Omnicom PR Unveils New Golin Ketchum Brand, Leadership Roles

(MENAFN- PRovoke) NEW YORK-In the latest of a series of restructuring moves following the acquisition of Interpublic by Omnicom, which closed in November, Golin and Ketchum-which announced their merger in February-have completed their integration and rebranded as Golin Ketchum, a name CEO Matt Neale says will“preserve the equity in both these names.”

The merged operation will be led by Golin's Matt Neale as chief executive and Ketchum's Tamara Norman as president, with Golin's Ellen Ryan Mardiks serving as chairman. The new firm will have more than 2,000 employees around the world and will rank among the top 10 PR firms.

While Ketchum was the larger of the two agencies at the beginning of 2025-ranking at number six on our PRovoke Media 250 last year-the two firms come into the merger on sharply different trajectories. Golin has been the fastest-growing and most award-winning of all the global full-service agencies in recent years, while Ketchum, like other Omnicom agencies, has seen revenues decline.

On a regional level, Golin's Dawn Langeland will serve as president of North America, with Ketchum's Jamey Peters as president of operations and managing director of the southern region. Golin's Ondine Whittington will be president of the UK agency with Golin Romania's Hortensia Nastase as head of a continental European operation significantly expended by the addition of Ketchum's German and Austrian offices. Amanda Berenstein will serve as head of Latin America while continuing to lead sister agency Weber Shandwick's Mexican office.

Addressing recently announced restructuring of Omnicom PR agencies in the Asia-Pacific region, where FleishmanHillard's Joanne Wong was named CEO of OPR in May, Neale said:“The brands are not going away in Asia. The way in which they are organized has changed and is still going through some change.” However, the firm did not identify any Golin Ketchum leadership roles in Asia.

The firm has named leads for three practices: Ketchum's John Bradbury will be managing director of corporate affairs; Ketchum's Michele Murray will be MD of food, agriculture & nutrition; and Golin's Jaimee Reggio and Ketchum's Samantha Schwarz will share leadership of health.

But the two firms are probably best known for the expertise in consumer brands, as Neale acknowledges:“Half our business is broadly brand and consumer marketing, around 20% is healthcare, maybe a little more. Ketchum has one of the best food and agriculture practices in the industry and then the rest is a mix of corporate affairs and technology.”

Other key roles:

Jonny Bentwood, chief data & analytics officer Jeff Beringer, chief AI officer Rob Bernstein, chief innovation officer George Bryant, chief creative officer Maxine Enciso, EVP, inclusion & impact Paul Parton, chief strategy officer Carrie von der Sitt, chief growth & brand officer

In addition, Neale says, brands such as Brooklyn Brothers-an advertising and creative agency acquired by Golin a decade ago-and DeVries Global, the consumer and healthcare firm that also operates under the Golin umbrella reporting to Neale, will keep their own identities.

Neale says the new agency Golin Ketchum's mission will be an extension of Golin's oft-stated ambition“to be the defining agency of the decade.”

Neale discusses bringing together executives from both legacy agencies earlier in the year and says“we shared our IP, our philosophies, our ambition, our values, and I was very surprised. I asked everyone to write down stuff they heard that they liked,” and everyone from both legacy agencies immediately coalesced around the Golin mission statement.

Asked whether the merger makes achieving that“agency of the decade” objective easier or more difficult, Neale is unsurprisingly upbeat:“We are definitely trying to achieve that at a scale that was not possible before,” he says.“I think Ketchum is additive to that, in that we have capabilities we didn't have before in corporate affairs and food and agriculture. The creative bench, the planning bench, the AI bench are all stronger. So I remain super optimistic.”

He adds:“Culturally the Ketchum people and the Golin people are just very aligned, very similar values, very similar kind of aspiration for what they want to do with the work. We've done this merger in five months, and we were able to do it at this speed because I think there was a very quick consensus on what we wanted to be, what our aims were, and how we wanted to behave.”

That includes a statement of purpose-“together, we'll do the best work of our lives and create change that matters”==and four core values:“we create with bravery”;“curiosity is our currency”;“collaboration is our superpower”: and“fiercely ambitious, fundamentally kind.”

The visual identity was developed in-house by the agency's creative teams and includes a new color scheme (flare to connote energy; forge, to symbolize“forging something new together”; and ash, the foundation of new growth).

“It gives me genuine pride that this was done by our in-house creative team,” Neale says.“A big reason clients come to us is because of our creative bench and I think that as Golin Ketchum, we have the most awarded creative PR team in the world, and they really enjoyed putting this together.”

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