We were lucky to catch up with Najah Rahmaan-Oneale recently and have shared our conversation below.

Najah, appreciate you joining us today. Can you talk to us about your team building process? How did you recruit and train your team and knowing what you know now would you have done anything differently?

My trajectory as a business owner was not traditional. When I first started at Dedica Group which was initially founded in 1996 by Gioia Francella and David Player, I came on board in 2008 as a contractor to assist with managing our clients and projects, improve operational efficiencies and grow our NY Team. At the time the company was headquartered in California with a small office in New York City. During this process I worked very closely with the founding Partners and our Chief Client Officer now also Partner, Todd Leach to expand our reach on the east coast and increase our YOY Revenue and Profitability. Based on our success, when the company restructured in 2012 I was offered the opportunity to grow with the agency taking on the role as COO and now CEO and became a partner in 2019.

Hiring and on-boarding new team members as we continued to grow in a new territory after closing our office in California and building an entirely new team in New York City was not an easy undertaking. To recruit in-house designers for the agency we generally utilized online platforms like Behance to explore designer portfolios and identify design talent. Additionally, we engaged local talent agencies to help with recruiting efforts or temporarily fill positions and we strategically developed relationships with local NY design schools, colleges and universities to help fulfill our hiring needs. Lastly, leveraging our professional networks and contacts we were able to generate great leads to help source the right talent to expand our Account and Project Management Team.

Ultimately I can’t say I would have done anything differently. In reflecting, I can say that as it relates to our training and on-boarding process this has become a lot more streamlined now with improved technology and new online tools and systems we have managed to implement through the years; especially today where we have now transitioned to a fully-remote global team.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your background and context?

I studied Marketing Communications and Public Relations at Johnson & Wales University and got my first start in the industry as an intern in college at a Regional Media company in Providence, Rhode Island where I went to school. I had the opportunity to work closely with our in-house design team on a large marketing campaign and our broadcast team on a promotional event for a major brand relaunch. This helped me to understand more about the various areas of marketing and communications and it was then I knew that I wanted to work at a Marketing Agency which would allow me to work on more strategic marketing campaigns and cross-promotions for various brands. However, my journey to get where I am today wasn’t a straight path. I spent a few years working in Finance and Business Management as well which all helped prepare me for the road ahead. When I joined Dedica Group it is here that I have truly been able to hone my skills as a now marketing vet over the past 15+ years.

For a little more background about Dedica Group, we are a full-service strategic marketing, design and digital agency where fresh innovative thinking fueled by our passion and in-depth industry knowledge helps yield positive results for our clients. We provide effective brand and digital solutions rooted in solid design executions and activations that produce tangible results in sales, consumer engagement and increased ROI.

What I am most proud of is my team. We have a very diverse and extremely talented group. Our C-Suite leadership represents Minority and LGBTQ+ ownership and we are 75% female operated. In addition to being able to provide diverse perspectives in everything that we do, which I feel is extremely important in Marketing and what has also largely contributed to our long-term growth and success. What also sets us apart is that we have built a solid reputation for over 25+ years working with some of the worlds most iconic and beloved brands and have strong, long-standing client relationships because we truly work together like a family and treat our clients as such as well.

How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?

For myself and my team what has truly helped us build our reputation as proven agency leaders as what is still considered to be in more of a boutique agency space is our work. As simple as that sounds, we are firm believers in the fact that we are not designing for design sake and we have proven results. We dig deep to understand our clients, their brands, their needs and approach every project as if it is our very own brand. Through our strategic partnerships we have experience translating actionable data driven through research and key insights into effective creative solutions to solve for market challenges, optimize profitability, drive sales and create unique experiences for consumers.

Additionally, for myself and my other business partners the power of networking, our involvement in industry-related events and organizations has also helped to increase our visibility and further solidify our credibility within the industry and across the broad range of business sectors we work with from food and beverage, hospitality, sports & entertainment to technology.

Do you have any stories of times when you almost missed payroll or any other near death experiences for your business?

Overall, we are still a relatively small business and privately-owned company that much like any business constantly has to adapt to the ever-evolving needs and demands of our clients. We operate under contractual agreements and accruals which can sometimes present financial challenges managing cash flow and payroll due to extended payment terms or delayed payments. The COVID-19 pandemic of course was a very difficult time for every business but I will say this was first time I was extremely concerned about the future viability of the company as projects were halted and budgets became scarce. However, we were able to survive by cutting some costs and slowing down our burn rate which unfortunately meant temporarily reducing some of our staff, terminating our office lease agreement for our main office headquarters and remote regional satellite location, and thankfully were able to financially recover relatively quickly in the following year. Since then, we continue to understand the importance of having a diversified client mix, tighter financial controls and proactively building our internal cash reserves. Post Pandemic, we have embraced a fully-remote work environment, which I know is still a bit of a controversial topic. However, for us it has proven to be a lot more cost effective and our team is still highly productive. Additionally, it has forced us to create even more streamlined operational systems, cross-functional management teams and allowed us to focus on expanding our capabilities and building specialized creative teams and resources that help support all of our client needs from top to bottom.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.dedicagroup.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dedicagroup/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/najah-rahmaan-oneale-74b3368
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCc6kjgQIMMD2-raeRFCPGzw/videos

Image Credits
Adisa Mullings