Movement at Sitrick PR

It is no surprise to learn that after nine years running the entertainment division at the famed crisis PR firm Sitrick and Company, managing director Allan Mayer is leaving. At Sitrick, Mayer had become Hollywood's go-to guy for people in trouble; he ran such high-profile Hollywood accounts as "The Da Vinci Code," "Munich" and "A Beautiful Mind." According to sources within Sitrick, the Buzz Magazine founding editor, who co-wrote with Michael Sitrick the 1998 book, Spin: How to Turn the Power of the Press to Your Advantage, will start his own PR firm with his Sitrick right arm, Kelly Mullens, the former Sony and Universal corporate PR exec and Fleishman-Hillard v-p. (Sitrick had made Mayer his managing director in 2004.) It's likely that Mayer's long relationships advising Steven Spielberg and Brian Grazer will continue. When reached by phone, Mayer declined to comment.

Other changes are afoot at Sitrick. Ex-Wall Street Journal reporter John Lippman, who left the paper's L.A. staff last June to write an Oscar business book for the WSJ and Crown Publishers, is leaving entertainment journalism altogether to join the staff of the Century City crisis PR firm. Lippman was hired by Sitrick, who was the subject of a July Los Angeles Magazine power profile, which probably stuck in Mayer's craw. Lippman will not be writing the Oscar book, he confirmed. Another ex-entertainment journalist has joined Sitrick as well, former Variety writer David Bloom, who did corporate PR for MGM.

Comments

[Jackie Danicki]

Whenever people say everyone in the entertainment biz must be complete a-holes, I always mention Allan Mayer (and you, Anne) as exceptions to the rule.