Turning Noise Into Impact
By Dawn Robinette, APR | Photography by Suzanne Pack
If you couldn’t wait to get a ticket to a Broadway in San Antonio show, decided to have your groceries delivered by H-E-B’s Favor, donated to a cause through the Big Give, soaked in the beauty of the San Antonio Museum of Art’s collections, explored the San Antonio Botanical Garden to enjoy this summer’s “Huntopia” or already have your tickets for “Illuminate,” the garden’s new holiday light show, you are familiar with Fran Freeland Yanity, or at least her work. You just didn’t know it.
A dynamic force in the marketing and advertising industries, Yanity makes sure her clients – including that fantastic roster of organizations above — put their best foot forward, working behind the scenes of not one but three powerhouse agencies as the President and COO of The PM Group, CEO of Noisy Trumpet Communications, and CEO of Ninth Floor Events, a premier events management company.
The agency combination means that no matter what an organization needs to help them cut through the clutter and reach their audience, Yanity’s separate, yet integrated teams can deliver. “We can help you be heard. We can help you rise above the noise. We can help you be distinctive,” she explains. “We are full-service agencies, but we specialize in different things.”
The PM Group leads in award-winning creative, media, and marketing campaigns. At the same time, Noisy Trumpet is a nationally recognized firm committed to identifying innovative story-telling and traffic-driving opportunities for clients. Ninth Floor is a premier events management company.
“We take the headache out of event planning and management for clients. Everything from the design of the invitation and décor to coordinating caterers and all the event space – the load-in, the load-out, all the heavy lifting with event management. We specialize in handling the start-to-finish of managing an event.”
In addition to the hats she wears at the agencies, Yanity has served in numerous leadership and fundraising positions, including as the American Heart Association’s 2018 Go Red for Women Chairwoman. She has also served on the Boards of San Antonio Sports, Safer Path Family Violence Shelter, Kindness Daily, and Texas Yes Project. While she has generously given her time and expertise to various community causes, her current service hits close to home.
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“One of my daughters is a Type 1 diabetic. It really is a life and death situation because Type 1 diabetics don’t make insulin, so they are dependent on insulin to live,” she explains. “It’s very different to know that my child has to have this medicine to live. You have to work through the panic and all those emotions that you go through worrying about – Am I doing the right thing? Am I doing the wrong thing? You have to navigate that and work through it as best you can. We got a lot of support from Breakthrough T1D, known then as the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation.”
Her daughter’s diagnosis fuels Yanity’s commitment to Breakthrough T1D, where she serves on the Breakthrough T1D South Central Texas Chapter board. She’s chaired the annual “Fund A Cure” fundraiser, served as the live auction chair, and is currently the board nominating chair, working to strategically build the board to grow the organization.
Yanity also dedicates her time to Susan G. Komen as San Antonio’s first female ambassador for VIPink, a new one-week fundraising campaign in February 2025. “Community leaders will raise money for breast cancer research and awareness for one week. My mother passed away from breast cancer. One of our PM Group employees has been battling it for several years. And I have a lot of friends and family and neighbors that have all had breast cancer. So, when they approached me, it was an easy yes.”
Looking at all she’s accomplished and continues to give to San Antonio, it’s hard to believe she wasn’t interested in a career in marketing and communications. “My undergraduate degree is in art history, and that’s what I thought I was going to do. I even interned at the San Antonio Museum of Art (SAMA) during my senior year at Trinity. But during my time in college, my dad suggested, ‘You should take some marketing classes.’ Then, in my junior year at Trinity, one of my professors pulled me aside and said, ‘I love history, but I can’t make a living in it. And I think the same thing for art history, so you need to change your major to marketing.’”
“I was not open to that at that time and continued pursuing my degree in art history. Then, I’m now about to graduate. What am I going to do? My dad again said, ‘I think you need something a little broader. Why don’t you look at the MBA program at SMU?’ I had this fork in the road. Am I going to continue pursuing art history, or am I going to go more of the business route?”
“I had so many people telling me, ‘You should really go into marketing and advertising communications because you’re combining the artistic things that you like with the business things that you like, too.’ It wasn’t clear to me, but other people could see that that’s where I should go. And now, SAMA is a client. So, it’s come full circle.”
The guidance she received fuels her commitment to mentorship. “What’s important to me as a leader now is being that mentor. I didn’t have any female mentors growing up. My mom didn’t work. Neither of my grandmothers worked; none of my friends’ mothers worked. I had one out of three aunts who had a career and a family. I didn’t really have a lot of examples of what that looked like or career guidance,” she explains. “That’s why it’s important to me that I’m a mentor; I learned by trial and error.”
“I tell people to say yes to opportunities that maybe others say no to. If there’s something, maybe there’s an account available, and you put your name in the hat, or there’s a project that everybody’s shying away from; step into that ring and take it and prove yourself. Take that opportunity. There are a lot of opportunities for somebody to raise their hand and say, ‘Give me a shot.’ Don’t shy away from those open doors that might look a little scary – that may make you say, ‘I don’t know if I can do this,’ – because you can.”
She leans into her personal experience to share insights that may help others. “In my 30s, I was a single mom and had been in a job for 10 years. I had a home. My child was in school. An opportunity came for me to move to San Antonio –with The PM Group – and I had long thought, ‘You need to do something different to take your career to the next level.’ But it was a scary proposition, right? Uprooting and moving and starting a new job, moving your child to a new school, and moving to a city where you don’t have as much of a support system.”
“That was 20 years ago. Had I not done that, who knows? Everything that’s come about and all the wonderful career experiences that I’ve had wouldn’t have happened. I tell people to step outside their comfort zone because that was successful for me.”
“The advice I give all the young people I counsel, or mentor is the same: Bring your best every day, be willing to take those opportunities, and showcase your skills. Be willing to be adaptable and flexible. It’s about stepping into opportunities that maybe you’re uncomfortable with or have never tried before, or you don’t know if you’ll necessarily be successful, but it’s being willing to try.”
“I love when I coach someone on the team about how to overcome a situation, and then I see them do it. That’s what inspires me – seeing people succeed, whether that’s clients, coworkers, or employees. There’s enough success for everyone to go around. How do you help others find their way and be successful? Being kind, being there, being present – it’s really just taking care of people.”
And what would she say to the younger Fran, who wasn’t sure what she was going to do? “It’s going to work out better than you expect. Because we never know how life is going to work out. And it’s amazing how it ultimately does.”
