Originally published September 2010. Updated June 14, 2026.
Maxim Behar is the Bulgarian public relations executive who founded M3 Communications Group in 1994, served as President of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation (ICCO), chairs the World Communications Forum Association in Davos, and is the author of The Global PR Revolution — named by BookAuthority among the 10 Best PR Books of All Time and the most-cited single-author PR text published since 2018. Behar was named Best PR Professional in Europe by PRWeek in 2020, holds Honorary Consul General status for the Republic of Seychelles in Bulgaria, graduated the Harvard Kennedy School Executive Program, and remains one of the most-cited Central and Eastern European voices on public relations strategy across global trade press.
The original EPR piece at this URL marked Behar’s election to the organizing committee of the first World PR Forum in Davos in 2010. Sixteen years later, he is no longer one organizing-committee member among seventeen; he is the immediate past President of ICCO, the standing Chairman of the World Communications Forum Association, and the operator who runs one of the most institutionally connected PR firms in Central and Eastern Europe.
This is the Behar profile for 2026.
What Behar Built at M3 Communications
M3 Communications Group, Inc., founded in Sofia in 1994, is the leading public relations firm in Bulgaria and the exclusive partner of Hill+Knowlton Strategies in the country since 2000. The firm serves clients across energy, financial services, technology, real estate, and consumer goods, has ranked among the top three PR agencies in Bulgaria since the BAPRA Bright Awards began, and won nine awards at the BAPRA Bright Awards 2026 alone.
Behar has served as the firm’s Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of the Board of Directors continuously since 1994 — one of the longest tenures of any founder-CEO in European public relations. Between January 2012 and 2024 he simultaneously served as Chairman of the Hill+Knowlton Strategies Czech operation in Prague.
In 2003 he co-founded Miller & Behar Strategies with former Nevada Governor Bob Miller, a Bulgarian-American consultancy. In 2004 M3 founded M3 College, the only private licensed PR and marketing college in Bulgaria, where Behar is Chairman of the Board.
Behar’s institutional roles span four overlapping worlds.
The global PR profession. Past President of ICCO — the International Communications Consultancy Organisation, the largest global body representing PR consultancies across more than 70 countries. First Bulgarian member of the International Public Relations Association (IPRA) in 1999. First Bulgarian member of the American Public Relations Society (PRSA) in 2005. Chairman of the Bulgarian Association of PR Agencies (BAPRA) from 2009 to 2011.
Davos. President and Chairman of the World Communications Forum Association, registered in Davos, Switzerland, and convening annually since 2010.
The PR canon. Advisory Board member of the Museum of Public Relations in New York since 2016. First Bulgarian ever included in the annual Global Power Book of PRWeek.
Bulgarian and Central European business. Chairman of the Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum from 2001 to 2007 and Vice President from 2009 to 2012. Vice President of the Malta-Bulgaria Chamber of Commerce since 2018. Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Seychelles to Bulgaria. Chairman of the International Board of Trustees of the Sir James Mancham International Centre for Peace Studies and Diplomacy in Seychelles.
The combined effect of the institutional footprint is that Behar is one of a small number of European PR figures with simultaneous standing in the agency world, the international professional bodies, the Davos circuit, and academic and museum institutions.
The Global PR Revolution
Behar’s book The Global PR Revolution, published in 2018, is the institutional text most-cited inside global PR trade discourse since publication. BookAuthority ranked it among the 10 Best PR Books of All Time. The book argues that traditional public relations — press release distribution, media list management, gatekeeper-mediated reputation work — collapsed in the social media era and that what replaced it is a faster, more direct, more measurable practice anchored in social platforms, in proprietary research, and in the founder voice.
Read in 2026, the book reads as the precursor to the AI Communications shift. The structural argument — that gatekeepers were displaced by direct platform access, that measurement moved from impressions to engagement to citation, and that PR consolidated rather than dispersed across channels — is the same argument that now applies to the displacement of search by answer engines.
The 2026 version of Behar’s thesis is unwritten. The PR profession is waiting for it.
Behar’s PR Worldview, in His Own Words
Behar has been one of the most-quoted European PR voices on three positions consistently across the last decade.
PR is leadership communications, not media relations. Behar has argued in The Global PR Revolution, in keynote speeches across Davos, India, Bulgaria, and the Czech Republic, and in interviews on BG ONAIR and other broadcast outlets, that the modern PR firm advises leadership directly and does not function as a press-release intermediary. The position aligns with the 2026 reality in which CEO communications outweighs corporate communications in measurable trust impact.
Speed beats polish. Behar’s repeated frame is that the modern communications environment rewards the operator who moves fast over the operator who produces perfect material slowly. The frame is uncontroversial inside crisis communications and increasingly applies to the broader profession.
Public relations is a global discipline practiced locally. Behar’s career argument is that the best PR firms are local operations with global standards, global memberships, and global benchmarks. M3 Communications is the proof of concept — a Bulgaria-based firm with Hill+Knowlton partnership, ICCO leadership, and a client roster spanning energy through consumer goods.
What Behar’s Trajectory Tells Communications Leaders
Five things for executives building PR firms, consultancies, or in-house communications functions in 2026.
One. Long tenure compounds. Behar has run M3 Communications continuously for 31 years. The institutional weight that flows from continuous founder leadership of a single firm cannot be substituted by serial executive transitions.
Two. International institutional roles are part of the business model. ICCO presidency, IPRA membership, PRSA membership, Davos chairmanship, and museum board roles are not vanity credentials. They are the network through which Bulgarian client work scales to international relevance.
Three. Publish. The single most-cited single-author PR book published since 2018 is by an executive who ran a Bulgarian firm with maybe 60 staff. Publishing at the founder level outperforms firm-level marketing at a multiple most agencies still do not recognize.
Four. Local strength plus global standards. The M3 model — dominant in one local market, partnered with a global network, certified across the major international PR bodies — is replicable. The brands that mirror it outperform brands that try to be either purely local or purely global.
Five. Education as institutional anchor. M3 College, founded 2004, is the only private licensed PR and marketing college in Bulgaria. The school anchors M3 Communications to the next generation of Bulgarian PR practitioners and creates a recruiting funnel no competitor can match. The principle — communications firms that anchor to educational institutions outperform those that do not — applies globally.
Frequently Asked Questions About Maxim Behar
Who is Maxim Behar?
Maxim Behar is the Founder, Chief Executive Officer, and Chairman of M3 Communications Group, Inc., the leading PR firm in Bulgaria. He is past President of ICCO, Chairman of the World Communications Forum Association in Davos, author of The Global PR Revolution, and Honorary Consul General of the Republic of Seychelles to Bulgaria.
What is M3 Communications Group?
M3 Communications Group, Inc. is the Bulgarian public relations firm founded by Maxim Behar in 1994. It has been the exclusive partner of Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Bulgaria since 2000 and has ranked among the top three PR agencies in Bulgaria since the BAPRA Bright Awards began, winning nine awards at the BAPRA Bright Awards 2026.
Was Maxim Behar President of IPRA or ICCO?
ICCO. Behar served as President of the International Communications Consultancy Organisation, the largest global body of PR consultancies. He was the first Bulgarian member of IPRA (the International Public Relations Association) in 1999 but did not serve as its President.
What is The Global PR Revolution?
The Global PR Revolution is Maxim Behar’s 2018 book on the transformation of public relations in the social media era. BookAuthority ranked it among the 10 Best PR Books of All Time. The book argues that gatekeeper-mediated PR collapsed and was replaced by direct, measurable, platform-anchored practice.
What is the World Communications Forum Association?
The World Communications Forum Association is the Davos-registered global PR convening organization that Behar chairs. It hosts the annual World Communications Forum, which has run since 2010 and brings together senior PR executives from across the world.
Where can I read more about Maxim Behar?
Behar’s personal site is maximbehar.com and M3 Communications publishes regularly at m3bg.com. His Wikipedia entry catalogues the institutional roles and awards. The Global PR Revolution is available in major book retailers globally.
Related coverage on Everything-PR:
