On the heels of The Berman Group’s 20th anniversary, we sat down with the agency’s founder, Sarah Berman, to trace the journey from the agency’s early days - primarily focused on construction - to a diversified powerhouse serving world-class clients across all aspects of the real estate and construction industries. 

Congratulations on The Berman Group’s 20th anniversary. Looking back to when you founded the firm in 2005, what inspired you to start your own agency?

I started The Berman Group at the end of 2005 with the hope that I could continue to work with the handful of amazing construction and real estate companies that I had come to know and love. I started as an intern in the industry, and I really never looked back, but don’t think that I was a natural entrepreneur. I certainly never imagined that we would grow to become one of the top national agencies in real estate, with four offices, 45 staff members, and clients all around the country and the world.

What are some key ways the company evolved since those early days?

We have evolved in so many ways since the early days of the firm. Our business started deeply rooted in construction, and we evolved our focus to learn and understand the real estate business as well. Today, our clients represent all facets of the real estate and construction industries, from development, lending and finance, to architects and builders. We have been fortunate to work with some of the world’s leading internationally recognized development firms such as RXR, The Durst Organization, Tishman Speyer, BXP, Rockefeller Group, Fisher Brothers, Sage, Howard Hughes Corp., and many more. We have developed public relations, branding, and creative campaigns as well as special events for these clients and numerous other organizations across the real estate, finance, law, construction, and development fields. We offered integrated services from the start: public relations, creative services, and events, and we were pioneers in this integrated approach—many firms that followed have added creative services or events in more recent years. There has been so much evolution and branding, and creative services have dramatically changed, especially from the early years when real estate marketing wasn’t as cutting-edge as other fields. Today, the lines are blurred between real estate and hospitality, and we have gotten to brand, activate, and position some of the world’s leading properties. Our departments are integrated but are led by top professionals with deep backgrounds in public relations, design, and events.

Much of The Berman Group’s work intersects with real estate, finance, and hospitality — industries that have each seen major shifts in the past two decades. How have you adapted a multidisciplinary approach to meet the evolving needs of clients across these sectors?

There have been so many shifts, and we have been fortunate to see these changes up close and to help our clients adapt to these changes. The real estate industry, especially the office sector, has undergone a major transformation since COVID. We have been fortunate to work with clients who have reimagined the office environment and to develop a unique hospitality-driven approach that has made tenants not only want to come to the office but to stay. We have represented clients like Corenet Global, the Real Estate Lenders Association and WX for over 15 years –and these organizations have been major contributors to our DNA and have helped us evolve and stay on top of trends. Most of our mentors in the industry have been active in one of these three organizations. Storytelling has dramatically changed in 20 years, and what was once a postcard campaign, today is an integrated press campaign, with an influencer event and a digital campaign. Social media wasn’t on our radar when we started, and today, it’s rare to launch a PR campaign without a social component.

You’ve led campaigns for some of the most recognizable names in real estate and development. What are some recent projects that best reflect the agency’s creative and strategic capabilities?

Some of our most recent creative projects have included office branding and repositioning projects for Tishman Speyer, such as 148 Lafayette, 520 Madison Avenue, and 6 Grand Central, as well as office branding and marketing for 1211 Avenue of the Americas, 150 East 42nd Street, and 590 Madison Avenue for RXR.  We were also tapped by BXP to help with the creative positioning of Reston Town Center in Northern Virginia.  These are some of the top office and mixed-use developments in the world and are not just design projects–they require strategic thinking about the tenants who will use these spaces and the unique value that each property will bring to its users. We just supported the launch of a new amenity space at Starrett-Lehigh called Level Ten, which we think will quickly become one of New York’s top event spaces for creative tenants as well as outside organizations that want to host an event in a new and exciting area within Manhattan.

Events and experiential activations have always been a big part of The Berman Group’s DNA. How do you see live events evolving as part of a brand’s communications ecosystem today?

Events are a critical part of public relations and communications today. Events bring people together and allow brands to meet their audiences directly. We are big believers in live events being part of any communications campaign–and it can include anything from press and influencer events, to galas and conferences, or speaking roles at thought leadership events. Our team produces over 500 national real estate events each year around the U.S., and at each one, we learn a little more about the industry and what drives growth and progress in real estate. We have also been fortunate to activate spaces that we have branded, such as the Brooklyn Army Terminal and MADE Business Terminal campus–two major industrial campuses developed by NYC Economic Development Corp. on the Brooklyn Waterfront.

How has your leadership philosophy evolved as the company has grown, and what qualities do you think are most essential in building a lasting agency culture?

We are fortunate to have great leaders who run the firm, including Philip Vincent Ramirez, our Chief of Staff, and Paul Dunn and Ashley Baker, who run our creative department. They are brilliant communicators and experts in public relations and design, but they are also really special people who have created a culture of support, passion, and hard work. I am fortunate to have found leaders who complement my own abilities as a leader and continually push me to be the best manager as we continue to grow and scale the business.

With two decades of perspective, what do you see as the most exciting trends shaping the future of marcomms — and how is The Berman Group positioning itself for continued success in the years ahead?

AI is going to change our business, and, in a lot of ways, it already has. Research can happen immediately, design can be made simpler, and more time can be left for strategy and thinking vs. repetitive tasks. It’s important to leverage AI not as a replacement for creative work but as an opportunity to free up a team for more creative thinking and relationship building that AI will never replace. I think our continued success will be driven by our integrated services–our social media campaigns are always more successful because it's centered in good design. Our public relations campaigns are always made better because we can complement our pitches with live events. And most importantly, The Berman Group team is known, after 20 years, as one of the hardest working teams in global real estate–and that’s because we have put in a lot of hard work, but we also have fostered relationships with leaders all around the world who will support our future growth for the next 20 years and hopefully far into the future.