S7 E6: The Future of Influence in Africa and Beyond with Gilbert Manirakiza of Newmark Group

Adrian McIntyre: 0:00:01

From the Public Relations Global Network, this is PRGN Presents. I’m Adrian McIntyre.

Abbie Fink: 0:00:07

And I’m Abbie Fink, president of HMA Public Relations in Phoenix, Arizona and a founding member of PRGN. With public relations leaders embedded into the fabric of the communities we serve, clients hire our agencies for the local knowledge, expertise and connections in markets spanning six continents across the world.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:00:28

Our guests on this biweekly podcast series are all members of the Public Relations Global Network. They will discuss such topics as workplace culture, creative compensation and succession planning, the importance of sustainability and environmental, social and governance programs, crisis communications, and outside of the box thinking for growing your business.

Abbie Fink: 0:00:47

For more information about PRGN and our members, please visit prgn.com. And now let’s meet our guest for this episode.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:00:59

Yes, Gilbert or Gilbert Manirakiza, the Chief Executive Officer at the Newmark Group, which is a strategic communications firm headquartered out of Nairobi in Kenya. But we also have offices across various African countries, including Zambia, Ghana, Nigeria, Burundi and, you know, very excited to be having this conversation, especially after we’ve just had a very successful PRGN October conference that my team and I hosted in Nairobi.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:01:32

It was just an amazing opportunity to host our Public Relations Global network fellow members, CEOs from over 30 agencies, if I’m not mistaken. We had a great time and many of them came with their family members as well to take part in social activities and get to enjoy what we have to offer in Kenya and actually in the region. So I’m very, very, very thrilled and energized by that experience.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:02:02

Gilbert, I’m interested to hear your perspective because you were wearing so many different hats throughout the conference and Newmark Group and your team produce a lot of conferences. It’s one of the core expertise areas of your firm. In fact, a week after we were all together in Nairobi, you were producing a very large conference on climate, investment and things of that nature. So on the one hand, you’re doing something you’re skilled at and your team were very smooth, everything was operating very well.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:02:35

And on the other hand, this is. These are your people. You’re a member of the Public Relations Global Network. You are designing something not just for a client, but also for yourself and your peers. Talk a little bit about that. What was, what went into the preparation? What was your thinking? And then a little bit about your experience during the event itself.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:02:56

You’re very right at the core of Newmark is event management. But not just event management: stakeholder engagement, building relationships is really at the core of what led to me co creating this agency back in 2010, so 15 years ago. So every time we are bringing a group of people together, it’s something that we put our heart and soul into. And in this particular case, to your point, it wasn’t just any other conference. Obviously we put our hearts and souls into everything that we do for our clients. But this one was particular because I truly believe that influence is the currency of today, but also of the future. But it’s the currency that no one talks about.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:03:43

It’s the currency that unfortunately is not being valued at its right value. Because when you look at every single business that exists, when you look at every single brand that exists, every single product that exists, someone somewhere institutionalized a communication program that made this product possible and that brought it to market and that, you know, has people buying it. So for me it was very important because communication, especially strategic communication, is a very central piece of influence.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:04:19

Now when we were designing the program, I had to take into account the fact that we are dealing with a global community of members. And we had, you know, we had to talk to a number of colleagues and they gave us feedback on some of the things that they were interested in. And we set out to design an agenda program, not just the conference program, but also an overall program that included all the other activities. Because it’s not just about making sure that people come together to discuss very important things, but also it’s important to build relationships. And that’s the beauty of PRGN because we collaborate to work together on clients.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:04:56

So building relationships is absolutely critical. And I’m very happy to say that feedback that I’ve gotten shows that we succeeded to build, to contribute to the relationship building that makes PRGM such a great association and organization. In addition to all the learning, the co-creation that took place within the conference room itself. So a very special moment for me and my team.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:05:19

Now one of the things that was an innovation for this particular Public Relations Global Network meeting over others was you included experts and also invited attendees from African companies and from the local community to participate in a few of the sessions. Especially Wednesday afternoon after the initial opening of the conference and then Thursday morning. These sessions in my conversations with members both during and after the event were some of the most compelling because we got to hear voices and be heard by others in this mutual exchange.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:06:04

The topic of the first session was agentic AI in public relations. The topic of the second morning was the effect of global geopolitics on the travel sector. Talk a little bit about those particular sessions, who was involved, what your intention was in designing it this way, and then what the outcome was, in your view.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:06:28

So thank you for that question. I mean, after attending a few conferences, PRGN conferences myself in San Francisco and in Mexico City, fantastic events, I must say, and I commend my fellow members who organized and hosted those conferences. I was just, in my mind, I was just saying, all my friends, all my colleagues need to be able to hear these great thoughts coming from CEOs of great agencies from across the world. I mean, I felt like this is an amazing privilege for me to be exposed to this kind of knowledge and insight.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:07:04

And because also these. You are hearing these from people who are being very honest and vulnerable and just who are saying things as they are and who are pushing the boundaries of what should be done and trialed and so forth. So it was very clear for me that I wanted some of my friends in the room, some of the people I know. Obviously we couldn’t open it up to everyone that I would have wanted to have in the room.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:07:30

But I said, let me send out a few invites and get some of these other strategic communication professionals to come and contribute, but also to interact with this great community. Really, that’s what motivated it. All the more so because the topic at hand and the topic that had come to mind was the first one, at least in terms of external speakers, was agentic AI. Because we’ve spoken about AI in PR and AI in strategic communications before, but agentic AI is a subset of AI that I feel has the potential to be very impactful, very positive for our careers and our agencies and our businesses and our organizations.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:08:13

But at the same time, if it’s misunderstood or if it’s misused, it could actually also be very, very destructive. And I thought, who better to involve than those who are building the platforms that carry these technologies? So we had Velma from IBM, we have Tabs from Microsoft, and then we had my very good colleague Chris from Precis AI, coming from a PRGN agency that has built a fantastic AI platform that makes use of some of these technologies. So it was an amazing conversation that demystified what this is and that drew in perspectives from people outside of PRGN.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:08:53

And the other conversation really was. So there are two other conversations that kind of had the same theme, which is the impact of things outside of the communication ecosystem. One was the impact of geopolitical tensions on brands, because we see brands shifting how they consume services like ours, budgets changing, some of them going down, some of them going up. And obviously this has something to do with how they’re being impacted by either geopolitical tensions or trade and tariff tensions that are happening between nations. And essentially you can even say that the geopolitical tensions sometimes do play into the trade and tariff issues that we are seeing around the world. So having someone like Abderahmane Berthé, who is the top leader CEO, you know, former CEO of an airline, executive secretary of Africa’s Airline association and, and, and a good friend of mine, as well as Betty, who has been top leader in tourism in Kenya, but also having our members from various countries joining the CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce, Maxwell Okello, to discuss these, you know, somewhat sensitive but hot topics that are affecting all of us, not just financially, but that push us to come up with strategies to help the brands we serve navigate these things. I think this for me was, was transformational and very grateful that I got the opportunity to be a part of this and to even moderate the gentic AI session. So in fact there were some co-creation, that co-creation commitments whereby we agreed to continue those discussions with some of the participants simply because there was so much to explore. And a lot of these things are hot topics right now. It’s not like you discuss them and you know, they go away. These are not historical events. We are experiencing and living them right now as we speak. So that’s so exciting to be a part of.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:10:58

Before we move on to a couple of final questions, I do want to drill in a little bit to the conversations around tourism and travel. As you said, SG, Secretary General Abderahmane Berthé was there and there was a lot of interest and contribution from PRGEN members who are active in the hospitality or travel or tourism sectors. Judy Kuramata from Japan moderated a discussion on this, but you in particular, I think were really keen for this to turn into some future collaborations. You even said after one of the sessions, well, this is why we all need to form working groups and do something about that. Can you speak just to the opportunity that you see specifically with regard to travel, tourism and Africa? Because that was clearly something that had triggered a lot of ideas and thinking in you as you participated in that session as an observer.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:12:05

Absolutely. And you see one of the things that SG Berthé talked about and he was very eloquent about how airlines are affected by geopolitical problems such as wars and tensions. If an airline has to go around a certain airspace because of a war or because of some tension or because some airspace is closed, one reason or the other, that’s cost on them, there’s a direct bottom line impact on them. And many of us work for airlines as agencies. We serve airlines in different capacities. And we’ve noticed that many of our clients don’t necessarily know how to communicate around these things.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:12:46

And some of us are not necessarily brought into these conversations, which is very interesting because we should be in those conversations, because those are communication conversations that affect passengers at the end of the day. And then you see on the other side, tourism, whereby I see many African countries having reputation premium hit or a reputation challenge to overcome when it comes to their great tourism attractions, both, you know, abroad, but also within the continent itself.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:13:18

And when you look at airlines and tourism, you realize that if they were to work together and if the communication frameworks and strategies were in tandem, they could both benefit significantly in different ways, especially from our expertise. And that’s where the idea came from to come up with an internal group or task force that would reflect on this a bit further so that we sparked some of those conversations because destinations, airlines and source markets can actually greatly benefit from these conversations.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:13:56

And also we will continue obviously lending our individual expertise to travel and airline sectors. But that particular session brought to life the reality that these are sectors that unfortunately right now are not speaking to each other at the level that we believe they should be speaking to each other. And there is an opportunity there for us to be the bridge builders between the two and drive conversations that will be beneficial for everyone involved, especially ourselves in this particular field. So that’s really exciting for me going forward.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:14:32

It was eye opening for me. I mean, I’ve. I’ve been privileged literally to spend my life traveling. I have a photo of my first international flight. I was 18 months old. And we’re standing on the tarmac, my dad’s holding me, my mom’s there, and we’re about to board a flight to Europe. And it was back when in the area where I grew up, you boarded an airline the way you still board airlines in many African countries, which is you walk out of the terminal onto the pavement, walk over to the plane and climb up the ladder.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:15:07

But it was a reminder that airlines are a cross-cutting issue. Not just logistics, distribution of physical goods, but also the flows of people and influence that make global business work. So in addition to planeloads of European or North American tourists going to destinations in Africa for the usual reasons, of course, business travel within the African continent is a key part. And I thought that was one of the things that was really powerful in SG Berte’s presentation, talking about his own experience trying to move between countries and the visa issues and the challenges that you have to deal with, that must be transformed and requires a conversation bigger than any one company, bigger than any one country, because these really are regional or even African, Pan-African issues.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:16:11

Exactly.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:16:12

Anyway, just wanted to weigh in on that. I think it’s very exciting. There were also closed-door sessions at this conference, which is common for a group like this. You need to work out some internal issues about governance and decision making. You also need to learn together and from each other. And we had presentations on almost tactical topics, how to do equity sharing within an agency, some new areas to learn about and possibly incorporate as service lines. I spoke on podcasting and other owned media strategies.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:16:51

Sean Dowdall from San Francisco spoke about Generative Engine Optimization, both in terms of what is this? And then how can agencies use it. And then there were other small breakout sessions on some really specific topics about tools and service offerings and pricing and things of that nature. As you reflect on the outcomes of the conference, looking forward, what are you most excited about getting to work on? In other words, what ideas or inspiration is turning into planning, actual allocation of resources, new directions? What’s happening for you specifically and for Newmark Group?

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:17:36

Well, that’s, that’s so exciting. And I, I totally echo what you’re saying, which is the, the criticality of those conversations and particularly the experience sharing by other members. When you are talking to members who have gone through different processes and experiences that, that you would like to embark on. I mean, you get advice that would probably take a lot of resources to get otherwise or a lot of time to accumulate.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:18:03

You’ve just talked about things like employee ownership, programs, generative engine optimization, which is something very new. So actually that sort of gives you an idea of the two aspects that are exciting for me. One is institutional strengthening for Newmark building, continuing to build the teams, continuing to build the capacity of the teams, continuing to build the best teams to service our clients, but at the same time continuing to build the agility and the adaptability needed to get into new areas such as generative engine optimization, agent TKI and the like.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:18:46

So specifically, one of the things that I actually almost immediately did after that conference was to update our culture, our culture deck. We have this thing we call a culture deck and added a couple of things around adaptability and individual leadership. Because I realize that we can be very good at what we are doing right now, but we actually need to even be better at becoming really good at new things that we may not know about.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:19:18

And I realized that that capability is not something that you stumble into you have to be deliberate at building this muscle. We’ve always been an organization and a company that learns continuously, that keeps reinventing itself. But that DNA has to be strengthened right now more than ever, because our clients don’t even know what they want until they see it. So things like GEO, AgentIQ, AI and other areas of business growth are things that we actually have to be very good at and take them to our clients and say, hey, there is this thing that you actually need to think about. And we’ve started doing some of that and clients are very excited, which creates more revenue potential for us.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:20:04

It makes us a more scalable and sustainable business to the extent that some investors are even starting to say, hey, we like what you’re doing. If you ever need capital to grow, you know, we want to talk to you. And that excites me because it means that the pessimism that earlier came with AI is actually turning into excitement. Not just AI, other technologies as well. But the fact that we are able to look at the future positively excise me to bits. But we have to become a highly adaptable organization in order to take advantage of these opportunities.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:20:38

You know, I’m reminded as we close here of the contributions of Edward Bernays to this discipline, to this field of public relations and his view that there were three main components to public relations and that was informing people, persuading people, and integrating people with people. That last one, I think, is often forgotten. We tend to focus on strategic communications and as persuasion primarily and sometimes also as information with public health campaigns and things of that nature.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:21:17

But to me, this conference that you and your team organized really hit all three of those notes because people were informed, people were persuaded the importance of certain topics and directions, and people were integrated. Members from all over the world had conversations with each other and built relationships. And that to me is, as an adjacent non member of the public relations global Network is one of the beautiful things I see coming out of this event. So on behalf of everyone who attended and on behalf of the network itself, I just want to thank you and your team for creating an experience that really hit those three powerful components of what this field is all about.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:22:01

No, thank you. Thank you very much, Adrian. And I thank you also because your presentation and the inspiration that you continue to give me and my team are also exciting. We’re definitely going to take up some of the advice that you shared around podcasting as a service and also creating properties using podcasting as a foundation, because it is one of those things I’m very excited about as well, you know, about our future as a business. And I look forward to to continue working with you on this. And you know, the future is bright.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:22:38

Those words were literally in my head as you were speaking. The future is bright. Thanks again, Gilbert.

Gilbert Manirakiza: 0:22:44

All right, thank you too.

Adrian McIntyre: 0:22:47

Thanks for listening to this episode of PRGN Presents, brought to you by the Public Relations Global Network.

Abbie Fink: 0:22:54

We publish new episodes every other week, so subscribe now in your favorite podcast app. Episodes are also available on our website, along with more information about PRGN and our members, at prgn.com.