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)

Read more

Like the rest of you, we’ve received quite a few holiday-themed e-cards from various firms and individuals over the past two weeks. We’d like to highlight a few that stood out (listed in no particular order, because you know we don’t play favorites):

Oh, and apologies to everyone we left out—our number one New Year’s resolution is “re-organize your inbox!!!”

• Wolff Olins’s nicely animated New Year’s resolutions card
• CRT/Tanaka’s “Inspired by You” video, which uses human silhouettes to spell themes
• APCO Worldwide’s clip featuring “Thank You” messages from around the world
• Jack Morton’s “What I’m Looking Forward to in 2013” Pinterest page featuring original art inspired by optimistic New Year’s suggestions
• Cision PR’s “Cringe Worthy Moments” reviewing some of the year’s PR fails
• TriplePoint’s musical, hip and awkward “Happy Holidays”
• Here’s an interesting one that’s more of a year-in-review: Waggener Edstrom’s “Go Native” city guide celebrating another year of “favorite local experiences” in cities around the world.
• We also want to take a brief moment to recognize Havas PR’s “12 Days of Havas” giving initiative, created in coordination with #GivingTuesday.

Adam Gerston, one of the leaders of Facebook’s Preferred Marketing Developers program, left the social network to join Shift as vice president of strategic partnerships. Gerston, who joined Facebook in 2010, told Business Insider that, during his time at the company, the Preferred Marketing Developers grew from a group of two to a team of 20 managers who handle 25 percent of the company’s ad clients. (AllFacebook)

Porter Novelli‘s global president and CFO Anthony Viceroy is leaving the company, joining CEO Gary Stockman and CMO Michael Goldberg, who have also recently stepped down from their positions. Ad Age reports that Viceroy will be heading to a health care company. “Porter Novelli’s future is less clear,” the magazine says.

Speaking of Gary Stockman, Dave Senay, president and CEO of Fleishman-Hillard, will be replacing him as chair of the Council of Public Relations Firms starting December 1. According to the Council’s president Kathy Cripps, the organization’s leaders have to be working for a member firm. Senay is already on the Council’s board and is the chair of the Critical Issues Forum.

Read more

With the President’s health care reform legislation upheld by the Supreme Court, the question is “Now what?” As we reported last week, PR specialists with health care expertise had already begun their preparations for the decision. Now the next steps have to be taken.

“Lobbyists are bracing for a flood of healthcare regulations now that the Supreme Court has cleared away uncertainty about the reform law’s future,” The Hill reports.

“[W]ith the mandate intact after Thursday’s 5-4 ruling, lobbyists say they’re ready to get down to the nitty-gritty and focus on the regulations that will be created under the sweeping overhaul,” the story continues.

Health care messaging, education, and continued campaigns to further different policies are in our future. Some say things will remain slow because of the summer season. Others think things will quickly accelerate as folks start pushing for changes and making preparations to institute parts of the law.

Al Jackson, MD of Chandler Chicco Companies‘ Washington office, offers three of big takeaways, after the jump.

Read more

Bethany Sherman, SVP and chief comms officer at Dow Jones, is among the executives leaving the company. A new chief comms officer will be announced soon. The string of executive changes at the company goes all the way to the top. Dow Jones president Todd Larsen, a 13-year Dow Jones vet, has resigned. Alisa Bowen and Joe Lanza have been promoted to head of products and head of the data strategy unit, respectively. [via, via]

Catherine Allen has been promoted to SVP at SHIFT Communications, the first time that position has been filled at the firm. Allen has been with SHIFT since its founding in 2003.

Jennifer Houston, president of Waggener Edstrom‘s WE Studio D group focused on digital and social media work, is leaving the firm. She announced her departure on Twitter this week. Scott McLaughlin, VP of corporate communications for the firm told PRNewser in a statement that Jenny Moede, North American EVP for the firm will assume that role.

Read more

Mike Tuffin, EVP of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the trade group that reps the health insurance industry, has been named the MD of APCO Worldwide‘s Washington D.C. headquarters, starting June 25. He’s replacing Robert Schooling, who has been appointed president of APCO Americas.

Tuffin joined AHIP in 2005. Prior to that, he was a VP at APCO, where he worked with pharmaceutical and other healthcare clients. He has experience with political campaigns, grassroots advocacy, media relations, and other areas of communications.

The Washington D.C. office has 200 staffers.

The Halo Group has promoted Lara Cohn to SVP and director of PR. She joined the firm in 2010 and has since worked to broaden the company’s capabilities in the events, social media, and content creation space.

Talley Summerlin has joined Emanate as VP in the New York office, leading the corporate reputation efforts for the Philips client and working with the Legacy Asset Servicing division of Bank of America. Summerlin was previously a director with EnviroMedia Social Marketing, an Austin, TX-based firm.

Read more

APCO Worldwide is participating in London’s Chelsea Flower Show, the first comms firm ever to do so. The firm’s garden display will have a communications theme, “reflecting its role as a setting for important conversations and decision making throughout history,” according to the release. Comms as plant art!

At right, we have a rendering of the garden, with a list of all the plants being used available here. The water is meant to represent the flow of conversation, the planting beds provide seclusion, and it’s eco-friendly.

According to Ruth Willmott from the garden design company Willmott Whyte, the exhibit will be “a contemporary interpretation of a garden of communication.”

This seems like a lot to ask from plants, but as we Americans learned from Downton Abbey, the English are very expressive with their flora. And dead serious about their plant and flower shows. The Chelsea Flower Show is a five day affair that attracts 150,000 from around the world and is a bit of a social scene in London. It takes place May 22 through 26.

In this week’s installment of the Women Leaders in PR series, we talk with Margery Kraus, who launched APCO Worldwide in 1984. Though the firm is now a well-established, international business, it was once a startup, like many of the organizations that Kraus had worked with before striking out on her own.

For Kraus, the most important factor in having a successful business is being a daring (though strategic) businesswoman. She tells us what exactly that means, and what you need to get your business started.

Tune in next week for the final (bonus!) installment of our Women Leaders in PR series.

Read more