 Rikki Jones |
GCI Health has expanded into the Asia-Pacific region with the opening of an office in Singapore. Rikki Jones, who has served as managing director of GCI Health’s European headquarters since 2013, will now be Managing Director, Asia-Pacific, relocating from London to Singapore. Kath Kerry will take on leadership responsibilities in the U.K. The focus of the Singapore office will be on four primary service areas: life sciences, market access communications, strategic consulting and consumer wellness. “With Asian healthcare systems and markets rapidly evolving, the need for specialist agency expertise does too,” said Wendy Lund, CEO. “The time is right to expand our local capability in Asia.”
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ICR is launching a cannabis track at this year’s ICR Conference, which runs from Jan. 14-16 at the Grand Lakes Resort in Orlando, FL. Both private and public cannabis companies will be presenting at the event. Participants include Acreage Holdings, Green Thumb Industries and MedMen. In addition, there will be two panels on issues facing the cannabis industry at the conference: “Cannabis Investing: Capitalizing on a New Global Asset Class” on Jan. 15 and “Emerging Cannabis Panel: Private Cannabis Companies Poised for Growth in 2019” on Jan. 16. ICR chief executive officer Tom Ryan says the presentations will give cannabis companies a platform “to tell their stories and broaden exposure to global institutional investors, private equity professionals, equity research analysts and select media.” For more information go to http://www.icrconference.com.
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The BMF Media Group is celebrating its 15th anniversary with a rebrand to BMF. In addition to the new name, the agency will have a new logo and tagline, which will be carried throughout its revamped website, social media channels, and collateral. The agency has also opened up shop in London, joining its existing offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Austin and Miami. In the past year, BMF has also acquired boutique lifestyle public relations firm LFB Media Group and created a research and analytics division. The agency now has more than one hundred employees. In addition, it has brought on several new clients, including W Hotels, Calvin Klein, Samsung SmartThings and Colgate.
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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