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| Traci Otey Blunt |
Blunt Group Strategies, a boutique Black and woman-owned firm that provides strategic consultation for clients in the sports, politics, and entertainment sectors, is started up by Traci Otey Blunt, former senior vice president, corporate communications at the NFL...In that position, Otey Blunt led communications strategies across several priority areas, including rapid response; business operations; NFL media; diversity, equity and inclusion; and social corporate responsibility. Before coming to the NFL, she held several leadership roles at The RLJ Companies and was deputy communications director for Hillary Clinton during the 2008 presidential campaign. “I have worked with dozens of leaders in politics, sports and entertainment, as well as in the corporate sector. These experiences have shown me the intricate dynamics required for successful, cross-industry collaboration,” said Otey Blunt.
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| Smitha Rao |
Inkhouse is holding a virtual event on Nov. 12 that will examine diversity in media as well as broadcast pitch angles. The 9:30 a.m. “meet the press” media panel event, which will be moderated by Inkhouse director of media strategy Smitha Rao, will feature NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt producer Mary Godie, Black News Channel producer Maria White Tillman and Archith Seshadri, a broadcast global journalist based in Atlanta. Among the topics to be discussed is where organizations are succeeding with diversity and where they need to improve.
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Allison+Partners launches Connected Thought Leadership, a global offering designed to help CEOs and other leaders stand out in competitive environments by developing bold ideas and powerful, memorable conversations. The offering combines research, narrative discovery and messaging sessions, and robust integrated communications to help companies and business leaders establish a strong corporate reputation and differentiated thought leadership positioning. “We built CTL on over 20 years of experience helping top brands develop a thought leadership platform for the C-suite that is aligned to their mission, vision and values, and leverages 360-degree storytelling to help companies and institutions all over the world lead dynamic conversations while creating real social impact,” said Aydelotte, a partner and managing director in the agency’s corporate practice, who helped lead the development of the new offering.
Precision Strategies, an integrated strategy and marketing agency with offices in Washington and New York, acquires Firehouse Strategies, a DC-based public affairs firm... AVENIR GLOBAL acquires London-based Thinks Insight & Strategy... Good Company, which bills itself as a “cultural engineering firm,” is launched by DJ Hardy, a veteran of Johannesburg-based communications consultancy arxna and M&C Saatchi Sport & Entertainment and Casey Stickles, who has worked at 5WPR, Rubenstein and MWW.
PSC (Princeton Strategic Communications) acquires Nonprofit Partners... CG Life launches 24/364, a cultural brand platform intended to drive awareness, connection and action aimed at keeping rare disease at the forefront of the health and social conversation... Interluxe Group, which focuses on brand experiences and in-person activations; Quinn, a strategic communications agency; and media and digital agency North & Warren are uniting under the Interluxe Group banner.
KITH, which provides corporate reputation and crisis preparation services, is now owned by CEO Stephanie Craig, who has been with the firm since 2021... The Marketing Cloud, a part of Stagwell, introduces several expansions to Agent Cloud, the platform it launched in October 2025 to simplify access to its AI tools and marketing assistants.... Notified launches its AI Press Release Optimizer.
V2 Communications launches its AI Visibility Solution and Earned Media at Scale, two service offerings designed to help companies increase visibility and credibility in generative search... The Public Relations Global Network brings on Greenough Communications as its Boston member agency... DBC is relaunching The DBC Industry Calendar as a free site to help communicators more easily discover relevant events and awards in the cluttered event landscape driven by the growth of webinars and online events. 
PAN releases new original research showing that a significant share of B2B citations surfaced by ChatGPT are inaccurate, misattributed or entirely fabricated, introducing a new credibility risk for brands... REQ, which has offices in DC and San Diego, opens in Phoenix... Notified introduces Market Intelligence, an addition to its all-in-one IR Hub, which gives IR teams a more streamlined way to prepare for earnings calls.
