Detroit-based legacy communications agency celebrates 25 years, promotes new leadership
(CBS DETROIT) - As Black Business Month comes to a close, CBS News Detroit is highlighting a communications agency.
98Forward is the state's largest black-owned, woman-led agency and is celebrating 25 years in business with new leadership in place on a mission to keep moving forward.
"I've been working toward this for as long as I can remember," Antonice Strickland said. "This is literally a dream come true, to be able to work with [and] for a black-owned, woman-led agency, that's in theory that's kind of unheard of."
Joining 98Forward just last year, Strickland has already made great strides at the Detroit-based legacy agency.
On Aug.1, she was promoted to vice president of public relations and business development, a key leadership role she says she set her sights on from the beginning.
"I remember talking about it in my interview," Strickland said. "[I said] I want to be vice president and really help grow the agency."
Born in Detroit, Strickland was raised in the Willow Run neighborhood of Ypsilanti. She later graduated from Michigan State and got her master's at George Town University in Washington DC, where she also launched her career.
In her new role, she says she not only wants to help grow the agency, she wants to advocate for the next generation of PR practitioners especially after suffering the loss of a mentee overwhelmed by the industry.
"She ended up taking her own life, and it lives with me," Strickland recounted. "If you are a young black practitioner and you're in some of these spaces, I know you've felt like you weren't being heard, you were ignored, you weren't good enough and you probably were, you just needed someone to see you."
Strickland says it's not only her goal to see those who often go unnoticed, she wants to continue to amplify the voices of those who have historically been silenced, sharing their stories through connection, strategy, and empowerment in the city of Detroit and beyond.
