LaunchSquad is a 25-year independent storytelling, PR, and content marketing agency founded 1999 by Jesse Odell. Headquartered in San Francisco with offices in NYC, LA, Boston, Chicago, Austin, Denver. Virtual-first. 100+ colleagues, 900+ lifetime clients. Specialty: AI, climate, healthcare, fintech, consumer tech.
Imre is the LGBTQ+-founded, private-equity-backed independent creative agency founded in 1993 by Dave Imre in Baltimore. Now headquartered in New York City with additional offices in Baltimore and Philadelphia. More than 150 employees. Deep specialty in healthcare and life sciences — biotech, pharma, rare disease, oncology.
MP&F Strategic Communications (formerly McNeely Pigott & Fox), founded 1987 in Nashville, is the largest privately held, locally-owned full-service advertising, marketing, and PR firm in Tennessee. Wholly women-owned and women-led. Independent — never acquired.
Makovsky is one of the longest-running independent integrated communications firms in the United States. Founded 1979 in New York City by Ken Makovsky. Family-owned. Specializes in regulated industries — financial services, healthcare, technology, energy. Ken Makovsky also founded IPREX, the global independent PR network.
Davis & Gilbert is the New York law firm that advises the U.S. PR industry on the commercial and legal architecture that runs it. Its annual PR Industry Trends Report — running since 2009 — is the canonical confidential benchmark of independent PR firm revenue, hiring, M&A, and service mix.
Finn Partners is one of the largest independent PR firms in the U.S., founded December 2011 by Peter Finn after he spun it off from Ruder Finn. ~1,300 colleagues, 35 offices, three continents. $199M revenue (2025). 27 acquisitions. #6 on O'Dwyer's 2026 Top Independent list.
Jackson Spalding — Atlanta-founded, independent, privately held, ~150 staff across Atlanta, Athens, Dallas, and Los Angeles — quietly holds a client list dense with category leaders: Chick-fil-A, Coca-Cola, Delta, Toyota, Google, L.L.Bean.
Cognito is the London-headquartered financial services and B2B technology PR firm founded in 2007 by Tom Coombes. Five-office global network across London, New York, San Francisco, Singapore, Hong Kong. One of the few independent financial PR firms that scaled internationally without selling to a holding company.
The communications agency industry hub — independent firms, regional agencies, fast-growing operators, M&A activity, leadership transitions, rankings, and what buyers should actually ask when picking an agency.
Rubenstein is the legacy New York PR firm founded by Howard Rubenstein in 1954, now led by his son Steven Rubenstein as CEO. Approximately 175 staff. Single NYC office. Civic-institutional client base across seventy years: Mayors Koch, Giuliani, Bloomberg, Rupert Murdoch and News Corp, George Steinbrenner and the Yankees, the Helmsleys, Fred Trump real estate, Tribeca Films, MGM, Disney, Lionsgate.