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Allison & Partners Launches Brand Innovation Group, Taps Billee Howard as Managing Director

Howard joins Allison & Partners following thirteen years as Executive Vice President and Managing Director of Weber Shandwick's Global Strategic Media Group. In her new role, Howard will leverage the best-in-class expertise she has developed working with brands such as Pepsi, Samsung and DreamWorks Animation to partner with Allison & Partners clients who are seeking new ways to transform the communications function from awareness driver to vehicle of innovative business performance enhancement.

"We are thrilled to bring our clients the extraordinary experience of Billee and her team, and are confident that they will immediately benefit from her strategic counsel and direction on brand building, trendspotting and global media strategy," said Andy Hardie-Brown, Co-Founder and COO, Allison & Partners. "Billee will provide communication solutions that have helped some of the world's leading companies to significantly improve their brand reputation and bottom-line performance at a time of rapid change in our industry."

"Allison & Partners has a reputation as an agency that is focused on nurturing an entrepreneurial spirit within its team and promoting innovation for its clients," said Billee Howard. "I felt great affinity with their creative approach to today's market challenges and feel that the mindset of the agency is a perfect fit for a professional who is focused on driving innovation. It's a time of inspiring change on many fronts, and I welcome the opportunity to drive innovation in areas our industry hasn't yet touched."

Scott Allison, CEO of Allison & Partners, commented, "As the world adopts multiple mediums and is influenced by an increasing number of communications channels, communicating with customers and meeting their needs become increasingly challenging. We believe public relations agencies have been slow to react to that challenge, and we've reached an inflection point where having a group dedicated to fostering innovation will provide our clients and our agency with significant competitive advantage. We are already in conversation with a number of global brands looking for a different point of view."

Howard is a winner of PR Week's 30 Under 30, 40 Under 40, and has also notably won the PR News Media Professional of the year honor twice in the last decade. She is a graduate of the Roy H. Park School of Communications at Ithaca College.

About Allison & Partners

Allison & Partners (www.allisonpr.com, http://facebook.com/allisonpr , http://facebook.com/allisonpr , http://twitter.com/allisonpr) is a national communications firm named an 'Agency of the Year' by The Holmes Report and an honorable mention for Mid-Sized Agency of the Year by PR Week. With practice areas in consumer marketing, corporate communications social impact, technology, public affairs and healthcare, the firm builds customized programs integrating media relations, social media, cause-related marketing, sustainability communications, executive branding, customer and employee communications and promotional services. Allison & Partners is headquartered in San Francisco, with offices in New York, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Phoenix, San Diego and Seattle, with a 50-state grassroots network. As an MDC Partners company (NASDAQ: MDCA, Toronto Stock Exchange: MDZ.A), the agency has deep affiliations with best-of-class marketing communications firms worldwide.

Allison & Partners
Lauren Selikoff
Chief Marketing Officer
646-428-0620 (d) / 862-216-6520 (m)
lauren@allisonpr.com