The Brief

Farient Advisors is a leading consultancy specializing in executive compensation, performance, and corporate governance. Since 2010, VVK PR + Creative (previously Stern Strategy Group) has served as Farient’s public relations partner, helping translate complex expertise into timely, quotable insights for business and financial media.

By late 2024 and into early 2025, the media environment became increasingly dominated by political coverage, making it difficult for nuanced business and governance stories to break through. Farient needed a refreshed approach that aligned more closely with how reporters were prioritizing stories in real time—while maintaining continuity in long-standing media relationships.

Our Strategy

VVK PR + Creative reassessed the media landscape and adapted Farient’s approach to meet current newsroom realities. Rather than pushing broadly, we refined the strategy to emphasize relevance, precision and timing.

Key elements included:

• Adopting a “thinking in headlines” approach to sharpen outreach and align with editorial priorities
• Narrowing focus to reporter-specific beats, including CEO pay at major companies (e.g., Tesla, Microsoft), executive turnover (Starbucks, Intel), and compensation trend data
• Re-establishing and expanding media relationships, including in-person meetings with Agenda and Financial Times
• Conducting re-discovery sessions with Farient partners to identify under-covered insights and emerging issues

The Impact

With just two media placements secured in Q1, the recalibrated strategy produced immediate and sustained results:

• 26 additional placements in Q2 and Q3
• 37 total placements by the end of Q4—exceeding Farient’s coverage totals for the previous 4 years

By evolving its media relations strategy to fit a modern, fast-moving news cycle, Farient restored consistent visibility and reinforced its standing as a trusted authority on executive compensation and governance.