NEW YORK — MSL US CEO Diana Littman has been elected 2024 chair of the PR Council’s board of directors. In this role, Littman will focus on the PRC’s mission of helping leaders build more valued and valuable agencies in a period of enormous change and opportunity. Other board members elected to the executive committee include Julie Colehour, partner, C+C (Seattle), as vice chair; Brandon Wilson, president & CEO, Wilbron (Birmingham), as treasurer for a second term; and Brooke Hovey, global president, BCW (Austin), as secretary. PRC president Kim Sample is also a member of the executive committee. 

MIAMI — LLYC's 2023 operating revenue rose to €83.1 million, up 14% from 2022. The agency also reported a recurring EBITDA of €18.4 million, up 15%. This included an 8% increase in revenue and operating income from organic growth alone. LLYC's Deep Digital business unit, which covers digital marketing, paid media, and artificial intelligence solutions, among others, played a key role in achieving these results. After growing 21% in 2023, it now accounts for 34.5% of operating income and 28.1% of the firm's recurring EBITDA.

TORONTO — Proof Strategies and the Social Studies Educators Network of Canada have launched an initiative to teach students about trust. Learning About Trust includes three lesson plans, designed for elementary, middle and high school educators, designed to integrate trust-building education into social studies and civics school curriculum. The project was funded by Bruce MacLellan, chair of Proof Strategies, reflecting his and the firm’s commitment to trust capacity-building and understanding. The “Learning About Trust” lesson plans are available to teachers across Canada. They are publicly accessible and can be downloaded at https://ssencressc.ca/publications/trust/. 

CHICAGO — In response to the recent media layoffs and strikes at Condé Nast, Forbes and other news organizations, Spool is rallying support for affected writers, journalists, editors, producers and photographers – as it did during the 2023 WGA strike – to help them find paid freelance work. Spool is putting a call out to its fellow PR and marketing colleagues for their help and asking that they tap into their networks to identify areas of opportunity as well. All those who have been affected by layoffs (or are at risk of) — or would like to support this effort — are encouraged to sign up via this electronic form. This effort comes on the heels of Spool’s support of the WGA writers' strike last year, during which the agency partnered with Wripple – an on-demand talent platform that matches brands with vetted freelancers – to connect WGA talent with paid work.

NEW YORK — With America's colleges and universities facing unprecedented public scrutiny, Marathon Strategies has launched DefendED, a dedicated higher education crisis practice focused on helping campus leaders rethink the way they communicate and manage their public profiles. Marathon’s DefendED team of communications professionals, higher education experts, political campaign veterans, and investigative researchers provides school leadership with honest, non-partisan perspectives and insights that are essential for adapting to a new wave of sophisticated critics of higher education who know how to weaponize the media and have become increasingly emboldened in the wake of Claudine Gay’s resignation as president of Harvard. Offerings include risk assessment, crisis playbook, strategic comms support, plagiarism review and sentiment monitoring.