Cara Rich is the Global Chief Growth Officer of SEC Newgate, where she leads the firm’s worldwide growth strategy, business development, and client expansion initiatives. In this role, she partners closely with leaders across SEC Newgate’s global network to drive sustainable growth, deepen client relationships, and identify new opportunities across markets and industries.

What is the remit and role of the chief growth officer in your organization?

At SEC Newgate, my role is tied to business transformation; transformation of how the agency creates, delivers and captures value. The outcome is the remit which includes revenue and margin growth, the diversification of our client portfolio, our overall business performance and agency reputation. 

What are the essential requirements for growth strategy mapping, continuous innovation, digital transformation and performance calibration across the enterprise?

The most essential requirement is understanding that growth isn’t a strategy, it’s the outcome of a well-executed business strategy and plan. My efforts and those of my team are anchored in our business objectives and align our work with the vision for the agency. What this enables, is a clear focus and connectivity across business functions where all parts of the business are moving in the same direction which inherently expedites transformation and outcomes. Another essential requirement is having upstream conversations with clients so that we don’t innovate for the moment we’re in, but we look a step ahead to what’s coming next and we don’t get complacent with our solutions by only addressing the now.

What data-driven insights and intelligence are essential to identifying growth areas and formulating sustainable growth strategies? 

In addition to the many tools available, there is still a premium on human intelligence, particularly as it relates to corporate affairs. In today’s world, particularly for global and multinational companies and organizations, you must marry a local-to-global model with a global-to-local model and the collective insights we apply from looking top down and bottom up enable us to develop cohesive strategies for our clients that deliver positive impact. While there is a need for strategic and narrative cohesion, localization in communications is what drives results today.

What systems or processes do you have to anticipate, understand and react to new contenders, market disruption, geo-political, economic and technological change?

By and large, we focus more on our work, delivering for clients and growing our portfolio, than we do with industry competition and we are fearless when it comes to market disruption. Advantages to being an agency of our size is the agility that it enables, and the footprint we have isn’t about reach, it was built with intention and is about relevance, so when it comes to geo-politics, we are where our clients need us to be. We also dedicate resources to specific research initiatives that ground our work, one of which is our annual Impact Monitor – which just launched January 14, 2026 – and is a global survey of 20,000 citizens across 20 countries that examines how to manage reputational risk and opportunity in a fragmented world. 

Which functional leaders and teams need to align and combine to execute growth plans and deliverables?

It sounds so cliché and I’m sure every agency person has heard “growth is everyone’s job” but it really is true. This isn’t about an over rotation to everyone responding to RFPs and prospecting, but more an acknowledgement that growth isn’t vertical, it’s horizontal across an organization. It’s my responsibility to act as a cross-functional integrator across new business, client service, products and innovation, marketing and partnerships, as well as data, finance and operations. This cross-functional mandate is a transformational mechanism, forcing the organization to move away from legacy structures toward customer- and outcome-centric models. I need our top sellers just as much as I need innovative solutions and staffing and pricing models. Meeting the needs and demands of companies and organizations today is very much a team sport.

What external and internal forces are most impacting your company’s ability to grow?

There are the obvious external factors such as geopolitics, economic uncertainty, AI adoption and the pressure for communications agencies to demonstrate measurable and material business impact. Internally, it’s about making sure our teams can deliver on the needs of today’s CCOs which goes beyond communications and into corporate diplomacy. Our teams need to be able to demonstrate expertise in political, regulatory, and societal environments that influence business outcomes.

Where is your company currently focusing resources and marketing spend to counter these forces and generate incremental growth?

We are focused on the connectivity of our teams to deliver in-market, real-time intelligence that’s material for our clients, which inherently pays off another area of focus which is demonstrating that our differentiated footprint isn’t about reach, but relevance. The markets in which we operate are a strategic asset for our clients and we obsess over the intersection of business, politics, communities, markets and media so that our clients can deliver to stakeholders, not just shareholders, which ties back to the pressure we face to deliver measurable, material results.