The speakers discussed the following topic: “PR expert as a leader: effective team management and working with executives”.
The conversation turned out to be informative and productive. How to effectively manage a press service or PR department, how to develop internal communications within a company, how to work with an executive?
It is a great piece of luck when you can listen to speakers having extensive experience of working in large companies, learn about the path of professional career, “bottlenecks” and pitfalls, about complex issues and challenges, and even based on personal examples from working life. This was told at the meeting by Yulia Mikhailova, director of the SCAN project, Interfax Group; Galina Kushnaryova, coach, speaker, author of articles in Forbes Woman, Glamour, Marie Claire, HR Director; Vladimir Zaluzhsky, Head of Communications and Investor Relations, Severstal Group; Yulia Deeva, Director of Corporate Communications at NANOLEK pharmaceutical company.
Some insights:
• If you wish to be successful, train your persuasion skills
• Prepare counterevidence – be always ready to answer tough questions
• A PR expert doesn’t need to have an industry-specific fundamental educational background. The most important thing is the desire to always learn new things, to have a spacious and inquisitive mind and competencies in a number of areas (related and far different areas)
• You need to be a bit of a psychologist to work with a company’s executive: it is crucial to “catch the right wave” and create the most comfortable environment for it. Someone likes to act in front of the public and enjoys it, while others find it easier to give written comments
• A PR expert as a doctor: tell him the truth about everything, and he will suggest what to do with it
• Develop a PR strategy and speaker map to facilitate the work with the media, your company’s employees, and members of the professional community.
Yulia Deeva: “A PR expert should not parade itself in front of the company, keep in mind that we should stay focused on promoting a company or a specific person. This is our job, if you say so, a PR expert is a back office who follows the strategy, brings the company to the foreground. My advice to those wishing to become PR professionals: make your agreements “on shore”. Needs and opportunities have to match and not contradict each other.”