Lissette Rodriguez Founder at Chic Influence was Named a PRSA-NY 2018 15 Under 35 Winner

Lissette Rodriguez, Founder at Chic Influence was interviewed by Carolina Osma, Senior Marketing Associate at D S Simon Media. They spoke about Lissette’s big career break, advice she offers to people starting out and the best advice she ever received from a mentor or older colleague.

FULL TRANSCRIPT

CAROLINA: I am Carolina Osma, Senior Marketing Associate at D S Simon Media and I am here today with Lissette the Founder of Chic Influence and she is an honoree for the 15 Under 35 Awards at PRSA-New York’s Big Apple Awards. So, congratulations. Okay, so can you tell us what was a key moment in your career that led you to so much access?

LISSETTE: Absolutely. So what led me here is actually kind of bittersweet. I left my career in Corporate America after 12 years of working at big agencies to launch my own agency to help minority and women owned brands come into the national forefront, so definitely the 12 years of past experience and big agencies got me here today.

CAROLINA: That’s awesome. Great. And when you were starting out what was a piece of advice that maybe a mentor or an older colleague who gave you?

LISSETTE: Something that one of my former bosses told me that has never left my brain from the very beginning, was never stop asking the question why and apply it to every single thing that you do. Whether it’s “Why does it matter to the client?”  “Why does it matter to the consumer?” “Why?” “Why would anyone care?” And it was such a simple exercise, but it made me realize that I needed to question everything I did and it made me a much more effective and strategic thinker for every program.

CAROLINA: Great. And say you had a colleague or maybe an employee, now that you have your own agency, and were just starting out in PR. What piece of advice would you give to them so they can be successful?

LISSETTE: Oh my god it’s so hard to answer that question just because the state of PR has changed so much when I first entered it. But I think it’s just honestly like just stay curious. There’s so many different ways that you can apply PR to so many different industries. So I think something that’s great and I may just take from my own personal experience of starting in agency because it really allows you to touch a lot of different industries and figure out what it is that you truly love. And that’s where I realized that I love the business of beauty and doing beauty PR. But I was able to touch a lot of different businesses from auto, to gaming, to financials, to insurance, marketing so I say you know definitely just if you can start an agency and figure out where you want to go next.

CAROLINA: Thank you so much. It was a pleasure and congratulations on your award.

LISETTE: Thank you so much I really appreciate it.