Rachel Ezekiel-Fishbein (Courtesy of Rachel Ezekiel-Fishbein)
Rachel Ezekiel-Fishbein was working full time at an advertising and public relations agency in Philadelphia in 1995 when she was due to have her first child. She decided that working remotely would be the best option for her family so that she could raise her new son, but the president of the agency didn’t see that option as viable.
“I was planning on coming back Dec. 21, and my husband and I literally stayed up all night talking about it,” she said. “By morning, we had decided to take the leap, and that I would start a business.”
That was 30 years ago. Now, in 2026, Ezekiel-Fishbein and her company, Making Headlines Public Relations, are celebrating 30 years in business. It turns out that making that leap was a pretty good idea after all.
She explained that Making Headlines has been able to thrive largely because of building strong relationships based on “radical transparency.”
“The idea was that you would have my cell phone and contact information and you can always reach me, but we’re going to have the kind of respectful relationship where if I say I am sitting with a sick child at the doctor’s office, my expectation is that you’ll say it’s not an emergency,” Ezekiel-Fishbein said. “And if you call me at 10 p.m. on a Saturday night and tell me there’s an emergency, I’m going to pick up the phone.”
Another major component of Ezekiel-Fishbein’s success is her drive to work on behalf of companies she believes in. She said that she was raised by a mother who was sent to England to avoid the Holocaust, and that experience shaped her mother’s life and in turn hers in many ways, too.
“She always felt that because she had survived, she owed a debt. She was on the board of the League of Women Voters. She signed people up to vote. I grew up on the picket lines for unions — I was taught that you give back,” Ezekiel-Fishbein said. “Then I went into PR, which isn’t really a giving field, so my client load has been predominantly nonprofits.”
As a way to give back and celebrate 30 years in business, Ezekiel-Fishbein announced a program in December that welcomes mission-driven organizations, for-profit or nonprofit, to apply to win 30 hours of pro bono public relations work from Making Headlines.
Submissions closed last week, and Ezekiel-Fishbein said it will take a little while to figure out who the winner is.
“It’s a wonderful contest,” she said.
When it comes to her Jewish lineage, Ezekiel-Fishbein has a lot to be proud of. Her mother’s family escaped Nazi persecution, and she is related to the legendary Moses Jacob Ezekiel, who is depicted in a statue near the Weitzman National Museum of American Jewish History in Philadelphia.
“What’s interesting is that I always say we were part of a mixed marriage, because my mom was more typically Jewish, but my dad was an atheist … so my upbringing was more focused on Judaism culturally, Judaism as our family heritage and Judaism as social justice,” Ezekiel-Fishbein said.
The Keneseth Israel member is a proud member of the Philadelphia Jewish community in addition to the city’s public relations and business owner’s community, and said that the synagogue’s work for the community and on social justice is a large reason that she and her family wanted to be members there.
“I’ve learned how much a synagogue can do to help our immigrant neighbors. I volunteered to co-chair social action around immigration, and I’ve been doing that with their wonderful social action chair and former president,” Ezekiel-Fishbein said. “We’re [also] working on is a new page for the website that will be like the menu, so the idea is that if you want to get involved, people can look and say ‘this is what resonates with me.’”
Ezekiel-Fishbein said that looking back on her decision 30 years ago makes her glad she chose work-life balance and decided to center her family. One of her sons has Tourette’s syndrome and ADHD, and struggled socially when he was younger. He is now an accomplished professional, and Ezekiel-Fishbein thinks that her ability to care for him was essential for his wellbeing.
“I don’t think I could have given him what he needed and been his advocate and supported him in the way I did if I had worked in the agency — that world is just not particularly friendly to work-life balance,” she said.
Even with that decision and how well it turned out, there were sacrifices.
“My business probably dropped by 50% when I was dealing with this with my son, and it has never recovered to the point it was before, and that’s life,” Ezekiel-Fishbein said. “On the other hand, his success is my greatest accomplishment … emotionally, [that trade off] is the greatest thing on Earth.”
1995 was a different time, and Ezekiel-Fishbein laughs when she thinks about how different her job is today compared to then. One thing she is sure of, though, is that she is proud of how it has all turned out. What started with just a few clients has blossomed into something much bigger, all because of how Ezekiel-Fishbein does her work.
“I was always going to be completely honest about my thoughts, and I think they respected that,” she said.