The Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), an international, nonprofit membership organization for mental health professionals and provider of public resources, has selected Ketchum as its agency of record (AOR) following a competitive pitch. The team from Ketchum’s D.C., office will lead the account, and provide enterprise communications, executive visibility, earned and paid social media and digital campaigns, corporate partnerships and event planning — including for the  Anxiety & Depression Conference on April 13-16, 2023, in Washington, D.C.

SKDK announced Aoife McCarthy has joined the firm’s D.C. office as a Senior Vice President of the public affairs practice. McCarthy brings more than 15 years of communications experience from both the public and private sectors to her new role at the firm, where she will work across corporate and advocacy accounts. Prior to joining SKDK, McCarthy was most recently leading federal policy communications at Instacart, where she advised national communications campaigns to educate stakeholders about key policies, regulatory issues, and legislation. Before Instacart, McCarthy served in a number of senior communications roles for the U.S. Department of Energy, the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, the Global Climate Action Summit, Obama for America, as well as several private sector entities.

Falfurrias Capital Partners, a private equity firm, has made an investment in Said Differently, a marketing agency that, states a release, assembles integrated teams of specialists strategically sourced to meet and exceed specific client goals. Terms were not disclosed.  Said Differently was founded in 2020 before the start of the pandemic by Rachel Barek, CEO, and Brian Skahan, president, both former managing directors at leading global marketing agencies. The company operates virtually, with Barek based in D.C., Skahan living in Florida, with the rest of its “network of over 3,000 specialists are geographically distributed across the globe to service a range of clients across industry verticals, time zones and languages.” Barek previously was managing director of AKQA in D.C.