W Communications hires co-CEO

Frankie Cory joins W Communications after three years in-house as group marketing and comms director at entertainment media company Fremantle.

W has been without a chief executive since Rachel Friend stepped down in the summer for personal reasons.

The chairman Warren Johnson, who founded the firm in 2011, has since stepped back into the chief executive role. He is keen to build on the consultancy’s specialities beyond earned media, including talent, influencer, content and experiential.

“I’ve long admired Frankie as one of our industry’s best executives and always feared pitching against her,” Johnson told PRWeek. “We have become good friends over the years, and I am over the moon to have her join me as co-CEO at W.”

Cory has spent over 20 years in leadership roles at some of the UK’s best-known PR agencies, including six years as chief executive of Mischief and nearly seven years as joint managing director of Frank PR. She joined TV production and distribution company Fremantle in September 2019.

She said of joining W: “After many years of admiring the agency from afar, I can’t wait to be a part of the team. Warren has built an incredible agency with some of the most talented people in the industry who share an innate ability to move at the speed of culture and a restless hunger for pushing creative boundaries.”

W Communications grew annual revenues 33 per cent to £13.7m in 2021, according to the most recent PRWeek Top 150 UK Consultancies Report, placing it 31st in the ranking of the biggest PR agencies in the UK.

It has developed hubs in London, Singapore and New York, with 150 employees globally.