FleishmanHillard launches global sports practice

J.J. Carter, FleishmanHillard’s U.S. chief operating officer and Americas president, and senior vice president Jim Woodcock, founded the company’s first sports initiative in 2007. In the last 11 years there has been no promotion of sports on the company website, but now FleishmanHillard have launched a global sports practice, and have appointed San Francisco based senior vice president Dianna Kraus as managing director.
Ms Kraus has been at the company for nine years, and has a history of leading strategic global and domestic sports comms and sponsorships for automotive, technology, financial services, and consumer brands. She has set sponsorships and “bringing Fleishman’s experience in reputation and crisis to the sports sponsorship world” as her top priorities and said: “I like to say that we have been at FleishmanHillard a quiet sports powerhouse for a long time, and this really is a doubling down of resources in what is already an impressive strength built by a number of talented people. We see an immediate opportunity to respond to the reputational needs of brands operating in sports. We think there’s great opportunity to package our existing strong reputational capabilities to help brand navigate those challenges.”