Finsbury was founded by
Roland Rudd in 1994. In 2001, the firm was sold to
WPP in a deal that the
Financial Times estimated earned Rudd £40 million. Rudd remained chairman of the company.
RLM Finsbury In 2011, Finsbury Rudd continued as chairman and Walter G. Montgomery became chief executive officer of the enlarged firm. Montgomery retired as chief executive officer in 2014, but remained a partner in the firm. Montgomery was replaced by Michael Gross until 2017 when he transitioned to Vice-Chair and Paul Homes was announced as CEO.
2012 Wikipedia editing In 2012,
The Times reported that
Alisher Usmanov, a Russian billionaire who was about to launch one of the largest stock market listings in London for his
MegaFon mobile phone company, hired RLM Finsbury which "covertly
cleaned up his online image and removed details of his past" before the offering.
The Telegraph reported that RLM Finsbury staff anonymously "deleted details of a Soviet-era criminal conviction and freedom of speech row" and then "replaced those sections with text outlining Mr Usmanov's philanthropy and art collection." According to ''O'Dwyer's PR
, the firm publicly apologised in The Times'', giving the following statement: "This was not done in the proper manner nor was this approach authorized by Mr. Usmanov. We apologize for this and it will not happen again."
Finsbury rebrand In 2014, RLM Finsbury rebranded as
Finsbury to underline its global ambitions. In 2020, Finsbury developed "Finsbury's Workforce Return", a service that guided businesses in managing employees returning to the workplace after the
COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns.
Finsbury Glover Hering In January 2021, Finsbury,
The Glover Park Group (GPG), and Hering Schuppener completed a merger and management buy-in of 49.99%, forming
Finsbury Glover Hering. At that stage, the company had 18 offices and almost 700 consultants worldwide. WPP remained a 50.01% investor. Following the merger, Rudd and Carter Eskew, founder of GPG, served as co-chairs, while Alexander Geiser, managing partner at Hering Schuppener, became CEO. As of October 2021, the business was worth $917 million. The agency then had 25 offices in North America, Europe, Asia and the Middle East, and over 1,000 employees. Also in 2022, the firm ranked number one in terms of the volume and the value of mergers and acquisitions deals. In January 2023, FGS Global led communication consulting in operations in Spain. In April 2023, US
private equity investor
KKR was reported to be in talks to buy a stake in FGS Global. On April 11, it was confirmed that KKR had agreed to buy a 30 per cent stake in FGS that valued the company at about $1.4 billion. As part of the deal, existing investor Golden State Capital will sell its entire stake to KKR. In December 2024, it was announced that KKR had acquired a majority stake in FGS Global from WPP for $767 million. In January 2026, it was announced that FGS Global had acquired Memetica, a specialist consultancy focused on AI-driven digital threat detection and intelligence. The acquisition accompanied the launch of FGS Global’s AI Advisory practice and resulted in Memetica’s integration into the firm’s AI and Innovation group. == Notable clients ==