Porter Novelli announced that Jesse Soleil has joined the New York office as senior vice president, digital. In his role he will be responsible for designing cross-platform digital experiences for clients across all practices. For the past four years, Soleil was CEO of Massiverse LLC, a boutique media entertainment company, which he founded to create cross-platform entertainment for kids. With Massiverse, Soleil created new original and intellectual properties, including Dragons Vs Robots, as well as new technology, marketing and business models integrating social media, games, toys, traditional media (TV), Webisodes, publishing, mobile apps and a Near Field Communication platform. Before that, he spent nearly eight years with Scholastic, Inc., most recently as vice president, emerging media and technology. (release)

Lauren Miller joined Bully Pulpit Interactive as a senior director. Many may recognize Lauren from her work on the Elizabeth Warren for Senate campaign, where she was the new media director. Over the past five political cycles, Lauren has defined how campaigns can use the internet to raise money and win elections. Lauren will advise Bully Pulpit’s political clients, and she will help BPI establish itself not just as the largest digital marketer of the Democratic party and brand, but as a premier full service digital firm. Her hire complements BPI’s other additions over the past month, which include: Will Johnson, the new senior director for strategic services who joined the team from Change.org and Madeleine Perry, the former digital director for Sen. Sherrod Brown, a new deputy director. (Release)

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We generally don’t think too much of “we got a new office” press releases unless that office happens to be ours, but we have to say Lambert, Edwards & Associates of Detroit chose a creative way of publicizing its recent move with this time-lapse video, which doubles as a love letter to the city:

And someone earned a mention on The Huffington Post too…

Over the past few months we’ve published a couple of posts indicating that publishing giant Condé Nast is adopting a new approach to PR and communications. Today we bring you more evidence of that fact via our sister site FishbowlNY: after parting ways with publicist Maurie Perl and shaking up its internal communications team, Condé Nast just named longtime Vogue editor Anna Wintour as its new “artistic director”–a role created just for her. Company CEO Charles Townsend explains:

The establishment of an artistic director is a reflection of our commitment to preserve and champion all that exists ‘Only at Condé Nast.’ In today’s business environment, it is critical to promote and foster our established creative authority. This is the ideal time to leverage Anna’s extraordinary vision and leadership to amplify and elevate the profile of Condé Nast U.S. both domestically and abroad. Anna is an icon in the worlds of fashion, business and the arts, she has the foresight and wisdom to influence the major trends of our society and is respected globally as an accomplished businesswoman.

So she’s going to use her famous name and face to promote the brand and its products via the power of association? Sounds a lot like a celebrity spokesperson to us. Apologies to Beyoncé, Justin Timberlake, Will.I.Am., Alicia Keys, etc.: this whole “big-name creative director” trend may be much simpler than we thought.

One of the initial founding members of Primary Wave Music, Justin Shukat, has been appointed to president of Primary Wave Music Publishing. Shukat has been working in the music industry for over 18 years, and since 2006 he has focused on developing and diversifying the company’s publishing division following its purchase of the Kurt Cobain catalog and others. Shukat will also continue to hold his original role as general manager of Primary Wave Music, working to promote the company’s current roster of songwriters and producers, connecting management with other top creatives in the industry, and managing all areas of Primary Wave’s synch exploitation. (Release)

Julie Livingston joined CarrotNewYork as senior director of client development. In her new position, Livingston will expand the agency’s corporate client roster, which currently includes Colgate Palmolive, Reckitt Benckiser/Lysol brand, Softsoap, and VISA. She will report to Jane Meyer, senior vice president, Client Development. Most recently, Livingston was director, Business Development and Accounts at Child’s Play Communications, a boutique public relations agency that specializes in connecting companies with moms. Prior to her work at Child’s Play, she was senior director of PR for the Toy Industry Association a trade group representing North American toy makers. (Release)

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Carter Murray will take over as CEO of New York communications agency Draftfcb Worldwide. Murray, who will work out of the agency’s NYC headquarters, joins DFCB after spending a year-plus as president/CEO of Y&R North America. During his career, Murray spent four years as CMO/worldwide account director on Nestle while at Publicis, where he also served as a member of said agency’s executive committee. Though the transition is now underway, Murray’s official start state is still to be determined. Meanwhile, Y&R has welcomed former VML CEO Matt Anthony as its new North American chief exec. (AgencySpy)

JMPR, a lifestyle and transportation firm based in Los Angeles, has hired a new account executive to expand upon its automotive lifestyle team. Ashley Anderson joins the firm after working at Finn Partners, a Ruder Finn company, where she specialized in automotive accounts in addition to serving clients in the customer, healthcare and nonprofit sectors. In her new role, Anderson will work with existing automotive clients like Infiniti while seeking new business for the firm. (Release)

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Edelman PR has named Julianna Richter chief operating officer for Edelman U.S. effective March 25. In this role, Richter, a 13-year veteran of Edelman, will have management and operational responsibility for the West Coast, Southeast and Southwest regions and establish a U.S.-wide knowledge management system. She will report to Mark Hass, president and CEO of Edelman U.S. Richter was previously head of the firm’s Global Client Relationship Management (GCRM) program, which will now be led by Lisa Sepulveda, also effective March 25. (Release)

Weber Shandwick promoted Tara Murphy to the new role of executive vice president for strategy in the New England region. Based in Boston, Murphy will continue leading the healthcare practice, and will also bring her expertise as a strategist to clients across industries. Additionally, Murphy is co-leading a Healthcare Reform Team to help clients navigate the dramatic changes that are reshaping healthcare. A seven-year veteran of Weber Shandwick, Murphy joined the firm with more than 15 years of experience in broadcast journalism and politics. She held a number of senior editorial positions at WBUR National Public Radio in Boston, including senior producer for the award-winning NPR talk show The Connection, and managing editor for the national news magazine Here and Now. (Release)

Antenna Group announced it has appointed Anna Cahill Leonard as president.

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Edelman announced that Kathryn Kranhold will join the group as executive vice president in the Los Angeles office, effective March 1. In her new role, Kranhold will drive reputation and crisis management and financial and investor relations, reporting directly to general manager James Williams. Most recently, Kranhold consulted with Brunswick Group, advising and managing crisis, litigation and corporate reputation programs. Prior to that, she was senior vice president of corporate communications at Walt Disney Company, where she worked closely with the investor relations and legal teams to develop effective communications strategies. (Release)

Meredith Corporation announced today that Stan Pavlovsky has been named SVP, Meredith National Media Group and president of Allrecipes.com, the world’s No. 1 digital food brand. Pavlovsky will replace Lisa Sharples , who is leaving Allrecipes.com at the end of March to pursue personal interests. Pavlovsky will be responsible for leading Allrecipes.com’s marketing, business and international development, as well as working with Meredith’s other key business units to enhance and maximize the brand’s leading position in the marketplace. He had been VP of ecommerce at Drugstore.com. (Release)

RLM Finsbury, a global strategic communications and advisory agency, announced that Scott Hoeflich has joined the firm as senior vice president. Hoeflich, who formerly served as chief of staff and communications director for the late Senator Arlen Specter, will work from the firm’s Washington, D.C. office on strategic communications and public affairs with partners Eric Pave, a longtime public policy strategist, and former New York Times journalist Stephen Labaton. (Release)

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Edelman PR announced the promotion of Steve Rubel to the position of chief content strategist. Rubel, who is a prominent blogger and guest columnist for Ad Age and other publications, previously served as executive vice president for global strategy and insights. His primary responsibility in this new role will be maximizing the value of clients’ content in all forms of media: earned, paid, owned and shared. He will report to Jackie Cooper, whose recent promotion to global chair of creative strategy marked a shift toward a more actively engaged PR model. Rubel’s inaugural blog post explores his thoughts on the art of content creation as a perpetual work in progress. (The New York Times)

Hill+Knowlton Strategies announced that Ron Eagle has been appointed senior vice president for entertainment and technology, effective Monday, Feb. 25, 2013. In this role, Eagle will be responsible for providing strategic counsel and oversight to H+K Strategies entertainment and technology clients, as well as building and strengthening client relationships throughout the Los Angeles market. He will report to Bill Coletti, general manager for Hill+Knowlton Strategies Los Angeles. Eagle has more than 17 years of experience and previously served as director of product publicity and PlayStation Network for Sony Computer Entertainment America (Release)

Rubenstein Public Relations added two new senior members to its team. This week Richard Rubenstein announced the addition of Aurora Kessler, who returns to the agency in the new role of managing director, and Ann Hinshaw, who will serve as vice president overseeing the firm’s entertainment division.

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Porter Novelli announced that Michael Ramah has been appointed chief client officer. He will work closely with senior leadership on both agency- and client-side teams to drive innovation, best practices and growth. Ramah’s appointment comes on the heels of his having spent the latter half of 2012 serving as acting CEO of the agency. (Release)

Lori Conkling joined NBCUniversal as EVP of Strategy and Business Development for a newly-formed area of the company focused on the monetization of cross-platform content, driving innovation and architecting a digital strategy across mobile, social and the web. She reports directly to Lauren Zalaznick, EVP, NBCUniversal, who was recently promoted to lead the group. Conkling joins from A&E Networks (AEN), where she was EVP of distribution. (Release)

enVu appointed Jim Farrell as EVP of sales for its gestural interactive ad network. In his new role, Farrell will be responsible for building and overseeing the sales efforts for enVu’s five North American sales regions including Chicago, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Detroit. Jim will focus on cultivating a successful sales and customer service team across the U.S. to ensure enVu’s high growth objectives are achieved. (Release)

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The Glover Park Group announced that John Hughes joined the firm as a senior vice president in the Government Affairs practice. Hughes will be based in GPG’s Washington, D.C. office and will work on a broad range of the firm’s clients. John was most recently senior policy advisor to House Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer on financial services, trade, manufacturing, small business, housing, and consumer protection issues. Previously, John served as counsel to the House Financial Services Committee and, prior to joining the Committee’s majority staff in 2007, was managing director of tax advocacy at the National Council of State Housing Agencies. (Release)

VOX Global announced its recent hire of John Dunagan, who will join the VOX leadership team as a senior vice president. Most recently, Dunagan served as senior vice president at DDC Advocacy. Prior to DDC, Dunagan co-founded CrossLink Strategy Group (later Mercury) where he pioneered unique issue advocacy techniques including Media Where it Matters and RootsTube. Dunagan will work out of the firm’s Washington, DC office location. (Release)

Jonathan Cohen has been named chief operating officer at Behan Communications. Cohen joined Behan Communications in 2012 to help lead the firm’s expansion. He has an extensive background in journalism, government and public affairs and has led a number of strategic communications firms to success and played a leading role in the turnaround of two technology companies. Formerly a publisher of Commentary Magazine and an advisor to New York City Mayor Ed Koch, Jon also has served as president of The Weiser Group, a global public relations firm, and of Cohen Strategic LLC, an international consulting group. (Website)

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