DRIVEN TO BUILD, GUIDED BY VALUES

Finn tells of what he learned after separating himself from his family’s public relations business and founding a new PR company.

When the author started New York City–based FINN Partners in 2011, he began with 150 employees; the company eventually grew to employ 1,300 people, with offices all over the world, including such corporate clients as Jack Daniel’s and Walgreens. The PR firm worked in partnership with the Catskill Mountain Foundation, a nonprofit organization founded by Finn and his wife in 1998 that’s dedicated to supporting the arts in southeastern New York state. He traces the development of these two organizations, noting, for instance, how the Covid-19 pandemic brought out the best in CMF: “We immediately went into crisis mode, focused on the safety of our employees, our artists, and our audiences.” It’s a story of personalities and often serendipitous meetings, as when, in 2016, an unexpected phone call from Hong Kong’s Ying Communications resulted in FINN Partners establishing a tech-focused agency in a region that the author had long sought to move into. His for-profit company grew mainly by acquisition, with his long-term vision enabling it to post a tenfold profit in a little over a decade. He underscores the moral elements that undergirded the growth of his companies from their inception: “Taking care of our people and our clients,” he writes, “was more important than anything else.” The narrative provides equal focus on both the nonprofit and for-profit sides of Finn’s career.

The author occasionally lapses into truisms, such as “every acquisition comes with some risk” or “listen closely to your inner self,” and he sometimes seems to overestimate potential reader interest in details of the monthly and even daily doings of his two organizations. A congratulatory thread also runs through the book, with dozens of the author’s friends and relatives weighing in to offer praise, including employees stating, “I think Peter teaches you when you don’t even know you’re being taught” and “Peter leads by example and lives and breathes our values”; as the author writes at one point, “How did seemingly mild-mannered Peter Finn make a success of such ambitious ventures as the Catskill Mountain Foundation and FINN Partners?” But the book’s overriding message of championing the practice of companies acting in alignment with the best values of their people is genuinely restorative, as when Finn urges readers, including other businesspeople and entrepreneurs, to “make sure you are doing something that is meaningful and important to you and to the world you live in.” Finn’s account of the personal risk he took in leaving the family business is winningly heartfelt; readers contemplating similar moves will find much encouragement and abundant valuable practical advice: “If you dream of launching and building an organization—whether for-profit or not-for-profit—you may or may not have a substantial source of funds to start with,” he notes. “Sometimes there’s no option but to launch on a shoestring.”

An often inspiring memoir of a PR agency founder.