Vested - Company of the Year

Company: Vested, New York NY
Company Description: Vested is a communications agency focused on the future of finance. Named one of the top 50 Most Powerful PR agencies and one of the fastest-growing agencies globally, Vested is for "creative nerds" - hardworking, fun, charismatic, entrepreneurial individuals who are looking to jump into a fast-paced environment.
Nomination Category: Company / Organization Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Company of the Year - Advertising, Marketing & Public Relations - Medium

Nomination Title: Vested

The exponential growth Vested has experienced in the last two years is indicative of the hard work, passion and industry expertise that the agency brings to the table. From a revenue standpoint, Vested ended 2019 at $10.47 million and 2020 at $12.79 million aggregate across our three international offices.

And although Vested may be relatively new to the scene, we are no strangers to recognition and accolades for our agency, staff and client campaigns. We won or were shortlisted for 14 awards in 2019 (including The Holmes Report's Financial PR Agency of the Year and PR News' Best Places to Work), and 25 awards in 2020 (including PR News Agency Elite 100 and PR News Platinum PR Medium Agency of the Year).

In 2020,five female members of the Vested leadership team won awards for their contributions to the industry. Among the recognitions arePR News 40 Under 40 (Binna Kim, President), PR News Top Women in PR (Amber Roberts, CEO- Professional Services), PR News PR People of the Year (Christina Bertinelli, Managing Director), and EmPower Ethnic Minority Role Model (Loreal Torres, Chief People Officer).

Dan Simon, co-founder and CEO, was named an Innovator 25 by the Holmes Report in 2019 and was recognized as a PR Week 2020 Dashboard 25 honoree just earlier this year for his work establishing Qwoted as an essential research and communications tool.

The past year has been instrumental for Vested as we expand our reach as thought leaders in the financial journalism and marketing space.

Vested established a partnership with Asset TV, one of the biggest content hubs for asset managers and institutional investors. Through this partnership, Emma Clarke, an account manager for Vested, is an anchor for Fintech TV (a channel within Asset TV).

In 2019 we made two major acquisitions- Talking Biz News and Scribe. Talking Biz News is a business journalism website which provides us a powerful tool which we've been able to leverage through our other agency, Qwoted (founded 2018). Scribe is a content agency serving fintech startups to the world’s largest financial companies. The agency marries its abilities to create scalable, compliant, high-quality content with deep subject matter expertise across multiple financial sectors.

While it was founded in 2018, Qwoted saw tremendous growth through 2020 as we have worked to establish it as the leading source request tool on the market for PRs and media.

In 2019 we also bought a minority stake in Caliber Corporate Advisers, a financial services marcomms shop. While Caliber maintained its own branding, the firm moved into the Vested New York headquarters.Together, Caliber and Vested work to serve clients across industry verticals and pool resources to provide scalable and robust offerings.

Our most current offering is called Financial Narrative. The goal is to offer the world's leading networking opportunity for senior financial marketers and communicators.

Vested is a global and integrated communications firm focused exclusively on the financial services industry. One of the world’s largest financial services agencies, Vested creates and delivers award-winning integrated programs for financial brands both big and small. From inception, Vested, which earned a spot in the Top 12 Financial Marketing Agencies by the Gramercy Institute, has put top talent first- allowing the company to flourish at a rapid pace. In just six years, Vested has gone from our three co-founders working around a kitchen table, to a global agency with over 50 full time employees widely recognized for their industry expertise, creativity and passion for financial services.

Entrepreneurial to the core, Vested is a founding member of the Global Fintech PR Network and launched the industry’s first agency-run investment group, Vested Ventures.

At Vested Ventures, the pro bono arm of Vested, we believe FinTech can be a force for good. We are looking to support ultra lean FinTech entrepreneurs who want to make the world a better, smarter and financially healthier place.

All three of our Vested co-founders continue to be active founding members of the Museum of American Finance's communications executives advisory board.

Hello Vested link- this is a video we recently compiled for our new Culture/Recruiting landing page which will be launching in the next few weeks. The goal is to give potential candidates a glimpse into the life of a Vested employee, or "Vestie", as we lovingly refer to ourselves.

Fully Vested Website & Case Studies- a look into some of our award winning client campaigns

Attachment- "How to Build a Vested Company"- article by our CEO Dan Simon about the business model he & the other co-founders used while establishing the agency.

Financial Narrative Homepage- link to the networking group Vested established in 2020 for C-level communication executives

Qwoted- Vested CEO, Dan Simon, also is CEO of Qwoted- our partner company aimed at becoming the #1 trusted site for source requests and media experts.