By Greg Hazley
Two top staffers of Sitrick and Company have exited as the Los Angeles-based firm retools and expands in the Bay Area, Midwest and New York.
Glenn Bunting, executive VP of the firm who was promoted in October, left on Aug. 5 after overseeing its San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Miami operations. Dave Satterfield, a three-year veteran of Sitrick and former editor of the San Jose Mercury News, also left with plans to join a new firm started by Bunting, according to sources.
Bunting in an email to colleagues said that he was “compelled” to leave the firm. He did not return a call from O’Dwyer’s but has posted a note on his LinkedIn profile that reads: "I recently left Sitrick And Co. as executive VP to start my own firm based in San Francisco specializing in strategic communications, PR and crisis management." He is listed as president and CEO of "GFBunting LLC."
Chairman and CEO Mike Sitrick said he has promoted Lance Ignon, a former journalist who opened Sitrick’s San Francisco office in 2007, to lead the Bay Area region and replace Bunting. The firm has handled high-profile assignments in the region in recent years, including counsel to embattled H-P CEOs Patty Dunn and Mark Hurd.
Sitrick also said its digital chief, Aaron Curtiss, will head a new Denver office with an eye on business in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain region. The two-year staffer spent more than 20 years at the Los Angeles Times.
Sitrick added that he’s looking for two more senior people in the Bay Area and two for the Denver outpost.
The firm has also tapped Michael Claes, a seasoned crisis hand for Burson-Marsteller and Hill & Knowlton most recently with The Dilenschneider Group, as a member of the firm in its New York office.
Sitrick had been searching for a New York chief to replace Jeff Lloyd, who was looking to return to his Los Angeles home after eight years in the Big Apple. [Richard Wool, who did a stint as Sitrick's New York office head and left the firm in 2004, sued Sitrick in April 2010 after its 2009 sale to Resources Connection. That case continues.]
Also this month, Jason Booth, a former Wall Street Journal scribe most recently at Saylor and Company, has returned to Sitrick, where he was for five years from 2002-08. He is based in Los Angeles.
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