#BOCALife

2019 BOCAteer Reflections: It was a good — no, a GREAT — year!

By January 21, 2020 No Comments

This month, we welcome a new decade. I am especially excited about 2020, as it marks BOCA’s 10-year anniversary. More to come on that in another post… 

Before we ponder 2020 and beyond, I — and my fellow BOCAteers — want  to reflect on some recent accomplishments as we closed the last decade.

Following are some highlights and reflections from 2019:

  • BOCA continues to expand nationally. Our headquarters are located in the world’s  technology epicenter — San Francisco — In a gorgeous office overlooking the City’s famous Union Square. We love to host events at the space and we regularly open it to client events. We also continue to expand across the United States with several small offices in Boston, Minneapolis, Nashville and San Diego.


  • Bring on consumer. BOCA made considerable strides establishing its consumer practice in 2019. It started at the beginning of the year with the addition of BOCA’s first-ever consumer PR guru, Chris Powell. Chris came to BOCA pumped and ready to rock and roll, and every day, we are excited he joined our team. During his short time at BOCA, he has built strong relationships with a variety of companies and secured both full-time, ongoing partnerships and exciting project work. His first big win was Hooked on Phonics, and right off the bat, he dusted off the brand and won some real media attention around Read Across America. The project’s success led to a long-term relationship with SplashMath, which is a downloadable math learning program that helps children in K through 5 build their confidence in their math skills. We’ve also had the great fortune to work with companies ranging from New York-based Lively, a hearing aid company, to Blind, an anonymous platform giving employees transparency in the workplace. If you are a consumer company looking for a hotshot team, contact us at getresults@bocacommunications.com

  • Consumer team expands. At the end of the year, Chris hired Tiffany Schramm Behany, who will support Chris as we continue to build out our consumer practice. Tiffany brings with her more than 12 years of consumer experience. She started her career as a producer at CNBC and then moved to the agency side. She has represented consumer brands such as eHarmony, Activision Blizzard, Realtor.com and many more. She has deep experience in blockchain/crypto, entertainment, finance, jobs, real estate, streaming, and so much more. We welcome her with open arms.

  • Stellar client retention, boomerang clients and repeat CMOs. It is always a pleasure to see a client remain with BOCA year over year. It is also incredibly rewarding to see the fruits of our long-term labor pay off. Such is the case with Jitterbit, Luma Health, Mavenlink, NovuHealth and StreamSets — all of which we’ve helped move out of stealth to growth. Cohesity, in fact, has grown to 1,000 employees during our tenure with them.We also just welcomed back Tacton, a “boomerang” client, illustrating our stickiness. We are incredibly proud of our repeat CMO engagements such as FloQast and Kofax. As the founder of BOCA, I would also like to say thank you to these clients for their longtime partnerships. And thank you to the amazing BOCAteers that provide strategic counsel to drive the kind of results that keep our clients with us year after year.

  • New client wins. Ensuring our current portfolio receives outstanding client service is critical. Adding to the portfolio is likewise critical for a PR agency. To that end, BOCA welcomed a handful of new consumer brands (as we highlighted earlier). We also continue to expand BOCA’s traditional market segment, B2B high-tech disruptors such as Big Panda, FloQast, InfluxData, Kofax and YES, among others. We appreciate you all and truly hope that you continue with us for years.

  • Charitable giving. BOCA is a big believer in charitable giving, and we supported a number of organizations this year — Meals on Wheels, San Diego Sparks Soccer Club and Boys to Men. Meals on Wheels is a non-profit that ensures seniors are provided with healthy and nutritious meals. The San Diego Sparks Soccer Club is the only LGBTQ-and-friends team in the San Diego area (Our very own Chris Powell is a player). Boys to Men is a community of dedicated men who are able to guide and support young, often fatherless boys on their journey to manhood.


  • Our awesome team. We asked BOCAteers to chime in on positive reflections they experienced in 2019.

    • Merrill taught me that changing behavior requires three things: the will to do so (motivation), the ability to do so, and a prompt to do said behavior. – Anthony Lam
    • I am excited to continue to get to know the Bay Area. I might even run a half-marathon in May, thanks to Merrill’s suggestion. The route includes crossing the Bay Bridge twice, which sounds pretty exciting. – Laura Groshans

    • 2019 was a year of rebuilding for me and I’m thankful I had my BOCA family during that time. I look forward to what 2020 will bring. – Gabby Iarrobino

    • This was a great year for BOCA in that we were really able to recognize people’s strengths and share assignments based on what people were most passionate about. – Ben Marrone

    • 2019 has been such a wonderful year.  I joined BOCA Communications in January 2019 to start a consumer and emerging-markets practice.  The world is your oyster here at BOCA and if you dream it, build it and get resources behind it. You better be ready to own it because it can be all yours. After a year, the new practice is growing with new clients and hires, the word is out in the industry and we are looking forward to going to the next level in 2020. – Chris Powell

    • In 2019 I learned that the success of building a successful company culture is exactly the same whether you are all in the same office, or if you have a blended in-office and remote model. And it’s not about technology. It’s about developing and encouraging open, honest and transparent communications at all levels, providing challenging and rewarding opportunities and holding everyone accountable for delivering excellence. – Merrill Freund

    • Every day I am thankful for the team that is around me. They are more than a team, they are the BOCA family. We love, we fight, we make up. We are “in it to win it” with each other and for our clients. #BOCAlife is real and I am so proud that after 10 years of BOCA, we continue to stay strong. – Kathleen Shanahan 

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