BOSTON — With an eye on growing global business, Shift Communications has launched a new offering that supports foreign companies wanting to break into the US.

The new offering is starting with a focus on tech companies in India, Israel and Canada, all places where Shift or its leaders have experience.

The effort is being overseen by managing director Alan Dunton and senior advisor Reva Seth, a Silicon Valley comms expert, trade lawyer and author who joined Shift in March to help grow and lead the offering. She brings more than 15 years of experience in communications that has included co-founding a cannabis media company and leading communications for Lambda School in San Francisco.

“There is huge opportunity to partner with companies on modernizing their narratives and PR approach as they look to scale in the US,” Seth said. That is particularly true for companies based in India, which are allowed to list and fundraise in the US due to recent legislative changes, she said.

Shift is not totally new to this kind of work, having helped the likes of Chargebee, Criteo, Docebo, Wise and HUYA launch in the US.

The practice, however, only now has become formalized —  the latest in a series of moves Shift had made over the last year under the watch of Rick Murray, who has been running the agency since September 2019.

Those included restructuring in January that aligned leaders responsibilities with their areas of expertise rather than geography. That included naming Dunton, who had been Shift’s West Coast managing director, technology MD. Former East Coast MD Annie Perkins was named managing director of the firm’s consumer and healthcare practices.

In addition, last fall Shift rolled out a new SEO-focused approach to PR, deemed Optimized PR, which makes search the centerpiece of campaigns, getting clients’ products and services in front of customers throughout their decision-making process.

The efforts are paying off, with Shift rebounding from Covid-induced losses last year. Between a strong start to this year, and a strong end to 2020, Shift expects business to be back to pre-pandemic levels by May, according to an agency rep.

The firm reports a particularly positive February, when business grew by more than 15%. The biggest lifts resulted from new healthcare and tech clients including Acclivity Health, NovaSignal, Travala and Gilded Finance.