Karen Hinton, former press secretary to New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, has joined Fenton as chief strategy officer and managing director of that progressive PR shop’s New York office.

Karen HintonKaren Hinton
Hinton was appointed de Blasio’s press secretary in 2015, succeeding Phil Walzak, who shifted to a senior aide position on the mayor’s team. Hinton left that post in June after a year of service.

Hinton was previously acting assistant secretary for public affairs at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development during the Clinton administration, which was then headed by now NY Governor Andrew Cuomo, and was also formerly president of PR firm Hinton Communications, which handled the multi-billion-dollar human rights legal battle against Chevron for its alleged contamination of Ecuador’s Amazon region. Hinton Comms., which had offices in Washington, D.C. and New York, in 2013 merged with Omnicom’s Mercury/Clark & Weinstock operation, where Hinton assumed the title of managing director.

Hinton began her career as a reporter at the Jackson Daily News and was later an aide to Rep. and agriculture secretary Mike Espy (D-MS).

In a statement, Hinton said “no other public relations firm in the country offers the range of progressive issues to promote than Fenton.”

“Social change” agency Fenton, which has conducted advocacy campaign work for MoveOn.org and Greenpeace, holds offices in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Washington, D.C. It was acquired last year by holding group Collegium.