John Buckley, a 35-year political and corporate communicator most recently serving as managing director for The Harbour Group, has shifted to Subject Matter in Washington as the firm's first CEO.
Subject Matter is the combined PR operation of Home Front Communications and lobbying shop Elmendorf|Ryan, which merged in 2015. Partner Dan Sallick said the agency spent the past year integrating operations and saw this is as the right to bring in a leader to manage and plan its next phase of expansion.
Buckley was a press deputy to the Regan-Bush re-election campaign in 1984 and moved on to serve as press secretary for Rep. Jack Kemp in Congress and in his presidential campaign.
He moved to the agency realm with Robinson, Lake Lerer & Montgomery (now Finsbury) and later served as senior VP of communications for Fannie Mae and executive VP for communications at AOL.
Sallick is joined by partners Steve Elmendorf, Jimmy Ryan and Paul Frick.
Buckley penned two novels, "Family Politics" and "Statute of Limitations."
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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