Partners in PR, Business and Marriage
Maintaining a marriage and managing business are both challenging tasks. Married couples own 3.7 million of the businesses in the US. These couples intertwine both quests into one relationship, and here are some key successes they’ve earned and lessons they have learned. Here are some of the top PR Firm owners who are married:
Shadow PR (SPR)
Brad Zeifman and Lisette Sand-Freedman co-founded Shadow PR (SPR) in 2007 and worked together for years before realizing they were meant for each other. SPR is a public relations firm specializing in the development of integrated media campaigns through sustained press coverage in national and local media outlets.
The partners became engaged to be married over the 2014 holidays and are planning 2016 nuptials in New York City.
Known as a “PR Power Couple” the pair promotes SPR’s top brand clients. These clients include Svedka Vodka, Lucky Brand Jeans, NBC Universal, Armani Exchange, and American Eagle through online publications, web-based media, and social media. All the while, caring for their baby, Dylan.
Eventbright
Married and partnered in business for seven years, Julia and Kevin Hartz founded Eventbright in San Francisco, California. The Hartz’s created Eventbright as the world’s first marketplace for live experiences by developing technology helping event coordinators create, share, and find new activities for their guests. Thousands of event organizers in 187 countries sell tickets and manage registrations on Eventbright.
The site oversees 1.2 million events per year and processes 4 million tickets per month. “Divide and conquer” is the couple’s day-to-day, go-to strategy while at the same time giving each other the space needed to jointly operate the business.
Alt12 Apps
This computer software store was founded in 2009 by married couple and parents, Jennifer Wong and Casey Sacket, in San Francisco, California. Alt 12 is the leading mobile developer of social health apps such as BabyBump, Pink Pad, and Kidfolio. The company’s software apps are the world’s largest and fastest growing active mobile women’s network with over 15 million downloads every month.
The company boasts a high customer retention rate with users performing over 5 million social actions per month. They have 10s of millions of hits monthly. Wong and Sackett have persevered as partners in business and marriage for over four years by setting firm boundaries between the two settings and restricting “shop talk” from their home life with their children.
Express Employment Professionals
After surviving 37 years of marriage and five years as business partners, Vania and Jim Matthews tout the secret of their relationship success, “We’ve learned how to separate the workload and recognize each other’s strengths and weaknesses.” The Matthews are one of 700 worldwide franchisees of Express Employment Professionals, a service that works with job seekers to help them find the right employment based on their skills and experience.
Express is one of the leading staffing agencies in North America and provides employment services and workforce solutions to employers in the community.
A very sub-par firm which does fairly bad work regularly – although it has nothing to do with the fact that founder Richard Dukas’ long-term Chief Operating Officer launched the firm with him, and is described as “active “behind-the-scenes” at DPR, managing the firm’s accounting and human resources departments”, and more.
