Sitrick and Company

Chairman/CEO: Michael Sitrick

Number of employees: 50

Languages: English, Spanish 

Overview & History: 

Sitrick And Company is not a traditional public relations firm. Its practice is tightly focused. The firm has extensive experience in serving clients across the globe on corporate, legal, financial, and transactional matters, as well as reputation creation and management. It is a globally recognised leader in crisis and strategic communications, and handling high-stakes and sensitive situations, including when a client’s fate is at stake.

Since the firm’s founding more than 33 years ago, Sitrick And Company has consistently ranked among the top crisis and strategic communications firms in the world. The New York Times called Sitrick And Company ‘The City’s Most Prominent Crisis Management Firm.’

Fortune Magazine called Michael Sitrick, the firm’s founder, ‘one of the most accomplished practitioners of the dark arts of public relations’ and ‘The Winston Wolf of Public Relations’. Forbes called him, ‘The Flack for when you’re under attack.’The Financial Times called him, ‘The Spin Doctor’s Spin Doctor.’

The Columbia Journalism Review wrote: ‘Michael Sitrick…is a public relations puppet master who has pulled the strings behind some of the biggest stories in media. He specializes in crisis PR and has made a name for himself as the man you call when you have money and step in some sh*t,’ and, ‘Sitrick hewed the contrarian take when Slate was just a twinkle in Michael Kinsley’s eye. Sitrick was using the internet and social networks to stoke distrust in the media when Donald Trump was still hosting WrestleMania.’

Though domiciled in the United States, the firm has represented clients around the world, including large and small publicly and privately held companies, universities, colleges, government agencies, and high profile individuals in government as well as in the business, financial, sports, and entertainment industries. Matters with which it has been involved span the spectrum. Although many of its cases have dominated the headlines, perhaps even more telling are the cases which are never heard about -- where the firm is brought in to keep clients out of the press and off the internet. The firm also excels in the areas of digital and social media, achieving unsurpassed results and visibility for its clients.

The firm’s practitioners are broadly experienced professionals, many with both media and senior-level corporate experience. The overwhelming majority of the firm’s senior executives are former editors and reporters from prominent news organizations such as the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, Bloomberg, Los Angeles Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Barron’s, Forbes, CBS News and NBC News.

Services:  

■ Crisis Management

■ Corporate Communications

■ Corporate Governance

■ Reputation Management

■ Bankruptcy and Restructuring

■ Litigation Support

■ Digital Communications and Social Media

■ Labor Issues

■ Entertainment

■ Sports

■ Asia Pacific

Crisis Management: 

The firm’s crisis management experience and expertise includes litigation of all categories, corporate governance issues, reputation management and restoration, ‘cancel culture’, mergers and acquisitions, data breaches, and financial restatements. Additionally, the firm has experience in combating short sellers; product recalls; sensitive environmental situations; executive departures; professional, college and high school sports issues; family disputes; and high-profile divorces.

Corporate and Financial Communications: 

Sitrick And Company has helped hundreds of companies — large and small, publicly traded and privately held — in matters including intellectual property issues, allegations of stock manipulation, wrongful termination, contract disputes, allegations of fraud and fraudulent inducement, RICO, Qui Tam and wrongful death claims, environmental issues, allegations of illegal drug use and a variety of white-collar crimes, criminal and civil cases against companies and their executives for such things as price fixing, insurance fraud, options backdating and antitrust violations, race and sex discrimination, sexual harassment, family disputes and highprofile divorces.

Litigation Support:  

Sitrick And Company has one of the most successful litigation support/regulatory practices in the public relations industry. Since inception, the firm’s executives have been involved in virtually every type of litigation and regulatory issue imaginable — on a wide variety of matters including launching companies, taking companies public, in- and out-of-court restructurings (the firm has done approximately 500 such cases and their European equivalent), reputation creation and restoration, combatting short sellers, data breaches, mergers and acquisitions, corporate governance issues, environmental matters, earnings restatements, management changes and scandals. Strategies the firm has developed and implemented have helped to bring about settlements for its plaintiff clients within days and weeks after the lawsuits were first filed.

Social Media and Digital Communications: 

Sitrick And Company’s digital communications practice is well-known for its disciplined, creative and effective approach to all aspects of online and video communications, incorporating strategic messaging, online forensic investigation, and technological integration. The firm employs a full suite of capabilities using state of the art techniques, including: rapid custom website development and deployment, graphic design, software architecture, content management, analytics and social media integration; search engine optimization (SEO), digital media buying in search, social media, contextual, and video. Sitrick develops and implements social media strategies and campaigns that include online reputation management, analysis and remediation; addressing and correcting online errors on blogs, online news stories, and Wikipedia; and acting as a rapid response team for the analysis and implementation of digitally focused messaging.

Bankruptcies and Restructurings: 

Sitrick And Company has the most experienced and accomplished restructuring practice in the strategic communications industry. Sitrick executives have served as strategic communications counsel in more than 500 in- and out-of-court restructurings and reorganizations throughout the world — including some of the largest and most complex. The firm’s Chapter 11 experience encompasses virtually every industry and nearly every imaginable situation. Its expertise includes developing and implementing strategy to deal with all key constituents including the media, employees, regulators, vendors, customers, unions, creditors, and shareholders

Reputation Management: 

Reputation Management is one of the areas that Sitrick And Company is best known for, whether in launching a company, defending a company or individual against attack, or restoring and rebuilding a reputation. The results are not just theoretical. They have translated into significant increases in the market capitalisation of companies – in the billions in some cases – and the resurrection of careers. Because the firm is a gatekeeper to some of the biggest news stories in the country, it enjoys critical access to the media — a vital component in the success of any reputation management or crisis communications program.