SYDNEY: The founders of M&C Saatchi's PR arm have walked, taking their staff and all 30 clients with them.
Open Dialogue, the PR agency launched by M&C Saatchi in 2005, had grown substantially to boast a client list of 30 (all on retainer) by December 2007 and revenue growth of 108% year-on-year. It was majority owned by M&C Saatchi, with the remainder owned by founders Rochelle Burbury and Andrea Kerekes.
Burbury and Kerekes informed M&C management late last year they would cut all ties with M&C Saatchi and go out on their own.
Burbury said this morning that all 30 clients held by Open Dialogue have decided to remain with her and her new independent company, called Access Public Relations.
The six employees at Open Dialogue have also walked, but the now well-established company name, which is owned by M&C Saatchi, had to be left behind.
Burbury said the decision to leave the M&C Saatchi network was made in the last quarter of 2007, when the partners decided Open Dialogue didn’t need to lean on the mother ship to secure work.
“All but two of our clients have been won independently of M&C Saatchi and the business has evolved very independently of the agency," she said.. "We have decided that our future should be as an independent business with Andrea and I in control of our own destiny.”
Prior to establishing Open Dialogue, Kerekes had been with M&C Saatchi for seven years heading up corporate communications for the Asia-Pacific region. Burbury was marketing editor at The Australian Financial Review, where she also spent seven years.
No one from M&C Saatchi was available to comment on the future of the Open Dialogue name, but it is likely the agency will rebuild its PR team.
Burbury, who handled M&C Saatchi’s PR, said she hoped to continue to hold the business but said she hadn’t yet been told whether the account would follow her to Access Public Relations.
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