BOSTON, April 12—FitzGerald Communications this week became the latest technology specialist to announce significant layoffs, eliminating 12 positions—about 6 percent of its total workforce—in its Boston and San Francisco officers. Agency president Maura FitzGerald attributed the cuts to a softening of the firm’s west coast business, but said the east coast offices—including New York, where a new general manager is coming on board—were performing well.

“We don’t have any client that amounts for more than 5 percent of our revenues, and we have diversified geographically and in terms of practice areas,” says FitzGerald, whose firm has added investor relations and public affairs capabilities in recent years. “I think that’s helped a lot. We don’t have separate P&Ls for any of our offices, either, and that means we can easily share accounts between offices, which means people on the west coast can work on accounts headquartered in Boston or New York.”
The layoffs come as FitzGerald name Craig Wood, most recently managing director for Niehaus Ryan Wong in New York, as executive VP and head of its own office in the Big Apple. Before joining NRW, Wood was chief operating officer of Saatchi & Saatchi’s global B2B network. According to FitzGerald, “He brings to FitzGerald valuable expertise in two critical areas—managing global programs for complex technology clients and delivering a notable breadth and depth of management experience to a growing organization.”