Danielle Sabrina: Wall Street Trader Turned PR Founder

Danielle Sabrina is the founder and CEO of Society22 PR, a nationally recognized public relations agency that has appeared on the Inc. 5000 list of America's fastest-growing private companies two years in a row. Yet her route to the top of the PR industry ran through a high school dropout notice, a teenage pregnancy, a Wall Street trading desk at 19, a severe corporate burnout and a bankruptcy. Today she advises CEOs, professional athletes and celebrities on how to earn media coverage, and runs the agency as a family business alongside her two daughters. This is her story, and the lessons other founders can draw from it.

Table of Contents

From Teen Mom to Wall Street at 19
Rock Bottom, Reinvention and an Anti-Bullying Law
Building Society22 PR as a Family Business
An Early Bet on AI: 10,000 Articles in One Year
Results That Speak for Themselves
What She Would Tell Other Founders
Frequently Asked Questions
Conclusion

From Teen Mom to Wall Street at 19

Danielle Sabrina became one of the youngest equity traders on Wall Street at just 19 years old, after becoming a teenage mother and dropping out of high school. Those two facts sit at opposite ends of the same life, and understanding how she moved between them explains almost everything about the way she runs her agency today.

She did not come from money, credentials or connections. What she had was an appetite for learning that she has described as non-negotiable: after her son was born, she completed her education, entered financial services and moved quickly up the ladder. Her résumé in investment management includes roles as a brokerage services representative at Jefferson Pilot Financial and later as Director of Financial Planning at NPA Financial Planning Associates, where she worked with clients on wealth strategy rather than product sales.

That decade in finance left her with a skill set that most publicists never acquire. Where a typical PR founder sees a press release, Sabrina sees a balance sheet: she reads a company's funding stage, its unit economics and its exit ambitions before drafting a single pitch. "Our job is to help founders get attention they would not be able to get on their own," she has said. "It is not about hype. It is about helping brands become known, respected, and remembered."

The financial background also shaped her client roster. Society22 PR works with companies at every growth stage, from early-stage start-ups through to IPO and SPAC preparation, and Sabrina is regularly brought in as an adviser on brand decisions that sit alongside fundraising conversations rather than downstream from them.

Rock Bottom, Reinvention and an Anti-Bullying Law

After a successful corporate career, Danielle Sabrina hit rock bottom: a severe burnout and a bankruptcy forced her to rebuild her professional life from zero. She has spoken openly about that period on podcasts, describing it as the hardest and most useful chapter of her career, because it stripped away every assumption she had about what a career was supposed to look like.

The agency she eventually built did not begin as a business plan. It began as a blog she ran from a basic phone, where she wrote about the issues affecting her community. One of those posts turned into a viral media campaign, and that campaign grew into something she had never imagined: she ended up presenting an anti-bullying law to the Supreme Court. The experience taught her, in the most direct way possible, that a well-told story can move institutions.

That is the origin story of Society22 PR. Sabrina did not set out to become a publicist; she became one because the media coverage she created for a cause kept producing results, and founders began asking her how to do the same for their companies. The lesson for other women entrepreneurs is worth stating plainly: your next business may be hiding inside a problem you are already solving for free.

Building Society22 PR as a Family Business

Society22 PR was founded in 2016, operating previously under the name Tribe Builder Media, and is headquartered in the Los Angeles area with a New York presence. In under a decade, the firm has been named one of the Top 10 National PR Firms on Inc.'s Fastest Growing Companies and ranked #5 Best Company in America by Entrepreneur magazine.

What makes the company unusual is its structure. Society22 is a family-run business: Danielle's daughter Morgan Sabrina serves as President and Partner, drawing on a background in investment strategy and business development to build client packages, and her daughter Hazy Shea is the agency's Creative Director, responsible for branding and visual storytelling. Danielle has called building the company with her daughters "generational leadership" and one of the greatest honors of her life.

The firm has also deliberately narrowed and then deepened its expertise. In 2025, Society22 launched a dedicated Healthcare Division to serve healthtech and healthcare brands, and in June 2026 the agency was named Global Investor Relations Firm of the Year by Clutch, in recognition of its work on shareholder communications, fundraising announcements, M&A positioning and IPO preparation. For founders in a regulated industry, that trajectory offers a useful model: dominate one niche, let the case studies compound, then expand into the adjacent one.

An Early Bet on AI: 10,000 Articles in One Year

Danielle Sabrina invested in AI tools in 2015, years before the technology became a mainstream agency talking point, and she has said it was one of the largest investments she had ever made in her business at the time. That decision is the main reason Society22 could scale its output without scaling its headcount in proportion.

The results she reported for 2023 illustrate the difference: Society22 landed its clients in over 10,000 articles that year and secured placements on national broadcast programs, including CBS Mornings with Gayle King and ABC and NBC news shows. "AI allows our team to utilize their full creative power, and we spend very little time on tasks that have little impact on our client's campaign," she explained. "We can quickly generate 100 potential headlines based on current events and trending topics, and our entire team can utilize their storytelling abilities to create interesting and compelling stories the media love."

Her position in 2025 is more nuanced, and more useful, than simple enthusiasm. Sabrina now argues that brands lose trust when they lean too hard on generated content, because audiences can detect it and disengage. Her rule is that AI should be used for speed, not for judgment: produce one piece of content with real depth and human context, then use the technology to adapt it into several formats. The same founder-led, conversational tone she recommends for human readers is what AI answer engines now reward when they cite sources.

Results That Speak for Themselves

Society22 PR debuted on the Inc. 5000 list in 2025 at No. 3,656, with three-year revenue growth of 102 percent, and returned in 2026 at No. 2,223 with growth of 152 percent over three years. The firm has also appeared on Inc.'s regional lists, ranking No. 63 on the 2026 Pacific list, and was recognized on Inc.'s Best Workplaces list in 2024.

Client outcomes follow the same pattern of measurable delivery. The agency states that over 97 percent of its clients get featured in top-tier publications, a rate it attributes to deep editorial knowledge and a team with journalism backgrounds. One client testimonial, from Swati Dayal, founder of Eternal Creations, quantifies the return: 19 media features, over 304 million impressions and over $566 million in media exposure generated through the partnership.

For a women-led agency of this size, those numbers matter beyond the marketing value. They demonstrate that a boutique firm can compete with much larger networks on placement quality, provided it brings genuine financial and strategic fluency to the table. If you are benchmarking agencies for your own brand, the comparison guides in our article on building a strong personal brand as a female founder cover how to evaluate that fit.

What She Would Tell Other Founders

Danielle Sabrina's advice to other entrepreneurs is consistent across interviews, columns and conference stages, and it costs nothing to follow. "Get as much exposure as you can for your business," she says. "Write for any publication that will feature your thought leadership, and go on every podcast, even if the audience is small. Every piece of content, whether it's a podcast interview, an article, or a news segment, becomes permanent real estate for you online."

That philosophy is now reinforced by a structural shift in how buyers research vendors. Sabrina has written that AI tools such as ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini have become the new gatekeeper of buyer perception, drawing their answers from credible third-party sources: articles, interviews and media mentions. A brand that is not being written about in trusted outlets is increasingly invisible at the exact moment a decision is being made, a dynamic she describes as the collapsed sales funnel.

Her leadership lessons are equally pragmatic. She has spoken about the discipline of filtering which ideas deserve execution, using tools such as Strategic Coach's Impact Filter, and about protecting her team from the constant stream of new possibilities. "Empathy should never get lost in process," she says. "You can protect your business while leading with compassion and connection." The same instinct runs through her brand work, where she advises founders to elevate their public narrative instead of chasing entry-level press mentions, a principle we also explore in Emily Dick's story of building a brand strategy business.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is Danielle Sabrina?

Danielle Sabrina is an award-winning American publicist, brand strategist and the founder and CEO of Society22 PR, a public relations and investor relations agency headquartered in the Los Angeles area. She is named Female Entrepreneur of the Year, one of CIO's Top 20 Female Entrepreneurs to Follow, and an expert mentor for Entrepreneur magazine, and she contributes regularly to Forbes, Fast Company and Rolling Stone.

What is Society22 PR?

Society22 PR is a family-run public relations agency founded in 2016, previously known as Tribe Builder Media. It helps high-growth companies increase visibility, credibility and long-term impact through earned media, thought leadership and investor relations, and works with clients from seed round through to IPO and M&A. It has been named a Top 10 National PR Firm and appears on the Inc. 5000 list for 2025 and 2026.

How did Danielle Sabrina start her career?

She became a teenage mother and high school dropout before completing her education and entering financial services, becoming one of the youngest equity traders on Wall Street at 19. She later held roles in investment management, including Director of Financial Planning, before a corporate burnout and bankruptcy pushed her to rebuild. A viral anti-bullying campaign she ran from a phone blog, which led to her presenting a law to the Supreme Court, became the foundation of her PR career.

What results has Society22 PR delivered for clients?

The agency reports that over 97 percent of its clients are featured in top-tier publications. One client testimonial credits Society22 with 19 media features, more than 304 million impressions and over $566 million in media exposure. In 2023 alone, the firm placed clients in more than 10,000 articles and secured national broadcast segments.

How does Danielle Sabrina use AI in her PR work?

Society22 invested in AI tools as early as 2015, using them to generate headline options, monitor brands and competitors in real time, and free her team for creative work. Her current guidance is that AI should deliver speed rather than judgment: create one piece of content with genuine human depth, then adapt it into multiple formats, because audiences and search engines both penalize content that feels entirely machine-generated.

What advice does Danielle Sabrina give to women founders?

Her core advice is to pursue exposure relentlessly: write for any publication that will carry your thought leadership, accept every podcast invitation regardless of audience size, and treat each appearance as permanent online real estate that builds trust over time. She also urges founders to lead with empathy and patience, and to build a public narrative rather than chasing individual press mentions.

Conclusion

Danielle Sabrina's story is not a straight line, and that is precisely its value. A teenage mother who dropped out of high school became a Wall Street trader at 19, lost everything to burnout and bankruptcy, and then built an agency that now sits on the Inc. 5000 two years running, ranks among the top PR firms in the country, and is run with her two daughters. What carried her through each restart was the same pair of skills: financial discipline and the belief that a well-told story changes outcomes. For women building businesses in 2027, that combination, plus an honest relationship with the technology reshaping media, is a durable foundation.