Industry Public Relations CEO Alan Soucy (1 Oct 2006–) Number of employees 60 | Website www.sparkpr.com Founded 1999 Type of business Private | |
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Headquarters San Francisco, California, United States Founders Donna Sokolsky Burke, Chris Hempel Profiles | ||
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Spark Public Relations is a public relations and integrated marketing communications agency headquartered in San Francisco, California, with offices in New York City. The firm focuses on the technology and consumer markets.
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History
Spark Public Relations was founded in 1999 by Donna Sokolsky Burke and Chris Hempel, who started the firm after working at Netscape. Its early clients were Silicon Valley start-ups and former Netscape colleagues. It signed one-year contracts to help with startup launches and IPOs, in exchange for equity in the company. It supported VA Linux's IPO in December 1999.
A price comparison website, Shopping.com's hired Spark in 2004. The following year, it began supporting Yahoo.com and MyYahoo. In 2007, it founded SPR Europe, a London-based affiliate for the European market. An office was opened in South Africa in 2008 and in New York in 2012.
In 2015, Spark announced its suite of services called Agile Narrative with the hiring of Tobin Trevarthen as Chief Narrative Officer. In 2016, Spark hired Stowe Boyd as Head of Research in order to support these efforts.
Spark's co-founder Donna Sokolsky Burke has been named one of the Top Women in PR by PR News in 2016.