Last night, Fleishman-Hillard welcomed former New York Times Company CEO Janet Robinson to its International Advisory Board with a cocktail party at Andaz, a hotel across from the New York Public Library. Besides a few quick speeches from CEO Dave Senay, Americas president Jack Modzelewski (surprisingly easy to pronounce!), and Robinson herself, the evening was mostly taken up with mingling and noshing.

A quick mention about this event space: It’s a couple of open rooms with cooks working at stoves placed right in the middle of one of them. Because of the layout (a wine bar was in one room and cocktails were in the other) people moved about freely to check out the happenings in the different corners. Mediabistro’s event coordinator came with and gave it the thumbs up.

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Fleishman-Hillard has launched The Alfred Fleishman Diversity Fellowships, a career-entry program focused on recruiting minority college students. Named after one of the firm’s founders, the program will offer selected students mentoring, professional development aid, and a job opportunities with the firm.

To start, the firm’s offices in the following cities will be participating: Atlanta, Dallas, Chicago, New York, St. Louis, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. Recruiting will begin Q1 of this year and students will be selected for six- or 12-month paid fellowships, with benefits.

For more info about the program, click here.

Steve Hardwick

Steve Hardwick, president of Fleishman-Hillard‘s eastern region and GM of its New York office, is no longer with the company. He joined the firm last year from ad agency Grey Group. Besides these two titles, he also served on the firm’s Senior Management Committee, which handles the strategic direction of the firm.

PRNewser has received the following statement from F-H’s Jack Modzelewski, president of the Americas:

Steve Hardwick is no longer with Fleishman-Hillard.  For the immediate future, his duties as regional president for New York, Boston and Cleveland, and as general manager of New York, have been assumed by Jack Modzelewski, president of the Americas.   We have strong management teams in place in these offices, and we will continue to deliver the high level of service that our clients expect from Fleishman-Hillard.

Fleishman-Hillard has beefed up its investor relations and research offerings in Asia with a new team that builds on their financial comms and financial service public affairs practices.

Ruby Yim will lead this expanded Global Capital Markets Services group based in Hong Kong and serve as the global co-chair of the team. She was previously managing partner at Taylor Rafferty and served as GM at Thomson Financial Investor Relations in  the Asia-Pacific region. She will have three other experienced practitioners working with her. The group will have four teams to deal with client issues, working with regional F-H teams.

F-H launched a China practice in September.

Fleishman-Hillard has named Richard Dale the firm’s SVP, senior partner, and director of strategic account planning for North America, a new position. In this role, he’ll work with leaders across the region — GMs, regional presidents, practice leaders, etc — to develop a strategic planning process for clients that will enhance program integration.

Dale joins from Leo Burnett, where he spent the last six years in Asia, first as director of strategic and engagement planning, then as chief planning officer of Leo Burnett Group China. He’ll now be based in New York reporting to Steve Hardwick, eastern region president, and Jack Modzelewski, president of the Americas.

In an email from Modzelewski, he tells us that Dale will be working with client relationship managers on “customized planning models depending on the needs and aspirations of each client” and will put his services to use for business development purposes.

Fleishman-Hillard has launched a global China practice, which will help Chinese companies looking to build business internationally with financial communications services, brand awareness building, CSR initiatives, and other outreach. According to the release announcing the new practice, F-H’s business in China has grown 250 percent in the past five years.

The practice was introduced during the World Economic Forum, currently taking place in China through tomorrow. Serge Dumont, vice chairman of Omnicom Group, said during his comments that there are now 40 Omnicom agencies operating across various marcomm areas in China.

Separately but sort of related, F-H has also entered into a partnership with American and European universities including Stanford University for a China Masters Exchange Program that will work with Chinese students seeking communications careers. Students will receive scholarships and the opportunity to work in F-H offices in Europe and the U.S. for a year before working at Fleishman-Hillard in China.

Jack Modzelewski

Fleishman-Hillard has announced eight senior promotions including a couple of moves into newly-created positions.

Jack Modzelewski has been named the firm’s president of the Americas, a job created to collaborate with firm presidents across Canada, the U.S., and Latin America to ensure growth and consistency. Modzelewski joined F-H in 1990 as founding GM of the firm’s Chicago operation.

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Fleishman-Hillard has four new EVPs.

Jonella Donius, senior partner and chief information officer, joined the firm in 1984 and has worked her way through a number of positions at the firm.

Dick Mullinax, senior partner and GM of the Dallas office has been with the firm for 12 years and became GM in 2002.

Shawn Ramsey, senior partner and lead on the AT&T business, started at F-H in 1990 in Sacramento and has moved to a few others around the country during her time with the firm.

And Joanne Wong, a senior partner and MD of client service for Asia-Pacific, has been with the firm since 2000. The firm has doubled in size since 2007 and continues to build in the financial comms and public affairs space in the region.

Times have changed since the days of 'Mad Men.'

With Women’s History Month rolling along, we took a few minutes to speak with Susan Veidt, regional president and GM of Fleishman-Hillard‘s St. Louis office. F-H recently appeared on the list of “Top 50 Companies for Executive Women” compiled by the National Association for Female Executives. Veidt leads the firm’s largest office/HQ in St. Louis and manages the company’s central region, which includes offices in Chicago and Kansas City.

We discussed the strides that women are making in the industry, and the places yet to go. On the issue of pay, which we previously discussed with Professor Bey-Ling Sha from San Diego State University,  Veidt says that the way women communicate is one hurdle.

“Women don’t advocate as aggressively or negotiate as strongly, so I think that might be one reason why the disparity exists,” she told us.

Click through for more of our discussion on women and the PR profession.

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Fleishman-Hillard has made the National Association for Female Executives‘ (NAFE) list of “Top 50 Companies for Executive Women.” Others on the list include Aetna, Johnson & Johnson, IBM, and Wal-Mart. Among those on the list for top non-profits for executive women are the March of Dimes Foundation and the Moffitt Cancer Center.

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