JJ Carter to succeed John Saunders as FleishmanHillard CEO

Omnicom PR Group agency FleishmanHillard’s CEO and global president John Saunders is stepping down and will be succeeded by J.J. Carter, effective October 1.

Saunders will take on the role of chairman at that time. Meanwhile, Carter will report to OPRG CEO Chris Foster in his new role and become a member of the group’s global leadership team.

Carter is currently FleishmanHillard’s global chief operating officer and president of the Americas. Carter told Campaign's sister site PRWeek he will determine who is taking over those roles when he is promoted in October.

“In terms of priorities, we are a large global and successful firm that operates in a holding company environment, so it is important we grow profitably for our shareholders,” said Carter. “But for our clients, we have to push for more specialisation in our workforce and prepare FleishmanHillard to transform in the near future to take advantage of the most complex and consequential time for our industry and the agency.”

Carter will remain based in San Francisco and has no plans to move to St. Louis, Missouri, where Saunders is based, or to New York City. He noted that St. Louis will continue to act as the firm’s global headquarters.

Saunders said he is “grateful” Omnicom asked him to stay on as chairman of FleishmanHillard. He plans to move back to Ireland next year and spend time with his grandchildren.

The leadership change has been in the works for a while, said Saunders. He and Foster selected Carter to take on the CEO role at FleishmanHillard, with Saunders adding that Carter has been a “fantastic partner” during his time leading the firm.

It has been nine years since Saunders took the helm at FleishmanHillard. Saunders, a Dublin, Ireland, native, was appointed as FleishmanHillard’s regional president for EMEA in 2011, after being named regional director for Europe seven years earlier. He founded Fleishman-Hillard Saunders in 1990.

“I was greatly honoured to be asked to do the [CEO] job at the age of 57,” said Saunders. “People thought I had one more trick left in me.”

Carter noted that under Saunders’ leadership, the firm unlocked a period of growth that was relatively unprecedented in the last decade.FleishmanHillard has nearly 80 offices in more than 30 countries, plus affiliates in 45 countries. The agency reported flat growth globally and in the US in 2023, at $745 million and $510 million, respectively, according to PRWeek’s Agency Business Report 2024.

In 2023, the firm retained Cisco’s North America PR business. Its other key accounts are now Johnson & Johnson, Philips, JPMorgan Chase, PepsiCo and Samsung. But notable account losses for the firm included UPS and AT&T, which named Jackson Spalding its lead PR agency.

“[Saunders] believes that how we treat each other as a group of colleagues is just as, if not more, important than the results we deliver,” said Carter. “That carries through all of our leaders and is one reason I have been here nearly 20 years and something I intend to take forward as the CEO as well.”

Carter was named FleishmanHillard’s global chief operating officer and Americas president in 2016. He has been with FleishmanHillard since 2005 and has held a variety of key leadership roles at the firm.

Fleishman, along with Omnicom PR Group sister agencies Porter Novelli and Ketchum, underwent layoffs last month, outgoing employees shared on LinkedIn.

Omnicom Group's PR firms posted an organic year-over-year revenue increase of 0.9% in Q2 to $418.2 million, following an organic Y-O-Y revenue decrease of 1.1% in Q1. MMC also sits within OPRG.