PR in the News: New Top Level Hires for ICR & Edelman
Communications leaders ICR, and Edelman started the new year with a bang. Both agencies recently added to their in-house teams, bringing in new faces, skills, and experience. ICR appointed advisors to join real financial industry knowledge with communications. And Edelman finally filled the long-watched spot once held by police-detained executive, Steven Cao.
Here are the details about these shifts in the communications world.
ICR PR Creates an Advisory Board
ICR, a leading investor relations firm headquartered in New York just announced the formation of an advisory board. ICR appointed two founding members; Rob Sharp, and Joseph B. Kennedy, with more to be added over time. The board’s main purpose involves advising the agency on key decisions affecting areas such as staffing, investing, and the services offered to clients.
CEO, Tom Ryan, explained, “[t]he establishment of this advisory board along with these two initial appointments, demonstrates our commitment to being the go-to firm for companies looking for a partner to develop communications programs and transaction advisory services tailored to achieving business goals and building enterprise value.”
Sharp co-founded and runs Ramy Brook, in New York. Before starting the high-end, women’s fashion company, he worked as a senior partner at MidOcean Partners, and a partner at Investcorp. He also gained experience in the banking and finance field while working at Bankers Trust, and Drexel Burnham Lambert.
Kennedy founded Crystal Lake Capital, where he serves as a managing partner. And like Sharp, he gained experience in the banking and finance industry in earlier years. Sharp worked as a partner at Moelis & Company, Chemical Banking Corporation, Wachovia, Bank of America, and Merrill Lynch.
Combined, Sharp and Kennedy present a united force with decades of valuable experience that ICR can put to use offering better service to its clients.
Jeffrey Yu Now Heading Edelman’s Operations in China
Meanwhile in China, the Richard Edelman fronted PR Firm, Edelman also made some changes to the company line-up. After Steven Cao’s suspicious departure from Edelman’s China operations in 2014, many wondered who would replace him. The CEO disappeared during investigations at the time. Prompting managers at Edelman to admit they had no idea where their prized employee had gone.
After roughly a year, Edelman finally appointed Adman Jeffrey Yu to fill the position. Yu’s previous experience in the business world includes running Bates in Asia before it became Bates CHI & Partners. He also founded his own advertising company, RMConnect. To complement this experience, he held a senior management position at Publicis Greater China.
These connections make Yu the second advertising expert to join Edelman in the past year. But Edelman reports that hiring marketing people comes from a need for hiring executives with experience working in – and running – a big corporation, not for ad execs.
Whatever the reason, Edelman follows in the footsteps of many other PR companies seeing the value of capitalizing on the experience of their marketing brothers. Not only does this help to keep ideas fresh, but it ensures the company features a truly diverse staff in discipline and experience.
