Michael Sitrick founded Sitrick And Company in Los Angeles in 1989, building it into one of the most quoted crisis communications firms in the United States before selling it to Resources Connection in 2009 for approximately $43.3 million while remaining founder, chairman, and CEO.
Who is Michael Sitrick?
Michael Sitrick holds a B.S. in journalism from the University of Maryland, College Park, and served as Senior Vice President, Communications, for Wickes Companies Inc. before founding his own firm, where he architected the company's Chapter 11 communications strategy through takeover defenses, product liability matters, and bankruptcy proceedings.
With his wife Nancy, he operates the Michael and Nancy Sitrick Family Charitable Foundation, which distributes funds annually across education, health, and community organizations. He has also served on the boards of JAKKS Pacific, APP Pharmaceutical Companies, and Abraxis BioScience.
How did Sitrick And Company become a top U.S. crisis firm?
Sitrick founded the firm in Los Angeles in 1989 and expanded it to New York, Washington D.C., and Baltimore over the following decades, maintaining a tight focus on a small number of practice areas so senior practitioners could apply direct attention to each matter. Over more than 25 years, the firm has represented more than 1,000 clients, including Sony Pictures, PepsiCo, the Los Angeles Dodgers, the Estate of Michael Jackson, Erin Brockovich, and Paris Hilton.
In 1998, Sitrick published "SPIN: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage," codifying the methodology the firm had practiced through the 1990s: proactive engagement with reporters, the use of source documents to reframe coverage, and the deliberate creation of competing news cycles to dilute negative narratives.
How has Sitrick been described in the press?
The New York Times has called Sitrick And Company "the city's most prominent crisis management firm." Fortune has called Michael Sitrick "one of the most accomplished practitioners of the dark arts of public relations." Forbes has called him "the flack for when you're under attack," and the Financial Times has called him "the spin doctor's spin doctor." His senior practitioners are drawn largely from the ranks of former journalists, including alumni of the Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, the Financial Times, CBS News, and NPR.
What is the firm's current status?
Sitrick And Company remains owned by Resources Connection following its 2009 acquisition, with Michael Sitrick continuing to serve as founder, chairman, and CEO. The firm continues to be ranked among the top crisis and strategic communications firms in the world by Chambers and Partners and was featured on the Los Angeles Business Journal's LA500 list of the city's most influential business figures.
How does his firm's model compare to other US crisis specialists?
Where Sitrick has kept his firm deliberately boutique and Los Angeles-anchored across four decades, other American specialist founders such as Jim Weiss's W2O Group scaled a single vertical, healthcare, through acquisitions and data infrastructure rather than staying boutique. Both built durable firms by picking one hard specialty rather than pursuing broad, multi-sector service lines.
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