Weber Shandwick has a new general manager running its West Hollywood office. Her top priority is to grow the agency’s health care business.
The firm hired Lorie Fiber away from Edelman, where she helped establish the firm’s L.A. health care practice and supervised work for all life science clients in the United States.
Fiber said her new agency, which is based in New York, already has a strong health care program, but she can still grow the client list.
“My role is to support existing clients and build out work globally in medical devices, diagnostics and medical IT,” she explained.
The company has plenty of nonhealth clients, including Chevrolet’s electric Volt vehicle, Hewlett-Packard and Mattel. Its main local health client is City of Hope in Duarte.
Fiber said she took the job because “there is this killer entrepreneur spirit here and it’s a fun place to work,” but also because of the firm’s expertise in digital communications, the major new development in the PR profession.
Weber Shandwick, a subsidiary of publicly traded Interpublic Group, was named digital firm of the year earlier this month at the PR News Awards in New York.
JMPR Public Relations, a Woodland Hills firm focused on the automotive industry, has signed its first electric automaker.
Think EV, based in Oslo, Norway, has developed a battery-powered two-seat vehicle called the Think City, which it plans to introduce to the North American market next year. The company has sold about 1,500 Think Cities in Europe.
JMPR will manage PR for the North American launch of both the car and the company. The account includes media relations and community outreach in the auto sector in preparation for the opening of the Think EV assembly plant in Elkhart, Ind., later this year.
JMPR’s other clients include Bentley Motors, Galpin Motors, Bugatti Automobiles, Aerostream and Kampgrounds of America.
Sitrick and Co., a crisis communication firm in Century City, has promoted Glenn Bunting to the new position of executive vice president and vice chairman of the company’s management committee.
Bunting, a former deputy business editor at the Los Angeles Times, joined Sitrick in 2007. Since last year, he has worked as managing director of the firm’s offices in San Francisco, Silicon Valley and Miami. In his new job, he will continue to oversee those operations as well as head up new business development for the entire company.
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