Schumacher Ciardiello Takes Over PN’s NYC Office

Porter Novelli has shored up the talent at its New York city office with the naming of Julie Schumacher Ciardiello as New York managing director, Peter Dibart as creative director and Bruce Ginsberg as senior VP, business development.

Schumacher Ciardiello had been with Ketchum since 2007, leading the New York office’s food and wellness practice before rising to co-director of the North American food and beverage practice in 2014. She’ll now head strategy for PN’s practice areas including consumer, technology, health and wellness, food and corporate communications.

Previous NYC managing director Erin Osher has relocated to PN’s Seattle office.

“This is a great example of talent mobility across Omnicom Public Relations Group agencies, and it is only made possible through close collaboration,” Karen van Bergen, CEO, Omnicom Public Relations Group, said.

Peter DiBart comes over from Max Borges Agency and will head PN’s North American creative team. He had joined Max Borges earlier this year as creative director at the Miami-based firm’s first office in New York city. Experience includes work for Ben and Jerry’s and American Heart Association’s Go Red for Women.

Bruce Ginsberg brings 20 years of experience to PN’s New York office and will lead new business development efforts.

Omnicom Public Relations Group integrates the capabilities of OMC global subsidiary agencies FleishmanHillard, Ketchum and Porter Novelli, as well as PR agencies CLS Strategies, Cone, gplus, Marina Maher Communications, Mercury, Paul Wilmot Communication and Portland, representing more than 6,000 employees.

Agencies within the Omnicom Public Relations Group are independent brands and businesses, and operate under Omnicom marketing services division The DAS Group of Companies.

Third quarter PR revenue at Omnicom rose 4.4% to 347.6M over a year earlier, the holding company reported in Oct. This organic growth is good news compared to essentially flat growth in the second quarter of this year.

Overall revenue for the quarter almost reached $3.8B, up 2.3% over the same period of 2015, fueled in part by an increase in revenue from organic growth of 3.2%.