MEXICO CITY: The Mexico City Tourism Promotion Fund has named Weber Shandwick’s travel and lifestyle practice as its North American PR AOR. Its work will include strategy, research, branding, social, and content development.
VANCOUVER, BRITISH COLUMBIA: Hootsuite has named Jimmy Duvall as VP of product. He will be responsible for scaling the product team and managing the company’s product suite. Duvall was previously head of product for Magento.
SAN FRANCISCO: Former USA Today technology editor Nancy Blair is set to join Access as VP of content, based in San Francisco. She will help to guide the editorial direction of Access Studio, the firm’s storytelling hub.
WASHINGTON: APCO Worldwide has named Karen Buerkle as MD of APCO Insight, the firm’s opinion research consultancy. Bill Dalbec was named deputy MD for the group. The firm also appointed Chris Levy as director of APCO Insight.
ROCKVILLE, MD: MMG, Ketchum’s patient-recruitment group, has appointed Helen West as president, effective on January 1, 2015. She will succeed John Benbrook, who is leaving the organization. West was most recently VP of strategic development. Ann Kottcamp, VP of client services, was named COO.
SAN FRANCISCO: FoodMinds has promoted Howard Goldstein to VP, based in San Francisco. Prior to joining FoodMinds in 2009, he spent five years in sales and business development at Thomson Financial and previously worked at Porter Novelli.
MIAMI: The Miami Downtown Development Authority has retained Schwartz Media Strategies as its AOR after a competitive bid process involving more than a dozen firms. Schwartz has handled the account since 2009.
CHICAGO: Public Communications Inc. has named Sara Conley as VP. She will lead a 20-person staff in the role and continue to manage client programs and work on new business development.
ROCHESTER, MI: Oakland University has promoted John Young to VP of communications and marketing, effective at the start of next year. He was previously associate VP of comms and marketing. Young will report to university president George Hynd in the new role.
NEW YORK: Patient monitoring and engagement service AMC Health has hired Paul Argay as its CMO. Previously, he was CMO at Resolution Health, a healthcare IT startup that was acquired by WellPoint, and was VP of strategic marketing for Aetna.