PBN 2024 Fastest Growing Companies Awards
$250,000 to $2.5 MILLION:
1. Half Street Group
CEO (or equivalent): Mike Raia, founder and president
2023 Revenue: $575,756
2021 Revenue: $71,205
Revenue growth: 708.6%
HALF STREET GROUP, a Providence-based communication firm specializing in helping clients take ownership of their own unique stories, is soaring to new heights.
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With clients in the corporate, nonprofit, public and philanthropic sectors, the firm routinely helps customers by devising social and digital media strategies, carefully cultivating and managing clients’ reputations, providing relief in crisis communication settings, and overseeing public and media relationships.
The company started in 2020 nestled in the SoMain building on South Main Street. Its revenue has grown exponentially since. From 2021 to 2023, the firm recorded a growth in its top-line revenue of 708.6%, going from annual earnings of $71,205 to $575,756 to close out last year.
To get there, founder Mike Raia – a former political operative who worked for U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gina M. Raimondo during her tenure as Rhode Island’s governor – says he saw opportunity at a time of global distress.
During the COVID-19 pandemic and the ensuing lockdown measures state leaders instituted, Raia worked under the Half Street Group as a side job. He said the viral outbreak gave rise to thought leaders as a silver lining.
“[The pandemic] really democratized who was able to be an opinion shaper,” Raia said. “Organizations that recognized that opportunity and invested in public relations and communications, whether through partnerships with firms like mine or just on their own, were really the ones that were able to leverage the opportunity.”
For Raia, the calls for leadership posed by the hardships of the pandemic signified a moment to be seized, a case to be made to thought leaders who found a new platform and a new audience.
“We were able to make that case to thoughtful and innovative nonprofit executives that if you’re going to be competitive,” he said, “and if you’re going to be in a position to be able to expand the impact that you make, you need to be able to take better control of the public narrative you’re developing.”
What also entices clients, Raia said, is the fresh and innovative approach the firm can bring to the table. This is on top of a youth leadership transition trend that the state’s nonprofit sector is experiencing, in which younger and more diverse voices are putting themselves in leadership positions and helming both new and legacy organizations.
“Yes, media relations and traditional media is exceptionally important, but it can’t be the only part of your media strategy,” Raia said. “You need to have an owned-media approach. You need to be your own content farm. You need to develop and train your own messengers. You need to leverage internal communications.”
Part of that fresh strategy is folded into Half Street’s growth. For instance, a metric that Raia used to measure the organization’s success is the recent hires of young social media and account executive staff who can fluently articulate that new media strategy vision.
Chelsea DeCesare, an account executive at Half Street with ample experience in news media and in the public, says the firm bolstering its offerings is going to be the best way for it to develop and grow quickly to be full service.
As Half Street continues to look toward the future, a key metric to monitor and a sign of healthy growth will be the client retention rate, Raia said.
“We’ve had over a 90% renewal rate with every client that we’ve worked with,” Raia said. “For clients that have done a single project with us, more than 60% of them have come back and have done a second project with us. So, I look at that in the fact that when we work, when we first engage with a client, they want to continue working with us almost universally.”
