0
0
Dr. Kathy Bloomgarden, CEO of Ruder Finn, was honored with an Outstanding Individual Achievement award at PRovoke’s SABRE Awards last night on Tuesday, May 6th. This accolade, presented by PRovoke CEO and Editor in Chief, Paul Holmes, recognizes Bloomgarden for her lasting impact on the public relations industry. Under Bloomgarden’s leadership, Ruder Finn has reached many new frontiers over the years, including launching the agency’s China office, healthcare practice, and technology innovation hub rf.TechLab, kicking off a new chapter in the agency’s storied history. Today she is driving industry leading growth and global expansion, as well as pioneering the adoption of new disruptive technologies.
In addition, tonight Bloomgarden will be celebrated as a 2025 Pinnacle Award Honoree at Medical Marketing + Media’s Pinnacle Awards. The Pinnacle Awards program, now in its fifth year, honors the leaders, marketers, strategists and creators who have scaled the industry’s heights — and who still have many more years of high achievement ahead of them. MM+M named Kathy and a selection of other honorees to this prestigious list in February of this year.
Bloomgarden has built a global agency for the future, and one of the world’s largest independently owned agencies. With ‘What’s Next’ ingrained in her DNA, Bloomgarden keeps her eye on where the world is going, not where it’s been. When OpenAI released ChatGPT, Ruder Finn was already shaping strategies with industry leaders to build AI-ready data infrastructures, address LLM hallucinations, and bridge east-west divides in AI development. Within the past year, Bloomgarden established the RF AI Advisory Council headed by the former Head of Go-To-Market at OpenAI to prepare Ruder Finn for this new AI landscape. She also spearheaded the agency’s newest LLM optimization offering rf.aio, which is a tool designed to optimize LLMs’ responses at scale for brands. Bloomgarden is known for convening conversations with the most influential leaders around AI and industry disruption.
“I’ve worked with Kathy for over 15 years, through hundreds of opportunities and challenges,” said John Chambers, former Executive Chairman and CEO of Cisco Systems; current founder and CEO JC2 Ventures. “Every time, without exception, she and her team execute flawlessly. She’s wicked smart and is able to read her client’s strengths and limitations and adjust appropriately to handle the most exciting and challenging opportunities. I’ve worked with a lot of very strong PR leaders. Kathy is by far and away the best I’ve ever worked with.”
With her ability to anticipate trends and act decisively, Bloomgarden has made Ruder Finn a key partner for global clients navigating economic uncertainties, geopolitical tension, and technological disruption.
“Kathy is the reason I am still at Ruder Finn today,” said Michael Schubert, long-time Chief Innovation Officer at Ruder Finn. “While I may have ‘Innovation’ in my title, she has it in her soul. I have watched Kathy be an essential partner for many of the world’s leading CEOs over her celebrated career, and an inspiration to PR leaders across our industry. Her vision helped put PR in the C-suite and continues to redefine how communications can be an accelerator for innovation and a positive force for good in the world.”
“It is an honor to be recognized by PRovoke and MM+M among my fellow communications and marketing peers,” said Bloomgarden. “We are in the midst of a pivotal moment for our industry, and it’s the communications function that is instrumental to the adoption of new technologies for the future. I am profoundly optimistic about our collective abilities to accelerate innovation and I’m excited to be a part of it.”
The PRovoke SABRE awards were held in New York City at Cipriani 42nd St on May 6th, 2025. The MM+M Pinnacle Awards will be held in New York City at the Edison Rooftop on May 7th, 2025.
