What’s Happening at Hiltzik and Davidson Goldin, Zeno Group, MDC Partners, and Porter Novelli
Glen Beck – Is his show in trouble?
Image courtesy of The Blaze
Beck through his privately-owned company, Mercury Radio Arts, recently filed suit against former associate, Christopher Balfe, who worked with Beck throughout his career with various entities and was fired in 2014 as COO of Mercury and CEO of The Blaze (a subsidiary), though Balfe continues as a minor stakeholder in the company.
Beck’s entities have been going through a lot of personnel changes of late, many of his staff left with Balfe to create a new entity, Red Seat Ventures. Also, Beck’s long-time right-hand people, George Hiltzik – his television agent, and George’s son, Matthew Hiltzik of Hiltzik Strategies– Beck’s outside publicist for Beck and his companies are no longer on the payroll. Instead, Davidson Goldin, who founded Goldin Solutions in 2010, is now representing Beck for all things PR.
Starkey leaves Zeno to join Lyft
Brenda Starkey recently left Zeno Group to sign with Lyft, the New York-based ride-hailing service. She will serve as the Director of consumer communications. At Zeno, she worked in the consumer accounts division as a vice president, where she dealt with clients such as Jockey, Campbell Soup, and Netflix.
MDC Partners had a rough Q2
During 2016’s second fiscal quarter, MDC Partners faced difficult financial challenges. Comparing the first half of 2015 with the first half of this year, net income was down by over $28 million and net losses were up by nearly $20 million, though for the second quarter, the agency’s net revenue was up by 0.1 percent, totaling $337 million for the quarter.
MDC, owns PR firms such as Alison+Partners and Kwittken PR. Scott Kauffman, CEO and chairman of MDC, said that Q2 was a “challenging quarter for our business.
More on Porter Novelli’s Health and Wellness staff additions
Recently we shared the names of three of the eight new employees at PN’s health and wellness division globally. Here is some information on the other five new members of their team. Veronica Barranco took charge of the division in Brazil beginning August 1st – she worked previously at Edelman leading the consumer, health and tourism teams for Brazil. The new VP for the division in Canada is Rachel Crowell, she was at Weber Shandwick previously overseeing many of their pharma and health-related clients.
Also, included are Daniëlle Friskes coming on board as an account director at PN in the Netherlands. She came there from Edelman, where she was an associate director. Olalla Loureiro serves in the Madrid office as an account director, her previous post was with Atrevia working in the healthcare division as a director. The fifth member is Veronica Gonzalez, whose previous jobs include both the Jeffrey Group and Cohn & Wolfe.
