NEW YORK: John Saunders, CEO and Global President of Omnicom PR Group agency FleishmanHillard, is stepping down and will be replaced by JJ Carter effective October 1.
Saunders will assume the role of Chairman at that time. Carter will report to OPRG CEO Chris Foster in his new role and will become a member of the group’s global leadership team.
Carter is currently FleishmanHillard’s global chief operating officer and president of the Americas. Carter told PRWeek he will decide who will take on those roles when he is promoted in October.
“In terms of priorities, we are a large global and successful company operating in a holding company environment, so it is important that we grow profitably for our shareholders,” said Carter. “But for our clients, we must drive greater specialization in our workforce and prepare FleishmanHillard for a transformation in the near future to capitalize on the most complex and consequential time for our industry and the agency.”
Carter will continue to be based in San Francisco and has no plans to move to St. Louis, Missouri, where Saunders is based, or to New York City. He noted that St. Louis will continue to be the company’s global headquarters.
Saunders said he was “grateful” that Omnicom asked him to stay on as chairman of FleishmanHillard. He plans to return to Ireland next year and spend time with his grandchildren.
The leadership change has been in the works for some time, Saunders said. He and Foster selected Carter as CEO of FleishmanHillard. Saunders added that Carter has been a “fantastic partner” during his time at the helm of the company.
It has been nine years since Saunders took the helm at FleishmanHillard. Saunders, a Dublin native, was appointed FleishmanHillard’s regional president for EMEA in 2011, having been named regional director for Europe seven years earlier. He founded Fleishman-Hillard Saunders in 1990.
“I was very honored when I was asked to take on the (CEO) job at age 57,” Saunders said. “People thought I had another talent.”
Carter noted that under Saunders’ leadership, the company has entered a period of growth that is relatively unprecedented in the last decade. FleishmanHillard has nearly 80 offices in more than 30 countries, as well as subsidiaries in 45 countries. The agency reported flat growth worldwide and in the US in 2023 to $745 million and $510 million respectively, according to PRWeeks Agency Annual Report 2024.
In 2023, the company retained Cisco’s North American PR business. Its other major clients now include Johnson & Johnson, Philips, JPMorgan Chase, PepsiCo, and Samsung. However, the company’s notable client losses included UPS and AT&T, which appointed Jackson Spalding as its lead PR agency.
“(Saunders) believes that the way we treat each other as a group of colleagues is just as important, if not more important, than the results we deliver,” Carter said. “That applies to all of our leaders and is one reason I’ve been here for nearly 20 years and something I want to continue to drive as CEO.”
Carter was named global chief operating officer and president of the Americas for FleishmanHillard. in 2016. He has been with FleishmanHillard since 2005 and has held various key leadership positions.
FleishmanHillard was was named US Agency of the Year by PRWeek in 2022 and 2023; and by PRWeek US in 2022 and 2023 Outstanding Extra Large Agency of the Year.
Fleishman and Omnicom PR Group’s sister agencies Porter Novelli and Ketchum, were laid off last month, departing employees said on LinkedIn.
Omnicom Group’s PR firms released a organic sales increase of 0.9% compared to the previous year in the second quarter to 418.2 million US dollars after an organic Sales decline of 1.1% in the first quarter. MMC is also part of the OPRG.
