Laura Schoen, president of the Euro RSCG-owned PResence, is a healthcare PR innovator by day and a pianist wanna-be by night. But don’t ask her to join you for Indian food.
Laura Schoen, president of the Euro RSCG-owned PResence, is a
healthcare PR innovator by day and a pianist wanna-be by night. But
don’t ask her to join you for Indian food.
What do you do there? I spend most of my time pitching new business and
managing the bottom line with my financial director. And a few times a
year, I still make media calls, because I want to understand the
challenges that all our employees face pitching a story.
How do you make a difference? I think my role in the company is to
inspire our employees to be as passionate about their jobs as I am about
mine.
When you counsel a client and see the fruits of your work, you feel like
the parent of a child who gets accepted to Harvard.
Tell us something interesting about your agency. Because sexually
transmitted diseases is one of PResence’s areas of expertise, we often
speak about symptoms and sexual practices using anatomically explicit
words and descriptions.
We have to be very careful with the nature of the information we share
with people who we are meeting for the first time.
What is your worst habit? Getting obsessed. When I like something, I can
never have enough of it. But when I get tired of it, I can’t stand it
any longer. Luckily, it happens mostly with food and music. Once, I
spent a month eating Indian food.
What are your hobbies? A few years ago, my husband and I went to see a
film about Glenn Gould, the Canadian pianist. It made such an impression
on me that I decided that I was going to learn to play the piano.
What was your most embarrassing moment? Recently, we organized a major
telephone press conference. With the client ready to start, we found out
that the supplier that provides us with the telephone lines for such
events had given us the wrong number to distribute to the press. We had
five minutes to call all the participating media with the correct
toll-free number.
Who do you admire? I envy artists like writers and composers, because
their work is the closest to God - they re-create the world. It must be
fantastic!
What will you do when you retire? I want to become a serious amateur
pianist, and create a vacation club with friends from around the
world.
We would exchange houses every year, with each family spending three to
six months living in a different country.
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