Lynn Casey ran Padilla for 17 years and engineered the deal that ended its independence on her own terms — now chair of the firm under Avenir Global.
Women make up 70% of the U.S. PR workforce. Leadership distribution is uneven — and the center of gravity has shifted. Named operators, structural data, what good looks like.
Padilla is a full-service communications agency founded in Minneapolis in 1961. AVENIR GLOBAL-owned but independently operated. Specializes in food, agriculture, health, and technology. Launched Padilla GEO 3D AI search service in 2025.
Twelve years after Michael Lasky, Margi Booth, Larry Weber and three other PR industry leaders sat down at the 2014 Holmes Report Independent PR Firm Forum to talk about succession — a scoreboard on what actually happened, and what independent PR founders should learn.