CHEN PR Has Exited Stage Left!

Company Culture Posted Jun 27, 2022 by Chris Carleton

After more than a quarter century of our outstandingly talented crew providing top-notch
service to our cadre of clients, it’s time to move on.

Winding down our agency wasn’t an easy decision. It followed considerable thought,
debate, discussion and, ultimately, planning. Lots of planning.

We love what we do. We loved working with each other. We loved the mutually
respectful, productive partnerships we had with nearly all of our clients.

But…it’s time.

Time to take advantage of new opportunities. Time to take on new challenges. Time to
pursue passion projects. Time to kick back and recharge.

It has been a helluva ride since we opened our doors in 1996…followed soon thereafter
by companies ranging from Sun, IBM, Electronic Arts, Fairchild Semi and ANS/AOL
giving us the nod.

For the past 20+ years, we’ve turned most of our attention to the cybersecurity space. It
has been a blast – and an eye-opener, from a cybercrime perspective – representing
clients such as RSA, Duo/Cisco, Sophos, Palo Alto Networks, Flashpoint, Bishop Fox, Intel 471, Devo and lots of others from startups to market leaders. For about that same
timeframe, we’ve also been active in the cleantech space working with one of the
battery/energy storage industry’s most visible pioneers.

We’ve welcomed dozens of CHENers to our team during the years. They rocked it while
they were here. When they moved on, they made their marks at public and private
companies, other agencies – and, in some cases, at careers outside of tech. Many of
them continue to do that today.

Some CHENers came and never wanted to leave, staying with us almost from the
beginning. Or joining and growing with us for the last decade. We couldn’t have asked
for better – as colleagues and as friends.

The numbers help tell the story. Billions of dollars in funding rounds, IPOs, mergers and
acquisitions. Hundreds of new market sectors, technologies, products and services.
Thousands of interactions with editors, reporters, analysts, investors, agency and
marketing/comms industry peers and others who keep the innovation ecosystem
humming in the U.S. and abroad. We’re fortunate to call a lot of them friends.

And we’ve been able to ride shotgun with some of the most amazing visionaries you
could imagine. People who saw a market space – or a world – that didn’t exist yet and
then set about to make it a reality. Often, that was anything but a straight and easy path.
Watching them persevere, especially when times seemed darkest – almost willing
things to happen – taught us real-world, in-the-trenches lessons that we applied to our
own firm.

Anyone in the agency business, or who has founded a company in any space, knows
that every day ain’t an A Day. In fact, there are times when you wondered why you’re
even doing this.

But then there were days – when you had a huge success, saw someone’s hard work
pay off in spades or recorded some other sizable win – that earned a big, fat check in
the A++++ Day category. And drove home for you why you love to do this.

So, while CHEN PR will now fade gracefully into the sunset, the memories will live on.

Thanks for taking this journey with us.

In the words of the great philosopher, Dr. Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over. Smile
because it happened.”

In the words of those other great philosophers, The Grateful Dead: “Reach out your hand if your cup be empty. If your cup is full may it be again.”

We’ll see you around!