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| Ken Scudder |
Ken Scudder Training & Consulting is moving from Philadelphia to the Washington, DC metro area. The firm, which offers media, presentation, and crisis training and consulting, along with writing and editing services, will set up shop in DC in September. In 1990, Scudder co-founded media training firm Virgil Scudder & Associates. Prior to starting his own practice, he was the communications director for Reps. Alan Grayson (D-FL) and Mike Honda (D-CA) and the minority staff of the U.S. Joint Economic Committee. He has trained business leaders, politicians, heads of not-for-profits, and “regular folks” to handle media interviews, speeches, hearings, one-on-one meetings, crises, and other forms of interpersonal communication. “My business truly is nationwide,” Scudder said, “so I will still be able to work with my clients at their location or mine after this move.”
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Leon Communications, a strategic communications consultancy focused on the financial and professional services sectors and fintech in the Asia Pacific region, is launched by Tim Williamson, who was most recently managing director, Asia Pacific at Singapore-based Telum Media. Williamson previously worked at the BBC, Bloomberg and Brunswick, was APAC managing director at Cognito Media and led the financial services practice for strategic consultancy WATATAWA. Leon Communications will offer corporate communications services that include strategy and messaging, reputation management, media relations, integrated communications and media training. The agency will be headquartered in Singapore and will be supported by a network of senior independent communications experts and partners in APAC and globally.
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Vendilli Digital Group acquires inbound marketing agency Horseshoe & Co. Horseshoe & Co.’s four agency team members, including founder and CEO Andrea Moxham, will join Vendilli Digital Group. Horseshoe clients who will now be served by Vendilli include software firm Trainual; CAPA: The Global Education Network, which assists institutions of higher education in building programs to meet their goals for learning abroad; and POWER Engineers, an employee-owned engineering, and environmental consulting firm. Vendilli founder and CEO Chirs Vendillin said that the acquisition “enables us to expand our capacity and capabilities for both new and existing clients who are interested in the HubSpot CRM, website CMS, or marketing automation tools."
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.
