Sharon Napier's guest appearances

Sharon Napier

The Drum Arms Podcast

Great Minds

Own It

Michael Roth

Libby Brockhoff

Lubomira Rochet

Venables Bell

Britt Fero

Nancy Hill

Kat Gordon

Jean Freeman

Mira Kaddoura

Chris Hirst

Janice Min

Sacha Baron Cohen

Carolyn McCall

Lizzie Widhelm

Joanna Coles

OwlTail

Sharon Napier is the Executive Chair and Founder of Partners + Napier, an integrated creative and media company twice ranked among the Top 20 Most Effective Agencies in North America by Effie Worldwide. Napier also sits on the Global Strategic Leadership Team of Project Worldwide, a privately held holding company of 13 leading agencies. Beyond Partners + Napier, Napier is active in numerous organizations aligning with the agency’s verticals of expertise and her personal passions. She serves as Board Chair of the 4A’s, is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is co-Vice President of the Memorial Art Gallery Board of Managers in Rochester, NY. She is also a member of the Culinary Institute of America’s Society of Fellows. Chapters:  00:18 – 02:52 – The new chair of the 4A’s, Sharon Napier 02:52 – 04:37 – How did she start her career in advertising? 04:37 – 14:48 – Her early years as a young entrepreneur 14:49 – 19:00 – Transcending Our Business 19:04 – 22:15 – How have we done as an industry? 22:15 – 34:17 – The impact of the pandemic on the advertising industry 34:17 – 37:35 – Challenges for organic growth 37:36 – 47:19 – Challenges of being a woman in a man’s world 47:19 – 49:41 – The evolution of the agency business 49:41 – 51:16 – The state of the agency 51:17 – 53:53 – What are the top priorities for her as the new 4A’s chair?  Recorded content structured by Snackable.AI

Sharon Napier is the Executive Chair and Founder of Partners + Napier, an integrated creative and media company twice ranked among the Top 20 Most Effective Agencies in North America by Effie Worldwide. Napier also sits on the Global Strategic Leadership Team of Project Worldwide, a privately held holding company of 13 leading agencies. Beyond Partners + Napier, Napier is active in numerous organizations aligning with the agency’s verticals of expertise and her personal passions. She serves as Board Chair of the 4A’s, is a member of the Board of Trustees at the Rochester Institute of Technology and is co-Vice President of the Memorial Art Gallery Board of Managers in Rochester, NY. She is also a member of the Culinary Institute of America’s Society of Fellows. Chapters: <ul> <li>00:18 – 02:52 – The new chair of the 4A’s, Sharon Napier</li> <li>02:52 – 04:37 – How did she start her career in advertising?</li> <li>04:37 – 14:48 – Her early years as a young entrepreneur</li> <li>14:49 – 19:00 – Transcending Our Business</li> <li>19:04 – 22:15 – How have we done as an industry?</li> <li>22:15 – 34:17 – The impact of the pandemic on the advertising industry</li> <li>34:17 – 37:35 – Challenges for organic growth</li> <li>37:36 – 47:19 – Challenges of being a woman in a man’s world</li> <li>47:19 – 49:41 – The evolution of the agency business</li> <li>49:41 – 51:16 – The state of the agency</li> <li>51:17 – 53:53 – What are the top priorities for her as the new 4A’s chair?</li> </ul> Recorded content structured by <a href="http://Snackable.AI" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Snackable.AI</a>

EP168: Sharon Napier

Hi and welcome to the OWN IT podcast, where we celebrate the growing number of (women and non-binary) ad agency owners and talk about buying out of the boys’ club of advertising, one agency at a time. Today I’m talking to Sharon Napier of Partners+Napier. She is not only one of the long-standing women owners in the advertising business, but serves as board chair of the 4As, so her take on the issue with a gender gap in agency ownership is one people listen to. Sharon also grew her agency very intentionally away from the big media markets, in Rochester, New York. So her perspective is familiar to me and I know will be valuable for you.Thanks for listening to this episode of OWN IT with Sharon Napier of Partners+Napier. Find them online at partersandnapier.com … all spelled out. And be sure to connect with Sharon on LinkedIn. Links to her profile and the agency website can be found in our show notes.If you’re enjoying Own It, please subscribe, then rate and share it on your podcast service of choice. Also, if you’re a female or non-binary agency owner, or you want to own an agency someday, join our growing community at untilyouownit.com.

Hi and welcome to the <a href="https://untilyouownit.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">OWN IT</a> podcast, where we celebrate the growing number of (women and non-binary) ad agency owners and talk about buying out of the boys’ club of advertising, one agency at a time. Today I’m talking to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonnapier/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Sharon Napier</a> of <a href="https://www.partnersandnapier.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Partners+Napier</a>. She is not only one of the long-standing women owners in the advertising business, but serves as board chair of the 4As, so her take on the issue with a gender gap in agency ownership is one people listen to. Sharon also grew her agency very intentionally away from the big media markets, in Rochester, New York. So her perspective is familiar to me and I know will be valuable for you.Thanks for listening to this episode of OWN IT with Sharon Napier of Partners+Napier. Find them online at <a href="https://www.partnersandnapier.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">partersandnapier.com</a> … all spelled out. And be sure to <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/in/sharonnapier/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">connect with Sharon on LinkedIn</a>. Links to her profile and the agency website can be found in our show notes.If you’re enjoying Own It, please subscribe, then rate and share it on your podcast service of choice. Also, if you’re a female or non-binary agency owner, or you want to own an agency someday, join our growing community at <a href="https://untilyouownit.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">untilyouownit.com</a>.

How Sharon Napier of Partners+Napier, Owns It

One can’t say that Sharon Napier is quiet. Growing up in a “loud first-generation Italian family” outside of Buffalo saw to that. Another thing one can’t say about the CEO of Partners + Napier in Rochester is that she follows the rules. The competitive fire she exhibits day in and day out sparks her team, which works on a number of interesting clients such as Delta Vacations, BMW and MINI Financial Services, USA Today, Xerox, Robert Mondavi and others. But that doesn’t mean that Napier, a proud mother with two daughters in the advertising business in New York City, doesn’t make a mistake or two along the way. In fact, she believes that learning from the failures (actually learning from them) has been of great benefit to her over her 20+ years in the industry. Napier is a massive advocate for women in the industry and strongly encourages, especially young women, to understand their personal brand, know their value and never apologize. “Every time we say sorry we sort of lose our relevance, our importance, our confidence, our power,” she says.When is Napier at her best? When she’s competing against all odds, has something to prove or is told she “can’t” do something. When that happens — watch out (in a very good way). Nowhere was this more obvious when, in 2004, she led a management buyout of the indie shop in Upstate New York. “There were very, very few woman founders of agencies,” she notes. “In fact, there were no memberships, there were few woman’s groups, there were no banks or VC's willing to invest in women-owned businesses. So, my partners and I just went for it.”This was also illustrated in stark relief when, after returning to graduate school at the age of 43. After writing a business plan for a family values-led company, the professor scoffed and told her that would hold the agency back and that being a “family” would prevent hard business decisions to be made. “That little voice inside me said, ‘Well, watch me’,” she laughs. “I felt like I could go do counter-culture on this,” Napier explains. “The industry was all about sweatshops and working 24/7 — and the best ideas come out of the agencies that are doing that and I just felt that if we valued peoples families — and family to us meant we respected each other and our clients and the communities in which we worked — we would have created that type of culture, and we could grow.”A question and issue that Napier ponders is around diversity. Why is it so hard? Why are we still talking about it?“It’s a business imperative,” she says. “We just put a stake in the ground — and our stake in the ground is that all our seven interns this year are from a diverse backgrounds. I just think that it’s something we've got to stop talking about and that we have to start doing something about.”To that end, Napier hopes that she can continue to share her own experiences and perspectives — and have peoples’ backs in the industry to help it thrive, no matter where in the world. Even and especially Upstate New York.

One can’t say that Sharon Napier is quiet. Growing up in a “loud first-generation Italian family” outside of Buffalo saw to that. Another thing one can’t say about the CEO of Partners + Napier in Rochester is that she follows the rules. The competitive fire she exhibits day in and day out sparks her team, which works on a number of interesting clients such as Delta Vacations, BMW and MINI Financial Services, USA Today, Xerox, Robert Mondavi and others. But that doesn’t mean that Napier, a proud mother with two daughters in the advertising business in New York City, doesn’t make a mistake or two along the way. In fact, she believes that learning from the failures (actually learning from them) has been of great benefit to her over her 20+ years in the industry. Napier is a massive advocate for women in the industry and strongly encourages, especially young women, to understand their personal brand, know their value and never apologize. “Every time we say sorry we sort of lose our relevance, our importance, our confidence, our power,” she says. When is Napier at her best? When she’s competing against all odds, has something to prove or is told she “can’t” do something. When that happens — watch out (in a very good way). Nowhere was this more obvious when, in 2004, she led a management buyout of the indie shop in Upstate New York. “There were very, very few woman founders of agencies,” she notes. “In fact, there were no memberships, there were few woman’s groups, there were no banks or VC's willing to invest in women-owned businesses. So, my partners and I just went for it.” This was also illustrated in stark relief when, after returning to graduate school at the age of 43. After writing a business plan for a family values-led company, the professor scoffed and told her that would hold the agency back and that being a “family” would prevent hard business decisions to be made. “That little voice inside me said, ‘Well, watch me’,” she laughs. “I felt like I could go do counter-culture on this,” Napier explains. “The industry was all about sweatshops and working 24/7 — and the best ideas come out of the agencies that are doing that and I just felt that if we valued peoples families — and family to us meant we respected each other and our clients and the communities in which we worked — we would have created that type of culture, and we could grow.” A question and issue that Napier ponders is around diversity. Why is it so hard? Why are we still talking about it? “It’s a business imperative,” she says. “We just put a stake in the ground — and our stake in the ground is that all our seven interns this year are from a diverse backgrounds. I just think that it’s something we've got to stop talking about and that we have to start doing something about.” To that end, Napier hopes that she can continue to share her own experiences and perspectives — and have peoples’ backs in the industry to help it thrive, no matter where in the world. Even and especially Upstate New York.

Exceptional Women of the World: Sharon Napier, Partners + Napier