BPCM has appointed Christian Langbein executive vice president of growth and strategy, creating an executive-level role as the communications agency continues to expand beyond traditional public relations into broader brand strategy, creative development and business consulting.

“I’ve watched how the agency has really diversified its expertise and grown its value proposition,” Langbein said. “I am super thrilled.”

Langbein joins the agency with more than 15 years of experience across luxury fashion, beauty and consumer brands, including Prada and Allergan Aesthetics, maker of Botox.

He will lead BPCM’s growth and strategy practice, overseeing brand strategy, positioning, campaign development and creative direction across experiential and commerce, while also helping shape the agency’s new business pipeline. He will be based in New York.

The appointment follows BPCM’s leadership evolution in late 2025 and comes as agencies increasingly compete on strategic consulting alongside media relations, with clients looking for integrated support spanning influencer marketing, sustainability, experiential activations and corporate communications.

Although BPCM has long offered growth and strategy services, the new role gives the practice executive-level leadership while strengthening connections across the agency’s divisions, which include fashion, beauty and wellness; travel and hospitality; automotive; wine and spirits; art and design, and consumer lifestyle.

“We are so fortunate to have that diversity, and I’m excited to kind of lend to that diversity and really develop those practices alongside growing the divisions,” he said.

For Langbein, “growth” begins with helping existing clients identify new opportunities.

“We look at the existing stable of clients and look at ways that we can help them grow their business,” he said, pointing to brand positioning, marketing strategy and communications as areas where the agency can create additional value.

The role also extends internally, helping shape how BPCM brings together its different capabilities into a more integrated offering.

“The way that we approach strategy as an agency continues to evolve,” he said, citing opportunities across the firm’s corporate communications and sustainability practice as well as its celebrity and influencer business.

He added that corporate sustainability communications as well as celebrity and influencer communications are “really areas of opportunity that we can grow strategy for a diverse roster of clients.”

His own career reflects that cross-disciplinary approach. After building his career in luxury fashion at Prada, Langbein moved into aesthetics with Allergan Aesthetics and later worked in the start-up environment at cannabis company MedMen, experiences he said broadened his perspective on consumer marketing.

“I realized that the consumer was very much the same,” he said, noting that the principles of education, storytelling and trust applied whether communicating the craftsmanship behind a luxury handbag or the science behind an aesthetics treatment. “The same tools apply.”

The appointment reflects a wider evolution across the agency sector, as firms expand beyond media relations to offer integrated strategy spanning brand positioning, influencer marketing, sustainability and commercial growth.

Looking ahead, Langbein said his priorities for the first year include expanding the agency’s strategic capabilities while broadening the types of clients it serves.

“I would like to continue to diversify the offer that we provide to clients, both existing and future,” he said. He also hopes to bring “a new personality of client work into the enterprise,” drawing on experience across luxury, health care and emerging consumer sectors.