Today I turn 65.
That’s an unusual place to stand in public relations, a business that tends to celebrate youth, speed, and shiny new things. I am, by most measures, an old man in a young person’s business.
And yet I’ve never been more energized, and it shows.
Last year, Gregory was named the Top PR Firm in America by PR Daily, a humbling honor and a cause for reflection. Because for years, people have asked me a simple question:
What makes a top public relations firm?
I usually answer with a joke:
“Have the same phone number for 36 years and the same email address for 30.”
It gets a laugh. But it’s no joke.
Longevity means something. It shows how you survived client losses, recessions, industry shifts, bad hires, missed opportunities, and reinventions. It means clients trust you so much that they stay. It means great employees choose to remain even when confronted with non-stop opportunities–opportunities that would never come their way if you hadn’t committed to them in the first place.
Still, longevity alone doesn’t make a firm great. It only gives you the opportunity to become one.
When I was younger, I believed greatness in PR came from ideas. I had a kind of television version of agency life in my head. In the final moments of preparing a big pitch, someone would conjure a brilliant concept to win the day. The big idea was the hero. Creativity was the differentiator.
And while ideas matter, I learned that the real foundation of a great firm boils down to a single cliche: It’s about people.
That realization required me to unlearn something that sounds almost heretical in business: the belief that clients come first.
They don’t.
Clients come and go for reasons that often have little to do with performance. Leadership changes. Budgets tighten. Companies merge. Strategies shift. Politics intrude. If you build your firm around the assumption that every client relationship is permanent, you will be disappointed.
Your people, on the other hand, can stay for decades if you treat them properly.
And when talented people stay, they develop judgment. They understand how markets move. They know how to handle reporters. They recognize risk before it explodes. They teach younger professionals. They protect the client’s reputation as if it were their own.
A top public relations firm is not built on campaigns. It is built on careers.
Five years ago, as I approached 60, I faced a decision. I could take the comfortable path toward retirement. Many PR founders gradually fade out, holding onto the title while energy and ambition slowly diminish.
Or I could try to build something more durable than myself.
I chose the harder option.
We raised private equity. I elevated my partner, Joe Anthony, whose talent and discipline strengthened the firm in ways I could not alone. We moved from being an entrepreneurial sandbox to becoming a structured company—with real budgets, forecasting, training programs, and intentional employee development. We acquired other firms. Some integrations worked beautifully. Others taught us painful lessons. Each one forced us to become more rigorous.
That transition—founder-driven to institution-driven—is a dividing line in this business.
Then came another turning point.
My son confronted me with an idea I initially resisted. He told me that human communication was about to be reshaped by a new kind of intelligence. That machines would write. Analyze. Assist in reasoning. I laughed. I had spent a lifetime refining my craft. Technology has no accumulated wisdom, the lived experience that makes us unique human.
Still, we decided to test it.
We built an internal AI content model before ChatGPT was introduced to the public. It was clumsy. At its first demonstration in late 2021, it confidently informed our team that our company mascot was a green frog. Wrong.
But even in its errors, we caught a glimpse of a new future.
So we became pioneers, fully aware of the arrows at our backs.
At 60, I went back to school, relearning and reassessing everything I knew about human communication. I started to attend machine learning and AI conferences. I founded a podcast about AI’s impact on communications, commerce, and culture. I followed thought leaders online and messaged them to learn more.
Once convinced, I became the firm's evangelist, constantly preaching a single sermon. That if we were to thrive, we had to do more than learn AI; we had to master it. Stay current on a daily basis. Build a culture of curiosity. Share our findings. Identify opportunities and stay clear of risks.
We built internal platforms for media analysis, crisis communications, AI search optimization, and we held more than 100 internal AI training sessions in the first year of deployment.
Today, AI is part of our operating model—not as a replacement for thinking, but as a tool that enhances scale and speed. It is central to what separates serious firms from those that will struggle in the coming decade. It was all the result of a 60-year-old mind, someone who should be opposed to change but who refused to surrender.
And here’s the kicker. It have rejuvenated my career, opened me to new ideas, caused to me re-evaluate all I once knew about human intelligence, what it means to be human, and who and what may be conscious. That might sound metaphysical. So here’s some ground facts:
What Actually Makes a Top Public Relations Firm?
1. A Top PR Firm Builds and Retains Exceptional Talent
Public relations is a thinking business. Writing, positioning, media judgment, crisis management—these are human skills developed over time. A top firm invests in training, mentoring, and career growth. It measures success not only by revenue, but by whether its people are becoming more capable each year.
High turnover erodes judgment. Stability compounds it.
2. A Top PR Firm Earns Credibility, Not Just Coverage
Media placement alone does not equal success. The objective is to shape belief in the market. That requires clarity of message, discipline over time, and alignment between what a company says and what it does. The best firms tell the truth clearly. They resist exaggeration. They protect credibility because credibility, once lost, is difficult to restore.
3. A Top PR Firm Has Operational Discipline
Creativity without structure leads to inconsistency. Structure without creativity leads to mediocrity. The strongest firms build processes around research, messaging, media engagement, and measurement. They forecast. They budget. They train. They review performance. They treat communications as a strategic function, not an improvisational exercise.
4. A Top PR Firm Thinks Long Term
Reputation is cumulative. It is not built in a quarter. Firms that chase short-term wins at the expense of strategic positioning often exhaust clients. The best firms understand how to build narrative over years, not weeks.
5. A Top PR Firm Adapts to Technological Change
From the rise of online media to social platforms to artificial intelligence, communications evolve. Firms that dismiss new tools because they threaten old methods fall behind. The firms that endure are curious. They test early. They learn quickly. They integrate what works and discard what doesn’t.
6. A Top PR Firm Is Larger Than Its Founder
If the entire business depends on one personality, it is fragile. A true firm develops leaders beneath the founder. It distributes authority. It institutionalizes knowledge. It prepares for continuity.
When you see all of these traits working together—talent, credibility, discipline, long-term thinking, adaptability, and institutional strength—you are usually looking at a top public relations firm.
At 65, I do not feel finished. I feel aware.
Aware that I misunderstood parts of this business when I was young.
Aware that the next generation will see things I cannot yet see.
Aware that AI will reshape how we produce and distribute language.
But I am also certain of this:
The fundamentals do not change.
Public relations remains a business of trust, judgment, and human development. Technology may accelerate how we work, but it does not replace the responsibility to think clearly and act ethically on behalf of clients.
If you ask me today what makes a top PR firm, I will still smile and mention the phone number.
Then I will tell you the real answer.
It is built slowly on quality people and by leaders who care enough to keep learning—even at 65.