Slate PR Partners Dissolve Business After 15 Years

The founding partners of Slate PR have dissolved the publicity firm after 15 years, but are staying in business together with the launch of new venture, Apex Public Relations.

Run by Slate PR leaders Stephen Huvane, Robin Baum, Simon Halls and Andy Gelb, the new version of their company, which has “existed through several iterations for more than 30 years,” is open for business with fully staffed offices in Los Angeles and New York City. Fellow Slate PR partner Ina Treciokas is splitting from the rest of the group and will soon announce her next moves.

Per Apex, “the entirety of the partners’ clients will join them in the new venture” as will the “vast majority of the Slate employee team.”

Existing clients from the Slate PR portfolio include Jennifer Aniston, Ryan Gosling, Zendaya, Chris Hemsworth, Ryan Murphy, Julianne Moore, Emily Blunt, Lana Del Rey, Brendan Fraser, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, George Clooney, Anya Taylor Joy, Ridley Scott, Elle and Dakota Fanning, Greg Berlanti, Tom Ford and Dakota Johnson, as well as the Vanity Fair Oscar party, Glamour Women of the Year, the Westminster Kennel Club, Wondery, the Tony Awards, Netflix, IMDbPro and MPTF.

With the launch of Apex, the former Slate leadership team has set a new board of managing partners, who will be responsible for long-term growth and day-to-day management. The board members include Slate PR vets Guido Gotz, Lindsay Maguire, Scott Newman, Jennifer Plante, Shawn Purdy and Megan Senior.

“We are excited to continue this amazing and longstanding partnership as we launch Apex,” Huvane, Baum, Halls and Gelb said in a joint statement Thursday. “We feel like we struck gold when we first joined forces way back when, with all of our individual strengths combining to make an extraordinarily cohesive and successful team. We are very much looking forward to continuing that in this next, exciting venture.”

Apex marks the latest partnership between the Slate PR founders over several decades in business together. In 1994, Huvane, Baum and Halls formed their agency HBH. In 2001, the firm merged with PMK to form PMK/HBH. Huvane, Baum and Halls were set as managing partners and brands and events exec Gelb joined the new company. In 2010, Huvane, Baum, Halls and Gelb left PMK/HBH to form Slate PR with Ina Treciokas.

Deadline first reported the news of Apex Public Relations.