Weber Shandwick Adds Two Industry Veterans to Global Crisis Communications & Issues Management Team
Weber Shandwick announced today the appointment of two senior hires in its global Crisis Communications & Issues Management practice. Sarah Tyre, formerly managing director and New York crisis lead at Burson-Marsteller, and Marc Drechsler, formerly global head of financial communications at Ketchum, both join as executive vice presidents in New York.
“The variety of risks that our clients face today are evolving rapidly, requiring attention and preparation well beyond simply communicating when crises occur,” said Peter Duda, executive vice president and co-lead of Weber Shandwick’s global crisis communications & issues management practice. “Marc and Sarah’s respective experience will bolster our ability to deliver the specialized counsel our clients need today. Sarah’s unrivaled expertise in cyber risk communications will be crucial to our clients as new digital threats emerge daily. And Marc’s global capital markets exposure is unmatched; he’s worked with hundreds of global institutions, many during their most critical, high stakes communications and reputational issues. Both will be essential assets to our clients and our team.”
At Burson-Marsteller, Tyre led the firm’s cybersecurity specialty, counseling clients through broad reputational issues with a focus on threats associated with inadvertent data loss or exposure, data breaches, privacy concerns and cyberattacks. At Weber Shandwick, Tyre will lead the cyber incident team within the global crisis communications & issues management practice.
During his 14-year tenure with Ketchum as global head of financial communications, with the first seven years serving as head and founding partner of the firm’s Ketchum Pleon Financial, Drechsler advised some of the largest corporations in the U.S. and Europe in transactional work, as well as providing crisis counsel and investor relations management. At Weber Shandwick, Drechsler will lead financial communications, including global capital markets positioning and special situations counsel.
Weber Shandwick is a trusted crisis communications and reputation management advisor to Fortune 500 companies and major organizations around the world. The firm has counseled clients in preparing for and responding to some of the most visible political and corporate crises, often leveraging its proprietary suite of technology solutions built for crises – including firebell, an award-winning crisis simulation platform, and Mobile Command, a mobile and web platform for real-time crisis management.