I have the great privilege of asking questions for a living. Growing up, I thought I would be an attorney working at a white shoe firm far away from my hometown of Riverside, NJ. Today I’m running a fast-growing business in Philadelphia fueled by some of the smartest, most interesting, and most dynamic people I have ever met. I’m lucky to call them my teammates at Slice Communications. I have no formal education in business, marketing, or public relations; I studied international politics, economics, and philosophy in college. That experience helped me focus on thinking, questioning, writing, and communication which are the four skills we use most in developing creative, results-oriented campaigns for our clients. Our business model at Slice is a little different. We know that both PR and social media change every day and it’s impossible for a single person to master them both. That’s why we have a full, dedicated social media team and a full, dedicated public relations team. We all sit in the same room, though, so there’s constant collaboration. We set our company up this way because we believe that PR and SM must work hand-in-hand. Together, they form the public voice of a company, they’re both two-way communication, media coverage is more effective when more people see it via social media, and a smart social media presence can generate media coverage. Slice has been through a few iterations: running it with a partner, selling a majority of it to a third party, buying the whole thing back, and then growing it quite quickly. In each phase, I learned a lot about myself, what it’s like to lead a company, how to take criticism, and how to keep going. I think it’s part of what makes me a good communications person; I care passionately about helping other companies grow and create jobs. If you’d like to talk about growing your business or volunteering, please connect with me. Thanks!