CitySavvy appoints new board directors

Agency strengthens focus on pan-European advisory work

London / Amsterdam, December 8, 2008 - CitySavvy, the international financial and corporate communications agency, has bolstered its board of directors, promoting Maria Englund, Ruth Reynolds, Perry Hall and Neil Boom to the board of directors of the agency. Non-executive director Julian Hirst has also been promoted to the role of Chairman of the Board.

Maria Englund, who has worked in CitySavvy’s Amsterdam office since 2006 manages an international client base with pan-European communications and PR programmes. Englund’s expertise lies in managing multi-national PR teams on behalf of clients to achieve broad media coverage in diverse media outlets. She also supports CitySavvy’s cross-border financial PR team, and in the past year, Englund has advised clients during 10 international transactions for successful media and financial-market publicity. Maria previously worked in a major New York PR agency and has worked in house in private equity and property development.

Since joining CitySavvy in 2007, Ruth Reynolds, has expanded and strengthened the agency's growing UK corporate PR activities and has spearheaded CitySavvy’s advanced digital communications practice. Reynolds has been a key figure in building CitySavvy’s expertise in the technology, online marketing and property sectors, and she is a lead advisor and strategist to clients in need of crisis communications. Before joining CitySavvy, Ruth worked at Publicis in Amsterdam where she focused on online corporate events, Band & Brown Communications and ran her own firm, Praxis PR for five years.

Perry Hall, who joined CitySavvy in early 2008, has led the development of the firm’s pan-European financial communications related to corporate finance. Hall works very closely with the CEOs and CFOs of listed and soon-to-list companies to help them manage their profiles with the UK, European and US capital markets. His expertise includes advising clients during special situations that cover IPOs, mergers and acquisitions and crisis communications. He is a veteran of FD, Edelman and Citigate Dewe Rogerson.   

Neil Boom recently joined the agency to focus on UK and pan-European corporate and financial PR. His experience embraces publicly quoted and large private companies, but also includes professional services firms such as accountancy and law firms as well as start ups. He founded his own agency Gresham PR where he spent 7 years, but has also worked at Brunswick, Broadgate and FD in a career spanning 17 years.

Julian Hirst has advised the board as a non-executive director since 2006, strengthening the agency’s focus on strategic advisory work. Julian is Joint Managing Partner of Tri-Artisan Partners Europe LLP and has decades of experience in corporate finance for major financial institutions in London and New York, including Durlacher and its successor firm, Panmure Gordon, UBS Warburg, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers.

Jana Sanchez, managing director of CitySavvy, commented: “CitySavvy has enjoyed strong growth and increasing focus on strategic advisory work as a result of the significant contributions made by Ruth, Maria, Perry and Julian over the last few years. We are delighted to recognise their contributions with their new titles. Likewise, we look forward to the role Neil will play in the further development of the agency.”

CitySavvy (www.citysavvy.com) is a full-service corporate and financial communications agency with offices in London and Amsterdam for comprehensive execution of UK and pan-European PR programmes. With a multi-national, blue-chip client base across Europe and the US, the agency focuses on financial and corporate public relations, investor relations and internal communications.  CitySavvy’s tailored programmes target journalists, consumers, B2B customers, investment professionals, and employees located across multiple markets with differing languages and regulatory requirements. The founding partners and senior staff come from high-level capital-markets backgrounds that include specialist financial PR consultancies; major international financial news outlets including FT, Reuters, AP and Bloomberg; and leading investment banking institutions.