H&K's New Director Does Corporate-to-Agency Tango
Anne Wright is still anticipating her first New York subway ride. The shelves in her office remain bare of books and the personal touches that mark the typical PR executive's territory, and she's just beginning to master her way around the rabbit's warren of cubicles that is Hill & Knowlton NY, which she joined as corporate group director in June.
Despite living out of a suitcase after a recent move from Boston, however, Wright has settled smoothly into her new role, supervising a staff of 45 with the unabashed enthusiasm of someone who thrives in an agency environment - surprising, perhaps, for someone who has spent the bulk of a 20-year PR career in a corporate setting. And she's not alone. More than ever, agencies are willing to consider corporate PR professionals for high-level management positions.
Wright's agency odyssey began just four years ago at Manning Selvage & Lee Boston, where she was managing director. Before joining MS&L, she had been on the other side of the agency-corporate table in the PR/marketing departments of several high-tech firms in her native U.K., including TI Information Engineering, Datapoint Ltd. and the General Systems Division of Honeywell.
"It was a huge shock to me when I first joined an agency," Wright admits. "I had totally underestimated the scope of the culture change. I said to people it was more difficult moving from corporate to agency than moving from London to Boston."
Having filled senior positions on both sides of the agency-corporate equation, Wright offers a unique perspective on what some characterize as alien cultures.
"The best thing about (agency work) is you are suddenly with like-minded people, because when you are in the corporate side, you spend at least half your life explaining marketing communications to the executives and everybody who thinks they could write a better press release, and who have the best fun throwing the latest edition of the Financial Times and saying, 'Why weren't we in this article?'"
Wright, who hired several agencies in her corporate incarnations, emphasizes the need for PR firms to be more up-front with clients when representing who will be working on the nitty-gritty of an account.
"(In my corporate jobs) I always said, 'I think it's great we're meeting with senior persons but I need to know the people who are going to really work the account.' On this side of the table now, that's something I'm sensitive to.
Especially at my (MS&L) job, they knew I wasn't going to work on them day in and day out - and who the hell wants me doing it at my billable rate!"
Wright is convinced clients want a PR firm that isn't just going to tell them what they want to hear. "Sometimes if you're the (in-house) PR person, it can be scary to have an agency come in - who's the CEO really going to listen to?
"It happened to me with a marketing project at Datapoint. I had made recommendations internally, everyone went, 'Yeah, that's lovely, Anne.' Then they retained a consultant, who I brought in, paid an enormous amount of money, and he said exactly what I said, and suddenly it was, 'Yes, we've got to do that, we're paying a lot of money.'
"I know how the PR person feels. But the agency working as an extension of your team is absolutely vital. I gave every agency I retained access to all levels of management and that's the biggest single critical success factor to any agency-client relationship. I think the best internal PR people are the ones who know when and how to use their agency, and if you can build that trust at that level you've got an awfully potent combination."
Wright's team is responsible for about 35 percent of H&K New York billings, with key clients including British Telecom, Bell Atlantic, TWA, Ciena and Price Waterhouse.
Her priorities include growing the agency's corporate business, making sure clients are aware of the multiple services a modern agency offers, including business-to-business, crisis management, employee communications and technology. She also feels strongly about the importance of fully developing the careers of the young account executives on her team.
Despite a heavy technology PR background, Wright says she won't necessarily be focusing on tech accounts in her new role. "We have a whole dot com group here who do all the cool net/software stuff and they know it better than I'll ever know it."
(Anne Wright, 212/885-0417)