NEW YORK — Monica Marshall, who spent the last six years leading Ketchum’s purpose practice, has joined Ruder Finn as global lead of the agency’s new purpose and policy offering, called RF Relate.

In her new role, Marshall will be responsible for developing and leading the new offering, which focuses on social impact, sustainability, advocacy and public affairs.

RF Relate (formally RF Relate| People. Policy. Purpose.) will offer the range of expertise of Ruder Finn staffers — many of whom already are working with clients on purpose-related initiatives — under one practice. The focus is helping companies, governments and NGOs refine their purpose, advocate for change and use communications to connect sustainability and societal impact initiatives to people both inside and outside the organization.

“This has been an area that is part of Ruder Finn’s heritage, so we have been very active (in this area) across all our client work,” said CEO Kathy Bloomgarden. The agency, however, is adapting its client services around issues like social responsibility and sustainability to better reflect the growing demand that businesses take on leadership roles in those areas.

“The market place is shifting and the socioeconomic expectations are changing,” Bloomgarden said.  “We want to crystalize our work under one leaders so we can continue to advance our own activity and excel and lead in this space."

Marshall has spent roughly 25 years working in areas related to purpose. During the last six years at Ketchum, she was a partner of One Hundred, an Omnicom offering that brings expertise from across the network to help clients with sustainability and social impact marketing/ communications challenges, in addition to her primary role leading Ketchum’s purpose practice. She spent nine years before that with the U.N. World Food Programme forging partnerships with big businesses.

“I have high aspirations and very big goals,” Marshall said. In the immediate future, those include working with business leaders to create the kind of operation that, thanks to its purpose, people can rally around — which is also key to company growth, she said.