Communications Strategy Group competitors

Kim Getty is at the helm of Deutsch LA, one of the nation’s leading creative shops. As CEO, she leads a team of world-class creative thinkers who help businesses thrive. Since joining Deutsch in 2003, she’s helped build the company into what Fast Company has recognized as one of the industry’s most innovative agencies and landed Deutsch top spots on the Ad Age Agency A-List numerous times. During her tenure, Kim has driven the development of new practice areas and spearheaded breakthrough campaigns for its clients including Taco Bell, H&R Block, Patagonia, Mattel, Georgia-Pacific, Nintendo, Dr Pepper, Snapple, 7-Eleven, among others. After serving as COO and then President, Kim was named CEO in 2020. Kim is an advocate for inclusion and diversity in the marketing industry and has spoken at leading conferences such as Cannes and Advertising Week on the role advertising plays in gender equality. She’s been a force at driving the conversation on media’s impact on gender bias and has been frequently featured in Fast Company, Adweek, Los Angeles Magazine, Ad Age, among many others, and was named to Adweek’s 2019 Trailblazer list for her work in this space. In 2018, she was honored by She Runs It as one of the top Working Mothers of the Year. Kim has made progressive parenting policies a priority, championing all parents in the workplace. She has also advocated for unlimited PTO, flexible work schedules, remote years and sabbaticals. Committed to nurturing young talent, Kim serves on the faculty at USC’s Annenberg School and also sits on the Board of Directors for ADCOLOR, The Paley Center for Media and The Grady College at the University of Georgia. She’s passionate about creating change in our industry and has been recognized as one of the most powerful women in advertising by Business Insider, a top LA executive by the Los Angeles Business Journal and has earned the American Advertising Federation’s Mosaic Award for Industry Career Achievement. Kim is a proud mother of two daughters, a struggling surfer and an SF native turned Angeleno.

Tom Johnson is Chief Executive Officer of Abernathy MacGregor and head of its Mergers and Acquisitions practice. He works with companies across multiple sectors on a wide variety of topics, and has a particular expertise with M&A, private equity and closely held companies. His client experience includes work with a number of Fortune 100 companies and several of the world’s largest and best-known private companies on a wide variety of corporate communication and investor relations challenges, including reputation management, executive changes, activist investor preparedness and crisis response plans. His M&A expertise covers the full range of high-profile takeovers, cross-border acquisitions, contested merger situations and proxy contests. He is also an expert in media strategy, having spent more than a decade as a financial journalist prior to joining Abernathy. Mr. Johnson’s recent M&A advisory work includes working with Anthem on its acquisition of Cigna, Exor on its acquisition of PartnerRe, Coty on its acquisition of P&G’s beauty business, Office Depot on its merger with Staples, Sprint on its merger with Softbank and acquisition of Clearwire and Joh A. Benckiser on its acquisition of Peet’s Coffee & Tea and D.E. Master Blenders. Other transaction clients include Sanofi, Hewlett Packard, Alcatel SA, Carlyle Group, Blackstone Group and Starwood Capital. His proxy contest and activist defense experience includes advising CVR Energy, Office Depot, QEP Resources, Hewlett Packard, Sovereign Bancorp and Yahoo!. Prior to Abernathy MacGregor, Mr. Johnson was editor-in-charge of Investment Banking and Finance for Reuters, where he also ran the M&A and IPO desks. Earlier, he worked at CNN Financial News and at The Daily Record newspaper in Baltimore. He serves on the Board of Volunteers of America’s Greater New York Chapter.

Maria Rodriguez is a President & Chief Executive Officer at Vanguard Communications and is based in Washington d.c. Metro Area. She studied at GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY.

William 'Billy' Vassiliadis is a Principal/CEO at R&R Partners and Trustee at ANDRE AGASSI FOUNDATION.