Why this boutique PR firm says ‘no’ to most clients—and grew revenue 5x in 5 years

The CEO of RMG, a boutique media strategy shop, has grown revenue more than fivefold over the past five years while keeping his staff at a lean 12. 

Yet, RMG’s roster reads like a Hollywood call sheet—Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, Danny DeVito, Helen Mirren, Morgan Freeman, Patricia Clarkson, and ESPN’s Rich Eisen among them. Meanwhile, they have corporate clients such as The Hershey Company, Authentic Brands Group, Crash Champions, and Starkey, each of which generates $1 billion or more in annual revenue.

Rosenfield said the size is the strategy, not a limitation of it.

“We run towards the fact that we are small by choice,” he told Fortune in an interview. “We’re here to dispel the funny myth that bigger is better, and that size does not matter. Size is something that makes you feel better at night.”

The answer is always ‘no’

The secret to RMG’s success is counterintuitive. The default answer to any prospective client is no, Rosenfield said.

“The answer to everything is no. No, no. Will you represent this client? No. Will you do this story? No,” Rosenfield said. 

His reasoning is that by starting from a point of no, you can better identify red flags or mismatches early on.

“It’s almost like you pull a lever,” he said. “And within that lever, all the stop signs appear.” 

“You’re able to identify how people communicate from the jump, what their timing is in communication, if they’re edgy, if they’re cool,” he said. “Do they have a story? Is it a story you want? Maybe they have an incredible story, but they do no revenue.”

It’s defensible logic, considering RMG works on retainer. So, a client the firm can’t actually serve just ends up becoming a liability the moment they receive the deposit.

“Right about the time that deposit hits is about the time you realize you kind of effed up, because nobody really wants to cover them, and that can be really dangerous,” he said. So, starting from no, Rosenfield said, forces the firm to identify every reason a client relationship might fail before it ever happens.

Plus, roughly 95% of RMG’s work now comes through referral, RMG President Amanda Brocato told Fortune. So often, the firm doesn’t have to actively hunt for new clients as inbound requests come to them.

From talent PR to billion-dollar corporate accounts

RMG was launched in 2020, and Rosenfield brought his own book of business and invited former colleagues to join. His first hire was Brocato, whom he’d known for nearly 20 years, dating back to their days working under publicist Howard Bragman in Los Angeles.

The firm has since expanded well beyond traditional talent representation into corporate communications and live events. Rosenfield and Brocato serve as co-heads of corporate communications. He oversees the sports division, while she runs live events, and additional divisions handle literary representation and social-impact work.

The live events business has become one of RMG’s fastest-growing lines. The firm produced 36 events in 2025, Brocato said, from Sports Illustrated’s hospitality activations at Formula One races to a Hershey candy launch with Shaquille O’Neal that included a 500-pound gummy sculpted in his face in Times Square. 

The Hershey campaign shows the scale of the corporate work. Brocato said her team was handed a $1.5 million budget across a series of launches for the candy brand Shaq-A-Licious, and RMG ideated the programming, managed the budget, hired the producers, and built the media plan—from the Times Square pop-up to a custom truck that toured New York City basketball courts.

Last month, the firm was also in Nashville for an event where Taylor Swift turned up as a surprise guest.

Brocato sees live events as one corner of the industry insulated from AI’s disruption.

“People are just anxious for a touch point of community—feeling like they’re a part of something that isn’t isolating,” she said. “I think specifically in live events and sports that’s one area of opportunity from a business perspective—whether you’re a producer or on the PR side—we’re going to see continued growth.”

Betting on AI before the ‘iceberg’

Although RMG is deliberately small, the firm hasn’t shied away from introducing AI into its business practices. In fact, Rosenfield said one of the biggest mistakes a PR firm can make right now is treating AI as a simple efficiency tool for churning out press releases.

“All the AI platforms need to be seen as your assistant and your right hand,” he said, describing how the firm uses the technology to build event renderings for clients and run competitive analysis. Rosenfield said failure to adopt AI is like an iceberg he estimates is roughly 18 months away.

“You have the decision whether you want to get around that iceberg today and learn the future, or you want to get it last minute and plow right into the iceberg,” he said.

RMG is on pace to grow revenue by another 14% in 2026, Rosenfield said, and he has received interest from other firms in mergers and acquisitions because they’re profitable and don’t hold back on resources. He said they’re also “not understaffed, and we’re not undersourced.” To be sure, he’s “not really interested” in making moves yet because “I like working.”

“I think this can be built to be easily five to 10x to what it already is,” he said. “And it’s already more than 5x to what it was just five and a half years ago.”