In the communications business, origins are usually tidied up. A founder leaves a large firm, hangs a shingle, and eventually tells the story as an escape: fewer committees, closer clients, better coffee. Res Publica Group has a stranger and more useful origin. Guy Chipparoni started the Chicago agency in 2002 as a spinout from KemperLesnik. Then, in August 2024, the child returned and bought KemperLesnik Public Relations from KemperSports.
There is a pleasing loop to it, but the loop matters because it explains what Res Publica actually sells. The firm is not a software company dressed up as a consultancy. It does not promise to automate judgment. It is an independently owned agency that assembles strategists, public-affairs hands, marketers, writers, designers and crisis counselors around problems that have become public - or are about to.
The product is composure
An agency website must name deliverables, so Res Publica does. Media relations. Internal communications. Public affairs. Community engagement. Market research. Media buying. Campaign optimization. Video, websites, email and social. It is a long menu, and the danger of any long agency menu is that it begins to sound like room service.
The client work gives the menu a shape. The firm points to Lollapalooza, Sueños Music Festival and the United Center under partnership building; Ryan Field under community engagement; Breakthru Beverage Group under brand amplification; CountyCare under audience reach; Cook County's My Shot campaign under action; and Aon programs under thought leadership. It also cites crisis work connected to Manchester Arena, Astroworld Festival and Highland Park Hospital.
Those are not variations of one marketing problem. A Medicaid enrollee, a concert promoter, a hospital executive and a stadium neighbor do not arrive with the same fears or vocabulary. The common service is coordination: deciding who needs to hear what, from whom, in what order, while lawyers, reporters, officials, employees and online spectators are all forming opinions at once.
“This is a full circle moment for us, having started Res Publica Group more than 20 years ago as a spin off from KemperLesnik.”Guy Chipparoni, founder and CEO
A Chicago operating system
Res Publica calls itself boutique in size with capabilities usually found at larger agencies. This familiar pitch is more convincing when you look at the people and the local terrain. Chipparoni worked in public affairs at Hyatt, advised Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, led public affairs at KemperLesnik and held a senior role at Hill & Knowlton. In 2025 he was selected to chair the board of Choose Chicago, the city's tourism marketing organization.
Chicago is therefore more than the address on Michigan Avenue. It is the firm's subject matter: government and business, wards and venues, hospitals and health plans, sports owners and festival operators. In a city where an entertainment story can become a transportation story, a neighborhood story and a City Hall story before lunch, knowing the junctions is useful.
One issue, four simultaneous rooms
That network is also the agency's competitive position. A giant global network offers geographic reach and enormous specialist benches. A narrow boutique offers senior attention and a recognizable point of view. Res Publica is trying to occupy the seam: close enough to the client for principals to stay involved, broad enough to take a complicated assignment from stakeholder strategy through creative production.
The boomerang acquisition
The KemperLesnik deal made that positioning tangible. KemperLesnik Public Relations brought experience in sports, events and lifestyle work. Res Publica brought an established platform spanning public affairs, corporate reputation, health care and creative services. Rather than erase the acquired operation, the company said KemperLesnik would remain a wholly owned subsidiary and work from Res Publica's office.
Chipparoni founds Res Publica Group after roles at KemperLesnik and Hill & Knowlton.
My Shot uses broadcast, outdoor, digital and community-facing creative to encourage Cook County vaccination.
Res Publica acquires KemperLesnik Public Relations and brings the team into its Chicago office.
Total Health Talks, produced with Cook County Health, wins Best in Show at Illinois' Pinnacle Awards.
The sequence offers a copyable lesson for other service businesses. First, develop a wedge people can remember. For Res Publica, that wedge was senior counsel at the intersection of media, public perception and public policy. Second, add adjacent execution so the client does not have to translate strategy across five vendors. Third, when acquiring, buy a capability you understand and a team whose habits are legible. Familiarity does not guarantee integration, but it lowers the number of surprises.
The operator's copy
Sell a clear judgment advantage first. Add channels second. Let visible, difficult work prove the combination. Buy adjacent expertise only when clients already pull you toward it.
Proof that travels
Awards are an imperfect measure of communications work; the quietest prevented crisis rarely enters a competition. Still, public recognition shows where the firm's combined model lands. In 2025, Cook County Health and Res Publica won Best in Show at the Illinois Society for Healthcare Marketing and Public Relations' Pinnacle Awards for Total Health Talks. CountyCare's “CountyCare Rewards You” earned an Award of Merit, while a Cook County Health brand refresh received an honorable mention.
The earlier My Shot Cook County vaccination campaign is another useful example. Its documented mix included out-of-home, print, broadcast, digital, a website, video and photography. The point was not to produce one dazzling artifact. It was to make vaccine information and encouragement appear coherently across the places residents actually encountered it. The campaign received recognition from MarCom, PRNEWS and health-care advertising programs.
This model has conditions. It works best when the client's problem genuinely crosses audiences and when senior leaders are willing to align before speaking. It becomes less distinctive on cheap, isolated production work, where a specialist studio may be faster, or on multinational assignments requiring permanent teams in many countries, where a global network has structural advantages. Relationships can open the room; they cannot replace a sound brief, credible evidence or community trust.
The charming part of Res Publica's story is the boomerang. The instructive part is what came before it: two decades spent becoming capable enough, connected enough and trusted enough to return as the buyer. In public relations, everyone wants the last word. Res Publica's better trick was to keep the conversation going until the ending changed.