Charles Sipkins, Los Angeles head for Sard Verbinnen & Co with strong experience in the media sector, is moving to Sony Pictures Entertainment to head corporate communications.
Former spokesman for President Bill Clinton, Jim Kennedy, held the SPE post for seven years before being promoted to the senior VP of strategic communications role for parent Sony Corp. in 2012.
As a managing director leading Sard's L.A. operation, Sipkins recently counseled News Corp., Yahoo!'s board of directors, Pandora and Groupon. He also repped The Chernin Group, the firm of former News corp. president/COO Peter Chernin.
His Yahoo! experience is notable as Sony Corp. faces pressure from activist investor Dan Loeb, who pushed for the ouster of Yahoo! CEO Scott Thompson last year. Loeb, through his Third Point hedge fund, is pushing Sony to spin off TV and film operations in order to focus on electronics. Sony's board and CEO this month rebuffed the call, which came after SPE had a rocky year at the box office -- "After Earth," "White House Down" flopped, while "Growns Ups 2" performed well.
Sipkins was previously at Abernathy MacGregor Group (L.A.), Fleishman-Hillard and Hill+Knowlton (New York). He started out as a legislative aide to Rep. Martin Sabo (D-Minn.).
Ann Boyd is executive VP of global communications at SPE, which is based in Culver City, Calif.
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