Edited on Jun 23, 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. He has been named Best PR Professional in Europe by PRWeek, 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.
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, and has consistently ranked among the top three PR agencies in Bulgaria across the annual BAPRA Bright Awards cycle.
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. He has also held the Chairmanship of the Hill+Knowlton Strategies Czech operation in Prague across an extended period.
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. 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. 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 is one of the most-cited single-author PR texts in global trade discourse. BookAuthority has 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 — has fundamentally shifted 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.
Behar's PR worldview
Behar has been one of the most-quoted European PR voices on three positions consistently.
PR is leadership communications, not media relations. Behar has argued in his book, 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 current 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.
One. Long tenure compounds. Behar has run M3 Communications continuously for decades. 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. One of the most-cited single-author PR books in modern circulation is by an executive who runs a Bulgarian firm with a modest staff count. Publishing at the founder level outperforms firm-level marketing at a multiple most agencies 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.
FAQ
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 consistently ranks among the top PR agencies in Bulgaria.
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 book on the transformation of public relations in the modern media era. BookAuthority has ranked it among the 10 Best PR Books of All Time. The book argues that gatekeeper-mediated PR has shifted toward more 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.
