Boston Public Relations: Market Briefing, Leading Firms, and Sector Dynamics

Originally published March 2016. Edited on Jun 26, 2026.

Boston is one of the densest public relations markets in the United States — and one of the least understood from the outside. The work here is weighted heavily toward B2B technology, biotech and life sciences, higher education, healthcare systems, and financial services. Consumer brand is a smaller share of the total than in New York or Los Angeles. The firms profiled below specialize in doing that work from inside the Boston ecosystem.

This briefing is a companion to EPR's ranked hub, The Leading PR Firms in Boston. The hub does the firm-by-firm ranking. This page covers the sector dynamics, the firm landscape, and the brand case studies that shape how Boston communications actually run.

The Sectors That Drive Boston Public Relations

Biotech and life sciences. Cambridge's Kendall Square is one of the densest biotech clusters in the world. Moderna, Biogen, Vertex, Takeda, Alnylam, plus hundreds of mid-stage and emerging biotechs operate from the area. Boston biotech PR is its own discipline, with its own media ecosystem — STAT News, Fierce Biotech, Endpoints — and regulatory communications complexity that most national firms outside Boston don't carry.

B2B technology and SaaS. HubSpot, Wayfair, Toast, DataRobot, DraftKings, Klaviyo, plus a deep bench of mid-stage companies anchor the technology PR market. Boston's B2B tech firms compete with — and often outperform — Silicon Valley counterparts on B2B media work.

Higher education and research. Harvard, MIT, Boston University, Northeastern, Tufts, Boston College — the highest concentration of universities of any U.S. metro. Sustained PR demand around research announcements, institutional reputation, fundraising, and policy positioning.

Healthcare systems. Mass General Brigham, Beth Israel Lahey, Boston Children's Hospital, Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. Among the largest healthcare systems in the country, with sustained communications work across clinical, research, and corporate reputation lines.

Financial services and asset management. Fidelity, State Street, John Hancock/Manulife, MFS, Wellington, Putnam. The Boston financial services ecosystem drives consistent corporate, investor relations, and financial PR work.

Cybersecurity and enterprise IT. A growing share of the market. Several Boston firms now specialize specifically in cyber and enterprise IT communications.

The Leading Boston PR Firms with Full EPR Profiles

EPR's full ranked list of the top Boston firms is on the Boston PR Firms hub. The deeper firm profiles already on file:

• PAN Communications. Founded 1995 by Philip A. Nardone Jr. Five offices — Boston, San Francisco, New York, Orlando, London — with approximately 316 employees globally. Integrated PR, content, digital, and measurement model. Acquired SaaS PR agency BlastMedia. B2B technology and healthcare specialty.
• Racepoint Global. Founded 2004 by Larry Weber. Earned-first B2B technology communications agency. President: Bob Osmond. Operates across technology, healthcare, life sciences, public policy, and consumer brands with global, Europe, and Asia regional accounts.
• V2 Communications. Founded by Maura FitzGerald (former Miami newspaper reporter) and Jean Serra. Six core values: Collaboration, Tenacity, Curiosity, Confidence, Transparency, Realness. B2B tech focus, analytics-driven communications. Released the COVID Media Roadmap report.
• BIG FISH PR. Boutique Boston firm founded 1999, headquartered in Back Bay at 131 Dartmouth Street. Consumer tech, security, sustainability, and travel specialties. Long-running partnerships including Ring (acquired by Amazon) and Iceland Naturally.
• Greenough Communications. Founded 1999 by Phil Greenough. Independent Boston brand marketing and PR firm with 11% revenue growth in 2025. Technology, healthcare, life sciences, semiconductors, clean energy, and the climate transition. Member of the Public Relations Global Network.

What Has Shaped the Boston PR Firm Landscape Since 2022

The Boston firm landscape over the past decade has been shaped by three structural forces:

Independent consolidation. PAN's BlastMedia acquisition is the cleanest recent example — mid-sized Boston independents acquiring specialty agencies to extend service capability rather than build organically. The pattern has shaped the broader independent-PR-firm sector since 2022.

Integrated marketing pressure. The earned-only PR model has receded across Boston. PAN, Matter Communications, Racepoint, and Greenough have all expanded into content, digital, and measurement disciplines. Earned media remains the core. The build-out around it is now table stakes.

Senior-led boutique resilience. BIG FISH PR, V2 Communications, and Greenough have all sustained independent operations through cycles where larger holding companies struggled to retain senior talent. Senior-led account work continues to differentiate the boutique tier from the holding-company alternatives.

Boston Brand and Crisis Communications Cases

Boston is also where some of the more instructive consumer brand and crisis communications cases of the past decade have played out:

• New Balance: How a Privately-Held Boston Sneaker Brand Won the 2020s. $7 billion in global revenue. Domestic manufacturing at scale across five factories in Maine and Massachusetts. Selective collaborations — Aimé Leon Dore, JJJJound, Salehe Bembury, Joe Freshgoods, Bodega. Disciplined athlete roster including Kawhi Leonard and Coco Gauff. The case study in how a Boston operation built a Gen Z cultural moment without an IPO.
• Budweiser, OutVets, and the 2017 Boston Parade. Anheuser-Busch's 48-hour sponsorship threat reversed the South Boston St. Patrick's Day parade's exclusion of OutVets — and now reads inside the longer 15-year Budweiser brand-identity arc through the 2023 Bud Light crisis.

Both cases sit inside the durable record of how Boston brands and Boston-set crises shape national communications practice.

Where to Go from Here

• → The Leading PR Firms in Boston — EPR's ranked hub with the top 10 Boston firms profiled.
• → PR Agency Profiles Directory — full global directory organized by specialty and region.
• → Other regional hubs: New York · New Jersey · Washington DC.