Quinn veteran Rosnowski starts new firm

Suzanne Rosnowski, formerly the partner in charge of real estate at public relations firm Quinn & Co., is striking out on her own. The veteran publicist has launched a new firm, Relevance New York, which provides advisory services in addition to traditional public relations. The new company has already signed its first major client, investment sales brokerage Eastern Consolidated, for whom it will work on “big-picture positioning,” said Rosnowski.

Rosnowski was with Quinn — which specializes in food, real estate and travel PR — for nearly a decade and oversaw all real estate clients.

“It was a very amicable parting,” said company founder Florence Quinn. “For her happiness, she had to have something of her own, and I understand because I did it myself when I was her age.”

Rosnowski said her departure was not timed to any particular personal or professional change, but that it “just felt right” to start her own business now.

Relevance isn’t the only new PR firm in town. Last year, Rubenstein Associates’ Robin Dolch launched her own real estate-focused firm, Hundred Stories Public Relations. But Rosnowski said her firm’s emphasis on branding gives it a slightly different focus than Hundred Stories. Relevance’s approach is also different from that of some larger PR firms, Rosnowski said, in that she will work to craft a custom campaign for each client. “As any business gets bigger there is a tendency to repeat” previous strategies, she said, but with her small firm, she hopes to avoid using “templates.”

So far, Rosnowski has one full-time employee in addition to herself, she said, as well as some part-time help. Relevance’s new office, at 349 Fifth Avenue, is small, but Rosnowski said the lease has an option to expand. “We do want to grow, but want to keep our boutique sensibility,” she said.