The Brand Guild offers their clients services across public relations, marketing, events and creative – which means their team must be highly collaborative. As such, the agency has taken a cue from its innovative clients: they took the time to learn how their teams work best, and subsequently developed a flexible, hybrid work structure that makes team engagement and connection possible while also being able to work from home. Taking care of the team is clearly important to leadership, as they offer a professional development stipend to every employee across every level at the agency. It’s working: this year saw a handful of exciting new client wins and the launch of the agency’s New Economy team. This team focuses on purpose-driven tech and tech-adjacent brands like Future Family, which helps women finance fertility treatments, and VC firm Slauson, which looks for opportunities outside of the inner sanctum of companies that receive 98 percent of all funding.
Leadership team:
Barbara Martin, Co-Founder
Jayne Sandman, Co-Founder
Notable long-term clients:
Sweetgreen, Room & Board, Uncle Nearest, Brookfield Properties, The Howard Hughes Corporation
New client wins:
Four Roses Bourbon, Lobos 1707 Tequila, Chipper, Future Family
How is the agency advancing DEI in the industry?
“We believe that diverse ideas, perspectives and backgrounds create a stronger and more creative agency that delivers better results. Our agency has established a formal DEI Committee composed of internal staff which meets regularly to advance our mission of creating a wholly inclusive workplace. Ongoing initiatives include knowledge sharing and internal discussion facilitation through bi-weekly posts in our agency-wide #dei slack channel, establishing a comprehensive outreach and recruiting strategy for staffing open positions and establishing partnerships with HBCUs and minority groups within universities to build more diverse intern classes. Our philanthropic efforts include quarterly donations with a company match to organizations whose missions are focused on diversity, equity and inclusion.”
