German to become President of PRGN

Uwe Schmidt from Hamburg will take over as head of worldwide agency network

Uwe Schmidt, CEO of PR agency Industrie-Contact (IC), based in Hamburg, will take the chair of international agency group Public Relations Global Network (PRGN) at the end of April. IC, founded in 1979, is privately owned and PRGN member since 2002. Schmidt will succeed the American David Landis from San Francisco, who heads the PR network since April 2013. The president of PRGN is always elected for one year by the member agencies.

PRGN consists of nearly 50 agencies on all continents. It ranks among the 10 largest global PR networks and the fourth biggest network among organizations with purely owner-managed agencies. All PRGN members come to an annual gross income of about 110 million U.S. dollars and employ more than 900 PR professionals.

Uwe Schmidt, who helped develop the network, which was founded 1992 in the US, throughout Europe: “We have benefited a lot from that network in the past twelve years. In the future, we also want to cooperate with entities and networks outside the PR and are open to discussions.”

For the PR industry, Schmidt looks into a good future: “The price-performance ratio of PR as compared to advertising is excellent and, not at least, offers especially medium-sized companies with limited budget good ways to draw attention to themselves.” At the same time the upcoming PRGN President warns: “The industry needs to be vigilant. Media landscape, marketing and customer demands are changing almost daily. If you sleep, you lose. The international network helps a lot to stay alert.”

More Information

PRGN at Wikipedia: Public Relations Global Network
Photo:

Uwe Schmidt