Zach Perles, VP of marketing for the licensor of brands like Juicy Couture and Prince Tennis, and RF|Binder senior managing director Laura Giannatempo have moved to Cohn & Wolfe's consumer practice in New York as senior VPs.
Perles led global marketing and communications for tennis label Prince Sports for five years through its 2012 acquisition by Authentic Brands Group, where he took the VP/marketing title. He earlier worked on the agency side at Ruder Finn, Citizen Relations and Weber Shandwick.
Giannatempo brings a food and beverage focus to C&W and has managed accounts like The Hershey Company and Talenti Gelato & Sorbetto. She is a former associate editor for Fine Cooking Magazine and PR director for sustainable food non-profit GRACE Communications Foundation.
Both execs have seats on the firm's digital leadership team and report to US consumer practice EVP Liz Beck at C&W, which is part of WPP. Beck said the senior hires reflect client work that has expanded to include paid, owned, earned and shared media.
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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