Why and how do senior communications execs make the bold decision to change jobs? Let us count the ways. Big moves can be sparked by entrepreneurial urges, environmental preferences, curiosities
about emerging marketplaces, workplace frustrations, burnout, personality matches, the desire to change the world, and, of course, money. PR NEWS caught up with four major players who recently
made significant shifts. Our mission: to find out what motivated them to move on, and how they feel about their decisions in retrospect. Are you weighing the merits of your current employment
situation? Watch for ongoing profiles of executive career moves in upcoming issues. Have you made an interesting career shift of late? Tell us your story. Contact Jenny Sullivan (301/340-7788, x2098,
[email protected]) or Patience Wait (301/340-7788, x2032, [email protected]). Inquiring minds wanna know.
Michelle Herskowitz
President & Founder Loudmouth Group Houston, Texas 713/570-7487 http://www.loudmouth.com
The dotcom slump may have put a dent in some agency billings, but it didn't deter Michelle Herskowitz's entrepreneurial plans. In July, she left her SVP post with Pierpont Communications (Houston's
4th largest PR agency) to found Loudmouth Group, a small firm specializing in PR for high-tech start-ups. What's unusual about Loudmouth is its "inside out" business model. The firm operates from inside
the Internet incubator NetStrategy, representing both internally incubated companies and external tech clients.
Career Stops: Quit school at 19 and joined the staff at the U.S. Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs. Later worked for Oral B Laboratories (a subsidiary of Gillette Corp.) in the Bay
Area, before hopping to Houston in 1989 and finishing degree in journalism. In 1991, became the first employee at Pierpont, where she stayed nine years.
Current Mission: "To reinvent the agency model. I recently attended a workshop called, 'Unchanging Principles of PR Management.' That name itself is inherently flawed. Business is changing. "
Loudmouth is experimenting with alternative client services such as flat-fee service packs and measurement to guarantee ROI.
Benefits of Latest Move: "From day one, I had seed funding, half a dozen clients, office space, computers, a conference room, administrative support, an accounting group, general counsel and a
Web development team. Since we reside inside an Internet incubator, we don't have any overhead. As an affiliate company, I'm one of the incubated companies, but I'm also supporting other incubated
companies. And I don't have to wear the hats of general counsel, controller, etc. - all those responsibilities most start-up agency founders have to deal with."
Recommended Reading: Rules for Revolutionaries, by Guy Kawasaki.
Business Mantra: "A Loudmouth isn't a butt- kisser. We're here to tell it like it is."
Alternate Career: Romance novelist. "I'd still be a writer, but I'd sit around and eat bon-bons."
Steve Rabin
SVP for Media and Public Education The Kaiser Family Foundation Menlo Park, Calif. 650/854-9400 http://www.kff.org
Steve Rabin has never gotten a job through an executive recruiter; employers have always sought him out. Which makes his latest move to a nonprofit particularly curious - at least at first glance.
In August, shortly after selling his interest in IssueSphere (a health communications agency he founded with Nelson PR) Rabin left agency life to join the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. He now
oversees a wide range of initiatives, including the foundation's public opinion research program, as well as public education partnerships with media organizations such as The Washington Post, NPR
and MTV.
Career Stops: The Carter Administration, The Kamber Group, Ogilvy and Mather Public Affairs, and Porter Novelli. He also held a fellowship at the Harvard Center for Health Communications, and
an adjunct faculty position at Columbia University School of Public Health before founding IssueSphere. And he has a JD.
Common Thread: "Every [career move] has been based on my desire to be involved in the important issues of the day. If you solve a problem for the uninsured, or in the realm of AIDS education,
you're doing something, as opposed to selling something."
Latest Job Connection: Kaiser Family Foundation was a client of IssueSphere.
Benefits of the Move: "The lure of Kaiser is the quality of its decision-makers." (Board members include former FDA commissioner David Kessler, veteran TV medical correspondent George Strait
and former U.S. Senator Nancy Kassebaum Baker.) "As a foundation, Kaiser probably works more like an Internet company than some big corporate clients do. A project that's two years in the making at a big
pharmaceutical company might move in two weeks here."
Big Idea: Next month, Rabin will shepherd the launch of KaiserNetwork.com, an initiative he describes as "the equivalent of a health policy 'C-SPAN' on the Web." The site will feature live
Webcasts of congressional hearings, daily email news summaries and searchable poll archives.
Val Brown
Director, media practice Burson-Marsteller/Detroit 313/583-8397 [email protected]
After 15 years in the field, Val Brown's motor still revs over his occupation - a professional communicator in the automotive industry. After getting his PR start with a Detroit-area bank, Brown worked
his way through the ranks of communications positions with a car manufacturer (Volkswagen of America), auto parts dealer (ITT Automotive) and used vehicles retailer (CarMax Auto Superstores). Along the
way he took on assignments as diverse as managing the $1.1 million sponsorship of the Detroit Grand Prix and establishing a name recognition and brand awareness program in Beijing and Shanghai. But after
two decades on the client side, Brown has moved to the agency scene, joining Burson-Marsteller and capitalizing on his years of contacts and connections.
Landing This Job: "For me to [look for a job] on the Internet didn't make sense because most of the people who are the decision-makers [in the automotive field] I knew or knew of. I pitched
myself as an international automotive practitioner, because I directed and [worked] on three continents - Asia, Europe and North America - and had been in automotive for however many years."
Benefits of Latest Move: "I missed being in the center of the automotive world. I came to the attention of Burson-Marsteller and it was a win-win situation. They're global, which matches my
skill set, and I had an opportunity to... help drive their business in Detroit."
Differences: "I guess the biggest thing [about being in an agency] is that you truly are sort of an entrepreneur in a sense, you've always got to be thinking of the bottom line, thinking far
ahead... In corporate America you have to do that too, but here you really have to understand how to work with people [at] different levels."
Best Advice Ever Received: "Very simply, always go with your instincts, because typically you'll be correct."
Kevin Whalen
VP, corporate communications Solectron Corporation Milpitas, Calif. 408/956-6854 [email protected]
Kevin Whalen has moved from corporate communications agency and back to corporate again, so he knows how the two halves make a whole. None of his career moves were by design, he swears. He started as a
journalist, then moved into PR at Honeywell and corporate communications with Northwest Airlines. A move to Jostens Inc. added IR to his range of disciplines, which he carried to Shandwick International,
where he became VP of IR in its technology practice group. While working with Solectron as a client, Whalen realized he prefers the corporate environment. He was pleased to be recruited back into the
fold.
Good Advice: "First, be very well grounded in the technical aspects of our job - writing, editing, crafting messages... Second, if you're going to be in the corporate world in particular, you
have to know how business works, and [especially] how your company's business works. It's not PR for PR's sake."
Corporate vs. Agency Life: "I realized really clearly that when you're in the agency role you never know the company as well as the people on the inside. In an agency environment, you're a line
producer and that's fine, [but] you're removed from strategy... At a corporate communications job you have a really pivotal role in strategy. Third, there's the long-term equity potential and stock
options. I think the big agencies really need to figure that out. It's hard to attract and retain [when] you're competing with corporate opportunities."
Long-Term Goals: "There are plenty of opportunities here to grow the function or to move into other areas, or even line operation."
Defining Career Moment: [Northwest Airlines] was the right place at the right time for someone who didn't know diddly about corporate communications... I had the chance to work closely with the
CEO and other top execs from the beginning.
Alternate Career Choice: "I like driving a bus. I drove a bus in college."
A VP's Tips For Becoming a VP
Don Spetner observes that making the first jump to a senior executive position is always the hardest. He credits his own success to some pretty basic steps:
- Keep networking. "Put yourself in the right position to get the call."
- Be pleasant to the recruiters who call you, even if you're not interested. "The recruiter will [remember you and] return the favor."
- It's more important at first to move up in rank than to work for the market leader. "It's a good move to go to a less-known company or less-known brand at a higher position, because it launches you
into the higher tier."
Immersion: Perhaps the Best Career Training of All
Perry Yeatman has had one of the more adventurous careers in PR over the past 15 years. Now VP of corporate affairs for Unilever Home & Personal Care, North America (and just named to the first
corporate affairs position on its operating board), Yeatman's first paying job was with a startup PR firm in Philadelphia. She did everything, she recalls - her title may have been account exec, but she
made coffee, answered the phones, helped with the books - anything that needed to be done. From there, Yeatman rose to work for two of the world's largest PR firms (Shandwick and Burson-Marsteller), on
three continents, including stints in Singapore and Russia. She was the youngest person ever named to managing director with B-M.
"People often ask me now who would I hire. I'd hire anybody with common sense and intense motivation because that's what it takes to get ahead," Yeatman says. Here are some of her other career
suggestions:
- Start small. She credits her first job with giving her an understanding of every aspect of the business of PR as well as the entire perspective of what communications can be.
- Get outside the big markets and take risks. In both Singapore and Russia, Yeatman was truly breaking new ground, with businesses and consumers who had never been exposed to a comprehensive
communications program. These kinds of challenges always exponentially expand your skill set. Yeatman didn't speak a word of Russian when she arrived. After three years of tutoring (two hours a day, five
days a week) she now both speaks and reads it. (Yeatman, 203/625-2272)