SYRACUSE, NY - Mower chairman and CEO Eric Mower has transferred 100% ownership of the company to employees via an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Mower will remain in his current position as will other senior Mower executives. The ESOP will make the agency’s roughly 150 employees “employee owners” of the agency at no cost. They will have equity in the business and an additional retirement benefit. It also provides the agency a smooth ownership transition in the years to come with a continuation of leadership by Mower’s executive team, including president and chief operating officer Stephanie Crockett; vice chairman, chief brand officer Doug Bean; chief administrative officer Chris Steenstra; chief financial officer Cheryl Duggan; chief creative officer Doug Kamp; and executive VP, managing director, public relations and public affairs Rick Lyke.

NEW YORK — External intelligence company Signal AI has acquired US company KELP to help organizations strengthen their corporate reputation. The acquisition accelerates the two companies’ shared vision to help organizations understand the external events that are impacting their success. Together, Signal AI and KELP will enable executives to make more informed decisions to shift their strategies, capitalize on emerging opportunities, and mitigate rising risks. The combination of Signal AI’s external intelligence data and KELP’s reputation insights will create a solution that empowers organizations to quantify the aggregate impact of all company actions and strengthen corporate reputation.

CHICAGO — PROI Worldwide has named its International Management Board slate for 2022/2023, which will be led by global chair Jeff Lambert, chair of Michigan-based Lambert Global. Other members include past chair Ciro Dias dos Reis of Imagem Corporativa, Brazil; EMEA region vice-chairs Nicola Nel of Atmosphere Communications, South Africa, and Rebecca Mayo of Lansons; Americas region vice-chairs Trudy Kremer of Jackson Spalding US and Ramonna Robinson of GroundFloor Media US; APAC region vice-chairs Angela Scaffidi of Senate/SHJ, Australia, and Arwa Husain, of Adfactors, India. PROI is the world’s largest partnership of leading independent communications agencies with partners in 60 countries.

BOSTON — Boston PR practioner Adam Ritchie has released a new book, Invention in PR, that serves as a guide to putting PR in charge of product and service development.  The book, published by Routledge, is an extension of Ritchie’s Invention in PR speaking tour, which set out to change the way a generation of PR pros considers its craft. The book is available in paperback and on Kindle.