NEW YORK — M Booth has hired Ketchum senior partner Dale Bornstein to lead the agency as founding CEO Margi Booth moves into a chairman role.

Booth founded the firm 28 years ago that today is about 100 people and $17 million in revenues with clients that include American Express, Unilever, GE and Google. In 2009, holding company Next 15 acquired M Booth.

Bornstein  -- a 27 year Ketchum veteran -- was tapped to lead the firm, in part, for her experience as Ketchum’s director of global practices and her work in developing the firm’s Mindfire program for crowdsourcing ideas from college students. She also has management responsibility for Ketchum’s sports and entertainment practice.

“We’re a mid-sized firm and she’s coming from a big agency -- so there’s a lot we can learn there,” Booth said. “We also want to become more global.”

Meanwhile, Booth plans to play “a hands-on” chairman role working alongside Bornstein on the firm’s strategic direction and with key clients. M Booth managing partner Brad Rodney retired earlier this summer.

“To grow and flourish, there needs to be an infusion of new ideas,” Booth added. Bornstein will join on October 1 and both she, and Booth, will report into Next 15 CEO Tim Dyson.

Bornstein said she was attracted to M Booth’s “unique cutting edge creative” -- noting the decision to leave Ketchum after nearly three decades wasn’t taken lightly.

“It would be presumptuous for me to give you my roadmap and plan today,” Bornstein said. “For the first few weeks, I’ll be doing some fearless listening.”