New DVL Seigenthaler leadership includes, from left on top row, Richard Funess, Peter Finn and Ronald Roberts; and, from left on bottom row, Alicia Young, Beth Seigenthaler Courtney and Noah Finn.
New York-based public relations firm Finn Partners is buying and merging two veteran Nashville communications agencies, DVL Public Relations & Advertising and Seigenthaler Public Relations Inc., forming the city’s largest public relations group. DVL CEO and MTSU College of Mass Communication alumnus (’84) Ronald Roberts will lead the 80-person company as CEO.
The combined local company is named DVL Seigenthaler and will be located in the Gulch area. Seigenthaler Public Relations CEO Beth Seigenthaler Courtney will become president.
The acquisition allows Finn Partners, a global firm, to enter the quickly growing Nashville market and tap into the relationships established locally and nationally by the two agencies that together bring in fees close to $11 million.
For the two Nashville firms, Finn Partners offers opportunities of reach and resources through its seven U.S. cities, including Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., San Francisco and Chicago, and overseas offices in Jerusalem, London, Paris and Munich. Finn Partners — whose clients include Bosch Home Appliances, MOMA and Verizon Foundation — bills about $65 million annually with its new Nashville firms.
Roberts currently serves on the MTSU College of Mass Communication Board of Trust. Courtney is the niece of John Seigenthaler, who passed away this past summer. Patrick Embry was recently named the new director of the MTSU John Seigenthaler Chair of Excellence in First Amendment Studies. A new conference room in the John Bragg Mass Communication Building was recently completed in Seigenthaler’s honor and will be dedicated on Feb. 10.
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