Jennifer Prosek founded Prosek Partners in New York in 1991, building it into one of the largest independent financial communications firms in the United States and, in both 2025 and 2026, PRovoke Media's Global Financial Agency of the Year.
Who is Jennifer Prosek?
Jennifer Prosek is an American communications executive and author who founded Prosek Partners in 1991 after earning her MBA from Columbia University and a B.A. in English Literature from Miami University. She built the firm around a specialization in financial and professional services communications at a time when few independent agencies focused specifically on that sector. Early in the firm's growth, PRWeek named her an "Emerging Power Player," crediting her for combining an MBA education with instinct in building what the magazine called a rising agency's profile and reputation.
Beyond the agency, Prosek is a published author. Her first book, "Army of Entrepreneurs," drew praise from Columbia Business School, Wharton, and INSEAD, and is built around the same management philosophy she used to run Prosek Partners: developing, motivating, and positioning employees to operate with an owner's mindset rather than as conventional agency staff. The book has been endorsed by academics at Yale School of Management and Cornell in addition to Columbia and INSEAD, and excerpts have appeared in Harvard Business Review and Columbia Business School's Hermes magazine.
Her second book, "Raising Can-Do Kids," co-authored with psychologist Richard Rende, was published by Penguin Random House in 2015. She writes a LinkedIn newsletter called "Leadership in Volatile Times" and is a frequent speaker at events including the Milken Institute Global Conference and SuperReturn International, where she leads conversations with CEOs and founders of major financial companies.
How did Prosek Partners build its financial communications specialty?
Prosek Partners built its financial communications specialty by growing from a single New York office into a firm with locations in New York, London, Boston, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., Palm Beach, Fairfield, Abu Dhabi, and Cape Town, ranking among the top financial communications consultancies in both the U.S. and U.K. The firm has been listed as an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company for a decade running and has appeared on the New York Observer's PR Power List, was named Corporate Agency of the Year by the Holmes Report, and was included among Forbes' America's Best PR Agencies in 2021.
Prosek herself has been named to The Wall Street Journal's "Most Influential Decision Makers" list across multiple consecutive years and Insider's list of top financial communicators in the United States, credentials that track closely to the firm's client base of asset managers, private equity firms, and hedge funds, sectors where reputational nuance and regulatory sensitivity carry outsized weight compared to general consumer PR. She was also inducted into the Arthur Page Society, whose membership includes chief communications officers of Fortune 500 companies and CEOs of the world's leading public relations agencies.
What is Prosek Partners' current status?
Prosek Partners remains independent and Jennifer Prosek-led, having been named PRovoke Media's Global Financial Agency of the Year in both 2025 and 2026, back-to-back recognition that few firms in the category have achieved.
Prosek also sits on the boards of Mount Sinai Health System, Columbia Business School, the Museum of the City of New York, and BritishAmerican Business, serves as co-president of the Columbia Business School Women's Circle, and sits on the advisory boards of Signal AI, iConnections, and Columbia Business School's Private Equity Program. She is a venture investor in more than a dozen communications-technology and services companies, including fintech platform Qwoted, hospitality communications firm Becca, and financial communications firm Profile Advisors.
How does Prosek's founding story compare to other US independent founders?
Prosek built her firm around a single vertical, financial and professional services communications, rather than pursuing the multi-sector breadth that defines many of the largest US independent agencies. That specialization has let Prosek Partners compete directly against financial-communications-focused competitors like Sard Verbinnen & Co, even as the firm has grown into a nine-office international operation spanning three continents. Her "Army of Entrepreneurs" management philosophy, treating staff as internal owners rather than employees executing a founder's vision, also distinguishes her operating model from more hierarchical agency structures common among peers her firm's size. Other U.S. founders in the series took different routes: Margery Kraus built APCO around public affairs, Michael Sitrick built a crisis practice, and Jim Weiss built a healthcare communications firm.
Adjacent EPR frameworks
