Mastering pan latin: when the Jeffrey Group CEO Jeff Sharlach tried to convince the British-owned PR firm he worked for to service Latin America from Miami 10 years ago, they balked. So he made the move himself - Entrepreneurs

South Florida CEO, April, 2003 by James Broida

The axiom that South Florida is the gateway to Latin America seems obvious today, with the region's formidable collection of multinational headquarters and international banks. What is surprising is how recent that notion really is.

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Eleven years ago, when Jeffrey Sharlach completed a study on Latin America for his firm--Britain's Rowland Worldwide, then one of the world's largest PR agencies--he suggested they establish an outpost in Miami. His corporate bosses in New York, however, doubted that South Florida would ever emerge as a regional business center.

At the time, Sharlach was executive vice president for international operations at Rowland. His job was to coordinate programs among the firm's 34 worldwide offices, traveling the globe in search of acquisition and affiliation targets. "It was exciting for me," says Sharlach, who spent nine months interviewing local PR agencies in the region's major markets of Mexico, Brazil and Argentina. "I met lots of dedicated PR people with great media contacts and local experience, but who lacked the expertise of working for large multinational companies."

Most surprising to Sharlach was what he learned from speaking with the firm's existing global clients about their designs for the region. "As I began to meet with client executives, I kept hearing of plans for establishing regional headquarters in South Florida," Sharlach says. "Even companies that had been in Latin America for many years were starting to talk of moving regional headquarters to South Florida from places like Mexico City or Sao Paulo."

Sharlach's plan called for combining the experience that US professionals had in developing programs for large multinationals with the expertise of local PR pros in Latin America. A key element was to establish regional headquarters in South Florida; most other global agencies had separate operations in each country of Latin America.

After months of unsuccessfully pitching the plan to his employer, Sharlach decided to quit his high-paying Madison Avenue job, move to South Florida, and implement the plan on his own. In June of 1993, Sharlach opened his own agency from the living room of his Miami Beach condo.

Fast forward 10 years. Today Sharlach is celebrating the 10th anniversary of The Jeffrey Group. With more than $3 million in annual fees and 50 full-time employees, the company is now one of the largest public relations firms based in South Florida. In addition to its Miami Beach headquarters, the firm maintains offices in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina, along with affiliates in minor-market countries. Clients include the likes of American Express, FedEx, Kodak, Discovery Communications, Iomega, Toshiba and British Airways. "They probably work with more top global brands and companies than any other agency their size--or even much larger agencies," says Paul Holmes, a columnist for PR Week and publisher of The Holmes Report Annual PR Agency Report Card.

What has worked for Sharlach, say his clients, is the pan-regional approach he has taken. Some of the most dramatic changes in the area have come from the increased flow of information across national borders--and not just via the Internet. Today, most television viewers in Latin America have a choice of dozens of cable networks that transmit to every country. Regional business, news and lifestyle magazines also circulate in multiple countries.

"We were intrigued with The Jeffrey Group's centralized approach and began exploring if it might work for FedEx," recalls Susanne Travers, public relations manager at FedEx's Latin America & Caribbean headquarters in Miami Lakes. FedEx had used separate agencies hired locally in each country of Latin America before signing on with The Jeffrey Group in 2001. "Initially we encountered some resistance among our various country managers," says Travers. "But at this point we can say that it's been an unqualified success."

From Sharlach's point of view, success has come from both his regional approach and the agility of his small firm. He says most of his clients appreciate the fact that they can pick up the phone and speak directly to the agency's owner. "Are things perfect? No. They never are with any agency," says David Safeer, president of The Jeffrey Goup client Iomega Latin America. "The key is that our concerns are listened to and quickly acted upon."