Nelson Fernandez, managing director of APCO Worldwide's New York office, has been upped to North America chair at the Washington-based shop.
His Paris counterpart Nicolas Bouvier has stepped up to chair European operations.
The moves come as CEO Margery Kraus hands the managing reins to Brad Staples on Jan. 5.
Staples said the Fernandez and Bouvier are part of the "new generation of leaders" with fresh perspectives to power APCO's future growth.
They are to tighten inter-office collaboration and launch multi-office initiatives in their respective regions.
Fernandez joined APCO in 2005 after a dozen years at Burson-Marsteller, where he worked in healthcare, PA and corporate PR in North and Latin American.
Prior to the WPP unit, he was an associate at the Fund for the City of New York.
DJE Holdings, parent of Edelman and Zeno, launches RUTH as an independent shop named after Ruth Edelman, mental health advocate, wife and longtime business partner of Dan Edelman.
New York City PR firms make up the largest slice of O'Dwyer's 147 firm overall ranking with 33 of 40 in the New York/New Jersey area either calling Manhattan their home or having a presence there.
Subject Matter+Kivvit, which joined forces in May, has rebranded as Avoq, an integrated shop with more than 200 professionals in Washington, New York, Asbury Park (NJ), Miami and Chicago.
While PR pros stationed at in-house comms. teams and those working for agencies share many of the same objectives, they also have markedly different top priorities, according to a recent report.
Edelman is cutting 240 employees or about four percent of its workforce to cope with the cooling down of the PR sector, according to a memo from CEO Richard Edelman.
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