Was it your ambition to work in PR?

From being a fashion designer to a sports journalist, these PR heads failed to fulfil their childhood ambitions. But they are more than happy that things didn’t go to plan and that they landed their PR jobs. Here they describe their earliest dreams and what went wrong, and eventually, right.

Sports journalist

Phil Hall, chairman of PR agency PHA Media and ex-editor of News of the World:

“From the age of eight I had one ambition, to be a sports journalist of a national newspaper. The thought of being able to be close to my heroes while indulging in flowery prose seemed too good to be true. I set about writing reports of every game I saw, whether it was in the park, with my Sunday football team, or at Upton Park, home of my beloved West Ham United.

“That dream stayed with me for 10 years. Then I wrote to ITV’s the Big Match and asked if I could watch a West Ham game from the gantry and report on what I saw. It wasn’t as glamorous as I imagined – more spit and sawdust than chariots of fire. I submitted my piece to the local paper and it was used … but I got torn to shreds in the following week’s programme and told I was not welcome at West Ham again.

“The shame proved too much and I found a safer haven – investigative journalism. That ultimately delivered another dream, the editorship of the News of the World. Suddenly West Ham United wanted to befriend me – the boot was on the other foot!”

David Alexander, director at agency Calacus Public Relations:

“I wanted to be a sports journalist from the age of about seven and dreamed of living in Italy. I recall going to a careers lecture at university where we were told that of those of us in the room who eventually became journalists, more than half would end up in PR. I was convinced it was something I would never do.

I ended up working for local newspapers and then the BBC, Guardian, Sunday Telegraph and Reuters based in Rome, among others, but as advertising budgets became tighter, I looked into PR at the age of 27 and am delighted I did so.”

Fashion designer

Jill Hawkins, director of PR agency Aniseed PR:

“My childhood ambition was to be a fashion designer, I went to art college and worked in retail design for a few years, but was never great at it.

“I fell into marketing and became marketing manager for an American company. While there I inherited a PR agency that just didn’t get the brand. For example, it tried to get us to run a competition to find Britain’s hardest worker – when our company ethos was about working smarter not harder. The line ‘well, this worked for all our other clients’ was used more than once … so I sacked it, took the PR in-house and never looked back. I then joined a PR agency (at the age of 27) and started from the bottom as an account manager.”

Not sure, but showed PR promise

Andy Turner, founder of PR agency Six Sigma:

“Although I didn’t know what PR was, aged seven, it’s now clear I showed early promise: the teacher asked us to enter a story-writing competition on the theme of my best friend, which I won easily by nifty lateral creative thinking. Everyone else interpreted the theme literally, I wrote about my dog! The prize was a box of Bassets Liquorice Allsorts, which I gave away to my classmates. The prize itself held little value for me because my mother worked at the factory and was always bringing home freebies – an early lesson in perception management or how to win friends and influence people?”   

Wife and mother

Samantha Howard, freelance communications consultant:

“I was rather vague about my future. My Dad was outraged that I didn’t aspire to go to Oxford to study nuclear physics. As I recall my concluding argument was, ‘I don’t know why you’re getting so het up about it, I’ll only be working for a couple of years and then be married and having babies.’

“Suffice to say I don’t have a degree in nuclear physics, but nor do I have a wedding ring or an enormous family. Ambition only emerged once I started full-time employment (age 17) and I wanted to be the best I could be, at whatever was asked of me. It’s on that basis I happen to have had a fantastic, varied career.”

Written by Daney Parker