Manning Selvage and Lee’s new managing director, Kleshna Handel, is
passionate. Passionate about the PR industry, passionate about her
family. ’I know it’s a luvvie thing to say, but I’m passionate about
people.’
A few luvvie tendencies should not surprise us - Handel started her
career in the theatre. ’I wanted to go on the stage from the age of
five, when I saw a pantomime at London Palladium.’ At the age of seven
she went to a theatrical boarding school and subsequently spent eight
years in drama - from a handmaiden in Up Pompeii to roles in Last of the
Summer Wine and Steptoe and Son. ’I’d play the leggy broad in the - how
can I put this - ’tight costume’,’ she says wryly.
By the time she reached her mid-20s Handel decided that the scope of a
theatrical life was limited and went to work for an ad agency. She
stepped sideways into in-house PR when she joined design outfit Michael
Peters Group just as business was booming in the mid-1980s. The
attraction of PR was the opportunity to be more self-contained than the
advertising world’s structured roles allowed. ’You are the creative, the
copywriter, the media expert. I find that empowering and exciting.’
Handel decided to set up her own agency practically overnight, after a
brief stint as a director at Philip Barrow Communications, and Handel
Communications was born in late 1988. It was acquired last week by
MS&L.
The deal means that Handel will be taking over chief executive Jackie
Elliot’s managing director role in the London office, and will report to
Elliot who jokes that she’s not sure who will boss who.
Handel says she and Elliot hit it off while they were brokering the deal
and she sees Elliot as a great ally.
’It was really odd, because before I’d even met Jackie, a couple of
people who know her said that I really reminded them of her,’ Handel
says. She seems undaunted at moving from running a small, independent
agency, employing a team of 12, to managing the 50-plus staff at MS&L
and being ultimately answerable to MS&L’s New York management. ’I know I
come from an unorthodox background and I’ve managed to do well because I
work bloody hard,’ she says.
But the fact remains that MS&L has some hefty ambitions in the medium
term and has made no secret of its desire to get into the UK’s top
ten.
Handel will have to deliver some serious results, both on the new
business front and in integrating her own people and accounts into the
agency.
Handel also has the unenviable task of stepping into the shoes of the
well-respected Elliot, but she maintains that she has the clout to carry
it off.
She does acknowledge that the task of getting to know the new people and
clients will take time. ’I’m the conductor of this wonderful
orchestra.
I have studied the score, but they know their parts better than me.’
Claiming to be very much a team player, Handel says she is not difficult
to work with, although ’my desire for perfection can be a pain in the
backside’. This sense of discipline is one of the theatrical skills that
Handel clearly transferred into her PR role. ’When I first started I
couldn’t get over how late people were. I have a paranoia about it - you
can’t be late in the theatre.’
She also does a lot of speaking at conferences, but denies that she
needs to be at the centre of attention. ’I can be the one who sits back
and observes,’ she insists.
It is partly via these activities that she thinks Handel Communications
has had a relatively high profile for a small agency. ’I know an awful
lot of people. I’ve made it my job to get to know people.’
Although still a regular theatre-goer, including taking her five year
old son, Archie, to children’s theatre on Saturday afternoons, she
doesn’t regret leaving the stage for the world of PR. For now Handel
will be adapting to being in the spotlight on a far bigger PR stage than
she has played before.
HIGHLIGHTS
1983
Trainee account planner, SSC&B Lintas
1984
Director of communications, Michael Peters Group
1988
Founded Handel Communications
1997
Managing director, Manning Selvage and Lee, London
