At One Plus One, we like to say that if you do interesting things, interesting things will happen to you.
That’s why our Managing Director, Kelly Bennett, recently joined the esteemed Arun Sudhaman, CEO and editor-in-chief at PRovoke Media, on the Earned First podcast, a series that talks to the essential industry analysis and insights for PR and communications leaders.
In this episode, Kelly explains how he built and grew an independent PR firm through a prolonged economic downturn. He talks about the operating choices behind that performance, including disciplined growth, leadership depth and a strong emphasis on qualitative factors such as curiosity, judgment and interpersonal capability over narrow functional or quantitative skills.
Kelly and Arun also delve into Kelly’s experience at Omnicom, where he witnessed multiple cycles of restructuring, consolidation and brand retirements. He reflects on how turbulence at the holding-company level can affect agency culture and leadership, and shares what independent founders can learn from watching established network brands expand, contract or disappear altogether.
If you would like to give the podcast a listen, click the link here.
