, the disruptive tech platform that brings together financial journalists and sources; and launched Finance Stu-
dio, the platform for digital, content and design projects suited to each individual brand’s needs and budget.
WATER & WALL
401 Park Ave. South, 10th Floor New York, NY 10016 212/625-2363 www.waterandwall.com
Andrew Healy, Partner Jen Corletta, Vice President Rebecca Schmidt, Assistant VP
Water & Wall is an award-winning communications and marketing agency with offices in New York, Boston and Philadelphia, delivering creative strategies that elevate financial and B2B brands. Operating as an established independent agency since 2012, we thrive on the ability to experiment with innovative ideas, while delivering clever and tailored strategies for our clients. We’ve worked with hundreds of brands in shaping their identities and protecting their reputations, while raising company profiles to drive meaningful growth. We’re as careful at selecting our clients as they are at selecting us, and if we partner together you can count on our full attention, sharp strategic thinking, and a commitment to your success. Water & Wall is more than just another agency partner—it’s a testament to what’s possible when you trust your instincts, hire the right people and choose to represent companies that hold a similar mindset.
O’DWYER’S RANKINGS TOP FINANCIAL PR & INVESTOR RELATIONS FIRMS
O’dwyer’s guide to
PROFESSIONAL SERVICES PR
AKRETE
233 South Wacker Drive, 44th Floor
Chicago, IL 60606 (Willis Tower)
847/892-6082
info@akrete.com
www.akrete.com
LinkedIn: @akrete
Instagram: @akrete
Margy Sweeney, Founder and CEO
Nicole Stenclik, President
Aimee Val, Senior Vice President
Michelle Pittman, Executive Consultant
Jackie Keane, Managing Consultant
Akrete articulates and amplifies thought leadership that drives growth. In fact, “Akrete” derives from “accretion,” an accounting term for growth and momentum. Our unusually senior teams roll up our sleeves to help clients navigate opportunity and volatility alike. Sometimes, that means refreshing corporate brand messaging; other times it’s partnering with individual executives to articulate their thought leadership in the media and owned channels. Our long-standing clients share similar stories: we’ve elevated brands and leaders with creativity and rigor in the moments that matter most.
In particular, the Akrete content studio is well-known for tackling tough topics. We generate thousands of pieces of original content each year across all forms of business writing from blogs to books, social media content to bylines.
Founded in 2011, Team Akrete is an elite PR, content and marketing agency specializing in complex industries including financial services and real estate (ranked 3rd on this year’s O’Dwyer’s list). We measure many client and team member relationships in decades, with retention powered by our “work where and when it makes sense” business model.
THE BLISS GROUP
230 Park Avenue
Second Floor West
New York, NY 10169
www.theblissgrp.com
212/840-1661
Fax: 212/840-1663
Cortney Stapleton, CEO
Michael Roth, Managing Partner
Alexis Odesser, Greg Hassel,
Keri Toomey, Reed Handley, EVPs
Bill Smith, Megan Tuck, Miles Hill, SVPs
Adam Schwartzman, Alana Gold, Meghan Busch, Meghan Powers, GVPs
Ben Davis, Courtland Long, Janice Miller, Jean Logerfo, JP Letourneau, Marisha Chinsky, Sarah Dougherty, Sarah Eisler, Emma Skultety, VPs
With deep roots serving the business and professional services sectors, The Bliss Group is an insights-driven marketing communications agency that blends data science with the art of storytelling to connect to people with precision, empathy and purpose. For more than 50 years, we have partnered with leading industry players in accounting, B2B, consulting, human capital and law to help them move audiences, capture market share and drive tangible business outcomes. Recognized as PR Week’s Outstanding Corporate Agency of the Year, PRovoke Best Agencies in the US and PRovoke Best Agencies to Work For, we continue to set the standard for innovative marketing solutions that drive meaningful results for our clients.
Client Sample: BDO, BILL, Freshfields, and Korn Ferry.
BOARDROOM COMMUNICATIONS INC.
d.b.a. BoardroomPR 1776 No. Pine Island Rd., #320 Ft. Lauderdale, FL 33322 954/370-8999 donsil@boardroompr.com www.boardroompr.com
Locations: Miami, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Orlando, Tampa and Naples
Julie Talenfeld, President Don Silver, COO
Todd Templin, Exec. VP Eric Kalis, Sr. VP
Jennifer Clarin, Michelle Griffith, VPs
Ashley Kearns, Director, Social Media
Boardroom Communications (BoardroomPR) is a full-service public relations and integrated marketing agency, leveraging the skills of our staff of journalists, PR and marketing professionals and multimedia specialists to provide visibility across numerous platforms. Our creative solutions increase awareness and understanding, establish credibility and ultimately improve business.
Clients: Shutts, Weiss Serota,
SSRGA Law, Marshall Dennehey, Guignard Co., Associated Builders and Contractors East Florida, Forman Capital, Miller Construction, Tropical Financial Credit Union, Encore Capital Management, Florida East Coast Realty, KW Property Management, Klotz Companies, The Keyes Company, The Lynd Group, RKW Residential, Pulte Homes and Rivergate Companies.
BOSPAR
3335 21st St. San Francisco, CA 94110
844/5-BOSPAR results@bospar.com www.bospar.com
Curtis Sparrer, Principal
Tom Carpenter, Principal
Chris Boehlke, Principal
Joe Krasinski, CFO
Paula Bernier, Chief Content Officer
Denyse Dabrowski, Senior Vice President
Bospar is a full-service PR agency providing everything from public relations & media training to digital content & video creation, integrated marketing & messaging, investor & analyst relations, crisis & reputation management and employee engagement & change management.
With deep experience in tech-driven, regulated industries —including fintech, insurtech, and compliance-focused tech—Bospar has helped elevate both highgrowth startups and publicly traded companies through thought leadership, product storytelling and strategic media placements. We excel at turning complex, data-rich products into compelling narratives that resonate across consumer, trade and business media.
Pairing a data-driven mindset with a “politely pushy” approach that drives consistent coverage in both proactive and reactive cycles, we bring strong media relationships across national, tech, business, insurance and financial outlets.
Our financial PR and IR services include investor messaging and positioning, content development for earnings reports and IPO presentations and media training for executives.
Bospar’s expertise is supported by a team of experienced profes-
Akrete, a certified woman-owned business (WBE), is led by an all-women leadership team. Pictured in the front row (left to right) are Michelle Pittman, Abby Carr (retired) and Aimee Val; Pictured in the back row (left to right) are Becky Reno, Nicole Stenclik (President) and Margy Sweeney (Founder & CEO). Not pictured: Jackie Keane.
sionals who have a strong understanding of both traditional and digital media, as well as financial and analyst relations. Our strategic approach has helped various clients achieve significant media attention and establish authority in their respective markets.
COYNE PUBLIC RELATIONS
5 Wood Hollow Rd. Parsippany, NJ 07054
973/588-2000
www.coynepr.com
New Business inquiries: newbusiness@coynepr.com
Additional Office
501 7th Ave.
New York, NY 10018
212/938-0166
Thomas F. Coyne, Founder & CEO Rich Lukis, President John Gogarty, President Cathy Clarkin, Chief Financial Officer
Clara Heffernan, Chief People Officer
Kelly Dencker, Executive VP
Joe Gargiulo, Executive VP
Jennifer Kamienski, Executive VP
Tim Schramm, Executive VP
Lisa Wolleon, Executive VP
What sets Coyne PR apart is simple: our people power our performance. We invest in being the best place to work because the best work comes from the best teams. That mindset fuels everything we do, from breakthrough campaigns to decade-long client relationships. As the first ChatGPT enterprise partner in our industry, we embrace innovation while staying true to what makes us different: original, human-driven creativity. With standout work for Hilton, StarKist, and CeraVe, we deliver relevance, consistency, and results. Our bestteam approach ensures every client benefits from the full agency brain trust. A 95% retention rate among top clients, impressive new business growth, and more than 1,000 industry awards speak to our impact. But it’s our humanity—our culture of collaboration and bold thinking—that truly sets us apart. We’re not trying to be the biggest
The October issue of O’Dwyer’s will profile Healthcare PR firms. If you would like your firm to be profiled, contact Editor Steve Barnes at 646/843-2089 or steve@odwyerpr.com
agency in America, just the most respected, most inspired, and most empowering. That’s our edge.
EDELMAN
250 Hudson St., 16th Floor
New York, NY 10013
212/768-0550
Fax: 212/704-0117
www.edelman.com
Edelman is a global communications firm that partners with businesses and organizations to evolve, promote and protect their brands and reputations. Our 6,000 people in more than 60 offices deliver communications strategies that give our clients the confidence to lead and act with certainty, earning the trust of their stakeholders. Our honors include the Cannes Lions Grand Prix for PR; Advertising Age’s 2019 A-List; the Holmes Report’s 2018 Global Digital Agency of the Year; and, five times, Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work. Since our founding in 1952, we have remained an independent, family-run business. Edelman owns specialty companies Edelman Intelligence (research) and United Entertainment Group (entertainment, sports, lifestyle).
FRANCO
400 Renaissance Center, Suite 1000 Detroit, MI 48243
Based in Detroit since 1964, Franco is a women-owned integrated communications agency offering PR, marketing, social media, advertising and creative services to clients in sectors we’re experienced and invested in, including auto/mobility, economic development, technology, healthcare, nonprofit, consumer and professional service. We’ve helped professional service firms in various industries —including legal, accounting, automotive retail and small business —build awareness and credibility, and most importantly, acquire new leads and business through a variety of marketing and communications efforts. Our integrated approach to communications programs, strategies and content—enabled by technology and empathic listening—assists in solving complex and time-consuming problems for our clients. Our values of care, accountability and innovation create trusting partnerships between our team members and clients, resulting in strategic and transformative change. Clients choose us because we lead with empathy, act with purpose and never settle for average. With Franco, our clients gain a partner as invested in their success as they are.
FRENCH/WEST/ VAUGHAN
112 East Hargett St. Raleigh, NC 27601 919/832-6300 www.fwv-us.com
Rick French, Chairman & CEO
David Gwyn, President / Principal
Natalie Best, Chief Operating
Officer / Principal
French/West/Vaughan (FWV) is the Southeast’s leading public relations, public affairs, advertising and digital media agency, a distinction it has held since 2001. Headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., and founded in April 1997, FWV has received 39 Global or National Agency of the Year honors over the past 28 years, including being named the nation’s Best PR Agency of 2024 by a jury of the country’s top journalists. Its professional services practice area is ranked 14th in the country.
FWV provides comprehensive and integrated strategies and solutions tailored to the unique challenges that professional service firms face, proactively evaluating potential risks and mitigating issues that can harm reputations with customers, employees, regulators and the public.
FWV’s extensive legal and professional services marketing experience includes work done on behalf of: Edwards Kirby LLP; Smith Anderson; Perkins & Will; Trammell Crow Company, HR Florida; NCSHRM; Lynch Mykins; Coats & Bennett, PLLC; Lisa Smithson & Company; Marshall & Taylor, P.C.; Clancy & Theys; Poyner Spruill LLP; Smith Moore LLP; Underrated Golf; Vickie Milazzo Legal Nursing Services; Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice; and Yates, McLamb & Weyher. FWV also works with top international companies across B2B, mobility, automotive, manufacturing and technology markets, such as Eaton, LG Energy Solution and Mitsubishi Electric Automotive America.
_ Continued on page 38
Some of the team members behind the “politely pushy” magic of Bospar.
FRENCH/WEST/VAUGHAN
Continued from page 37
Newsweek ranked FWV as one of two 5-star agencies for Automotive, Mobility and Transportation.
In addition to its diverse legal and professional services clients, FWV’s passionate team of expert storytellers works with many of the world’s leading companies and brands, including Wrangler, ABB, Proximo, Melitta, Teen Cancer America, and the N.C. Department of Transportation, just to name a few ...
FWV is the parent company of fashion and lifestyle PR firm AMP3 (New York City), pet and animal health practice Fetching PR; and Prix Productions, a feature film and documentary production company. FWV employs more than 140 public relations, public affairs, social media, advertising, digital marketing and content creation professionals across its five offices nationwide.
GREGORY FCA
27 West Athens Ave. Ardmore, PA 19003 610/642-8253 info@gregoryfca.com www.gregoryfca.com
200 West 41st Street, 12th Floor New York, NY 10036
20 Park Plaza, Suite 1409 Boston, MA 02116
14-16 Great Chapel St. London, W1F 8FL
Greg Matusky, Founder & CEO Joe Anthony, Partner & President
Gregory FCA has become one of the largest, most trusted financial PR firms in the nation because we take a fundamentally different approach to our clients’ individual needs. Within Financial Services, we have VP-level team leads specifically focused and experienced in specific areas such as RIAs, private markets, ETFs, fintech, investment management, banks, insurance, investor relations, cryptocurrency and retirement. We have cultivated strong relationships in all areas of financial services media, positioning our clients as experts on investment and wealth management strategies and telling their story in top-tier national business and consumer publications, in addition to industry trade outlets. We also provide in-depth media training and coaching to ensure each opportunity is optimized
with strategic messaging and smart commentary.
Our Investor Relations team works closely with public companies and pre-IPO companies, with program teams that consist of content development, targeting and strategy experts who can elevate your IR initiatives and win the market exposure and credibility your firm deserves and potential investors respect. We can handle routine IR needs as well as nondeal roadshows, analyst relations, conference presentations and more.
Behind it all is our service. We are there when you need us. Never counting hours or going dark. We are all available, accessible, accountable. All in the service to clients. To grow businesses. Build awareness. Create credibility. And ultimately build the value of an enterprise.
HOPE BECKHAM ESPINOSA
3343 Peachtree Road NE, Ste. 120 Atlanta, GA 30326
Based in Atlanta, Hope Beckham Espinosa is a WBE and MBE-certified, multicultural communications agency. Under influential and award winning leadership, our
agency has served local, national, and international clients for more than 30 years, in industries including sports, entertainment, hospitality, retail, government, nonprofit, and numerous others. We are best known for our strengths in media relations, strategic networking, event management, and multicultural communications. We work directly with clients or partner with agencies to serve as their multicultural arm of Hispanic audience campaigns. Led by Mexico native CEO Gina Espinosa-Meltzer, we are currently Atlanta’s only top 20 public relations agency whose services include a dedicated practice in Hispanic communications.
HUNTER
One World Trade Center, Floor 68 New York, NY 10007 www.hunterpr.com
Grace Leong, CEO
Gigi García Russo, Chief Transformation Officer
Gabrielle Zucker, Global Chief Client Officer
Contact: smormar@hunterpr.com
Samara Farber Mormar, CMO
HUNTER is an award-winning brand and marketing communications firm with deep expertise across corporate and consumer sectors. Frequently named as a “Best Place to Work” and “Agency of the Year,” we operate in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago and London with global partnerships that expand our reach. Our integrated services include strategic planning, media relations, social and digital media, talent/influ-
encer engagement, experiential marketing, multicultural outreach and content creation and distribution for the world’s most beloved brands and companies.
HUNTER helps financial and professional services firms protect reputations, build credibility, and communicate clearly in complex, highly regulated environments. We work with leading institutions to engage key stakeholders—investors, regulators, clients, employees, media, analysts—through executive visibility efforts, strategic media relations, thought leadership programs, and issues management.
Protecting and Promoting Brand Reputation: Managing reputation today means optimizing for both human and machine perception, grounded in values, credibility, and resilience. Whether navigating digital transformation in banking, managing issues through regulatory uncertainty, or building long-term brand equity with institutional investors, HUNTER helps financial and professional services brands communicate with clarity, consistency, and credibility at every step.
Elevating Executive Voices: HUNTER understands the value of a strong external presence for firm leaders. While our research finds that most leaders also see the connection between executive visibility and business success, only about half feel very confident communicating with media or on social.
With these findings in mind, we created xVoice, our proprietary executive resonance program designed to define an executive’s voice, pinpoint their unique perspective and better connect with their target audience. With xVoice, we’re able to make a measurable impact against communications objectives and business goals while also solidifying a brand’s position within the larger market.
Navigating Crisis with Clarity: We know that trust is earned through swift, transparent communication and action. Our Special Situations Group has deep expertise working with some of the largest and most iconic B2C and B2B brands in the world, helping them with issues ranging from cyber-attacks, labor strikes, NTSB investigations, activist investors, executive misconduct, product liability and viral customer complaints, among others.
We help brands and executives move quickly to correct the record, own their response, and ensure both people and machines reflect the truth.
HUNTER helped client Gunderson stand out in the crowded tech law space with high-impact coverage that boosted brand visibility and built trust with VCs, startups, and private companies.
ICR
685 Third Ave., 2nd Floor
New York, NY 10017
646/277-1200 www.icrinc.com
Thomas Ryan, CEO (tom.ryan@icrinc.com)
Don Duffy, President (don.duffy@icrinc.com)
Jason Chudoba, Partner (Jason.Chudoba@icrinc.com)
Established in 1998, ICR partners with public and private companies to execute strategic communications and advisory programs, and manage complex transactions and corporate events to enhance longterm enterprise value and corporate reputation. The firm’s highly-differentiated service model, which pairs capital markets veterans with senior communications professionals, brings deep sector knowledge and relationships to hundreds of clients across more than 20 industry groups. With more than 400 team members, ICR is one of the largest and most experienced independent communications and advisory firms, maintaining offices in New York, Connecticut, Boston, Baltimore, San Jose, London, and Beijing. Learn more at icrinc.com. Follow us on LinkedIn and on X at @ICRPR.
INFINITE
1450 Broadway, 7th Floor New York, NY 10018 917/602-0545
Additional Offices: San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Washington, D.C. and London
Jamie Diaferia, Founder & CEO
Zach Olsen, President Isabel Podda, COO
INFINITE is an award-winning strategic communications agency advising a wide range of domestic and international clients facing difficult scenarios in which reputational, legal and commercial risk is high.
We advise organizations and individuals, providing counsel and tactical support to mitigate risk and protect reputations when it matters most. We have broad sector experience managing our clients’ reputational risk, often involving active litigation, regulatory and political pressure, media attention and
heightened public scrutiny. Infinite has an established data breach response practice that helps clients across a range of industries—including financial and legal services, education and healthcare— mitigate, prepare for and respond to the risks endemic to housing sensitive data.
Our work spans each phase of the crisis lifecycle: from pre-crisis preparation and planning, to rapid crisis response and post-crisis reputational repair.
LEE ANDREWS GROUP
700 S. Flower Street, Suite 1275 Los Angeles, CA 90017
Founded in Los Angeles in 1993, Lee Andrews Group is a leading woman- and minority-owned strategic communications and PR firm. We build bridges between agencies, communities, and media— specializing in public sector campaigns, crisis response, stakeholder engagement, digital media, design, and large-scale event strategy.
For over 30 years, we’ve helped move the region’s most highstakes, visible public projects forward in partnership with cities, government agencies, utilities, and mission-driven organizations. Our inclusive, multicultural approach is grounded in DEI principles and community trust, helping clients navigate complex political and cultural landscapes.
Under CEO Stephanie Graves’s leadership since 2013, we’ve elevated storytelling as the connective tissue between ideas and impact—integrating data-driven strategy, creative design, and analytics to amplify earned value. Our integrated services include public relations, branding & marketing, outreach & communications, crisis communications, creative & design, SEO, SEM, and analytics.
Built for 2025 and beyond, we marry compelling narrative and purposeful design to activate audiences, bridge cultures, and drive real change.
MONTIETH & COMPANY
685 Third Avenue 27th Floor
New York, NY 10017
646/437-7602 www.montiethco.com
Montieth M. Illingworth, CEO & Global Managing Partner Perry Goldman, Global Senior Director, Financial & Professional Services, Issues and Crisis Management and Litigation PR Katarina M. Garner, Global Senior Director, Marketing Communications, Issues and Crisis Management and Public Affairs, Branding and Website Development Cameron Penny, Global Senior
Director, UK/EMEA
Joyce Lee, APAC Account Director/Hong Kong
Montieth & Company is a global specialist communications consultancy that provides a comprehensive set of marketing communications services and solutions that seamlessly integrate earned, owned, and paid media. M&Co delivers high-value, measurable outcomes for organizations across sectors and global money and media markets that include optimizing generative AI to raise brand awareness. M&Co’s flexible, integrated, and budget-efficient cross-border business model enables us to reach into over 25 media markets via our global hubs in New York, London and Hong Kong, and our affiliates around the globe.
M&Co enables clients to assess and strengthen brand visibility in generative AI environments, including large language models (LLMs), as audience discovery shifts beyond traditional search. We also provide early detection of reputational risk through AI-powered narrative monitoring of legacy and social media.
Our clients include companies in asset management, across all asset classes, financial research, risk-focused data and analytics, business intelligence/knowledge process outsourcing, cybersecurity, compliance, law, corporate shareholder services, renewable energy, online trading, fintech, proptech, insurtech, the art market, blockchain, AI and other emerging technologies.
We empower clients to achieve influence through strategic engage-
Continued on page 40
Exploring ideas, solving challenges—(L-R) Lee Andrews Group’s Eloy Morales, Stephanie Graves and Joey Legaspi in a productive working session.
Profiles of Professional Services PR Firms
MONTIETH & COMPANY
Continued from page 39
ment with the media, to establish their expert voice, and solve their most critical communication problems. Central to our value-add is supporting key client corporate initiatives. These range from expanding profitable market share by moving into new markets globally to seeking private equity investments and making strategic acquisitions.
STANTON
909 Third Ave. New York, NY 10022
212/366-5300
tfaust@stantonprm.com www.stantonprm.com
Tom Faust, Charlyn Lusk, Managing Directors
Liam Collopy, Matthew Conroy, Michael Goodwin, Josh Greenwald, Scott Lessne, Katrin Lieberwirth, SVPs
Stanton is a strategic communications partner to global firms, mid-size leaders and entrepreneurial enterprises with deep expertise serving professional services firms including law firms, investment banks, financial advisors, accounting firms, and operational partners. Our combination of smart strategy, innovative thinking and first-class execution produces business-changing results for our clients.
In addition to our deep sector experience, Stanton is a preferred
partner due to our practitioner model where our senior professionals spend the majority of their time on client work. Our flexible and collaborative approach and responsive, bureaucracy-free service are the hallmarks of our long-standing client relationships.
With teams in New York and the San Francisco Bay Area, Stanton supports clients through strategy, media relations, content development and marketing, design and production, executive visibility, thought leadership, crisis management, analyst relations, social media management and more.
Professional services clients include: Carl Marks Advisors, Efficio, Gen II Fund Services, and Moritt, Hock & Hamroff.
TIER ONE PARTNERS
129 South Street Boston, MA 02111 617/918-7060
209 W. Jackson Blvd. Chicago, IL 60606 708/421-0083 www.tieronepr.com
Marian Hughes, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Chicago Kathy Wilson, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Boston
Tier One Partners is an award-winning integrated marketing agency. We offer a comprehensive range of PR, content, and digital marketing services to propel B2B and B2C companies in professional services across
numerous verticals, AI and other disruptive technologies, digital health, financial services and fintech, and energy tech into category leadership.
Recognizing that modern organizations require communications partners offering services beyond traditional PR, we’ve strategically built our agency around complementary practice areas. This integrated approach ensures all aspects of a client’s marketing strategy work in harmony, positioning us as a valuable, long-term partner for brands seeking sector leadership.
Our Content Studio serves as a one-stop shop for content and digital marketing needs. Our talented team comprises copywriters, editors, digital marketers, and graphic and UX/UI designers who collaborate to help clients think and act like powerhouse publishers.
Our differentiator is keeping our clients one step ahead. Our Agile Insights & Analytics practice uses proprietary methodologies and advanced listening tools to predict emerging business and cultural trends. Armed with these insights, we help clients cut through noise, connect dots, and share meaningful viewpoints through strategic media relations, thought leadership, and marketing campaigns that resonate with target audiences.
Co-headquartered in Boston and Chicago, we’re a certified women-owned business. We’ve successfully built awareness and category leadership for financial services leaders including 3 Pillar,
fifty-five, Oliver Wight, JetSweep, Waterfield Tech, Centrilogic, and others.
TREVELINO/ KELLER
981 Joseph E. Lowery Blvd., #100 Atlanta, GA 30318
404/214-0722
dtrevelino@trevelinokeller.com
gkeller@trevelinokeller.com
www.trevelinokeller.com
Dean Trevelino, Founder and Principal, 404/214-0722 X106
Genna Keller, Founder and Principal, 404/214-0722 X105
Trevelino/Keller’s financial services market segment has operated as a complementary balance of fintech and traditional financial institutions. For more than five years, Trevelino/Keller has played a strategic role in Atlanta’s signature financial services event, FinTech South in collaboration with the Technology Association of Georgia. Utilizing the firm’s three core service areas—public relations, growth marketing and creative services—its mission is to help companies with one of three overarching strategies, go to market, accelerate growth or brand relaunches.
Well balanced in serving B2B and B2C markets, the agency’s noted experience includes working with Fiserv and the launch of its Popmoney peer-to-peer consumer payment platform; Paymetric and the thought leadership positioning of its tokenization technology that would lead to its acquisition by Worldpay; FactorTrust and the launch of its Underbanked Index that would eventually lead to its acquisition by TransUnion; and more recent go to market strategies in the NIL and NFT space with brands like Icon Source and The Players’ Lounge.
On the professional services side, the firm has an extensive history serving several market segments including legal, wealth management, venture capital, marketing services, human resources, accounting and executive search. In 2024, Trevelino/ Keller acquired Marsden Marketing, a b2b growth marketing firm, a move that expanded the firm’s strategic and technological resources. Today, most of its financial and professional services clients leverage the firm’s growth marketing and creative services capabilities, in addition to its core public relations services.
Tier One, founded and led by Managing Partners Marian Hughes and Kathy Wilson, is an award-winning woman-owned integrated marketing agency serving innovators in financial services, fintech and professional services. (Left to right) Marian Hughes, Co-Founder, Managing Partner and Kathy Wilson, Co-Founder, Managing Partner, Tier One Partners.
O’DWYER’S RANKINGS
Why not Curtis?
By Fraser Seitel
Contrary to popular wisdom, there’s no reason that Curtis Sliwa can’t slay the socialist dragon and become the next mayor of New York City.
Oh sure, most polls have the Republican septuagenarian Guardian Angels founder trailing 33-year-old Democrat—and AOC-acolyte— Zohran Mamdani somewhere between 75 percent and 25 percent. And it’s true that 63 percent of NYC registered voters are Democrats. And a healthy portion of New Yorkers consider Curtis a publicity-seeking, red-beret-ed buffoon. But …
Fraser P. Seitel has been a communications consultant, author and teacher for more than 30 years. He is the author of the Prentice-Hall
The fact remains that Curtis Sliwa is eminently more trustworthy and ethical than the two disgraced former Democrats-turned Independents—Andrew Cuomo and Eric Adams—running against him. And he’s also eminently more knowledgeable and capable than the upstart leftist Mamdani, who throttled Cuomo and Adams in the Democratic primary.
In a Democratic party bereft of ideas, poor on personalities and scraping rock bottom in political popularity, Mamdani is the new heart throb. But, like his role model Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Mamdani appears to be little more than a shiny, empty vessel who holds the potential to do great harm to New York.
Indeed, it’s not an understatement to suggest that Curtis Sliwa may be the only hope to save the world’s greatest city from once again confronting the kind of operational and financial mismanagement it confronted 50 years ago, when it teetered on the edge of municipal bankruptcy.
If the mayoral election were held today, of course, Mamdani would crush Curtis. So, how can Sliwa possibly make up the ground he needs to win the day in November? Here’s the public relations formula he might consider.
Seize the money
The sad, irrefutable fact in 2025 is that U.S. political victories, to every citizen’s great dismay, depend on cash, or crypto if you prefer. Curtis Sliwa has neither. He’s
the most poorly financed candidate in the mayoral race. And he can’t win if he doesn’t quickly change that reality.
To do it, he must first convince NYC’s powerful corporate leaders—beginning with JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon, Blackrock’s Larry Fink and former Mayor Michael Bloomberg—to support his campaign with public endorsements and serious cash.
The corporate elite was burned in the primary by heavily backing loser Cuomo. And while they no doubt fear that a Mamdani administration might be even worse than the anti-business, painfully inept de Blasio administration that preceded Adams, they’re still reluctant to support Sliwa. And they won’t ante up until Curtis convinces the moneyed class that he’s a viable candidate.
To do that, he needs to …
Clean up his act
Despite the fact that he’s been running for mayor since 2020, Sliwa is still seen as a bit of a “flake” by many. But it’s undeniable that Curtis is unique.
For one thing, he’s a lifetime resident of Brooklyn, Bronx and Manhattan who never sheds his red beret. For another, since 1977, he’s led a posse of vigilantes fighting street crime, first in New York City and now in 130 cities and 14 countries. He was once targeted for death by crime boss John Gotti, barely surviving an assassination attempt in 1992. He’s been married four times, is a prostate cancer survivor and has been a perpetual voice on local conservative radio for three decades. Indeed, he was so dedicated to his job—or perhaps so impoverished!—he often slept overnight at the studio.
Sliwa is also, hands down, the most knowledgeable candidate in the race about New York City, its neighborhoods, people, subways and just everything else. And he knows more than anyone else running against him what New York needs to fix its problems and realize its potential. That’s the expertise he needs to demonstrate both to the corporate titans he needs for money and the mainstream media with which he desperately needs to engage.
Tone it down on the animals
Sliwa’s current wife is an animal advocate, which pretty much makes Curtis an animal advocate. Nothing wrong with that. But Sliwa has made animal rights a cornerstone of his campaign, calling for an end to “kill shelters” and Central Park horse-drawn carriages. He even showed up in Queens to hunt down a crazy who lit a dog on fire.
While all of these pro-animal projects are exemplary, Curtis needs to tone down the initiative. First, it makes needless enemies, like the powerful Transport Workers Union, which represents the carriage drivers. Second—and more importantly—the extreme
focus on animal rights tends, rightly or wrongly, to feed the “Curtis as nut” narrative that’s his largest impediment in drawing major support.
Much better would be to shift focus to other priorities like building back NYC small businesses, partnering with NYC big business, making subways more affordable and safer for strap-hangers, supporting the police in fighting crime, building up the outer boroughs that he knows so well, vehemently opposing bias to any group and declaring war on City Hall corruption.
These, coupled with his unique NYC background and expertise, are the kinds of priorities that will help separate Sliwa from his mayoral adversaries, particularly Mamdani.
Lose the beret
Finally, there’s the matter of the red beret. Sliwa wears it constantly, he says, to celebrate the men and women who protect the public each day as members of his Guardian Angels. He has vowed that when he wins, if he wins, he will remove it as mayor.
No, too late.
The beret, like the ferocious support for animals, helps define the candidate as “unserious.” Clearly, it shouldn’t. But among the billionaires who count, it does. And it hurts Sliwa’s chances of winning.
So, just as earlier in the campaign, he substituted a business suit for his ubiquitous Guardian Angels uniform, so too must Curtis now make the symbolic switch and lose the beret.
Stated simply, Curtis Sliwa is the only candidate for mayor who isn’t a novice, a phony or a crook. If he gets serious about who he is, what he stands for and what he’ll do, he can make up ground quickly. And if he truly is in it to win it, if he follows this kind of public relations plan, anything is possible.
PR news brief
Edelman cops COP30 PR pact
Edelman will develop and implement a communications strategy to promote the United Nations’ COP30 climate change conference that will kick off in November in Brazil.
Edelman will strengthen Brazil’s position at COP30 by developing a strategic narrative that highlights the country as a global leader in climate action and expanding communication outreach to international audiences, according to its contract.
The firm will structure and execute an international media strategy to ensure engagement with journalists and global influencers, as well as securing a strategic presence in major media outlets.
Edelman will develop and implement a stakeholder engagement plan, foster partnerships with NGOs, the private sector, and key negotiators to amplify messaging and activate third parties a validators of the COP30 narrative.
text, The Practice of Public Relations.
Planning the Trump Presidential library
By Bill Huey
In 2021, the Washington Post declared that Trump should not have a presidential library. But now that The Donald is in his second term as President, the nation craves a Trump library and deserves one, in the same way it deserves Donald Trump.
The first consideration is location. Though various Florida sites have been touted, Bedminster, New Jersey, is a logical choice, as Trump’s wife Ivana is buried there. Trump National Golf Club spreads over 600 acres with 36 holes.
An average 18-hole golf course is between 120 and 200 acres, so there should be more than enough space for Trump to construct a library and a tomb for himself. Think of it: the first presidential library that is a library, tomb and golf club. As unique as the man himself. President Eisenhower would be jealous.
Trump can sell the land to the foundation that will build the library and book a handsome profit to offset his continuing losses on watches, guitars, Bibles, commemorative coins and Truth Social. The library might even have a Trump outlet store like the one in Trump Tower so the faithful can indulge in MAGA merch without paying Manhattan prices.
On the other hand, The Daily Beast reports “Donald Trump is considering using the millions he received from lawsuit settlements as seed money to build his presidential library in his adopted home state of Florida … at Florida Atlantic University, which has reportedly offered Trump a 100year lease for free land on its campus, according to the Wall Street Journal.”
According to The Beast, the library campus will feature the $400 million airplane recently accepted by the Air Force from Qatar. According to Axios’s Mike Allen, Trump wants to change the plane’s signature blueand-white look, designed by President John F. Kennedy and First Lady Jackie Kennedy in the 1960s. Trump wants a color scheme that “looks more American” and isn’t a “Jackie Kennedy color. “He doesn’t think the current blue (technically “luminous ultramarine”) represents the USA,” Allen wrote.
The President can be expected to demand the design of a huge marble structure resembling Ataturk’s Tomb in Turkey. And if the Trump library to accommodate a controversial supersized luxury Boeing 747 jet that is 268 feet long and 85 feet wide, it will generate an imposing footprint, whatever site is chosen for it. The setup will resemble the Air Force One hangar presently in the Reagan Library, except that beneath the words “United States of America,” there will be lettering that reads, “Not a Personal Airplane.”
The biggest challenge will be to edit the long list of ideas Trump is certain to have and focus on true facts and real history. Much has happened in the past few years, and there are vexing questions about the scope of the collection. This includes whether classified documents from Trump’s personal library at Mar-a-Lago should be included, or whether Trump’s conviction on 34 felony counts or the events of January 6, 2021, should be memorialized.
A Presidential Library would give Trump an opportunity to completely reshape the narratives of the Mueller Russia investigation and Jack Smith’s thwarted attempts to bring him to justice, as well as the January 6th “protest” and the SCOTUS’ assiduous home cooking on the question of presidential immunity.
Perhaps there could be a series of thematic rooms titled Impeachment, Trials, Divorces, Lawsuits, Close Calls and Gifts & Grifts.
And no doubt there will be a special corner set aside for Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize should he ever receive the honor for his achievements in peacemaking around the world. The President already believes he should have won four or five times by now, “but they only give it to liberals,” he told reporters during a June news conference. It was reported recently that Oleksandr Merezhko, the head of Ukraine’s Parliamentary Foreign Committee, had withdrawn his nomination, but then, as Jon Stewart suggested, Trump could always award it to himself.
The only book in the library will be Trump’s The Art of the Deal. Books like Mary Trump’s Too Much and Never Enough or Russ Buettner and Suzanne Craig’s Lucky Loser: How Donald Trump Squandered His Father’s Fortune and Created the Illusion of Success; Michael Wolff’s Landslide and Bob Woodward’s Fear would be banned.
Children under 12 would not be permitted in this area, but scholars might welcome such an organized approach to the chaos of Trump’s time in the White House. I can
just see a future Robert Caro or Doris Kearns Goodwin warming to the task of telling the rich and colorful story of Donald Trump and his two presidencies.
The library would likely be free to most visitors, but academics would have to pay a hefty fee to conduct research, particularly Ivy League academics and those from institutions not on the approved list. Mainstream media would also be excluded along the lines being practiced in the White House briefing room today.
There’s time to deliberate such weighty and consequential matters, but time is a-wasting when it comes to amenities such as the food court. Stalwarts such as McDonald’s, KFC and Diet Coke should be lined up immediately. And of course, there must be an Oreo bar featuring the entire lineup of the classic cookie.
According to Forbes, when Trump’s personal Boeing 757 was receiving a makeover a few years ago, he surprised aircraft interior design specialist Eric Roth by asking him for a special area in the plane’s galley dedicated to Oreo cookies. As Roth recalled, “I said to him, ‘Mr. Trump, really?’ And he replied, ‘I love Oreos.’” If the galley in Trump’s personal Boeing 757 has an area devoted to Oreos, the library could have a much-expanded version. In fact, Trump might be able to work out a deal whereby every new Oreo variety and flavor is introduced at the library. For a fee.
In the entertainment and arcade area, children and adults could play video games like “Arrest the Immigrant”; “Fire the Inspectors General”; “Gut the FBI, USAID, NOAA, OSHA”; “Dodge the DOGE,” etc. A special section of the arcade would be devoted to so-called “legacy media,” especially PBS, NPR, CNN and others on the President’s hit list. A reporter’s shooting gallery could feature prominent White House reporters and network anchors who were not “nice” to Trump in his first or second terms. Winners would receive a red “So Tired of Winning” T-shirt and an embroidered MAGA hat.
Trump’s second term will fly by—no doubt a relief to many—so the Trump Presidential Library should be a top priority, especially site selection and exhibit planning. It should take precedence over the completion of Air Force One, tedious tariff talks, crypto and meme coins, re-opening Alcatraz, annexing Canada, mining the Pacific for rare earth metals and the invasion of Greenland. Because Donald, you’re on the verge of the Big Eight-Oh, and a library will take up to ten years to design and construct, so forget about having a third term and get cracking!
Bill Huey is President of Strategic Communications, a corporate communications and marketing consultancy.
Forward Global reps vaping trade group
Forward Global represents the Vapor Technology Association as the trade group launches a $1 million cable TV and digital ad campaign urging President Trump to live up to his campaign promise to save the flavored vaping industry.
The campaign broke July 14 on Fox News, Newsmax, Bloomberg, NBC, ESPN and were targeted at decision-makers in D.C. and Trump’s golf club in Bedminster, NJ.
It distinguishes between illicit Chinese vapor products that target youth with video games, apps and cartoon imagery with the adult-focused alternatives that help millions of Americans quit smoking cigarettes.
VTA claims that rogue bureaucrats and an overreaching Food and Drug Administration, which is “deputizing” Customs and Border Protection to interdict all vape products at the border, threaten the independent VAPE distribution chain and goes against Trump’s promise to save the industry.
Noe Garcia, Forward Global’s Managing Partner, heads the VPA team. He was a top Aide to Senate Majority Leader Tom Frist, and Hispanic outreach advisor to John McCain’s presidential campaign.
Canada Goose flies with APCO
Canada Goose Holdings, maker of luxury parkas and outwear, has signed on APCO to handle issues related to trade.
CEO Dani Reiss expects the company will experience “minimal impact” from Donald Trump’s tariffs against Canada.
That’s because 75 percent of Canada Goose’s production is compliant with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement and is exempt from tariffs.
Canada Goose reported a robust financial performance during fiscal 2025 as net income soared 78 percent to $75 million on flat sales of $950 million.
Reiss promised to build on that momentum in fiscal 2026 by continuing to execute bolder marketing initiatives, expand and enhance the product offering and elevate consumer experience.
He withheld financial guidance for the full year due to ongoing macroeconomic uncertainty and dynamic consumer spending patterns brought on by the unpredictable global trade environment.
Rolls-Royce rolls with Ballard
Rolls-Royce North America has enlisted Ballard Partners for an education campaign on Capitol Hill to communicate the strategic importance of its defense capabilities to the US.
Jeff Miller, a former Florida Republican Congressman and chair of Ballard’s veterans practice group, is part of the outreach effort.
London-based R-R in April delivered its first AE 3007N engine to Boeing for the MQ-25 program, the U.S. Navy’s first aircraft carrier-based unmanned air vehicle to be used for refueling, intelligence and surveillance.
R-R also will manufacture and assemble F-130 engines for the Air Force’s B-52 Stratofortress bomber in Indianapolis, its largest U.S. production facility.
CEO Brian Ballard; Managing Partner Dan McFaul, former Aide to Reps. Joe Scarborough and Matt Gaetz; and Partner Hunter Morgen, a veteran of the Trump I White House, round out the R-R team.
GOP strategist Meyers goes to Teneo
Dan Meyers, who did a seven-year stint at APCO, is exiting as Deputy Manager Director of its D.C. office and has joined Teneo as Managing Director in its Washington office.
Meyers has experience advising public and private sector clients on strategic communications, coalition building, executive positions and crisis management.
He was VP at DCI for ten years, advance representative in George W. Bush’s White House, and Special Assistant to Rudy Giuliani’s presidential campaign. He also supported Sen. John McCain and VP JD Vance. Since January, Meyers has been running Perspective Strategies in D.C.
Golin grabs Boeing’s ex-CCO Besanceney
Golin has brought on former Boeing CCO Brian Besanceney as a Senior Advisor in its Corporate Affairs practice.
Besanceney has also served as SVP & CCO at Walmart; SVP, Public Affairs at the Walt Disney Company; and held several planning and public affairs posts in the George W. Bush administration. He also served as Board Chairman at Orlando Health, a healthcare system with $12 billion of assets under management.
At Golin, he will advise clients on reputation management, crisis communications, geopolitical complexity, digital transformation and executive positioning strategies.
Hope Hicks joins Kelly’s media outfit
Hope Hicks, who served as White House Communications Director for Donald Trump, has joined Megyn Kelly’s Devil May Care Media company as COO, according to the New York Post.
Kelly called Hicks “exactly the woman I want running my company with me.” Her company produces “The Megyn Kelly Show, which launched in 2020 as a podcast has expanded into a Sirius radio program and video.
Hicks had been running her media consulting company after doing a stint at Fox Corp. as EVP and Chief Communications Officer. She is the daughter of Paul Hicks, FGS Global Partner and former EVP of communications & PA at the NFL.
Dan Meyers
Brian Besanceney
Palestine Monetary Authority taps SPB
Squire Patton Boggs has signed on to do Congressional outreach for the Palestine Monetary Authority. It will especially focus on members of the House Financial Services and Foreign Affairs Committees, and Senate Banking and Foreign Relations Committees, according to the engagement letter.
SPB also will provide PMA and the Association of Banks in Palestine with strategic guidance relating to reputational risk and recommendations on PMA’s in-person visits to Washington.
The one-year engagement, which kicked off July 1, is worth $500,000 to SPB. The contract automatically renews for another year.
Gassan Baloul, SPB Partner and co-Chair of its Middle East practice, oversees work for the PMA.
The PMA team includes Ed Newberry, Global Managing Partner, Public Policy, Compliance, Investigatory and Regulatory Solutions; Paul Jones, international affairs specialist; Dominic Braithwaite, public policy specialist; and David Schnittger, former Aide to House Speaker John Boehner.
Abu Dhabi National Oil Co. taps Brunswick
Abu Dhabi National Oil Company’s XRG investment unit has retained Brunswick Group to a $60,000 monthly fee pact for “limited strategic communications support.”
XRG and Carlyle Group are acquiring Santos Limited, one of Australia’s oldest and biggest oil and gas producers, for $18.7 billion.
Santos owns a 51 percent stake in the Pikka prospect on Alaska’s
FARA News
North Slope. The field holds 400 million barrels of oil and could produce up to 80 million barrels a day, according to Santos. Spain’s Repsol owns the remaining 49 percent stake in Pikka.
Brunswick will prep XRG executives for upcoming meetings and interactions with U.S. federal, state and local government officials, according to its contract.
It will prepare briefing materials, media monitoring, general research and logistics support, but will not engage in direct lobbying or advocacy at the federal, state or local levels.
The firm’s XRG contract went into effect on July 15 and runs through 2025.
Ivory Coast subscribes to Scribe Strategies
The Republic of Cote d’Ivoire has signed Scribe Strategies & Advisors to a six-month $300,000 pact to boost its relationship with the U.S.
Under the pact that runs through the remainder of the year, Joe Szlavik’s firm will work to increase trade and investment and enhance the Ivory Coast’s profile in the US.
It also will highlight its government’s effort to counter terrorism and the spread of al-Qaeda and the Island State, especially in the northern part of the country. Scribe’s contract is with Adama Coulibaly, Ivory Coast’s Minister of Finance and Budget.
Africa Intelligence reports the Scribe contract comes at a critical time for the government of Ivory Coast’s President Alassane Ouattara, who may or not run for a fourth term in October. That uncertainty may be why he was sidelined during Donald Trump’s July 9 meeting with African leaders from Gabon, Guinea-Bissau, Liberia, Mauritania and Senegal.
NEW FOREIGN AGENTS REGISTRATION ACT FILINGS
Below is a list of select companies that have registered with the U.S. Department of Justice, FARA Registration Unit, Washington, D.C., in order to comply with the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, regarding their consulting and communications work on behalf of foreign principals, including governments, political parties, organizations, and individuals. For a complete list of filings, visit www.fara.gov.
Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP, Washington, D.C., registered July 18, 2025 for Government of the Federated States of Micronesia, Embassy of the Federated States of Micronesia, Washington, D.C, regarding providing legal and advisory services to the Foreign Principal for an additional sixmonth period.
Capitol Counsel, LLC, Washington, D.C., registered July 3, 2025 for Government of Ontario, Canada, Ministry of Intergovernmental Affairs, Cabinet Office, regarding providing representation before the United States government and business stakeholders to promote the interests of the Foreign Principal.
Policy Agency, LLC, Portsmouth, N.H., registered July 14, 2025 for Consulate General of Japan in Boston, Boston, Mass., concerning providing political consulting services.
Lobbying News
NEW LOBBYING DISCLOSURE ACT FILINGS
Below is a list of select companies that have registered with the Secretary of the Senate, Office of Public Records, and the Clerk of the House of Representatives, Legislative Resource Center, Washington, D.C., in order to comply with the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995. For a complete list of filings, visit www.senate.gov.
Foley & Lardner LLP, Washington, D.C., registered July 18, 2025 for CGI Federal, Fairfax, Va., regarding providing advice on federal contracting opportunities.
O’Keeffe Shahmoradi Strategies, LLC, Washington, D.C., registered July 7, 2025 for Air Traffic Control Association, Alexandria, Va., concerning air traffic control modernization.
Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr LLP, Washington, D.C., registered July 16, 2025 for The Kraft Heinz Company, Washington, D.C., regarding trade and tariff issues.
Winning Strategies Washington, Washington, D.C., registered July 14, 2025 for Visiting Nurse Association Health Group, Holmdel, N.J., regarding Medicare home health payment policy, funding for federally qualified health centers and additional issues.
