Joele Frank, Wilkinson Brimmer Katcher, a financial communications firm known for merger work, counts graphic and digital services among its key offerings, according to founder Joele Frank.
Many companies lack the resources to produce that work on their own, Frank said, and major presentations are where the firm fills the gap.
Investor Days and Presentations
“When there are investor days involving major presentations, we do a lot of the slide deck work,” she said. “This type of work is a defining aspect of the identity of a company.”
Design is the most recent addition in an expansion that began soon after the firm opened in early 2000. Joele Frank started strictly as an M&A shop, and the partners hit a problem within the first year.
“You know what we learned in our first year? At the end of a deal, guess what happens if you’re only in M&A? You lose the client,” Frank said.
The firm responded by adding investor relations, public relations and activism defense. Of the founding, Frank said, “We were all for one and one for all.”
The Firm by the Numbers
Joele Frank now employs more than 200 people and has 26 partners, and Frank puts the homegrown share of partners at half to three-quarters. One founder has retired, in 2011. The firm is based at 22 Vanderbilt in Manhattan, has a second office in San Francisco and competes with FGS Global, FTI Consulting and Kekst CNC. PRovoke Media lists it among the top independent M&A and crisis communications advisories in North America.
“Many of our partners came to us right out of college and have come all the way up,” Frank said.
Frank founded the firm after her contract at Abernathy MacGregor ended. Its partners are independent owners who share one P&L, and she has said independence protects the firm from being divided up by a conglomerate parent. Earlier in her career, she learned financial PR at Adams & Rinehart, worked in finance and investor relations at AT&T, and started out as a biochemist before joining Allied Chemical as a financial analyst.
Credibility and Credit
“It’s really a team sport,” Frank said of the firm’s success. O’Dwyer’s editor-in-chief Kevin McCauley calls her the first lady of financial PR.
A profile of the founder published Sept. 24 describes her emphasis on trust with clients, with the people who deal with them, and for the clients themselves.
“We sell credibility. If we aren’t credible, the clients aren’t going to hire us. And if we don’t help the clients be credible, it doesn’t work,” Joele Frank said.
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