FH co-head of financial practice Andrew Marshall said Berry was set to join the firm in January. Berry will work alongside Marshall, who reports to FH chief executive Ron Finlay.
Berry, who joined Flagship in 2001 from Cubitt Consulting, has worked in PR for the past five years having spent the previous 15 years in investment banking, first for BZW and then for Credit Suisse First Boston. Prior to Cubitt, Berry also worked as a senior associate partner at Brunswick.
Marshall said FH, whose financial comms work has usually been confined to calendar and deal work for clients such as Rathbone Brothers and Investcorp, had decided to expand more aggressively into financial PR because of the need to offer clients a more ‘integrated approach’.
He said he was unconcerned about potential conflicts with Omnicom’s more financially focused PR firm Gavin Anderson. ‘Omnicom feels that maintaining brands is the way to increase shareholder value so I would not have thought this will be a problem,’ Marshall said.
Berry was previously a director at Cubitt and joined Flagship in the same position but with a newly created role looking after the firm’s financial PR clients.
Flagship CEO Diana Soltmann said she had already found a replacement for Berry, but declined to name the PRO or say when they would be joining the firm.
