By Greg Hazley
Porter Novelli is acquiring 11-year-old Voce Communications, a tech-shop founded by Miller/Shandwick alumni with about 60 staffers and $12M in revenue.
The firms have shared business with accounts like Yahoo, HP and Hitachi.
Voce was founded by Richard Cline, David Black and Matthew Podboy in 1999 and has offices in Sunnyvale, Calif., San Francisco and Orlando. It will retain its name as "Voce, a Porter Novelli company."
Cline, who served as president of Voce, takes the reins of PN’s global technology practice and sits on the firm’s executive committee. Cline said the deal provides deeper services for its clients and greater opportunities for staff.
Elaborating on the history of the firm in a blog post, Cline noted in more than 11 years the agency had less than 7% attrition annually and had only one person go to a competing agency during that span. "Some of our clients have had the same folks on their team for ten years," he wrote.
PN CEO Gary Stockman cited Voce’s reputation in digital communications campaigns and said its culture and leadership fit well with the Omnicom unit.
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