SAN FRANCISCO—Weber Shandwick has hired Bradford Williams to lead the North American region of its global technology practice. Williams will be based out of the firm’s Sunnyvale office and report to Heidi Sinclair, president of the practice. Prior to joining Weber Shandwick, Williams served as vice president of global communications at Groupon. Before that, he held similar global and senior communications positions for leading technology companies including eBay, Yahoo! and VeriSign.

NEW YORK—Susan Bean has been named leader of Marina Maher Communications’ new Creative Catalyst Group, which is designed to change the way the firm develops big ideas for clients, drawing on media “creatives” closely connected to pop culture and combine traditional PR approaches with entertainment and experiential capabilities. Bearn is an Emmy award-winning former journalist whose PR career includes serving as senior media strategist at Fleishman Hillard.

NEW YORK—M Booth has named Kate Barr Cornish (pictured) as vice president and head of the agency’s travel practice. She will work with clients including the US Virgin Islands, Montage Hotels & Resorts, Alliance Global Assistance and Wyndham Rewards. Prior to M Booth, she served as vice president at Lou Hammond & Associates where she led travel accounts including Utah Office of Tourism, Mandarin Oriental Hotel Group, Virginia Tourism Corporation, The Waldorf=Astoria, Oetker Collection, Bocuse d’Or USA, and Ocean House resort.

WASHINGTON, DC—StrategyOne, Edelman’s research subsidiary, has appointed Pauline Draper-Watts as executive vice president of communications measurement and analytics group, reporting to Robert Moran, US president. Prior to joining StrategyOne, she was co-founder of Precis media analysis, a senior VP with Millward Brown, a WPP research firm, and most recently with the global strategic communications firm, PRIME Research.

NEW YORK—Emanate has promoted Blair Meisels to director of planning and insights, leading planning, insight generation, and creative development across Emanate accounts. Meisels joined Emanate in 2008. Earlier, she held advertising and marketing positions at Every Day with Rachael Ray, Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi and JWT.

NEW YORK—MWW Group has hired Mara Mazzoni as vice president, digital operations, in Dialogue Digital, the firm’s digital marketing, social media and visual branding practice. Mazzoni will manage cross discipline teams on digital and social media programs and will oversee the growth of MWW’s community management practice and development of digital IP offerings. Prior to joining MWW, Mazzoni worked for Edelman Digital in New York, where she served as vice president, producer.

NASHVILLE—Revive, a healthcare PR and marketing firm, has added Mirena Bagur to its senior management team. As the firm’s new national practice leader for health IT and e-health, Bagur will expand the agency’s practice in health services, healthy living, HIT and e-health. Prior to joining Revive, Bagur managed The CONTeXO Group, a business and marketing consultancy focused on serving clients in the health space. Previously, she was a senior vice president at Weber Shandwick.

FORT WORTH, TX—Open Channels Group, a Fort Worth-based public relations agency, has named Chris Turner, who joined in 2010 as vice president of communications, to senior vice president of communications and digital. He will oversee both the communications and digital teams, leading the PR efforts for multiple agency clients. Corey Lark joins as director of digital communications, overseeing the firm's digital practice.

ST. PAUL, MN—Blaine Thompson has joined Beehive PR as director, digital and social strategy. Before joining Beehive, Thompson was an account supervisor at space150, where he managed digital and social media campaigns for General Mills, and customer research and digital strategies for divisions of 3M and OptumHealth. Prior to that, Thompson was at Atomic Playpen and spent four years in the marketing communications group at Best Buy.