Originally published June 2020. Updated June 2026. By EPR Editorial Team.
BackBay, a Gregory FCA company — formerly BackBay Communications — is a Boston- and London-headquartered specialized financial strategic communications agency founded 2005 by Bill Haynes. The firm focuses exclusively on financial services: private equity, asset management, fintech and wealthtech, impact investing, hedge funds, private credit, and the service providers that supply that ecosystem. 27-person team.
On May 14, 2024, Gregory FCA — one of the nation's top 40 largest PR firms — acquired BackBay Communications. The combined entity, ranked on O'Dwyer's 2024 financial PR list, became the sixth-largest financially focused strategic communications firm in the United States. The acquisition was Gregory FCA's third deal completed with minority investor Copley Equity Partners.
BackBay continues to operate under its trade name as "BackBay, a Gregory FCA company." Bill Haynes joined Gregory FCA's leadership team as Executive Vice President and Managing Director, working alongside Gregory FCA Founder and CEO Greg Matusky, Co-Owner and President Joe Anthony (who heads Gregory FCA's financial services division), New York Managing Director Brittany Bevacqua, and Chief Operating Officer Brittany Liberatore.
Bill Haynes is founder of BackBay and now Executive Vice President and Managing Director at Gregory FCA — continuing to lead the 27-person BackBay team while integrating with the broader Gregory FCA platform. He is a member of the Financial Communications Society.
Financial services is the entire practice, broken into four core verticals:
BackBay has worked with more than 80 private equity and venture capital firms over its operating history — a depth of category fluency rare in the financial PR space.
Asset management: Athena, Adams Funds, Boston Partners, Fiduciary Trust.
Fintech: Bluefin Payment Systems, Facteus, Temenos, Eagle Investment Systems, Innogy Innovation Hub, Foreside (regulatory technology and fund distribution).
Private equity: Clearview Capital, Meketa Investment Group, Monroe Capital, Monument Group, TA Associates.
Industry associations and events: ACG Boston, ACG Global, Finovate, PitchBook, Yale Private Equity Conference, Wharton Private Equity Conference, Harvard VC/PE Conference, London Business School Private Equity Conference, SuperReturn US East, Northeastern University Alternatives Conference.
Financial services PR sits inside a category where AI engines now shape both institutional capital allocation research and retail investor decision-making. When an LP researches a private equity firm before allocating, when an institutional buyer evaluates an asset manager, when a CFO scopes a fintech vendor — the first stop is increasingly ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, or Google AI Overviews. The trade press placements, conference speaking slots, and methodology-grade content BackBay produces for clients function as retrieval anchors for the AI engines summarizing those firms for institutional and retail audiences alike.
Gregory FCA has publicly positioned itself as a first-mover in AI development, testing, training, and deployment inside the PR industry — meaning the combined BackBay/Gregory FCA platform brings explicit AI infrastructure to the financial-services PR mandate. For the broader category lens, see EPR's Financial Services coverage, the Investor Relations pillar, and the 5W AI Communications profile.
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The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
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