Caliber Company Advisers President Grace Keith Rodriguez has over 10 years of experience in fintech and monetary providers.
Rodriguez’s insights have been featured in respected publications like The Wall Road Journal. Moreover, she performed a significant position in facilitating Caliber’s acquisition of Leverage PR, primarily based in Austin, in 2017, effectively coordinating efforts between groups in Austin and New York.
The president of the communications and advertising company is captivated with working with shoppers who’re making a constructive affect every single day, addressing points like racial bias in housing valuations and modernizing monetary infrastructure. The satisfaction of collaborating with clever and proficient people drives Rodriguez’s dedication to the job.
We caught up with Rodriguez to get her tackle the way forward for the communications business.
What guide, podcast or different media do you advocate to different comms professionals?
My path to PR has not been a conventional one as I studied economics in undergrad and located a love of PR in my first job. This was a possibility to be taught the artwork of PR on the job and right here we’re a few years later (I received’t date myself!). Due to this non-traditional path, I are inclined to learn and hearken to a reasonably diverse record of publications. Harvard Enterprise Assessment is all the time high on my studying record because it helps me join the dots between information and folks on plenty of fronts, from constructing a staff to new methods to take a look at hiring and consumer relationships. On the comms entrance particularly, I’m a giant fan of the Axios Communicators publication. It’s an awesome, gratifying learn and offers me a great little bit of intel into challenges and alternatives different PR professionals are tackling throughout different industries.
What’s your favourite software you employ often for work?
As a communications professional, it’s most likely not a shock that any kind of communication software is my go-to – whether or not that’s a fast Google chat message to speak concerning the media win of the day or one among our digital ‘LunchBunches’ the place I get to sit down down with a smaller group of Caliber of us to talk over lunch about what we did over the weekend or their subsequent huge journey. Any software that permits simpler communication with my teammates and shoppers is one thing I’ll proceed to make use of every single day! We additionally do plenty of work at Caliber to assist and information our shoppers’ presence at fintech & monetary business occasions. We developed a software known as Occasion Analyzer that helps our staff and shoppers make data-driven selections in the case of talking at, sponsoring or attending fintech and monetary providers occasions. This analytical method offers shoppers much more confidence when investing their biggest property – money and time.
What excites you most about the way forward for communications?
I’ve been excited to look at the position of the communicator proceed to rise in significance to actually have a seat on the decision-making desk, significantly in the previous couple of years as we’ve seen how important comms is to the success of any enterprise – regardless of sector or dimension. The communicator’s seat on the desk is one thing that I see as important to the longer term success for an organization, whether or not it’s to emphasize check new messaging or to make sure a troublesome message is conveyed to all the best events in the best method or to assist navigate a possible disaster state of affairs.
What communications problem retains you up at night time?
Because the mother of a toddler and a five-month-old, I’m unsure I’d blame a comms problem for preserving me up at night time today! However since I’m often up at night time anyway, I often fear about how we proceed to indicate the true artwork of comms regularly. Whereas I feel expertise actually has a job in supporting analysis and different administrative facets of the day-to-day job of a PR professional, the wonder and artwork of that one pitch that will get that one journalist that brings the consumer that highlight they deserve is more durable to outline and quantify. The standard of the media will all the time be vital and it’s vital to proceed to search for methods to outline the worth of that high quality as success ought to be measured on each amount and high quality.
What’s the most important problem you’ve overcome in your profession?
Being a mother to 2 younger youngsters whereas additionally managing the expansion of our company from a expertise and consumer perspective has been a problem. I’ve now had two parental leaves in my time as President at Caliber and with every one I’ve not solely compelled myself to concentrate on my rising household and their wants, however I’ve additionally been actually floored by the assist I’ve gotten from my teammates in my absence. I’m lucky to have a really supportive husband and household that’s proper there with us within the throes of toddler and toddler chaos. With a number of different Caliber staff members in varied phases of parenthood, I can say it’s immensely useful to simply share what’s actually happening in our lives exterior of the digital partitions of the workplace. Having a assist system at work and at house is one thing I’ll by no means take without any consideration!
What’s the greatest recommendation you’ve ever gotten?
My mother and father all the time inspired me to simply be myself – which after all as a teen you by no means need to hear, however as an grownup I can say it’s the very best recommendation I’ve ever gotten. Within the early days of my profession, I targeted plenty of time and power on what it meant to sound, look and act like a quintessential PR skilled. As soon as I targeted extra on being curious and embraced the advantages of my non-traditional path right here, I loved what I did much more, and I discovered my conversations with different staff members and shoppers felt extra real and genuine. I should still have to search for some PR nuances they train in comms faculty today, however I can soar in to assist translate an financial report or information in a spreadsheet to a gaggle of journalists in a heartbeat.
Isis Simpson-Mersha is a convention producer/ reporter for Ragan. Comply with her on LinkedIn.
