Edelman lays off 330 people as turnover falls 8% in the United States

Edelman is laying off 5.3% of its total workforce, or 330 employees, in response to an expected revenue decline in 2024 of approximately 8% in the United States and 3% globally.

Most of the reductions are across all U.S. operations, although about 15% of the reductions are in Asia. The rest of the world is unaffected, as EMEA, Canada and Latin America are “doing well”, according to Richard Edelman, CEO of Edelman.

The new agency structure will focus on the five key areas of health, technology, food and drink, financial services and the energy transition. It will remove its sub-brands and conflict stores Edible, Revere, Salutem, Mustache, EGA and Delta. Edible was launched in 2014 as a food and beverage subsidiary of DJE.

Alongside integrated communications consultancy Edelman, the company will maintain two client-specific entities: Assembly for its Microsoft work and Kinisi for Johnson & Johnson.

Customer disputes will be handled by Daniel J. Edelman's sister companies Zeno Group and Ruth, the latter of which launched in April of this year. DXI, Smithfield and United Entertainment Group will form the “connective tissue” between Edelman and Zeno within the DJE Holdings Group, working with clients of both lead agencies. All three report their numbers to Edelman. There are no layoffs at Zeno.

“The job cuts are split equally between those at the VP level and above and the AAE and senior account supervisor levels. I want to thank those separating from Edelman for their service to the firm and our clients,” Edelman told PRWeek.

One of those fired is Steve Rubel, senior vice president of media strategy and insights. In 2023, Edelman reported global revenue of $1.037 billion; the projected global decline in revenue of 3% this year would keep it just above the psychological $1 billion mark.

“I don’t like doing that,” Edelman added. “I resisted as long as I could. If I had run a public company, this would have happened months ago. But I have to run a business and that’s the job.

He explained that the agency has focused on retaining its core clients, with the top 30 accounting for 45% of the company's revenue and the top 160 75%, up from 65% three or four years ago. years.

“Our focus on customers is paying off, and that number is attributable to more geographies and more practices,” he added. “We are reorganizing ourselves to focus on our large customers and help them grow. Public relations can have important relationships.

Major customer losses in 2024 include Adobe, which moved to Golin after 20 years at Edelman, and Dairy Management, another two-decade relationship.

Edible, a food and beverage subsidiary, lost its estimated $9 million consumer marketing, media relations and issues management brief for the Florida Department of Citrus this summer to Padilla this summer. summer.

Edible CEO Karmen Johnson left in September. At the time, Richard Edelman told PRWeek that the agency was looking for a replacement for Johnson and that Edible would continue to operate as normal.

Salutem CEO Susan Isenberg, who was also president of Edelman's global healthcare business, left last month after working at the company for more than 31 years.

Edelman has won new assignments with clients including Honeywell, Reynolds Consumer Products, Texas Instruments and Helen of Troy.

Edelman said his agency's strategy over the past five years has been to build its consulting capacity to compete with firms specializing in finance, public affairs, employee engagement and impact. . At the same time, Edelman grew its marketing business, emphasizing merited, action-based creativity with ideas linked to economics.

“We structured our consulting units into boutiques and positioned creatives and strategists into dedicated teams,” he added. “Clients now need to integrate specialized services into the larger enterprise to quickly access our geographic reach, deep industry knowledge and creative capability. »

He explained that corporate affairs, marketing and government affairs are now much more closely aligned on the customer side and added that Edelman's senior executives must lead every customer engagement.

In 2024, notable departures from Edelman already included national crisis and risk manager Brooke Buchanan, who left Edelman last month to join Panera Bread as director of corporate affairs; COO, global brand Allison Cirullo, who joined Burson in April as global president, consumer and brand; and Texas CEO Will Crain, who left to become head of CEO communications consulting at Weber Shandwick.

Aaron Guiterman returned from Burson in April of this year after nine months to take on the role of president of U.S. public affairs at Edelman.

On the creative side, US creative director and global chief experience officer Taj Reid has jumped ship to Burson; while global executive creative director Jordan Atlas and EMEA co-creative directors Mattias Ronge and Stefan Ronge left Edelman this year to launch their own consultancies.

“We have a lot of creative depth and I feel really comfortable with our team under the leadership of [global chief creative officer] Judy John, who is a superstar,” Edelman said. “Andrew Simon won awards for Unilever's Hellman's work with Will Levis; Anthony Chelvanathan did the work for Ikea in Canada; Tim Green has created incredible underground subway artwork for HP; and Marie-Claire Maalouf is superb in EMEA on projects such as DP World.

The revenue decline in Edelman's largest market represents the second consecutive year of significant slowdown. In 2023, Edelman's revenue fell 9.1% to $639.2 million in the United States, according to PRWeek's Agency Business Report 2024.

At that time, Edelman said: “We underwent workforce reductions in December 2022 and [270 people in] June 2023. It was not good for the culture. We will manage the company better in the future.

Historically, Edelman's largest departures occurred in 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when the agency said goodbye to 600 people in June of that year, or 7% of its workforce.

Edelman remains “deeply optimistic” about his agency’s future. “We are a billion-dollar company with 5,870 employees,” he said. “We are ideally suited to a world of geopolitical uncertainty, the appropriate role of business in societal issues, and the dispersion of authority at the expense of experts. »

“I look forward to a strong performance in 2025,” he added. “We have the right strategy and a really strong team. But we are not making enough margins. I run a family business, but it's a business. This is a business that needs investment in AI, which we are investing heavily in. This is a business that needs good office space for people to come and work. All these things. It's just about running a business.

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