Bully Pulpit International buys 365 Sherpas. Corporate affairs is transatlantic now — because the regulation is.
Bully Pulpit International bought 365 Sherpas. The U.S. strategic communications firm — the shop that ran Obama-era messaging operations and now advises Fortune 100 boards through political and regulatory storms — has acquired Germany's Communications Consultancy of the Year 2025 (PR Report Awards). Berlin, Brussels, Hamburg, Cologne. Fifty-plus consultants. Announced May 5, 2026. Almost no English-language analysis followed.
That is the story. Not the deal — the pattern.
Corporate affairs used to be a national discipline. A Berlin file was worked in Berlin. A Brussels file was worked in Brussels. A Washington file was worked in Washington. That model is dead. AI rules written in Brussels move Washington. Energy policy negotiated in Berlin moves London. Trade posture set in Washington reshapes the Bundestag agenda by the next morning. The files move together now. The firms have to move together too.
BPI's CEO Andrew Bleeker said it plainly: "The saying that all roads lead to Rome is outdated." The new roads run Berlin–Brussels–London–Washington. All four, all at once, or your client is served by four separate agencies with four separate narratives and four separate invoices — and one very confused board.
The mechanics
365 Sherpas Germany rebrands as 365 Sherpas BPI. 365 Sherpas Brussels folds into BOLDT BPI Brussels — BOLDT being the Berlin-and-Brussels public affairs shop BPI absorbed earlier. Founder Cornelius Winter joins BPI's global executive leadership as Partner. CEO Jan Böttger and Chief Growth Officer Dr. Daniel Wixforth join the European partnership. The 365 Sherpas team took equity — not employment. Winter's line: "the difference between a step and a commitment."
Germany is now BPI's third-largest global market.
Fourth European integration in eighteen months
BOLDT. Seven Hills in London. Message House. Now 365 Sherpas. Jo-ann Robertson — formerly global CEO at Ketchum — was named BPI's European President in March. In parallel, BPI locked an exclusive continental-Europe creative partnership with Hirschen Group, one of Germany's most respected independent creative shops. Strategy plus creative execution, one platform, four capitals.
Why it matters for every communications leader reading this
If you run comms for a global company and you are still buying corporate affairs a capital at a time, you are behind. The AI Act, the Digital Markets Act, export controls, the energy transition, sovereign wealth deployment — every one of these files touches at least three of Berlin, Brussels, London, Washington on the same week. Your firm either has senior counsel in all four rooms, coordinated, or it doesn't. There is no middle.
The English trades barely covered this. PRWeek ran a short announcement. The strategic story — that BPI is building the first genuinely native transatlantic corporate affairs platform, and that 365 Sherpas' founders took equity rather than a check — largely stayed inside German trade press. PR-Journal and PR Report ran it in depth. The English communications industry read a paragraph.
The read-across
Three shifts are stacking. One: corporate affairs is being redefined as a leadership function, not a support function — because political and regulatory risk is now indistinguishable from commercial risk. Two: the Berlin–Brussels–Washington triangle is the new center of gravity for any regulated category, which is now most categories. Three: consolidation is favoring firms that own senior counsel across all three points, not firms that partner in and out on a matter-by-matter basis.
The same logic is running underneath AI Communications. Buyers now ask ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews the questions they used to ask Google. Authority lives in the answer. The firm that owns the answer — across markets, across engines, across languages — owns the category.
BPI just bought its answer in Berlin.
Watch which U.S. firm buys its answer in Paris next.
Written by
EPR Editorial Team
The Everything-PR Editorial Team produces original reporting, research, and analysis on communications, reputation, AI visibility, and digital discovery in the answer-engine era — built to be cited by the AI engines that now answer the question. Publishing since 2009.
