About Us
Emerald Public Relations is the Hungarian affiliate of WPP’s Burson Cohn & Wolfe. The agency was founded by Zsofia Lakatos, former President and Member Emeritus of the Hungarian PR Association. Zsofia has over 20 years’ experience in Public Relations, she served as Managing Director of Hill+Knowlton Strategies in Hungary, also representing Ogilvy Public Relations.
The agency introduced a new structure in Hungary: young professionals with a fresh perspective on communication forming the core team as employees supported by a league of gurus from different PR backgrounds working as sub-contractors. The founder of the agency puts much emphasis on mentoring young people, offering Emerald PR as a first workplace for PR-graduates. The young professionals are backed by PR-gurus, who formerly served as PR and PA Directors of multinational companies.
Emerald PR has strategic partnerships with various ATL and BTL agencies to ensure that clients are offered a full spectrum of communication and we have very good working relationship with many agencies across Central and Eastern Europe.
Our Portfolio
The agency’s client list includes multinational brands like GE, MARS, Bunge, Forevermark, Tungsram-Schreder, Klepierre, Roland Berger, ABBYY, Liferay, Qualysoft, White Star Real Estate and UBM and also serves many Hungarian companies such as Columbus Klíma, Balla Ingatlan or H1 Systems. Besides the corporate clients, the agency supports various NGOs with pro-bono work. The list of civil organisations the agency supported in the past few years includes United Way, Mediaunio, Hungarian Reformed Church Aid, The Club of Budapest, Békaperspektíva, Nemluxustáska and Foundation for the Development of the Heim Pál Children’s Hospital, Oktondi and Karanténsuli. We believe it is our duty to help those who are in need to be heard.
Emerald PR has 3 spin-off companies that were founded for non-classical Public Relations services. Válság112 support companies with crisis management, Business Sustainability Program provides sustainability consultancy and Smaragd Akademia supports companies with finding the best training companies in the market.
Emerald PR Team
Zsofia Lakatos
Managing Director
As Managing Director, Zsofia is responsible for strategic planning, excellent professional service and daily management of the agency. She serves as Senior Consultant on special projects. She is Member Emeritus and former President of the Hungarian Public Relations Association and member of the WCFA Global Advisory Board.
Zsofia has a degree in Public Relations from Budapest Business School and an MBA in Management from the Budapest University of Technology and Economics- She started her career as a reporter for RTL News. She worked as Director of Capital Communications, the leading financial communications agency in for 8 years. She served as Managing Director of Hill+Knowlton Strategies for over 7 years. She is a top crisis management and sustainability expert in Hungary, a frequent lecturer on the topic and owner of Valsag112 and BSP. She is fluent in English and Spanish.
Zsofia is an internationally acknowledged CSR-expert. Her book „Corporate Social Performance in Emerging Markets” was published in 2013 in London. The same year she was named the first „Professional Ambassador of Sustainability in Hungary.” In 2017 she was named Vice-President of Budapest Klub Global Executive Council. In 2021 she became Board Member of Clean Air Action Group.
Tamás Hackl
Account Manager
As an Account Manager, Tamás is responsible for creating and seamlessly executing communication strategies, maintaining a stable and good relationship with press representatives, advising clients on their daily business operations, and ensuring the clients of the agency are satisfied. He has been working at Emerald PR for two and a half years and has a proven track record at the company, working on projects ranging from reputation management to employer branding. He manages clients from the IT, consulting, smart homes, HVAC, and food delivery industries. He studies at Milton Friedman University, specializing in social and new media.
Tamás has significant startup and project management experience as he started his career at a startup company that disrupted the Hungarian phone case and accessory market. He was part of creating the initial communications strategy and was the project manager of multiple campaigns. The enterprise now operates in 5+ countries.
He believes in the power of storytelling and feels his mission is to help people understand each other.
Veronika Földes
Senior Consultant
Veronika is responsible for media relations at the company. She liaises with journalists, organizes events and prepares executive summaries of daily news.
Early in her career, Veronika was Assistant and then Project Manager at Capital Communications, the then leading financial communications agency in Hungary. Her references include clients like MOL Hungarian Oil and Gas, Vienna Capital Partners, Stadler Rail, Budapest Bank, Oppenheim Law Office, Provident Financial, Raiffeisen Private Equity Management, Brokernet. Moving along from Capital Communications, she served for two years as Communications Manager of BDO Hungary.
She has her own stylist company House of Style and she serves as the secretary of the Hungarian PR Association.
Viktória Sebők
Senior Account
Viktória who recently joined Emerald PR is a Business Journalist, IT Communication Specialist, and Business Development Communicator. In addition, she works as Mentor for Inspirate, as well.
She was elected the Information Security Journalist of the Year (2010) and she was elected the Informatics Journalist of the Year (Attila Kovács Award – 2012).
She established a next-generation and one-person editorial office, called PRess Academy in 2014. PRess Academy performs business content to print and online media furthermore runs Self-Improvement Mentor Program.
In 2009 she graduated as a Journalist at the Bálint György Journalist Academy. After that, she works for several business print magazines.
Between 2001 and 2009, Viktória was actively involved in the IT segment as a Project Manager and IT Consultant. In 2006, she graduated at the Gábor Dénes Technical College as Engineer IT Specialist and Security Manager. Between 1990 and 2001 she worked at the Hungarian National Bank, at the international capital market.
Georgina Filep
Junior Account Manager
Georgina works as a Junior Account Manager at Emerald PR. She got her BA degree in Sociology at Eötvös Lóránt University. There, she completed the Media Sociology specialization. During her undergraduate years, she was involved in a lot of projects where she learned the importance of teamwork and communication quickly. She was an intern at Voices of the 20th Century Archive and Research Group. She also has experience in interviewing and data analysis.
She has an resourceful, motivated and optimistic personality who believes in the power of honesty and open-mindedness.
In her spare time, she enjoys reading literature and psychological books, and also loves hiking in the nature.
Ákos Molnár
Junior Account Manager
He believes that communication is an indestructible factor that manifests itself in myriad forms in our environment and in our daily lives, but is not always perceived and used appropriately. The most exciting challenge in the profession is to bridge the misunderstandings and conflicts that arise from this without changing the meaning of the message.
He studied at Kodolányi János University, with a degree in Communication and Media Studies. Although he gained a deeper understanding of television broadcasting at Antenna Hungária Zrt., his interests lie more in online communication and reaching people’s understanding.
He is easily motivated and strives to improve his communication skills and knowledge.
Andrea Dintsér
Senior Consultant
Andrea has 20+ year experience in marketing, corporate communications and knowledge management as an executive leader in multinational companies at country, CEE and EMA levels with PwC and KPMG (1995-2017).
Recently, she has been an advisor on these areas including account based marketing, full production process of market surveys, digital communications including social media, PR, change management, and employer branding as the Founder and CEO of YourStory.hu
Andrea is a member of United Way’s Marketing Committee, and a moderator of the Hungarian Entrepreneurs’ Business Club (Magyar Vállalatvezetők Üzleti Közössége, MVÜK). Also, she has been the strategic outreach leader of the Women/Business/Angels Association.
A passionate believer of the innovative and blitz scaling startup world. One of the mentors of an educational program that lead GenZ through the process of design thinking, lean idea/product development, rapid prototyping, market validation, business model canvas preparation, outlining the communication strategy, and pitch practice. Trainer team member for the startups participating in Microsoft Imagine Cup. Provides consultancy before investor pitches to startup companies to enter the market and help them grow. She joined the mentor team of Design Terminal in 2018.
She has been actively participating in the Hungarian Business Leaders Forum’s (HBLF) Y-Generation Mentoring Program, and its Digital Working Group.
Erika Bertalan
Consultant
Erika who recently joined Emerald PR started her communications career as a journalist for a local daily where she was both writing articles and taking photos. Later, she also did editorial work.
She moved from journalism to PR after completing a course in PR. She joined the team of leading communications agency Capital Communications as a media monitoring expert in 2006.
During the years spent with CC, she was also working as project assistant and project manager for major customers such as AAA Auto, EDF Hungary, AXA Bank and Aegondirekt.hu.
From 2016 Erika works for The Hungarian Public Relations Association (HuPRA) as a secretary.
Our references
"Emerald PR team has been very attentive to our needs and has provided great support in reaching our communicational goals in Hungary. The team is very professional and knows the local media market very well. Zsofi and her colleagues always keep a big picture in their mind and share out of the box ideas and solutions both for online and offline dimensions. We have enjoyed working with Emerald PR and are looking forward to having more joint projects!"
- Elina Mukhametdinova, Head of PR
ABBYY
"In the Hungarian launch campaign of Forevermark, Emerald PR provided us with the highly professional support we needed, combined with creative ideas and a „we have everything under control” attitude. Knowing that we have an agency we can fully rely on, made the launch much more pleasant. And to top it off, they managed the launch campaign in third of the normally necessary time, jumping in and saving the day with great teamwork. Zsofia and her team are seasoned professionals with great expertise and fresh ideas. I highly recommend Emerald PR."
- Vivien Schmid, Marketing Director
Forevermark Hungary
"I have worked with Zsofia and her team for years as a client. She holds the highest professional and ethical standards combined with an attitude set for maximum success. Her strategic advice and superb problem-solving skills have supported our successful operation in Hungary."
- Zsolt Kertai, COO
Klépierre
"In less than a year Emerald has helped us build up our brand with the media representatives that are most important and relevant for us. From strategy building, to content calendar creation, event organisations, we know that we can rely on them and that they will deliver what is promised."
- Dániel Kiss, Senior Marketing Specialist
EMEA, Liferay Hungary Kft
"Emerald has been participating in developing our brand-new luxury residential villa park, Eötvös12 for a year, since the start of the planning phase. It has been a fruitful cooperation right from the beginning as Emerald have had the clear understanding and unique view of the project like no other agencies before. Our very first meeting was a relief when we realized we found the company that can distil the truth from the information mess and can find the right mix to achieve the goals; but more to that Emerald has the eye to see the far future and keep the balance between the development parties. Their participation in our issue management, PR and marketing activities has become vital for us, their contribution to the development team is always a great joy and experience."
- János Gárdai, Managing Director
White Star Real Estate