In 1993, Jeffrey Sharlach made a proposal to his bosses at Saatchi & Saatchi: open an operation in Miami devoted to Latin America. The answer was no. So Sharlach left New York, moved south and started the business himself. This is the sort of corporate anecdote that becomes tidier with age, but its useful detail is not the rejection. It is the wager hidden inside it. Sharlach believed that a region routinely filed under “international” was complicated enough to deserve a firm of its own.
He did not speak Spanish or Portuguese. He did know that multinational companies were beginning to use South Florida as a regional base. Miami’s local agencies were busy with tourism and real estate; the giant networks could cover the continent, but often as one item on a very long menu. JeffreyGroup occupied the gap between them: global-company standards, local-market attention, one region only.
The product was never a press release
At first, the practical problem was distribution. A headquarters in the United States needed news to reach journalists in several countries, quickly and accurately. JeffreyGroup supplied the connections and execution. Then the client’s question changed. Distribution became cheap. Attention became unruly. Governments, employees, activists, creators and customers all acquired their own channels. The valuable work moved upstream: Which audiences matter? Which issue can damage permission to operate? Which global idea survives translation, and which one becomes ridiculous?
The agency’s present menu reflects that migration. Corporate communications covers reputation, executive positioning, media relations and crisis counsel. Customer engagement and creative services turn strategy into campaigns. Public affairs connects policy and business. Digital and social teams listen, publish and measure. Stakeholder strategy decides who must be persuaded before anyone writes the first line of copy.
Clients pay for people and judgment, generally through retainers and project fees. The publicly named roster has included Amazon, Airbus, American Airlines, AstraZeneca, Bacardi, Bayer, BlackRock, Disney, Johnson & Johnson, Marriott, Mastercard, Salesforce and TikTok. They are not buying access to a single Latin American consumer, because that person does not exist. They are buying a system for coordinating different languages, regulations, newsrooms and cultural reflexes without losing the global objective.
“We’ve never tried to be all things to all people, just the very best in Latin America.”Jeffrey Sharlach, founder
One region is not one market
JeffreyGroup opened Buenos Aires in 1996, Mexico City in 1997 and São Paulo in 1998. It later added Brasília and Rio de Janeiro, while the Miami-area headquarters coordinated regional work. This sequence matters. An agency can claim geographic expertise from a conference room; owned offices force it to employ people who live with the consequences of local advice.
The distinction sounds obvious until a campaign crosses a border. Brazil speaks Portuguese and has a media economy of continental scale. Mexico sits beside the United States but follows its own political and cultural logic. Argentina’s public conversation can turn on economic news overnight. A regional headquarters wants consistency; a local audience can smell imported language. JeffreyGroup’s job is to hold both truths at once.
What failed first
The first failed thing was somebody else’s appetite. Saatchi did not pursue Sharlach’s proposed operation. Later, the old delivery-led model failed more quietly. Simply placing news across countries stopped being sufficient as communications fragmented and clients faced social, political and reputational pressure at once. Sharlach described the shift plainly: the work became more about “the thinking” than “the things.”
That shift changed the talent mix and the billable value. A firm once prized for getting a message out now needed behavioral insight, data, public-affairs judgment, creative production and social intelligence. JeffreyGroup codified its answer as “The JeffreyGroup Way”: respond quickly, anticipate the client, keep senior people near the work, define results early and treat Latin America as focused expertise rather than an add-on.
The acquisition that did not erase the niche
In September 2022, WPP acquired JeffreyGroup and placed it with Hill & Knowlton. The purchase price was not disclosed. The rationale was easier to see: 330 people, established offices and relationships with large global clients gave H&K a dramatically larger Latin American footprint. JeffreyGroup gained access to a worldwide network, data intelligence, technology and broader career paths for employees.
The deal works only if the parent adds capability without sanding away the local judgment it came to buy.
The structure changed again in 2024 when WPP combined BCW and Hill & Knowlton into Burson. JeffreyGroup remained a distinct company and the Latin America specialist inside the new group. Founder Jeffrey Sharlach retired that March. Brian Burlingame, chief executive since 2015, continued to lead the business while also overseeing Burson’s regional group. In 2025, that regional group was named Latin America Agency of the Year at the SABRE Awards; JeffreyGroup Mexico also won for cause-related work with Reckitt.
Awards offer imperfect evidence, but the range of recognized assignments is instructive: Airbnb and Tequila Patrón, KLM and HBO Latin America, PlayStation, Eletromidia and Reckitt. The portfolio crosses consumer launches, reputation, media relations and social purpose. The shared product is not a particular channel. It is adaptation without incoherence.
The part worth copying
JeffreyGroup’s most portable lessons are not about public relations. They are about specializing in a form of complexity that customers repeatedly encounter and dislike rebuilding themselves.
Choose a hard boundary
A good niche excludes work. “Latin America only” made the promise legible and forced the expertise to compound.
Own the difficult nodes
Put permanent teams where nuance matters most, then use partners to extend reach beyond those hubs.
Move toward judgment
Execution becomes cheaper. Diagnosis, prioritization and stakeholder counsel become more valuable.
Write down the behavior
Culture travels better when “senior people stay close” is an operating rule, not a recruitment slogan.
This model is weaker when customers need a single-country boutique, when local differences do not materially affect the result, or when an acquirer centralizes decisions so aggressively that specialist teams become a logo over a generic network. Focus pays only when the complexity is real and the organization keeps learning it.
The funny thing about JeffreyGroup is that its central insight now sounds conventional. Of course Latin America is diverse. Of course global messaging needs local judgment. But obvious ideas are often only obvious after someone spends thirty years building offices, hiring specialists and explaining the same point to headquarters. The map was never wrong about the borders. It was wrong about where the center belonged.