With Great Pride

Has it been a year already? Time to take stock.

As the founder and sole business owner of my San Francisco-based PR firm and, nearing retirement, I had to find a way to transition with an eye toward continued and future relevance. When Fineman PR was acquired by Phoenix, Arizona, based, Off Madison Ave in 2020, I had three goals to accomplish — an advantageous landing spot for my incredible public relations team, a haven and continuing leverage for my agency’s brand name, and total trust in the buyer’s good will and nurturing team environment. As I review this past year, I know that I scored well on all accounts.

For 32 years, I sought to maintain a high reputation for being an honest broker of information and counsel. We all know that nothing good comes easy. That effort included building a smart, capable, talented, and intuitive team of public relations professionals. A special shout out here to my two savvy Vice Presidents and 20+ year veterans of the firm, Heidi White and Lorna Bush.

With most of my long-term staff having started with me early in their careers, even as interns, I was able to bring them along with a regard for integrity, journalistic values and perspectives, and an understanding of the principles of our public relations work. Fineman PR was not a press release factory, nor were we order takers. Our mission was to help our clients understand and meet the expectations of their marketplace and their audiences.

Of course, we had to maintain financial health, even through the throes of multiple economic disasters. Including the “dot com bust” of the early 2000s and, of course, helping our clients weather their own challenging, industry-wide storms along the way. Let’s not forget the communications transitions from fax to email to text and Siri, or from VHS to Tivo to streaming and how those developments impacted conducting business. Of course, change is constant, but retiring meant I would need a transition to take our agency into the future with strong footing and a competitive edge.

In walked Off Madison Ave and its dealmaker and one of two founding partners, David Anderson, a one-time White House staffer and Chair of the global Entrepreneur’s Organization. David and I share many similarities, including a passion for our people, curiosity about client business and a dedication to substance and honesty in a profession often dominated by spin.

With my goals satisfied, our acquisition by Off Madison Ave gives us so much more in terms of capabilities, in-house design, digital marketing, advertising, and creative services. That means we now offer a full 360-degree marketing communications solution for all our clients. It gives Off Madison Ave a serious bench of public relations specialists and troubleshooters to round out their own offerings.

Our mutual clients and industry thought leaders across CPG, food and beverage, travel and tourism, government, education, and healthcare, are now reaping the collective years of experience, strategy, and success of those who are among the public relations and marketing professions’ finest minds. Our partnership brings together experts in behavior design (David’s brilliant partner and agency glue, Roger Hurni), creative and marketing strategy (operational wizard Sasha Howell) and well-armed media buying and media services teams now collaborating as one team for all agency clients. We remain as nimble and resourceful as ever, guided by the substantive approach for which Fineman PR is recognized.

The timing made sense, too. As the lines between paid, sponsored and earned media intersect more than ever, we, too, have a deeper bench of in-house experts at the ready to provide counsel for the most effective strategies across all channels.

Not least, the wellness-focused company culture at Off Madison Ave, offered me and my team a welcoming camaraderie of human resources and comprehensive systems to take our business further for employees and clients. This was a peg I could easily hang my hat on.

And, the legacy I built lives on and thrives, for which I am so grateful.