PRWeek’s honors 50 movers and shakers in the PR industry whose work represents the most impactful trends in business, culture, society and the agency world.
For the first time, this year there are more women than men on the list, a significant milestone for an industry whose workforce is predominantly female but has not seen adequate gender representation at its highest levels of leadership. This year, the PRWeek list features eight women in the top 10.
PR has been one of the few professional services sectors where women have long had majority participation, making up about 70% of the workforce, according to The Holmes Report. However, the industry has lacked equity at the top, with women only holding about 30% of the executive positions in the field.
At Schwartz Media Strategies, about 90% of our team is comprised of talented women, from senior account executives to directors and partners. Our female-led agency is a reflection of the evolution taking shape in the PR industry today and underscores the power of having more women achieve leadership roles.
With 80% of the PRWeek Power List comprised of females this year, it is clear that more women are reaching executive level and ownership positions.
That matters because it will encourage more women in the earlier stages of their career to pursue professional growth in PR knowing that there is more opportunity to rise to the top. It will also help ensure the interests and perspectives of women are more well represented at the decision-making level of an organization and that the salary gap that affects women across all industries today will further narrow within the PR industry.
This year, the highly coveted PRWeek Power List is topped by Tree Paine, founder of Premium PR who is better known as Taylor Swift’s decade-long publicist. Paine manages the reputation and image of the highest-profile artist and celebrity influencer in the music world.
In many ways, Paine’s position as the publicist behind one of the world’s most influential personalities and top-selling artists underscores the role of counselor that PR professionals play. In the case of Paine, the PR strategies she carries out are widely consumed and instantly analyzed in today’s multi-platform, 24-hour news cycles that are powered by journalists and content creators alike.
A recent profile of Paine in the Wall Street Journal beautifully captured her brilliance. From tailoring her timing to know when to respond, when to distract and when to stay silenced, Paine has masterfully led Taylor Swift’s own communications campaign protecting her reputation, bolstering her brand and crafting the perfect clap-back message suitable for immediate global social and media consumption.
While this year’s Power List is an encouraging sign that more women are earning their spot in top-level positions, there is still plenty of work to be done to further improve equality and diversity across the industry.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics 2022 data states that close to 82% of public relations specialists identify as white, 12.2% as black, 11.9% as Hispanic or Latino and 2.4% as Asian. This means that there are plenty of opportunities to expand talent search, engage with a wider and more diverse group of universities when offering internships, and foster a more inclusive work environment.
Together, we each have an opportunity to do our part in elevating these numbers to ensure that the workforce in the PR industry reflects the diversity of the clients we are serving and the audiences we are seeking to reach daily.
Yudi Fernández Kim is a partner at Miami-based integrated communications firm Schwartz Media Strategies, where she leads communications, marketing and social media campaigns on behalf of some of the top residential and commercial real estate, construction and financial firms in the country.
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