Alex Grier, Managing Partner of Frank PR on The PRmoment Podcast

This week on the PRmoment Podcast I’m talking to Alex Grier, Managing Partner of Frank PR.

Alex has worked at Frank for 16 years, he joined the firm in 2005 when there were 15 employees and he saw it sold to Photon (which later became Enero) in 2007. Alex has recently been part of the management team which has bought the agency back from Enero.

Frank was originally bought by Photon for just over £8m but over the next 5 years Frank's management hit various incentive targets and the final amount the company was bought for was about £20m.

It's been reported that the management team bought Frank back for just shy of a million pounds.

Frank had a fee income of about £4.8 million in 2020, down a bit compared to 2019 but bear in mind Q 2 of 2020 COVID happened. The management team of Frank tells me Frank has returned to growth.

Thanks to the PRCA for sponsoring the PRmoment Podcast.

Don't forget the final entry deadline for the PRmoment Awards is on March 26, do take a look at the PRmoment Awards website for all the details.

2 mins Who owns Frank now and why did Alex, Graham Goodkind and Andrew Bloch decide to buy the agency back?

3 mins On the face of it's quite a deal! The most eye-catching element is obviously selling it for £20 million and buying it back from less than £1m.

5 mins Alex has been at Frank for 16 years, what differences did he see between Frank as an independent firm and Frank as a firm that was owned by a group?

7 mins Why Alex believes independent firms do a different type of work compared to group owned firms.

9 mins Alex displays his immense memory for job titles by recalling some of the PR legends he used to work with at Shine! Including Rachel Bell, Micheal Frochlich (account director), Graham Drew (account manager) Mitchell Kaye (SAE), Erica Hendrick (account director), Misha Danack (SAE), Greg Jones (senior account manager), Natalie Luke (account manager and Lawrence Collis (junior account exec)

11 mins Why Michael Frohlich was responsible for Alex leaving Shine to join Frank!

13 mins Will Alex need to change his leadership style now Graham Goodkind and Andrew Bloch have moved aside and he’s now the head boy?

15 mins Alex reveals who came up with a Weetabix baked beans idea...

16 mins How Frank maximised the chances for Weetabix and beans going big - with a 600 brand pile on.

18 mins Alex talks about some of the legends he’s worked with at Frank including Graham Goodkind, Andrew Bloch, Frankie Cory, David Fraser, Gemma Hopkin, Damon Stat, Sophie Raine, Lucy Hart, Rich Leigh, Katie Stolladay, Lucy Newsome, Estelle Boon and many more...

21 mins Frank has won for 15 new clients since September - why is PR on such a roll at the moment?

24 mins “There’s an idea for every budget”

24 mins Alex reveals the cost of the Weetabix for beans campaign was about £5K.

28 mins Alex reveals that Frank is leaving Camden and (hopefully) moving to Farringdon.

30 mins The future is revealed: Why there’s likely to be more ping pong in PR!

32 mins Alex talks about the plans for Frank now it's independent again, including the launch of a corporate offer.