From her early high school days on the yearbook staff, Sarah dreamed she may one day work for the fashion magazines that she loved to read. Beginning her college career as a Magazine Journalism major, she started to realize that she would need to forge her own path to be able to work in the areas she was most interested in. Join us as Sarah describes how she created a path for herself into the world of luxury goods, working for recognizable brands like Harry Winston, La Prairie, and MAC Cosmetics (among others). Sarah’s story is another valuable lesson in evaluating your skills and talents, intentionally expanding upon your experiences for professional growth, and working to build relationships and learn from those around you in the workplace.
From her early high school days on the yearbook staff, Sarah dreamed she may one day work for the fashion magazines that she loved to read. Beginning her college career as a Magazine Journalism major, she started to realize that she would need to forge her own path to be able to work in the areas she was most interested in. Join us as Sarah describes how she created a path for herself into the world of luxury goods, working for recognizable brands like Harry Winston, La Prairie, and MAC Cosmetics (among others). Sarah’s story is another valuable lesson in evaluating your skills and talents, intentionally expanding upon your experiences for professional growth, and working to build relationships and learn from those around you in the workplace.
Thank you for joining us today on Paths in Progress. I'm your host, Carrie Young. On this podcast, people in a variety of career fields, talk about their journey from choosing their college, deciding which majors and minors to pursue, their first jobs out of college, and all of the hurdles, detours and victories along their path through today. Our goal is to help students hear about a variety of exciting opportunities out there and understand what day-to-day life is like in these careers. I hope you enjoy and learn from our story today. Thanks for listening.
Carrie:Hi everyone. Thanks for joining us today. We are here today with Sarah. Sarah is a luxury marketing and communications executive. She's worked for companies familiar to us like MAC Cosmetics, Van Cleef, and Harry Winston. She has a Bachelor of Science in Apparel and Textile Marketing Management, and she also has an associate's degree from F I T in Advertising and Marketing Communications. Sarah, thanks so much for being with us today.
Sarah:Thank you for having me, Carrie.
Carrie:I'm happy to have you here and I'm excited for you to tell your story. Yes. So can you take us back to high school, and tell us a little bit about what you were thinking during that time, like what you wanted to be aspirationally mm-hmm. and how you went about looking for college and what you decided to major in?
Sarah:Yes, of course. So, I remember from, even from a younger age, even from before high school, always had an interest in writing, communications, putting things together. And in high school that sort of started to come to fruition with, I think every single year of my high school I was on the yearbook staff. And so, it's kind of like the magazine, right. Right. For anyone in high school. And that really gave me a little bit of a taste of what I thought I wanted to do in the future. Compiling different narratives, creating a big narrative for the year, for the school, having obviously a ton of input covering all kinds of different things. And working really closely with some great colleagues, fellow students. I also just devoured magazines, and read a lot. The Vanity Fairs, the Vogues, all those magazines that were so big then, they still are now. Yeah. But maybe just in a little bit of a different form. They allowed me to dream. Right. We grew up in Kansas City and at the time I feel like it felt like even smaller than it does now. Right. When we go home to visit, there's even more that's there. But I remember being a kid and thinking, gosh, like I'd love to see where some of these amazing stores are or be on the coast. So I always sort of felt like I had my eye on the coast of one of the bigger cities. That sort of manifested that way. Knew that I wanted to write and be a communicator.
Carrie:So how did you go about looking for colleges when you said you had your eye on the coast, were you looking at colleges on one of the coasts, or how did you go about searching for your school?
Sarah:I think I did. In my mind, I would've loved to go to a USC or look at some of the East coast schools. Ultimately what I ended up choosing the University of Missouri, not too far from Kansas City, about two hours on the way down I 70 towards St. Louis. University of Missouri has a great journalism school. And I thought, you know, maybe I'm not so ready to just go 1500 miles away, from where I've grown up, but. right. I wanted to do something slightly different than a lot of my classmates who went to a KU and, some of the other colleges. So yeah, university of Missouri for their journalism school, and that's how I landed there. It's a little bit of a happy medium.
Carrie:So we mentioned what your degree was earlier, which was not in journalism, but that's how you started. So could you tell us a little bit about that journey, about how you started there and then what happened for you to make changes while you were in college?
Sarah:Yes. Started as a freshman, of course, and came in and at Mizzou you do a year or two of pre journalism before you actually qualified to get into to the J school. So, they of course pair you with an advisor to kind of map out your journey. Um freshman year, taking a lot of the general ed courses, getting those core works out of the way. And moving into kind of more of the journalistic pre-work. By sophomore year, I feel like, we started to have more I'd say narrower conversations, with my advisors. Saying, all right, what would you like to potentially minor in? What part of journalism are you interested in? Is it broadcast, is it newspaper, et cetera? I was really interested in magazine journalism as I had mentioned, and it was interesting because the advisors really almost all across the board said, oh, great, you know, well, we think you should probably look into a PolySci or maybe even pre-law for a minor or an additional emphasis.
Carrie:And where did that come from?
Sarah:You know, I think that Walter Cronkite School of Journalism, it just very traditional J school thinking. And thinking, you know, in Newsweek or a Time, or in New York Times. And of course in my mind,
Carrie:oh, okay.
Sarah:I was thinking, at the time, like In Style or Vogue. Not any of that. And they didn't quite know what to do with me. It was really interesting. There really weren't a ton of other alums that I knew of or that I had a relationship with who were in those places that could lend a little bit more just real world advice and to be a magazine major, you had to stay in Columbia the summer after I think your sophomore year and work for the local magazine. And I just, I knew I could do it, but something just nawwed at me a little and was like, I don't think this is exactly right, even though I know I wanna sort of be in publishing. So yeah, I had to kind of really rethink this and get scrappy. I ended up talking to a girl in my sorority who was a year or two older than me, and she had just come back from a year at FIT, but she was still a Mizzou student. So I was asking her a little bit about it. And at the time, Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, had a visiting student program that was a year long where a current undergraduate, if their university had a sort of reciprocal program with them, they could attend for one year. Almost like a study abroad, get a one year associate's degree while also having that count toward the homeschool bachelor's.
Carrie:Oh wow.
Sarah:So I elected to apply for that and to do it. Unlike my friend Jenny, she had done it her junior year. Again, treated it sort of like a study abroad. She knew she would wanted to come back to either St. Louis or Kansas City. I thought I probably didn't wanna do that, and so I elected to do it my senior year. So that basically, oh, like it recalibrated everything, because now I had to get in basically, four years worth of the credits that Mizzou would've wanted me to graduate with by the time I was done with my junior year so that I could go to New York and not worry about, you know, missing a final or coming back for five extra credits in the summer after I was in New York. And then at that time, with a lot of trepidation and a lot of kind of side eyes from relatives and friends, transferred out of the J school and said, I'm going to take a chance, actually switch my major to fashion because this is more of a topic that I think I'm interested in. And then bank on myself that once I was in New York, which is the publishing capital of the world, that I could figure out how to kind of navigate that environment to help get me into the publishing world more traditionally. So it was a very kind of backwards approach. Nobody really says that they have their fashion degree from Mizzou and their marketing degree from FIT, but that's what happened to me effectively.
Carrie:Wow. Well, and what a great example and great story for students to think about that sometimes you have to think through this differently than the options that are presented to you because there's a lot of different ways to get to a lot of different places, right? And even if your institution has like, well, you know, in this major our students do this, this, or this. Mm-hmm. if you wanna do something else, there's a way to figure out how to do that. And sometimes it is patching together more than one thing or changing your major. Mm-hmm. or grabbing a minor or two, or going to study abroad or, I mean, there's all of these different ways to do that, but that's hopefully an encouragement to students to realize, even if you're presented with one path, go look at other options that are outside of what's being presented to you, to see if you can put together a more ideal situation for yourself that fits what you're really wanting. If what's presented to you is not sitting exactly right, like you said.
Sarah:That's exactly right. I mean, it's really about, you know, you're searching for the light, through the trees, right? You have to talk to people. You have to tell people what you're interested in. You have to put that out there. And then it's these little nuggets that you get back that you can then, you know, just like you said, kind of create your own roadmap with. But it definitely takes persistence and you have to really want it, because no one figures these funny paths out for you. But it's one of the best kind of building blocks. I'm so grateful actually for the experience because I think it's helped me just navigate a career in New York City with some of the companies that I've been in. Just this idea that, I didn't necessarily choose like a very kind of, first you do this, then you do this, then you do this in the way that a doctor would be through their path or Right. You know, an accountant or a scientist. It's definitely taken all kinds of turns. And you have to sort of embrace that.
Carrie:When you changed your major, what were some of the classes you were taking in your new major that you felt like landed with you a little better to fit where you wanted to go?
Sarah:It's a great question. At Mizzou, there were a couple of them. I mean, you know, there was some of the kind of fluffier ones, like literally identifying textiles. I can remember, having a book of like 600 pages of just fabric swatches that we have to memorize. Like, oh, you know, what is the hand on this? Is it satin? Is it sateen? That type of thing, which you kind of think, yeah, huh, I didn't think I'd be in college doing this, but here we are and, you know, yeah. Those sorts of things that actually did end up being helpful when I was in the fashion closet interning at a magazine. Just so different from the journalism kind of classes that I was taking. But I will say, right, the courses at FIT were incredible. Once I got there, first of all, my grades were so, so good in New York and you know, Mizzou was, it is a great school and I did fine there, but F I t's professors are actually, they're all working in the industry currently. Mm-hmm. So I think that there is something to that. We had classes on advertising sales, which looks a little different now than it did, you know, 20 years ago when I was in these classes. But just understanding, oh, how does magazine even survive? You have to first have revenue. And that's before you can get creative, and that's before you can think about what your voice is and what your narrative is and what kind of brands you wanna cover. I mean, none of that matters unless you have the money to produce it and to pay for it, and to pay for the paper and the distribution and just all those sorts of things were, that obviously felt so much more real world. I mean, FIT is almost like a trade school in that way, right? Yeah. Yeah. And so those classes I did really well in. Like I didn't think it was as hard for me. It felt very like, oh, I can just reach out and touch this person. And they're working at companies that I'd love to work at. And they either maybe just retired or they're doing it now, they've been doing it 30 years, and it just felt so much closer than what I was experiencing or the people who I was able to talk to and be in touch with at Mizzou just weren't as close from a proximity point of view. Yeah. So that made it just so much different and was really critical, I think, for me.
Carrie:So is what happened, you were at Mizzou for three years and then you left and went to New York mm-hmm., and you did not end up going back to Mizzou and you graduated that way?
Sarah:Correct? Exactly. It ended up that both graduations FIT's was actually at Radio City Music Hall, which was really wild. Yeah. And Mizzou's happened the same weekend, so I ended up just, oh gosh. I know. So I ended up staying in New York and, my family came here. So graduated the same day, got both of my diplomas and then went out into the world.
Carrie:Yeah. So let me back up a little bit. Did you have any internships prior to graduation?
Sarah:I did. My biggest internship, I was at this magazine. It doesn't exist anymore, sadly. It's a, it was a trade publication called DNR, which now that I think of it, that name is so funny. But it stood for daily news record. It was the sort of men's counterpart to Women's Wear Daily, which any of your fashion students would probably know. Which covered really women's wear. Right? Women's wear daily. DNR was daily news record and it covered the men's market. So at the time, Fairchild Publications was the other major publisher next to kind of Conde Nast and Hearst. Fairchild had at the time it was Jane, W, Details. There were some fantastic magazines there. And DNR and this other magazine, this trade magazine called Children's Business, which also doesn't exist anymore. They both just had openings that fit my schedule really well. And they weren't necessarily the shiny, like sexy Janes or Ws, but because there were less people in the departments, I actually did more. So it was me and I think one or two other girls maybe who worked at least three days a week in the office, doing traffic sampling, reaching out for scheduling appointments. In my time there, I did both market work and sittings work, which means you're both out pulling, for shoots that are upcoming and for stories that you're telling or for stories that your creative director or your fashion director are telling visually. And then sittings, which is, is also being on set and seeing how everything comes together. In those days, and I think still a little bit, sitting's editors and market editors were very different. So this was a way to do all of it and for markets that I would never have normally gotten to know very well, like the children's market or the men's market. And so worked there for like a year. A year and a half maybe.
Carrie:Oh, wow. Mm-hmm. So with that experience in New York going to FIT and having that internship, did it start to open up more ideas to you about different types of jobs that you could have? Or how did that experience influence what you saw yourself doing or what you wanted to do moving forward?
Sarah:Mm-hmm. that's a great question. You know, I will say even then in, 2003 ish, you got the sense that change was coming to the publishing industry somehow. It definitely hadn't hit the way it's hit now, or basically everything's digital. But you did get the sense that things were changing. There were already talks of Conde Nast, acquiring Hearst. Conde Nast does Vogue, Vanity Fair, kind of all those big publications. There was definitely talk of what is this gonna look like? And, you know, there it was also still a little bit the age of, the editors took town cars everywhere and had major clothing allowances. Very, very glamorous. But you just got the sense that something might be changing a little bit. And it was interesting because, as I started to interview, I did a lot of informational interviews at that time, all through the building, all through some of the other publishing house buildings. I remember seeing a stark divide between some of the kind of older school editors and some of the newer ones and thought, oh, there's definitely generational changes. Have something's gonna change within this industry soon. And it was the first time that I ever really seriously considered: what is the other side of editorial look like? Well, that's essentially, PR. You have the team that writes and puts together the stories and the looks and all the visuals. But you also have to have the folks on the other end of that who are feeding them the information about what's in the market to talk about and what's relevant for their readers. And I had taken a PR class or two at FIT that I, again, I had done really well. And I remember the teacher saying to me, you could do this. You're really good at this. And I was like, no, no, no. I definitely wanna be an editor. I don't wanna have to pitch editors. I wanna be the editor. And anyway, it's funny what, how life happens. Um, Yeah, But, it was definitely the first time I thought, oh, maybe there is something to this. Maybe there is something to the world around, these fabulous women and men who sit in the glamorous offices and write these great stories. But there's obviously another universe that feeds them what they need, right, to create these products that we all consume. So that was the first probably hint of like, huh, if it's not editorial, maybe there's something else in this world that can still kind of get me going.
Carrie:Yeah. And that's so true for probably every field, right? That mm-hmm. if you are in the field you wanna be in, and you're realizing that the role you thought you wanted may not be what you thought it was, may be going in a different direction, like you said, may not be as good of a fit for you as you thought. Just start looking around and looking at the other people in this ecosystem, right? The other people that are part of the team or on the other side of things, or on the other end of a process. Mm-hmm. I mean, depending on what field you're talking about, right. Because you can always look at a different role within the same world that you wanna be in.
Sarah:Exactly. I mean, everything is adjacent to everything else, right? Yeah. Especially now. There's no one path and everything is just kind of, I picture like a cellular matrix, you know, when you think about. How everything is just kind of glommed together. You can take seven different ways and get to the same place. I also think the reality was there weren't a ton of fashion editorial assistant jobs. Even then it is still a very prestigious kind of role that paid really nothing and there weren't that many, right? There's maybe, yeah, 20, 30 magazines that were like super sexy that, you know, everyone wanted to work in. And there's only a handful of those positions. And that was definitely also the first time I think I had come into kind of direct contact with, oh, you know, I'm from the Midwest and I didn't move to New York with any sort of a network, but all of these girls seem to have gone to Trinity that work here. And, oh, I was very, I think naive about that. You know, coming to New York thinking I was just gonna make so many friends and everything was gonna be really easy, like my sorority days at Mizzou. And it was very different than that, right? At first, and you have to kind of find your way, but I think just also having not a billion opportunities, even if I could have interned forever, right? They'll always take interns. But those actual paying jobs, which my family said, you have one year after FIT to live in New York and you need to get a job, and if you don't, you'll come back here. And that was definitely fuel to keep looking right? To keep talking to people and keep having those conversations. Because if it wasn't, you know what I thought my choice a was, I wasn't ready to go home just a year, a year and a half after I got to New York. So you start to figure out, okay, what can I quote, unquote, sacrifice? What can be compelling to me under these circumstances? Like if my end goal is to stay in New York. My end goal at that point was to stay in New York more than it was to like be an editor that next day, right? Mm-hmm. And so you start to kind of figure out, okay, it's maybe gonna be a different path or just baby steps there, which is normal.
Carrie:Yeah. Oh, absolutely. So what was the first thing that you did after graduation?
Sarah:So after graduation, I spent a couple extra months at the magazines at Fairchild, while I bopped around, talked to people. And by chance, I got an interview through a head hunter, through FIT who was placing a retail assistant, essentially a salon and marketing retail assistant at Harry Winston. I knew about Harry Winston, of course, but I knew it also wasn't a magazine, but I thought, you know what? Very fancy, nice diamonds, like all the most glamorous stars wear it. Like, of course I'll go in and see what this is. And it turned out that, I mean, I essentially was hired right away and that turned into my first full-time job.
Carrie:And so what were you doing there?
Sarah:At the time, and I don't know if they still do this, but at the time, Winston was completely vertically integrated, meaning the entire operation for the world actually headquartered here in New York, the original townhouse on Fifth Avenue. So the Grand Salon was on the first floor. I think the PR team sat on the second floor. The workshop was on the third floor. The stone team was on the fifth floor. Richard Winston and Ronald Winston still had offices. They'd come and go. It was kind of this magical time of that sort of old school luxury retail environment. Yeah. But, essentially they had these salon assistants where they'd hire like five or six young women out of school or, just on the younger side. And they would assist with everything from merchandising to sales. To sometimes even like wearing the jewelry if someone's coming in and he's buying for his wife or his daughter and he needs someone to try it on. Someone to run and, you know, get the stones cleaned or polished or escort someone up to the workshop to see the bespoke creation that they're having commissioned under the third floor right there. And doing all kinds of things. So it was very much a retail support role, but in this kind of fun house of these five or six floors of just like incredible things that were happening. I also ended up again, just expressing interest with the PR and the marketing team that was there. I'd watch them have these glamorous editors, who I recognized from the magazines come in and look at jewelry for their next fashion stories or for trend pieces that they were working on. And I always volunteered, can I help with anything that you're doing? And that just helped to forge a relationship where, less than a year after I started, I think I was there nine or 10 months, part of the PR team left for a new venture and they brought me with them. So it was really an incredible, just great first job in New York, with all the kind of fancy things that you would see happening in a store like Harry Winston on Fifth Avenue during that time. With still a little bit of the old school, some of the relatives of the founders, coming in, smoking a cigar here and there, closing down the store for a Sultan here or royalty there. It still had a lot of that magic. I'll never forget, my first or second week I was there, I think the pink diamond, JLo's Pink Diamond from Ben the first time came back that week. I remember the PR team issuing like, just everyone, just so you know, this hit Page Six today. Like there's gonna be a lot of people coming in to like try this on, don't really answer the phones. It's gonna be a little bit crazy. And anyway, so now here we however many years later, and I'm like, we've really come full circle, but yeah, no, we'd see celebrities that would come in. It was really, really exciting for, you know, a 21, 22 year old who Yeah was so interested in all of that. But it was also wonderful that the PR team had taken a shining to me and said, Hey, do you wanna come with us to this next thing? And it just so happened that their next thing was a magazine. So that's how I ended up at the Rob report.
Carrie:Nice. So when you transitioned to the PR team, like what types of things were you then able to work on that were different once you went to the PR side?
Sarah:So I think, at that point there was a little bit more, of the stuff that I was just into frankly. So things like helping to edit a seasonal catalog, setting up for editor appointments. I think at the time, like first season of The Bachelorette was filming in there, in the store, and oh my gosh, I know Jen, what her name was Jen, I think, and just, what does it mean to have something set up for camera, right? Versus what does it mean to just be in front of a gentleman purchasing something, right? It's a totally different, right? Everything is different. What does a production team need? What does a production team entail? What kinds of things do you have to have happen or not happen in the store? And how do you quality control that? So a little bit of just that staging and maneuvering, which is so much a part of my job now, in different ways, I think happened in this microcosm of the grand salon floor of Harry Winston in those times of just, okay, we have to do a little transformation. We have to go grab that stone that's about to be shipped off to a client, but the editor doesn't have to know this, she can photograph it today and no problem. Right? All this sorts of like, yeah, the little slights of hand and the mini fires that you put out and the 25 things that you have going on at one time, while, these people are trying to sell millions of dollars worth of jewelry, like as this is all happening. I think was really something. And then also just the event side of it, right? preparing for when the store had private events and there moments where we needed to like, deal with some caring coordination. It was the very first part of the coordinator level or that junior level, entry to a communications or marketing team of all those little things that you start to tag along with. And at the time, Winston was small enough that I felt like I really had a front row seat to everything because there weren't like 30 layers of people or there wasn't a ton of red tape. At the time it was really just the three or four TPR team members, the five or six sales executives, a store director, and you kind of figured it out from there. And there weren't necessarily billions of layers of approvals. You know, you got to see decision makers make decisions and I think that was really, that was formative. Just all that training, in terms of how you get that done and what it really takes to run a luxury experience for customers at that level, in person. Yeah.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. It sounds like a great learning experience. So how long were you there in total?
Sarah:It was like nine or 10 months, I wanna say. It was just under a year. Mm-hmm. which is about the life cycle Yeah. Of the salon assistant there, I'd say.
Carrie:Okay. And then how did you get your next opportunity and transition into that?
Sarah:Yeah, at the time the head of PR for Harry Winston had just accepted a new role at the Luxury lifestyle publication. The Rob Report. She had been at Winston for years, and I think was just ready for her next chapter. And so she took a job at the Rob report with a brand new title, Chief Luxury Officer, which I thought was incredible. It was the first ever, maybe still the only, Carol Love was named Chief Luxury Officer of Rob Report. And at the time it's kind of umbrella of holdings that had a bunch of other magazines at the time from those private equity owners, she brought one of her PR team members, Elvina with her as a special projects director, and then they needed sort of a coordinator or an assistant. I was very fortunate that they approached me and asked if it was something that I'd be interested in coming on their next adventure with them. That's really how that happened. It was all of those moments of how can I help and poking my head into their offices and kind of butting in and just inserting myself in the right places to say, listen, I'm really interested in what you're doing. I know that I probably don't wanna be a stone buyer. I'm probably not gonna be a diamond cutter. I don't think I'm gonna be a salesperson. what you're doing is really interesting and you're adjacent to this editorial world, which is really interesting. I wanna learn more from you. And so I started with them, that next summer at the Rob Report. That was a great, another two and a half year journey. So again, not on the editorial side, which is where I thought I had wanted to be, but more on the business and marketing side of the magazine, which I think again, has been really beneficial for me to understand now as I pitch editors all day, you know, what is it that they actually need foundationally before they can even listen to my ideas. Like there's things that they just need to have the business run. And that's something that I think I really got very intimate with, I think at the Rob Report at the time. But there I was working on the traditional PR, which, I quickly discovered that publishing PR is very different from product PR. So when your job is to communicate excitement about every issue of the magazines coming out, it's a very different thing than this bracelet or this necklace or this brand. That became a huge part of the job, as well as working with the C-suite to get them really to establish them more as arbiters in the luxury marketplace. That they should really be the experts, the go-tos for when CNBC is having a segment or when someone needs an auto expert or a jewelry expert or a fashion expert that, you know, the Rob Report kind of editorial or, C-suite staff is really their great resources. And so that became a part of it as well. And then also events. Events for both our partners in the magazine. Whether it was Rolls Royce or AIG Insurance, or a private jet company, or any of the jewelers that advertised with us. We also did events for the readers. And so very kind of multi-layered in there and an interesting time in publishing because again, those were very kind of high flying years, for the economy. And so a really fun time to be at a place like the Rob Report, which celebrated everything luxury. I think at that time the Rob Report was so specific about who it took advertising from, who it featured. I don't even think that they took Rolex advertising at the time. They didn't think that Rolex was as elevated as some of the other Swiss watch brands with really complicated movements. And I think that's changed now, but that kind of gives you an idea of what it was like then.
Carrie:Yeah. So what was your schedule like cuz naming all of those things, it just sounds like constant on the go all times of day and night. Is that what it was like?
Sarah:It was pretty busy. You know, my first year or so, I was still in a support role, so I was doing things like scheduling lunches and cars and doing expenses, but also taking on more of these kind of coordinator level responsibilities. That was the time I remember they gave me a blackberry, right? The big chunky blackberries with the scroller on the side and, snake as like the game. That was the first taste of the rest of my life, I guess, which is someone can always reach you. Right. And, there's a little bit of like, yeah, this 25 year old Yes, sure. Give her a blackberry. I loved having it because you feel like a little bit of a grownup and you feel like, oh, I can be there at all times for my bosses. But it definitely did start then probably earlier than I even needed to be more always on. It was busy and we definitely had lots going on. But, those were really great experimental days for me to understand, okay, do I love talking about like the car of the year issue? I don't know, maybe not, but did things like the ultimate gift guide that they did every year that we were getting my boss on Entertainment tonight to talk about the biggest diamond in the world. That stuff was really, really fun for me. So it was a good experience of being kind of thrown in, especially at a place like Rob Report, which wasn't solely focused on jewelry or women for that matter. Right. They didn't write for the layman, they wrote for the connoisseur. So the Car of the year issues that I would have to talk about, or pitch out there were very complicated. Like, they're not written for someone who's maybe heard of a Bugatti. They're written for like owners who have like five Bugattis and know every inner working of that engine and all these kinds of things that you just never knew you even cared about. Everything from cigars, private, this word, I first heard the word, you know fractional ownership for jets like this whole world of luxury just went from something very narrow at Winston to an entire world. Yeah. At Rob Report, which was really interesting. But yes to that effect, you know, it did end up being busy and it ended up, you kind of calibrate on how the business is going, right? If they're trying to land more jets, like that's where you're going to be maybe asked to research more or to tag along more. Maybe there's a jewelry luncheon here or there that you can do, but they're going where the advertisers are going. And so that was yeah, just a really interesting time and interesting kind of type of a magazine to be at that was not necessarily owned at the time by one of the bigger publishing houses like the Conde Nast the Hearst, but owned by this man who lived out in Malibu and could run it in the way that he wanted to. So it was very familial in that sense. And again, having a boss with a title Chief Luxury Officer was really fun at that time, and just have my hands in a lot of things that I probably wouldn't have been able to if I were at a more traditional publishing house.
Carrie:So as you were there and like you were saying, the world kind of opened up to all of these different things. Did you start having more specific preferences for your career mm-hmm. or things that started being introduced to you that you thought, you know I'd really be interested in going that particular route? What are the kinds of things that you started thinking for yourself and your career as you were discovering all of these different aspects to this industry?
Sarah:Yeah. I think for me, I've learned, that I did like PR and that I wanted to learn more about it. I really hadn't studied it, quote unquote. I had taken literally that one class at FIT and it was fine. I thought I did well in it, but I didn't love it in that class as much as I started to really appreciate it in this role. But what I think I realized was, because I hadn't had a traditional education, so to speak, or internships, in the PR world that I started to feel like, ooh, you know, I don't know if publishing PR is the exact right place for me to start this. Just because it's a little more ethereal, right? The issues come and go of the magazine, versus, having a product that you can really focus in on, even if the brand is, you know, something there too, the brand carries over, of course. It's a long way of saying, I think that I really realized that, okay, I think I'm gonna go this PR route I'm now three or four years in to working. And I don't think I wanna go back and still try to interview for like a$40,000 a year editorial assistant job. I think I can see a path here, but I need to be in like a more focused, I think, environment for getting up to speed, really catching up on my PR skills and the foundational work that I didn't feel that that I had. Right. And so when Van Cleen Arpels, A position opened there for, at the time it was an assistant manager of PR and another colleague from my Winston Days who I had known there, had just been maybe a year or so into her job as PR director for VCA. And she called me and said, Hey, is this something you'd be interested in? It was just, Kismet because I'd done a great, you know, two and a half year second job at Rob Report, which was fantastic. And this gave me a chance to not only really focus in on a tiny team, for a brand that I knew and really respected. But also it was an industry that I at least had some background in because I had had all that time at Harry Winston. So I at least had a base level knowledge of stones and jewelry and watches and, you know, the language of it. And I'd worked on a sales floor, essentially. And so knowing that Van Cleef didn't have its own what you would call a press stock where they have either comps or duplicates or even fakes of the jewelry and the watches to send out to press for photo shoots and for coverage, you're working with live merchandise. So there's also this element of they need someone who can understand how to work with sales executives who are also trying to sell this to their client that's coming in the same day that you're trying to have Town and Country photograph it. Right. So I ended up staying there for six years at VCA. Wow. And I always say I really learned almost everything. I feel like I, I know now foundationally there at that time. Because the team was so small and we again, had to have our hands in everything. So it was a lot of work. It was very demanding. Van Cleef is owned by Richemont, which is Swiss luxury company. The other fellow brands are like Cartier and, dunhill and IWC and Yeager, like beautiful, beautiful luxury watching jewelry brands and a few fashion brands as well. And so, yeah, that was my first real, I say kind of PR experience. I didn't go the route of agency, which a lot of people do, or starting off Interning on the PR side, but Van Cleef was really kind of the throw you into the fire. Luckily, I had a great manager, someone who wanted to teach me, who wanted to invest in me. Yeah, ended up staying there, like I said, for six years, I think two or three job titles. It was really fantastic. It was like super, super memorable. Even if really demanding.
Carrie:What a great lesson and thing to think about that. You know, you got a phone call from someone you'd worked with before and asked you if you were interested. And then even with your second job, it was someone you worked with. It was saying, Hey, would you be interested in this? So just the importance of being a good colleague and the importance of forming those relationships and making a good impression and asking how you can help, and all of these things that you've talked about. It sounds like that has been a huge part of your career and how you've been able to move from one experience to the next, at least in the early part of your career for sure. Mm-hmm. that you were forming those relationships and those impressions. Because people were asking you, you know, Hey, do you wanna go take this new opportunity?
Sarah:Yeah. And you know, I think some of that also just has to do with it's okay to be a little vulnerable sometimes. You know, these people also knew I needed a job. I wasn't given an apartment, I didn't have this sort of like safety net per se, right? That a lot of New York people come to New York with when you're young. It's a super intimidating city. It's super expensive, it's super tough. It's all those things. it's also just understanding people and what they need and them understanding you and your situation, right? So yeah, everything always has to go both ways. It has to be mutually beneficial. I think that there's always give and take, that's just life. But nothing is ever really a free ride. You know, people need you and you need them. It's very kind of two ways in that sense. But yeah, it's important to just stay in touch and to ask questions and to be available and enthusiastic.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. So when you were at Van Cleef, was travel part of this, like you said it was very busy and you were doing so many different things. Like what did kind of a snapshot of a week or a month or something in that job look like for you? You said you were in a few different positions within that company?
Sarah:Yeah, gosh, we did so much. Van Cleef at the time, our team, there were two of us, was responsible for everything from consumer product placement. So the placements of getting the jewelry and the watches in the brand story in the Vogues of Vanity fairs, all the magazines. We were in charge of press events. We were in charge of celebrity and all red carpet. So all the award season, hi Jinx. At the time not everybody was paid to wear jewelry, so it was still very much kind of the wild west and it was still very exciting because everyone, I feel like had a pretty equal shot, but celebrity was this whole other beast. And a little bit of corporate comms as well. So for me as the junior team member, helping to handle all of that plus watch and trade press, right? So it was a lot. And so the days could be, some days were just all day. It's moving jewelry from one store to the next and making sure that security guards make their pickups in time to get to the shoot on time, to then get the jewelry back to the store in time for client X to come pick it up. Like some days it was purely logistical. Some days it was I have press appointments all day and I have a breakfast, a lunch, a coffee, and a dinner. Because we're pitching and we need to make sure that we secure all of our travelers for the upcoming Paris trip to cover the next collection. Or we wanna start teasing people to understand who might be next interested in an exclusive story on something new that was upcoming. Some days we're traveling, right? Whether it was regionally throughout North America, doing events, meeting with press and editors in the different markets or doing events in the store with them. Some days was just strategy and working on plans for the next quarter or wrapping up our results, and charting it out so that the executives could understand it in that sort of business school language that they love to speak. Right? It was all those sorts of things. And then on top of it, balancing, all the expectations of the brand, which was really growing at such a fast rate, at the time. But I think what's interesting for me to think back now on is how successful we were. Even in the shadow of a Cartier, which is a sister brand, which is obviously beautiful, amazing brand, but it just in in scope it dwarfed us. Yet we were neck and neck with them. On editorial coverage, on celebrity placements and all those sorts of things. So always this battle with them, even though we were, it was a little bit of a David and Goliath story within the Richemont portfolio, because Cartier just had probably like 50 times our budgets and 50 times our products, and 50 times all distribution, all kinds of other things. So it was very competitive. It was very demanding and super busy. But it was really fun at the same time. And I feel like because we didn't have the luxury of having a lot of agencies on hand or on retainer, I really cursed it at the time because it made the days so much longer. But I, I really have come to appreciate that now because in every facet of a communications job, I'm like, I know how to do it. I did it. You know? And I think that that's really important when you are looking at someone. looking at being a boss, looking at managing a team or looking at someone who you're gonna bring in to be a manager that they really can empathize with and understand at some level kind of what the teams have been doing. Yeah. And so it was very all around and, yeah, it was great. Solidified my love for jewelry for sure.
Carrie:So as far as like celebrity placement and product placement, were you reaching out to stylists and Yep. Managers and people and just kind of trying to find ways to collaborate? And then the same with like product placement and things, were you reaching out to people in the editorial world to try to see how you could fit the jewelry into shoots that they were doing? Like, was it really just like making all these calls and appointments and then just trying to pitch the brand?
Sarah:Exactly. I mean, you've said it perfectly. You're always on in PR roles and you're always representing the brand and it's this dance of you need to connect with all these people in some way, even if you would never normally even talk to them on the street. Right. But they, at the time, and even still now, are very much gatekeepers for your brand. This was before Instagram this idea that like if your workshop in Paris is creating this beautiful collection, if a tree falls in the forest, you know what I mean? Like, it, it doesn't matter. People have to see it. People have to know about it. And so you're constantly pitching. And whether that's the hard pitch of like, okay, we have this collection coming out. There's two pieces that I think could be great for you. This is why I think, here's the whole rigamarole. I'll send it to you three times so that your market editors can see it. I'll send it back to you again for the editor-in-chief to Okay. You know, there's so many steps in the pitch. They can come back and just be like, we cut it. What I feel like I learned in those times was, for PR, your results were not always commiserate with how hard you worked because sometimes you would work on something, you'd be like, okay, I have to convince Paris to send this piece from the Heritage Collection for the shoot because they're doing seventies Grace Kelly pieces and this is just perfect for her. Whatever. Yeah. And she owned it and you know, it just doesn't make it, for whatever reason, the story gets killed, the photographer gets sick, like the guard doesn't show up. I mean, there's a million ways for a story to die like that. And you're like, oh my gosh, that took six months of my life. And then there's days you just get really lucky where someone is like, Hey Sarah, remember I took the picture of those necklaces a couple of months ago. Guess what they're going in the June issue. And you're like, ah, great. I didn't even have to send anything to you that they used a high-res image and it's actually gonna be a half a page. Great. And so it mm-hmm. it really was a lesson than just keeping plates juggling in the air at all times. Because you really wanted people to just know that they could come to you and we maybe were not the biggest budget in the room, and maybe we didn't have the most jewelry of all the brands. But I always wanted to, and my boss too, we always said, we know we wanted our customer service to be the best, so that it was a pleasure for them to call us. And if we couldn't get them what they needed, we would tell them right away, so that they could get on with their day and go to the next person. But if we could, we'd do everything we could to get that to them so that it became an easy call for them. Whether it's, I need to speak with someone who can talk about these diamonds. I need this type of a piece. I need this type of a watch. I need access to a workshop, whatever it was, can we do it? If we can, we'll do it within 24 hours or whatever it is. And we'll let you know quickly so that you can move on and keep your job moving cuz they have so much to deal with as well on the editorial side. At the end of the day, PR is really, it's an exercise in customer service, because it really is a service job. You're catering to so many audiences and stakeholders, of course, your bosses and your executive teams, but editors, like you said, stylists, sometimes celebrities, agents, the people around the buyers. And sometimes even the buyers now, you know, with Instagram and with in-person events and things like that where you can really create the universe, without someone else interpreting the story for you. And we can go straight to consumers now. It's changed a lot. I think in that sense, it was always a busy on job, but I think now just because of the way that all of us are consume our media, consume information and are constantly barraged by all kinds of messages, it makes it even more challenging, especially for super old school, European luxury, French luxury brand. Right. That wants to express itself in a certain way. It's very external in a lot of ways. It's funny because I find myself, I'm actually, I think more introverted. So after a long day, I'm like, I don't wanna talk to anybody. You put so much out there. It's a lot of energy. Yeah.
Carrie:So from that position, why did you leave that position to go do something new? What was your next adventure, so to speak?
Sarah:Yeah, so, I spent six years at Van Cleef, and that last year I was there, I started to entertain some other job opportunities and conversations. And what I was finding was a lot of head hunters and a lot of brands, who were not in the jewelry business, were very hesitant. They were like, oh, you know, maybe it was a fashion house or maybe it was a beauty brand, and they'd say, oh, but do you only know jewelry? Do you only know the jewelry editors? Would you be able to do this? Yeah. And I remember thinking, this is so crazy because if you're a good communications person, obviously you learn the brand, you learn it. But it, yeah, it dawned on me very quickly that like, I still had a lot of career left. I still do, but then, then I really did and I thought, I really don't wanna be pigeonholed. And so I made, yeah, what I thought was, I mean, I still think about how I had a little bit of a knot in my stomach when I did this, but I took a left turn and I took a role in Mass beauty at Mac Cosmetics, because I thought I really want to take myself out of my comfort zone, which at that point, six, seven years total, counting Winston in fine watches and jewelry, and then another two and a half years, Rob Report you. Luxury in general. What's something really different? What would be a hard left turn that would force me to like recalibrate and that would add some dimension to my resume because again, I didn't come up through that traditional, okay, you work at an agency as an intern and you do let you handle like seven different accounts and they're all really different and they're all asking for different things. I didn't have that. So you didn't necessarily see versatility on my resume. You saw two or three great brands, but people had questions. So I took this great job. The title was fantastic. I was also really looking for a title bump and all those sorts of things. I think I was turning 30 that year. Mac Cosmetics owned by Estee Lauder still had a position for Director of Global Communications. The other thing that I thought was interesting about that job, after so many years being the American subsidiary for a French headquartered brand, I thought it would be great, a good experience to sit in global headquarters. So I liked the idea of working for an American company based in New York, where all of it came out of that office. And so I started at Mac in 2015. That fall 2015. And I was there for two and a half years, three years at Mac. Working with a huge team. I mean, the entire global communications team. There was like, I think 25 people at the time, and I never worked on a team bigger than. you know? Yeah. So I walked in, I was like, what does everyone do here? Like, I couldn't believe it. But you know, that's what happens when it's a$2 billion brand that's global. So I, it really gave me an appreciation for what mass can do. And you know, MAC isn't like mass, mass. I mean there, it's definitely you know we call it masseige. But this idea that the power of a$16 lipstick is nothing to really turn your nose up at, which I feel like I sort of did at the beginning, right. Because I was like, I don't know, everyone here is super casual. I came in dressed and like a black cocktail dress every day, like my Van Cleef uniform and everybody there dressed in black, that was the uniform. But it was everything from leggings to rip jeans. And I was like, oh my gosh, it was such a shift. Mm-hmm. And I had to learn a whole new like language. Not just in the beauty world and with new editors. But even internally there was a new language. It wasn't, you know, dear Carrie, very best, Sarah. It was, like, hey, C you know, it just so much more casual, and just understanding, yeah, the nuances and paying attention to the cadences and the nuances of a company are super important to getting that right. But it was really, it was eye-opening in so many ways, and it was a really good experience to be able to understand what it's like to work in a brand that size with so many cooks in the kitchen and so many layers of red tape and so many approvals. And everyone's really siloed in a lot of ways because how could you not be, your teams are like 25 people. And then just to understand What that meant for an Estee Lauder. At the time, Mac was like, it's cash cow. And so it really forced me to rethink and relearn and also get to know and get the buy-in of a junior team that was probably like, what's she doing here again, because she doesn't know one beauty editor. Like there was, probably a lot of questions about that, but I really have to say I appreciate the chance that they took on me bringing someone in from another industry to have a fresh perspective.
Carrie:Yeah. Well, I was gonna ask kind of a two-part question with that. What do you think it was about you and what were you able to talk about yourself in that interview that you think did lead you the role? Because I think that's the fear for a lot of people to try to apply to different positions like that, right? Because they think, oh, I don't have that thing that they're gonna want. Where you were really looking at it like, you need to go get the things that you want, right? Yeah. To be able to have that broader experience, which I love that you said that because it really turns that perspective for people to think about that differently instead of thinking, oh, I don't have any of that, so I can't go in that direction. Why don't you think, try to go in that direction? So you gain those things that you feel like you don't have. So how do you feel like you were able to do that? Cuz there's different ways we can talk about that in interviews, right? Mm-hmm. and talk about transferrable things and what you can bring to the table, for people who maybe are questioning why you should be at the table, right? So do you remember what you talked about or what you feel like you were able to say to be able to get into that space?
Sarah:The team who was interviewing me, they were like, listen, it's very clear that you're a good communicator. You clearly have a great resume. All these things. And they said, listen, we have things coming up that are collaborations with really elevated designers or events with really kind of prestigious surroundings. And, we think it would be really beneficial. We have a great team of beauty experts. A great team of young women here who know the beauty world, know all the editors. We don't need you to do that. You'll learn who the editors are, right? Even just given that much information of like, oh, they have stuff coming up that they want someone with a luxury perspective on. Just getting that a little bit of information was helpful because then that's something that I could really lean into in my talking points. And to say, listen, I'm not here to get in anyone's way. I want the junior team that's here to feel like they're nurtured and to feel like they're mentored and that they have a place to go. Even if I've come in as a director, right, it doesn't mean that there's not room for them. But I think this is great because it's a little bit of the best of both worlds. I can provide, new skills, information, strategy, value without a lot of overlap and redundancy, which is what I think people get antsy about. We've all been close to those positions where you're like, Ugh, I don't know if someone's coming in over me, and what is this line gonna look like now? This division of labor, et cetera. I think just being able to ask a couple of those early questions or to understand exactly what it is that they were interested in seeing my resume. What do you have coming up? What are the projects to understand like, oh, this is why I'm sitting in front of them. It's because they know inherently that they have a need for someone who's coming maybe from a luxury background or from outside of beauty. And then just really kind of pushing that to say, yeah, you guys are fully staffed here. You don't need me to bring five more editor. Like, that's fine. They will take care of the editor relationships, and I can help steer them in in other ways and be complimentary. So I think that that for me was really it. And also I. This sounds weird, but I wasn't like, I have to have this job. The other three jobs, I was like, oh no, I really, the first one I needed, I mean, I needed all of them. But the first one was like, if I wanted to stay in New York, I'm taking this job, right. The second was like, oh, someone believes in me. The third was like, oh, this is the brand I'm super into. This was like, I don't know, let's just see what happens. I think about this now cause I'm like, I really was very, I wasn't stressed about those interviews because it didn't feel like the world was on the line for me. It, it felt like I was just yeah. Shooting stuff at the wall to see like, oh, go talk to Mac. I don't know. Yeah. So surprising. I mean, I surprised myself when I went there, right? Because it was just so different from what I had been doing. But sometimes it takes a little bit of, I think, distance from something. and objectivity, which I know can be, it's, you know, easier said than done, especially when you're really passionate about something. But I think that's really a combo of that really helped me. And also just having someone who was open to bringing someone in from an outside world. I can't tell you Carrie, how many times I've come in second after a long process of great conversations and they end up either going with someone who's already there or from the same industry, even though they say, no, we really wanna think about someone from a different industry. Like the safe thing is to stay kind of in those lanes because you know that there's not this learning curve.
Carrie:So do you feel like now, when you look at hiring people and considering people to bring onto a team, do you think the fact that Mac took the chance on you, do you think more openly about bringing people in with perhaps a different kind of background that can bring something new to the table?
Sarah:Definitely, definitely.
Carrie:I love that.
Sarah:Yeah.
Carrie:It's just kind of like a permeating thing, right? I feel like it just makes everything better when you do that for people and then they end up being in the seat later that's interviewing people. It just helps all those spaces. Right? To bring in new perspectives and new experiences.
Sarah:Definitely. Exactly. I mean, you obviously wanna make sure that there's gonna be a culture fit and that there's all of the things, right? The openness and all those elements that are crucial. But at the end of the day, different is really good. Especially at certain levels, it's really good to have the different, you know, like I think sometimes the most senior level, it can be hard if it's like someone's come in to run a company that's like so wildly different than the kind of company they've run before. Yeah. That can be hard. And sometimes that middle manager can be hard. You kind of have to hit the sweet spots and when to make those changes and when to bring in changes, at the right time in your brand's trajectory and the right time in their career trajectory. Cuz when you really land it, it's so smooth and it's so rewarding. And everyone benefits.
Carrie:Yeah. So you were talking earlier about one of the reasons you wanted to make that change in your own career was to start to collect these other experiences and kind of widen your portfolio. Did you feel like you were able to do that?
Sarah:I did. I did. I mean, it was funny because then all of a sudden, the head hunting calls go from jewelry calls to other beauty brands. yeah. As a starter. And I didn't know for sure if I wanted to do that, but I definitely appreciated that the variety of what I got to do at MAC and that I feel like got me thinking about a career path a little bit differently or in a broader scale than I might have before. For example, I feel like I had one or two really successful retail programs that I put together. would never really been on my radar, at some of my other companies because of either lack of brick and mortar, like at a Rob Report, for example, or mm-hmm. a very already established five stores or something that a VC Winston would've had at the time in the us. But for a brand like MAC, all of a sudden, they had like 800 stores or something in the US. And so yeah, it gave you different canvases to work on, and again, it's how do you use strategy and the way that your mind works to apply it in different contexts that you might not have thought about before? Same thing with designers with, I thought, oh, I don't know, maybe I. Probably won't work in pure fashion, right? The way that I've been sort of adjacent to it. But MAC was great because it allowed me to work alongside several really talented, great designers who were launching their beauty collections. And guess what? They were on really good behavior. They enjoyed the process. They wanted to get their name out there. It was a new and fulfilling experience for them, so the process of handholding them through the comms mapping of that journey, really delightful. Getting to come in and out of different projects when you're at a brand that has so much variety and so many different kinds of things going on.
Carrie:Yeah. Can you tell us a little bit about like one of your favorite projects that you worked on there that you felt was really fulfilling for you professionally? Or perhaps cuz it was really fun or because you feel like you really accomplished something new and different in your career?
Sarah:Yeah. I think actually going back to the retail side of things, one of the things I'm most proud of doing at MAC was implementing a regional artist program. And without sounding, I guess to like inside baseball, Mac is a brand that their spokespeople really are their artists. It's an artistry focused brand. So yeah, the people who are media trained, these lead artists who have been backstage working with celebrities, big big projects for like 10, 15, 20, 30 years. The challenge I saw immediately when I came in was, gosh, MAC has so many stores all over the country and they also spend so much on these amazing, insanely expensive, beautiful events that are done regionally. So imagine, you're bringing out Full Carnival, a MAC Carnival to Mac San Diego, and you want press to come and you want clients to come, but there's no one to talk to the press because the five or six or seven senior artists are they're in Paris or they're at fashion Week or they're just not available. They're not coming out to San Diego for something like this. And I remember thinking, gosh, we're missing so much opportunity for press and just for all kinds of community building here. Yeah. And so that was one of my laborers of love, I feel like at MAC was working with all the different departments involved in essentially green lighting a program where the global communications team, along with the retail team, could identify and choose like rising stars in each of the rotating key local stores all over the country that weren't tier one. Like they're not New York or LA. Maybe they're like sort of next in line. And in line with the kind of event calendar that year or the initiative priorities, choose them, pair them with a senior artist, media train them, get them together as a group in New York a couple times a year. Like really put them through the paces as if they're on track to becoming more of a corporate spokesperson, but for their region. So that press locally have someone to come and talk to, so that clients can have more name recognition and visibility in their markets and that ended up being really success. because I think we were able to put through, well I was there at least three rounds of those that each, I think they were like six or eight months long, their rotations. And it was great because we got more press. The events team felt like their work wasn't like, again, a tree falls in a forest, right. The senior spokespeople weren't stressed or, that they were like, oh my God, I've gotta add like a San Diego or a Nashville or something to my calendar. I'm already so crazy. And those artists who were chosen all of a sudden felt like they had more of a path appropriately. Yeah. Yeah. And were more of a part of the company than they would've before. And so that was super fun. And also it gave the global communications team, because everybody had two or three artists that they had to manage as well. They had to manage like their homework and staying on top of them. And it, it really fantastic. And again, nothing that I would never would have probably thought I would've come in and done as from a PR perspective in that role. But I remember I started that job. The woman who hired me went on two consecutive mat leaves, so I didn't ever really get to work with her. And it wasn't necessarily laid out like this is exactly what you're gonna do the way that I thought it would be. So when I came in, it was really about me, identifying white space and going in and, and focusing there, so that there was a place for me to kind of carve out and to have success and to show proof of concept and inclusivity and teamwork and all that. It was so successful just because the company is so huge in getting all the stakeholders and all those different departments that had to come together to say, this is okay, this is a program that we can do. And the budget for it and all that was enormous. And that happened in my first like six or eight months, so that was really exciting.
Carrie:Wow. And so you said you were there almost three years? Mm-hmm. What did you do next? And again, why did you move to the next thing? Were you looking for something new? Did an opportunity just present itself or what happened?
Sarah:It did. I did realize at Mac that I really love luxury and missed it a little. So I thought, maybe my next job will be back in the accessories world or the jewelry world. And I got the opportunity for from La Prairie came up, La Prairie, Switzerland. And I thought, I don't know, I'm not necessarily a skincare junkie, but I do know it and I know it's a beautiful brand. I ended up taking that job as their director of PR. And I remember, thinking specifically that if I took this turn into beauty. I haven't done a lot of beauty specific work because so much of what I did at MAC was fashion related or maybe regionally, retail related or corporate. So I was like, you know, this is a great, you don't get more scientific than skincare and beauty. So I was like, I can give it a whirl. I'm here, like while I'm over here. What really resonated with me was the way people responded when I said I was going to to La Prairie and it reminded me so much of when I started at Van Cleef, it was a lot of like, oh, I think my grandmother uses La Prairie, right? Or I think my grandmother has all these Van Cleef broaches. Oh, it's very fancy, you know, but it wasn't necessarily like these young chic 20, 30, even 40 year olds were like, oh, I'm dying for this brand. Right. And I thought, oh, I bet I could, we can do that. Like, let's bring it into a little bit more of a contemporary luxury space. Yeah. And so that's what I tasked myself doing at La Prairie and I was there seven years. I didn't think I'd actually be anywhere longer than VCA, but I topped it at La Prairie. I looked over a really wonderful team and we tackled press and media events and influencer marketing.
Carrie:Working for all of these different types of products and luxury brands, obviously a lot of the events you're talking about, were all over the country, if not the world. Mm-hmm. When a student were to listen to you, a lot of this sounds like, you know, oh my gosh, there must be so many perks with this, right? You get to do this and this, and that's kind of what people may go for initially, right? Because it sounds like a fancy perk kind of job. Yeah. So can you talk a little bit about what the fun perks are that have been over your career in working in all of these places, but also get a little bit real about Yeah. You know, it's not all fun and games. There are things that are taxing that, you know, on the surface it can sound like, oh, traveling to all these different places could be amazing, but also like what does that mean for your real life when you're doing that? So can you talk to us a little bit about the balance of the fun, fancy perks, and then also how that has impacted your life over time and what that has meant for you?
Sarah:Yeah, I mean, it's a great question. It's so real. And anyone that's worked in luxury will tell you the same thing. I mean, I'm eternally grateful as a girl from Kansas, who had big dreams of being in LA or New York and having big, fancy jobs and doing all these things. I can't even believe sometimes that I've been so fortunate and, I have through work, seen so much of the world, and seen so much beauty and traveled well and stayed in some of the best hotels and, however many years of diamond status on Delta, all those things. Right. But, you know, one of my jobs, I'll tell you, I put me in the hospital mm-hmm. from just exhaustion. Right. And yeah. And your body just being like, slow down. That lesson has stuck with me. Now that I'm a little bit older in my career, I feel like it's helped inform the way I approach things and don't approach things. At my last job, it was like, oh my gosh. I think people thought everything, all you eat is caviar, right? Eat caviar and champagne dinners all the time, And you're just like, we are wearing these beautiful diamonds in your jewelry jobs. And I think it's just, it's what everyone's saying now. You know, everything looks a certain way. But that's our jobs as a communications person, right? If you're doing your job well, you disappear into the background. But the magic of this room, the magic of this story that you're telling it, it comes through, whether it's Instagram or on a page, or through someone's word of mouth, like that's the, the Magicians work. And it's just like, you know, a swan or a duck. They're like gliding on the surface, but what you don't see is like it's three in the morning and your too two team members have like box cutters and you're opening like 75 boxes and stuffing a hundred gift bags at two in the morning in a really beautiful hotel suite. that doesn't matter, because maybe you'll get some room service, but just because you're starving and you haven't eaten all day, right? It's, yeah, there's so much of that and I would say that's where a lot of the bonds come from. And in a way because you kind of go through the trenches with people. And again, you know, I say this all very much aware that no one here is curing diseases or cancer. What we're doing, we're in such rarefied air, these companies and for these clients. But I think you see that maintaining relationships or, before the pandemic, I could have never had a pet. But I got a dog like so many, probably of your listeners and people over covid. Understanding your worth, what you really like, what gets you going, what kind of pays the bills. There's this constant calculation that you're doing, as you move through your career. When you're younger and you're first starting out, there's things that are bigger pieces of the puzzle, and those things then calibrate over time. I will also never forget I had a head of a company once say to me, you know, Sarah, like 30% of your job is getting to say that you work here. And I was like, well that doesn't really pay my rent you know? Right. For someone like me, it took me a minute to kind of come out of, oh, where you work doesn't necessarily define you, it's really important. And it's the kind of work that you're doing. You know, I think when you're younger, these things really do matter, to you, like for lots of reasons. Now I feel like I have a little bit more of the luxury to say, okay, here are the things that I don't need to do anymore Here are the things that I still would like and let's figure out what that looks like because I've seen like a tough side of it when I was not feeling well and on medical leave for a couple months not being able to work. Because my body just was like, it's enough. And you don't ever wanna get to that place because it's not really worth it. You have to choose places where you feel like you can forge, supportive, lasting, genuine relationships with your peers, and where your management is going to help to grow you and help to encourage you and that went the best for you, right? It all looks great. And if it looks great, that means we're doing a good job for our jobs. But yeah, you definitely have to remember where that toll comes in other places. There were days you realize like, oh my gosh, I haven't eaten anything, or I don't think I did I go to the bathroom today? Like I haven't even gotten up outta my chair. And those are things that I think hopefully after the last two and a half years, three years that we've all been through, we're just paying a little bit more attention to ourselves and our bodies and what we need to feel good. The golden handcuffs of luxury are, it's a real thing. Yeah. Because you realize like when you go to book your own vacation, you're like, Hmm, well I really love that hotel, but oh, I guess I'm not staying there. You know? You realize that you kind of live a double life sometimes, and Yeah. You just have to kind of like lean into it. It's a good point that you make, that you bring up, because it definitely isn't always all rosy.
Carrie:Yeah. What were the kinds of things that you were wanting to do to move your career forward, and what kinds of changes were you looking to make that you're excited to step into?
Sarah:Great question. After I left my last job, I started consulting for a while, which I'm still technically doing now, which I really enjoyed, just to honestly have some space and let my brain breathe a little bit after like almost 20 years of working like a crazy person. Yeah. And I started to sort of realize like, all right these are the things that I miss. These are the things that I'd like to try. Does that happen through a client or does that happen through a full-time job? I didn't know. Hmm. And this opportunity came and it was an interesting mix of familiarity in a way, but also shot out of a cannon in the sense. whereas maybe before I had been on a similar kind of circuit, but with a company that wasn't in the same place financially or that didn't have the same kind of staffing capacities and you know, all the things that you sort of think, oh, it was always my joke. Like, one day I'll work for a company With a huge marketing budget. Yeah. You know, because this is something that like no one tells you when you're looking for jobs. Usually the fanciest, like shiniest companies have the smallest PR teams, the smallest marketing budgets, because they're leaning so heavily on the name. Yeah. Right. Yeah. You'd be like shocked at some of the biggest brands that have like one person that works in marketing or like a tiny PR team or whatever it is. And so, this kind of helped to realize that dream a little bit of oh, could a big brand that I love, could I come to it in a place where I'm ready to take on really senior role and where there's like a big staffing matrix underneath me versus, you know, a smaller team of five or less, that are scattered all over the country. And like, what does that look like from just a management challenge perspective, which I haven't had before in that way. And with big budgets and big expectations, all jobs have big expectations, but sometimes it's the resources that that dictate what path you go down. I guess that's how I'd best describe it. It's an interesting intersection of some of the things that I feel like I still have white space on my resume for like bigger management. But. Brand familiarity in the luxury space, with resources different to what I've experienced previously. Yeah and I've always, really what I wondered, like, what could I do with that if I feel like I've been able to be fairly successful with really scrappy resources, from a budget perspective, really. Super talented, but super small and overstretched teams, like what could this look like in a different way? And it's a totally different challenge, but something I thought was worth exploring.
Carrie:That's an interesting point you bring up about the name, because I've even heard people that I've interviewed and then also just people that I know, sometimes to take a job with such a well known brand. Especially if so many people want to work there and it's incredibly competitive to get a position there. Sometimes you'll find that maybe they don't pay as much or that you, you know, things that you have to sacrifice because they do have the attitude. Like you said, that executive said to you one time, you know, part of it is the privilege of working here. Mm-hmm. or of having this name. Mm-hmm. Like that you should be thankful that you are in this space, kind of attitude. Yeah, and it's interesting how I've heard about, there's some companies, particularly with those, you know, very well established kind of golden brands or reputations that sometimes to work there, you're making a sacrifice personally to be able to work there, whether it's your time or your pay or you know, benefits or other things. Because they're viewing it in that way, and I've just found that so interesting.
Sarah:Correct. I mean, it's important when you go into any job, you really have to be intentional. And again, sometimes things happen, sometimes we lose jobs or, you know, the economy tanks and things go away. Of course, you sometimes take something because you just must, but I even in those circumstances, I would say just be intentional. What you also are getting out of your job because yes, you're giving a lot, a lot usually of yourself, but you also have to figure out, you know, if you think about, okay, when I'm on Carrie's podcast in five years, why did I choose that job and what did I get out of it? Did I get what I thought I would get out of it? Did that change? And you have to be a little bit micro and macro at the same time because I think that it keeps you present in pushing for the path you wanna stay on as much as possible. Obviously there's some things you just can't control in a company if you're not like the president, but if you're not sure this is something that is really important to me. This is an important experience that I want to have in these three, four, or five years while I'm here. It can be very easy to just get sucked into whatever else there is there. always more to do. There's always something else to pick up. For example, if I really had wanted to stay on a retail track, I can see points in my career where I would've said, oh yes, this regional artist program. Let's do more of this. What other regions can we look at? What other markets are there? And if that had been something that I really wanted to do there, that's where you have to keep putting your hand up and saying, no, this is something I think could bring value. The other thing is with that intentionality, especially from a marketing point of view, and more so even than that, a PR point of view. One of the biggest challenges of PR since time began, I think is proving the worth. Well, Sarah, what you're doing is technically free, right? Yes. You take some editors to dinner or you take them on a nice trip. we're not paying for PR. That's what, advertising is for, right? Mm-hmm. So it's always this challenge of like, okay, well how much is that editorial worth? And now it's like, what do you even say? Because there's fewer pages. I would also encourage, anyone coming up now to have a little bit more of that kind of quote unquote business school part of their thinking cap on, especially in marketing, especially in PR, about how you're quantifying the qualitative work that you're doing. Because in all my years, I've still never really found exactly the right methodology, the exact right service that can account for what I think my team or I have done to contribute. Because you can't convert it to dollars. Yeah. Right. Yeah. And I think that if you think about this intentionality, like, here are the things I want to try. Here are the roads I wanna carve out that benefit me and my growth, and here's also how I can qualitatively or quantitatively tie that into the roadmap of whatever company I'm in. Whether or not that was explicitly mentioned or not. Because people are just looking for that. Especially executives, they just wanna see, okay, yes, here, great. It's in front of me. This is what you're doing. This is what I see. Okay, great. They want to be able to. Put it into a chart and a graph, because most of our executives come from that mindset. Yeah. I always say in PR, where these kind of intangibles of building relationships are very, very hard to quantify. Being intentional about what you're doing, how you're spending your time in these jobs. There's a lot of calculation to do, if I'm being honest about that. And just so that you're maximizing and you're being efficient, and you're checking the boxes where you need to. And hopefully, anyone's super strategic and anyone super passionate about their job. You find the white space there and that's what you're always trying to do. There's always gonna be benchmarks that you have to hit because it's just, table stakes to do a PR job or to do a marketing job. When you can find those little specs of light that someone else hasn't thought about, that you know you can do really well or put together in a unique way, that's where you get the attention of that other person who might call you in two years for something else or, who might help pull you up through the ranks. Because the world is so topsy-turvy right now in so many ways, there's no direct path per se, especially in this type of a field. So you can be creative as long as you're hardworking and as long as you're genuine and can get the work done and show that strategy.
Carrie:Yeah. So kind of piggybacking off of that, for students who are listening, who really do have an interest in the type of career path that you've had, and perhaps they're in college or they're applying to college or just entering college. What are the kinds of things that you would recommend for them to do in that academic college setting, even if it's also external things like internships. What are the types of skills and experiences you think today would be helpful to them if they're wanting to enter this industry?
Sarah:I guess it probably goes without saying that the generation today that's entering college or coming out of college now is so digitally savvy, but that's just something that they need to pay attention to in a big way. The SEOs speak and the search and all of those things that are sometimes, can even be foreign to someone like me who had to learn that a little bit later, right? These things that are super secondhand to them. It's important to keep those things sharp and strong and ahead of the curve. My favorite thing to do when I have an intern or someone junior, Coming into the businesses to say, here's our process now of fill in the blank, charting our results. Can you look at this? How would you digitize this? How do you see this? Coming out of what you've just learned or what your specialties are or what you've seen coming, like, out of school, the kinds of classes that you take now. Yeah. Because the type of information that you're always gonna have to present is still the same, but to make it more Yeah. Digitally relevant. And something that maybe the digital team can glob onto a little bit. And maybe the retail team, what can they look at from more of an analytical point of view. I think that that's really important is to keep that analytical side really ticking. The lines between all of these different roles are getting so blurry, and I think it's important to be able to have that extra kind of analytical mind. So that's really important, but again, translated to the digital world. It's not original, but I really do think internships are so important. You know, now, gosh, when we're looking at even interns, it's gotten so competitive. I mean, a lot of students will see their resumes they're sophomores and they've had like five solid internships. Yeah. And obviously a lot of that has to do with, are you in the big cities? There's a lot of proximity that goes into that as well. Yeah. But I do think because we are now so hybrid, I would not not entertain someone who doesn't live in New York, to help with something that it is project based that if they're in a different city or a different state. I think just to reach out and to make yourself available in ways if you can't be physically. It's so important. I can't tell you how reassuring it is to see on resumes of really qualified, bright students that, oh, okay, they've had a bunch of experience in a corporate world and at least they know table stakes, basics of X, Y, and z. It doesn't necessarily have to be exactly the industry, but great if it is. You know that that's when I think it's great if you do have that variety, it just helps open more doors for you. At that sort of entry level, you wanna make it easy for someone to say yes, right? Yeah. I mean, that's always the case, but really because interns and that extra layer of support is always so crucial, especially for luxury companies that usually don't have major teams or major budgets. They're usually the teams that are the most pressed for time and don't have like days and weeks and years to go through a crazy interview process. So I think that coming prepared, and coming with, okay, I'm at least gonna show you that here are my interests and here is what I've done, even as a freshman, even as a sophomore, even as a junior, to kind of give me an extra facet to present to you so that it's an easier, yeah. Okay. Yes. You can come in and help us with this project for the next three months. Great.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. Well, looking back over your journey, do you have some like big life picture advice that you would like to offer students, whether it's something that you heard along the way that's really helped you, or even just something looking back, you kind of wish you had looked at differently, or you're thankful that you did look at something in a particular way that's helped you along your route. Do you have anything that's kind of bigger picture you'd like to share?
Sarah:I think for me it really is how unlinear my journey has been. As someone who I've always thought myself is pretty type A and like, pretty planned and, mapped out in a lot of ways, which I still am. It's funny, I think when I go back and look at the turns and the twists that I've taken since high school, like you were saying and like we've talked about on this podcast. So this idea that while they have all these great resources at their fingertips, educational institutions and alums and fellow students and teachers and advisors, but also parents and friends and sisters and other mentors. Really to soak and sponge all of that in as much as possible because You have no real way of knowing exactly where that next spark or where that next link will come from. Having that mindset of constantly being curious and asking the questions and making yourself available and still being a little bit analog. I think has helped me. Like I still write handwritten thank you notes, which I don't know people have mixed opinions about because sometimes people just wanna see the email right away. But if you saw my apartment and how much room is taken up in this tiny apartment by my stationary.
Carrie:I love that.
Sarah:You know, there's still an analog process that I think people really appreciate now, and especially people in hiring positions. anyway, the non-linear and the kind of embracing the way that the wind blows and just being intentional about any situation that you find yourself in. Figure what is it that you're going to pick and put in your basket from this experience and then use that to plan and fuel and map out the next part of your journey. There's always power to action somehow, and the world is just more accessible now, you can literally DM anyone. I mean, it's crazy, right? Asking the questions and really making yourself indispensable to the people that you know might have a path for you, I think is also really important. It's not a bad thing to seek that out and to cultivate those relationships. We want things to happen right away, but sometimes they don't and sometimes they do. My old VCA job. Like sometimes you get really lucky and something happens and you didn't even know it was happening, and sometimes it takes a really long time and things take a really strange turn. Their minds and their careers and all these things might change seven times before they're even out of school. And that's okay. Yeah. I always wanted, knew I wanted to communicate. I just thought it was gonna be through like a page of a magazine.
Carrie:Right. But is it safe to say you've had a lot of experiences because you thought beyond that and you were open to things beyond that and you took steps beyond that, that you've been able to have experiences that you never would've imagined that you'd have in college?
Sarah:Definitely. Absolutely. I even think about the world now probably a little grateful that I maybe didn't take the editorial path because it's a tough time for editors right now. Yeah, yeah. The world works in very, very strange ways, but also, you know, times when there's massive upheaval or change are also the times where the world needs the bright new minds and creative solutions from new blood. Yeah. You just never know where things can take you. As long as you're being proactive, you should always have some kind of soil to dig through and I think that that's the most important thing.
Carrie:Yeah, absolutely. Well, Sarah, thank you so much for joining us today and sharing your journey. I think you've had such an interesting journey, from when you started at college, where you thought you were gonna go to where you've ended up, and just so many interesting perspectives to share with us and different pieces of advice for students to hear. I just appreciate you taking the time to share all this with us today.
Sarah:It was such a pleasure. Thank you, Carrie.
Carrie:Thank you.
Do you know someone I should interview? Please DM me on Instagram@pathsinprogresspodcast and let me know who I should talk to. I would love to hear about how these stories are impacting your journey. Please follow Paths in Progress wherever you download your podcasts and leave a review to let me know what you think. You can also follow us on Facebook and LinkedIn at Paths in Progress Podcast. Our music is by John Grimmett and the artwork is by Edgar Alanis. Thanks again for joining me today.