The Paris office, which will be Finsbury Glover Hering's ninth in Europe, will be headed by Géraldine Amiel, currently Paris bureau chief of Bloomberg, and Nathalie Falco, currently a partner at Havas, and also based in the city.
Amiel will join end of November and Falco by the end of the year. Both will start as partners, reporting to Phoebe Kebbel, managing partner and a member of the agency's Global Partnership Board.
FGH said the Paris team will initially comprise seven communications professionals, with plans to reach 10 by the end of the second quarter of 2022. Amiel and Falco will work alongside Katharina Blumenfeld, a managing director from the agency’s Frankfurt office.
The agency said in a statement: "The Paris office of Finsbury Glover Hering will support clients, with a particular focus on cross-border projects as well as complex issues requiring capital market know-how, media expertise and regulatory or political advice. In addition, the relationship between Paris and Brussels will be essential in strengthening further the firm’s leading position in European Union public affairs advisory."
The opening comes as FGH – which was formed at the start of this year via the merger of WPP agencies Finsbury, Glover Park Group and Hering Schuppener – is preparing to merge with Sard Verbinnen. That move, which was confirmed earlier this month, will create a strategic comms consultancy with a headcount of about 1,000 professionals in 25 offices globally, generating annual revenue of about $330m.
The launch of the Paris office follows FGH's recent opening in Zurich.
Kebbel said: "Our European business has doubled over the past five years, driven by the increasing demand from multinational companies for global expertise and local presence. Finsbury Glover Hering’s unique model attracts the best talent worldwide thanks to our entrepreneurial culture and partnership-based model, and together we gained market-leading positions in the UK and Germany and a strong hub for European affairs and pan-European communication in Brussels.
"Following the successful launch of our Swiss office, France is the logical next step to continue our growth path and even accelerate our strategic roadmap further following our merger in January. The internationally experienced leadership team of the Paris office could not be better suited and we are very much looking forward to working with Géraldine and Nathalie."
