Bateman Agency hires Jesse Ciccone to lead East Coast operations

Ciccone joins from Matter Communications where he worked for over 20 years, most recently as EVP of integrated marketing.

by Jess Ruderman November 14, 2025

BOSTON: Bateman Agency has hired Jesse Ciccone as an executive vice president to focus on EastCoast operations.

Ciccone, based in the greater Boston area, will focus on business development to expand the agency's presence on the East Coast, according to Fred Bateman, Bateman Agency CEO and founder.

Ciccone started his new role on November 3; he reports to Bateman.

“In the last year, the agency has seen an increase in lead flow and new clients on the East Coast, from Boston to New York City to Washington, DC,” Bateman said in an email, adding, “We want to capitalize on the market opportunity and build on our success working with East Coast brands like [online learning platform] 2U, [GEO startup] Bluefish and [workflow automation company] Tines.”

The East Coast leadership role is newly created, but the need is not new, Bateman explained. The firm has been bicoastal since its inception in 2020, he said, with clients and full-time employees based primarily in the greater Boston area.

Bateman Agency’s East Coast team consists of six people, plus Ciccone. They work a hybrid schedule from the firm’s new Boston area office in Amesbury, Massachusetts.

Bateman said he was looking to fill an EVP-level leadership position for the firm’s Boston-based team and clients when he received a text from Ciccone.

“We’ve been meeting with qualified candidates to fill this leadership role for two years, but none checked all the boxes until [Ciccone],” Bateman said. “He was the only one we felt certain could help scale this very special platform we’ve built.”

Ciccone previously worked with Bateman more than two decades ago at FitzGerald Communications. At that agency, Ciccone was a vice president of life sciences and moved from Boston to San Francisco to help build the firm's West Coast presence, according to Bateman.

Ciccone moved back to Boston in 2004 and was a founding employee of Matter Communications, based in Newburyport, Massachusetts, where he has worked for the past 20 years in multiple roles. Most recently, Ciccone served as Matter’s EVP of integrated marketing. A Matter representative could not be immediately reached for comment.

Bateman, a member of PRWeek’s 2021 Pride in PR list, founded the strategic communications company Bateman Group in 2003 and served as its CEO until 2020, when he sold his majority stake in the eponymous firm. Under new management, the agency rebranded as Mission North.

He launched Bateman Agency, based in San Francisco, in 2020.