Most public relations businesses chase scale, attempting to land as many consumers as humanly doable. Zach Rosenfield has constructed his agency to maximise high quality over amount.
The CEO of RMG, a boutique media technique store, has grown income greater than fivefold over the previous 5 years whereas preserving his employees at a lean 12.
But, RMG’s roster reads like a Hollywood name sheet—Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Danny DeVito, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Patricia Clarkson, and ESPN’s Wealthy Eisen amongst them. In the meantime, they’ve company purchasers akin to The Hershey Firm, Genuine Manufacturers Group, Crash Champions, and Starkey, every of which generates $1 billion or extra in annual income.
Rosenfield stated the scale is the technique, not a limitation of it.
“We run in the direction of the truth that we’re small by selection,” he advised Fortune in an interview. “We’re right here to dispel the humorous fantasy that larger is best, and that dimension doesn’t matter. Measurement is one thing that makes you are feeling higher at evening.”
The reply is at all times ‘no’
The key to RMG’s success is counterintuitive. The default reply to any potential consumer is not any, Rosenfield stated.
“The reply to all the pieces is not any. No, no. Will you characterize this consumer? No. Will you do that story? No,” Rosenfield stated.
His reasoning is that by ranging from a degree of no, you’ll be able to higher establish pink flags or mismatches early on.
“It’s virtually such as you pull a lever,” he stated. “And inside that lever, all of the cease indicators seem.”
“You’re in a position to establish how folks talk from the bounce, what their timing is in communication, in the event that they’re edgy, in the event that they’re cool,” he stated. “Have they got a narrative? Is it a narrative you need? Perhaps they’ve an unbelievable story, however they do no income.”
It’s defensible logic, contemplating RMG works on retainer. So, a consumer the agency can’t really serve simply finally ends up changing into a legal responsibility the second they obtain the deposit.
“Proper concerning the time that deposit hits is concerning the time you notice you type of effed up, as a result of no person actually desires to cowl them, and that may be actually harmful,” he stated. So, ranging from no, Rosenfield stated, forces the agency to establish each motive a consumer relationship would possibly fail earlier than it ever occurs.
Plus, roughly 95% of RMG’s work now comes via referral, RMG President Amanda Brocato advised Fortune. So typically, the agency doesn’t must actively hunt for brand spanking new purchasers as inbound requests come to them.
From expertise PR to billion-dollar company accounts
RMG was launched in 2020, and Rosenfield introduced his personal ebook of enterprise and invited former colleagues to affix. His first rent was Brocato, whom he’d recognized for practically 20 years, relationship again to their days working underneath publicist Howard Bragman in Los Angeles.
The agency has since expanded nicely past conventional expertise illustration into company communications and dwell occasions. Rosenfield and Brocato function co-heads of company communications. He oversees the sports activities division, whereas she runs dwell occasions, and extra divisions deal with literary illustration and social-impact work.
The dwell occasions enterprise has turn out to be one among RMG’s fastest-growing strains. The agency produced 36 occasions in 2025, Brocato stated, from Sports activities Illustrated’s hospitality activations at System One races to a Hershey sweet launch with Shaquille O’Neal that included a 500-pound gummy sculpted in his face in Instances Sq..
The Hershey marketing campaign exhibits the dimensions of the company work. Brocato stated her staff was handed a $1.5 million price range throughout a sequence of launches for the sweet model Shaq-A-Licious, and RMG ideated the programming, managed the price range, employed the producers, and constructed the media plan—from the Instances Sq. pop-up to a customized truck that toured New York Metropolis basketball courts.
Final month, the agency was additionally in Nashville for an occasion the place Taylor Swift turned up as a shock visitor.
Brocato sees dwell occasions as one nook of the business insulated from AI’s disruption.
“Persons are simply anxious for a contact level of neighborhood—feeling like they’re part of one thing that isn’t isolating,” she stated. “I feel particularly in dwell occasions and sports activities that’s one space of alternative from a enterprise perspective—whether or not you’re a producer or on the PR aspect—we’re going to see continued progress.”
Betting on AI earlier than the ‘iceberg’
Though RMG is intentionally small, the agency hasn’t shied away from introducing AI into its enterprise practices. Actually, Rosenfield stated one of many greatest errors a PR agency could make proper now’s treating AI as a easy effectivity software for churning out press releases.
“All of the AI platforms must be seen as your assistant and your proper hand,” he stated, describing how the agency makes use of the know-how to construct occasion renderings for purchasers and run aggressive evaluation. Rosenfield stated failure to undertake AI is like an iceberg he estimates is roughly 18 months away.
“You may have the choice whether or not you wish to get round that iceberg at the moment and be taught the longer term, otherwise you wish to get it final minute and plow proper into the iceberg,” he stated.
RMG is on tempo to develop income by one other 14% in 2026, Rosenfield stated, and he has acquired curiosity from different corporations in mergers and acquisitions as a result of they’re worthwhile and don’t maintain again on sources. He stated they’re additionally “not understaffed, and we’re not undersourced.” To make sure, he’s “probably not ” in making strikes but as a result of “I like working.”
“I feel this may be constructed to be simply 5 to 10x to what it already is,” he stated. “And it’s already greater than 5x to what it was simply 5 and a half years in the past.”
