Paradigm Lady in PR
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Managing Partner of the PR Service Agency, Vice-President of the Ukrainian League for Public Relations Olena Derevianko always easily and beautifully comments on all aspects of PR without exception.
In addition to expanding the scale of PR consulting and PR outsourcing, in the coming year she plans to actively diversify her agency's activities, i.e., to start offering brand consulting services, developing creative solutions for direct advertising, and much more. The career path of Olena Derevianko is another proof that a person cannot escape their calling and bury talent in the ground, no matter how they or those who influenced their fate in childhood and youth tried to do this. Since leaving school, the gold medalist, in love with history and absorbing tons of all kinds of literature, diligently avoided the path destined somewhere in heaven to “burn hearts with a verb”. After graduating from high school, instead of the History Department of Kyiv State University, which Olena dreamed about, she began to burn the midnight oil at the Economics Department at Kyiv Nation Economic University.
“In the whirlwind 1991 the foundations that seemed unshakable collapsed. Ukrainophilia naturally temporarily transformed into Russophobia, and, having the surname Rodionova, I was strongly discouraged to enter the Faculty of History of Kyiv State University. The 'marriage of convenience', which replaced the 'first love', that is, history, was the economics. Quite a natural choice, given that my parents are economists, and my mother (as well as my grandmother) is a university teacher,” tells Olena about the history of changing career guidance. And it's worth noting, the “marriage of convenience” turned out to be very happy, as often happens. In the economic sciences – both in dry economics and in marketing and management bordering on art – there turned out to be no less poetry than, for example, in the history of the ancient world or Dante's Divine Comedy. In addition, according to the words of our heroine, the students of her year of birth became the first generation of those who studied with new textbooks, including English ones. This gave them all an upper hand for many years because even now, business schools often teach what they once learned in their second year. As a result, after five years of study, the gold medal was transformed into an honors diploma. A graduate of the Faculty of Economics became a post-graduate student, a laureate of the Cabinet of Ministers scholarship for young scientists, and then a Candidate of economic sciences and a teacher (assistant, senior lecturer, Associate Professor of the Kyiv National Economic University).
“At the age of 22, I gave a lecture on taxation for the first time to a group of chief accountants of one of the advanced training institutes. It still seems to me that the audience clearly felt sorry for me because with the same success a two-month-old kitten could tell adult cats about the art of escaping dogs. But it was the experience I am immensely grateful to fate for. What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger,” our heroine. However, in the 90s, only people without ambitions could limit themselves to the walls of universities and be content with very modest money that the state threw to its intellectual elite. According to Olena, her ambitions were born before herself. So, from the moment of graduation from the university and until 2001, the life of the future Vice-President of the Ukrainian League for Public Relations became and has remained multidimensional since then. One dimension is science and teaching: she still lectures at various business schools from time to time and remains an Assistant Professor at Business Administration Department of International Institute of Business Education of the Kyiv National Economic University. The second is work in a real business.
Ever since her graduate student days, simultaneously with her scientific and teaching career, Olena has been trying in every possible way to understand what this new market and bazaar world is, which is so strikingly different from the one to which we are all accustomed since childhood. “But the main thing is that in 1998, being 24 years old, I came to journalism – the third and primary dimension, which eventually transformed into PR. In that year, a peculiar, even somewhat sacred 7-year period of searching for myself ended, and the circle closed. I often recall how immediately I came to school after entering the university. And when one of the russian language teachers found out that I had entered the Faculty of Economics, she said bitterly, “But you write so beautifully...”. So, with the advent of journalism, and then in PR, everything just fell into place. I got the opportunity to find the hidden and invisible in routine and open it to people. Since then, I have been doing what I like, have fun, and earn money. (As the saying goes, 'A job you love is a well-paid hobby'),” says Ms. Derevianko.
Olena explains the reasons for the transition from journalism to PR by the fact that, journalism is, unfortunately, more subject to the influence of subjective factors that interfere with the free expression of the author. Internal censorship, exacerbated by internal intrigues – mostly, according to the eternal scenario “talent – mediocrity/envious person.” “As a result, in our country of victorious democracy with its vaunted freedom of speech, a qualified PR specialist (a consultant in demand or an employee valued by the employer) has much more of this very freedom. Incredible as it may seem, it is sometimes easier for a PR person to tell the truth to society than for representatives of the fourth estate. Since they choose clients to work with. This is what I associate the outflow of journalistic personnel to other sectors with – PR, consulting, and even investment banking,” explains the Managing Partner of PR Service. Olena does not see anything seditious in this situation as a journalist's view and the ability to analyze and synthesize will not harm any industry. Good PR helps journalists to be more objective to get more “raw materials” for studying this issue or that. Moreover, from time to time, Ms. Derevianko also sits down and writes articles for her own pleasure, and not to order, because certain events cause a reaction “I can not be silent”. But she writes under a pseudonym. “Because the PR writer causes normal editors to have a legitimate suspicion of the rectitude of motives. At the same time, articles are good (according to the same editors); they even offer royalties. Therefore, my triad remains with me: science&journalism&PR. It is sometimes even difficult for me to say which of these dimensions dominates,” the expert emphasizes.
Path to Agency Leadership and Vice-Presidency
Not long ago, in Margaret Thatcher's book “The Art of Government Management”, Olena read that capitalism differs from socialism in tha fact that, from the slogan of the French Revolution “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity”, capitalism puts freedom at the forefront, and socialism – equality. Apparently, since Soviet childhood, today's Profile heroine was closer to capitalism, since freedom for her has always been the highest and absolute value. Therefore, it was decided to build a career branching out on her own, and a PR consultant is what she needed. “And I didn’t have to either climb the career ladder or learn the 'art of being a rat' in the corporate jungle. My partner Tetiana Lahoda and I started our life in PR right away as heads of a PR agency. That is, we got a unique opportunity to build a business system as we see fit, avoiding other people's mistakes and introducing our own know-how,” Olena comments.
As for the Vice-Presidency of the Ukrainian League for Public Relations, colleagues have honored Ms. Derevianko to take this position this year. This happened due to the gravitas in the professional PR community, and the fact that a PR specialist does not limit the business life only to work for the benefit of the agency but tries to do something in terms of public service (training young professionals, educational work, etc.). In particular, now they, together with Andrii Rotovskyi (Editor's note: President of the Ukrainian League for Public Relations) are holding a series of meetings in different regions of Ukraine to ensure a uniform development of the industry throughout the country in the future.
A Usual Business Day
Olena Derevianko is not a supporter of complex time management formats, because she considers them inapplicable for the Head of a PR agency. The specific of her work lies in responding to the challenges of the outside world that come to clients in real time. “I have no right to delay and no right to make a mistake. A business process that is not launched on time today (that is, an appropriate management decision has not been made) can sometimes lead to negative consequences for the client's reputational assets the very next day. Therefore, I use only one classification of cases: “important-not important”, “urgent-not urgent”, and rank them in my head,” shared Olena. PR provides a unique opportunity for productive intellectual work outside the office, and Olena uses it to the fullest. “We have a very harmonious distribution of responsibilities with our partner, Tetiana Lahoda, Co-Founder and Executive Director of the PR Service agency. While we are both strategists and idea generators, she took over the administration of the business, and I took the creative component. Of course, I try to show up at the office by the beginning of the business day to demonstrate respect for the rules of the internal regulations. But, if necessary, if the muse visits me at night, the working day can start later,” says the Profile heroine.
As for the schedule for the day and the week, the only possible format used by the top managers of the agency is the planning of all actions around certain reference points: important meetings and events (conferences, press conferences, round tables). At such events, as domestic business etiquette suggests, you need to be present in person since web conferences and video conferences are still the exception rather than the rule. All other activity is built in the intervals between these events in "manual control mode".
Management Style
“One of the business coaches once identified the style of influence I have on people as a mixture of the power of personal example (commonly called charisma) and the power of an expert (other people’s reasonable belief in the presence of special expert abilities to help solve any problem). It probably makes sense to take his words on trust since self-reflection in this case is unlikely to give tangible results,” Olena recalls. Olena describes her management style as a middle ground between democratic/consultative and partnership one. “I am a strong supporter of the process approach to business management and have taught Business Process Optimization for a long time. One of the basic elements of this paradigm is performance management. It suggests that we should evaluate the work of employees by the results achieved, comparing these results with the goals set. That is, the manager should not interfere in the process and place employees' one foot in front of the other. And that means decentralized decision-making and elements of partnership style are inevitable,” she says.
Career Achievements
When we asked what elements she would place on a personal honor roll, she listed the facts that says it all:
Business – a successful agency established on her own;
Community service – full halls at meetings of the Ukrainian League for Public Relations, which we hold in the regions;
Personal – words of gratitude sent via e-mail by readers of articles that she writes for specialized media under her own name;
Applause after the reports at the conference;
High appreciation of the presentations of her Agency's projects by reputable foreign colleagues.
The primary achievement of today's Profile heroine is the sale of “PR Service” services under advice, in other words, by word of mouth. “Customers are satisfied if they recommend us. We do not engage in aggressive promotion of services – we never place direct advertising (except for a few times we briefly placed our banner on partner websites), and we never send out press releases about contracts concluded with clients and projects implemented for them. This is our committed position – never use our clients as a resource for self-promotion. In my opinion, it is unethical. Disclosure of such information about the PR activity of our clients, implemented by us, is possible only with the permission of the clients themselves and only if there are good reasons to do so from the point of view of their business development. And that's why I'm proud that despite our committed position, PR Service is still included in the group of industry leaders in terms of mentioning,” says Ms. Derevianko.
Feedback from partners and clients
Oksana Todorova, President of the Association of Corporate Media of Ukraine
“I would define the personality of Olena Derevianko as an outstanding phenomenon in the PR market of Ukraine, as a kind of paradigm lady, if by this term we understand the translation of the concept of a “paradeigma” from the Greek language: a model, an example. Thus, Derevianko acts as a paradigm – as a model and example – of conceptual attitudes, the value system of our time, and integrity in the movement toward goal. It is worth noting that the amount of work done in the profession is incompatible with her age (hardly passed her thirty mark): Ph.D. in Economics, Co-Author of books, regular speaker at professional conferences, Creative Director and Co-Founder of a PR agency, conducts active community service in PR projects Leagues and Associations of Corporate Media of Ukraine... The list of achievements, regalia, and milestones in the biography logically continues with personal qualities – commited, with a sense of humor, ability not to be scattered on trifles. I would also note the ability to conduct a balanced self-promotion, synchronized with the promotion of the brands of client companies, a competent synergy of academic knowledge, and practical experience in modern business. Fidelity and harmony, as well as a rare combination of beauty and feminine charm. Add a pinch of pungent wit at professional conferences, especially addressed to speakers who make inaccuracies in their presentations, and we will have a complex image of Lady 'De', which reflects her main property: constant involvement and instant reaction to changes in the environment, responsiveness, endurance, and originality. An outstanding mind, activity, a special style in communication, clothes, formats for presenting reports at speeches, constant work on herself, and actions made in the interests of clients – all this is a model and example of a true professional in the domestic field of public relations.”
Savelii Libkin, Restaurateur, Co-Owner of the "Resta" corporation
“Olena is a very enthusiastic professional. She is an expert but never overemphasize her knowledge. Has a colossal experience in “PR plus”, and excellent intuition. All my experience in PR – and I pay attention to this side of the business – was a fraction of a percent until the moment I started working with Olena. In addition, she is a charming woman. The structure of a PR Service agency is a rather flexible and easily transformable business system. The organizational structure of management is built based on the key processes of our business: project management (1 client = 1 megaproject with subprojects inside), organization of special events, copywriting, and analytical work. There are currently 22 people working in-house; almost the same number works on a fee basis – basically, these are the authors of texts. All these personnel are quickly regrouped to solve various problems, adjusting to the specifics of the client, event, etc.”
http://mmr.ua/show/ledi-paradigma-pr/30987