Pernille Kjeldsen

The Life of a

PR Director

Interview and Photography By Amina Touray

W

e chatted with Danish PR Director Pernille Kjeldsen about her move from Denmark to Los Angeles, and learned more about the “behind the scenes” of her industry.

Tell us about your background, and what drew you to LA? I grew up in Copenhagen, Denmark, and have always had a huge desire to travel the world and where many people may stay with the thought I always acted upon my travel needs. I’ve lived in Spain, France, NYC, and now LA. I’ve never been afraid to take chances and seek new opportunities to satisfy my adventurous soul. When I studied for my Master in communication I got the offer to do an internship at the art gallery, The Hole, in NYC. I knew nothing about art but I loved New York and I was so thirsty after traveling again, so without thinking twice I was on a plane on my way to The Big Apple. This turned out to be the turning point for my future career and life. I completely fell in love with this intriguing world, with all these sophisticated and creative individuals I constantly met. I returned to Denmark to finish my master’s and worked a few years after as a PR Manager for a global fashion brand to gain some experience in my field. I couldn’t get LA out of my mind. While living in NYC I had visited this amazing city and felt so home here, a feeling I had never experienced anywhere else. I knew I had to move here one day and try to establish a life. Just to visit for vacation wasn’t enough for me, I felt a bigger appreciation for life every time I came to LA. My intuition told me that LA was the place where I could reach my goals when it came to my career, especially if I wanted to get back into the art world. When I turned 30 I quit my job, apartment, etc, and left Copenhagen knowing that I might never return. My instincts rarely fail and as predicted I felt even more in love with LA and have been here almost 5 years now.

What expectations did you have when you moved to LA? I’m a dreamer, which can be both good and bad. I often make up these

perfect scenarios in my head about how I believe something will be, but the fact is that the reality rarely is as romantic as I fantasize it will be. I had a strong gut feeling telling me that everything I wanted in life was waiting for me in LA. Nature, freedom, great weather, dreamers, like-minded people, hardworking professionals that like me wouldn’t settle but continuously try to reach their goals. Luckily all my expectations were met – and even more! I have learned so much about myself by all the challenges you face when making such a drastic move, so many aspects and layers of my personality, and what you as a human are capable of achieving with the right mindset and drive. I realized that the most important thing for me is my freedom and I have found freedom living here that I’ve never experienced anywhere else. I’m not going to lie, it was likewise very frightening to move this far away from everything that was familiar to me. Family, friends, job, a society I knew helped me out if I needed it. Many people thought I was crazy to leave all this behind for a future I had no idea about what would bring me. I’ve never chosen the easy road in life and I’ve been used to fighting for the things I wanted, which also have caused me tons of punches and failures. However, for every failure, I’ve become even stronger and wiser. And you know there will always come light again after darkness.

Is the PR industry different or similar to Copenhagen if you compare it to LA? I see many differences in the industry between the two cities. One thing I often point out is that people in Denmark in general are very protective of their network. Why should they share a person’s email when they have fought for getting it themselves? Whereas in LA people often offer to put you in contact with someone that might be of interest to you, even before you have asked for it yourself. People are willing to go out of their way to help you out. I remember in the beginning how surprised I was about this kind of friendliness, it was so far from what I was used to. It’s a win-win since you are more than willing to pay the favor back and give back even more. The PR industry here is of course way bigger than in Denmark which I also love. I felt stuck back home because it was such a small group of people that all knew each other and it was hard to break out of the role you were given. Another huge difference which is more a general difference in society and not only in PR is the unwritten cultural belief we all live after in Denmark. ‘The Law of Jante’ which basically dictates emphasis on collective accomplishments and well-being, and disdains to focus on individual achievements. Don’t think you’re better than anyone else. I found it very refreshing to be met by a collective understanding in LA that it’s okay to have big goals in life and believe it’s possible because you know you’re good at what you’re doing. I’m not saying bragging is okay, but it’s okay to stand out and do your own thing, your own way and not care about people’s opinions.

What does a PR Director do? In my job, two days are never the same. I have been so lucky to find a career path that I don’t see as a job, but more as a passion which makes it easier when you have to work crazy hours. I work for a Danish contemporary artist and we have the most hardworking team, it’s like my family here. We have traveled the world, putting up art shows in Miami, Copenhagen, and Los Angeles. My job is to be the point of contact for everyone we collaborate with in any regard. If we do a show at a hotel, if we have a collaboration with a brand, if we have a project going on with a charity etc. Most of my time is focused on PR and how to brand my manager the best way possible in public. To make sure he has a good image that is aligned on all platforms. I reach out to the media, TV, radio, podcast, etc to gauge their interest in him and eventually do an interview with him. I love how strategic my job is. It’s all about networking and knowing the right peo-

“I’ve never chosen the easy road in life and I’ve been used to fighting for the things I wanted” ple, however, you have to think differently and combine efforts across different areas to get ahead of everyone else. A big part of my job is also project management. To make sure the team is aligned and on point when it comes to all the big projects we do. A few years ago we managed to arrange the biggest art show ever seen in Copenhagen without help from a gallery. We rented this huge warehouse and created a complete universe with his art, sculptures – even a Ferrari he had painted! We did everything ourselves and worked nonstop for months. But to see the final result was worth everything. We had several thousand visitors at the opening weekend plus national tv covering it live. It was one of my biggest achievements to date. Tell us more about the ups and the downs in the career path you’ve chosen? How much time do we have? Haha, joke aside. There have been a lot of ups and downs since I chose to move to LA. Not only with the career I have chosen but just life in general when you come as a foreigner and have to build up life from scratch. Let’s take the career first. As a publicist, you are worth your network, so moving here meant I had to start from scratch and fight for every single contact. Luckily I am very extroverted and have no problem introducing myself to strangers. PR is hard work, you constantly need to be ‘out there’ and network, know what’s going on and make sure people remember you. I feel it has been tough with all the fake people you meet in LA. It took me a long time to learn how to spot them before they take advantage of you. Another downside is that you as a publicist in some way always are working. You have clients reaching out any hour a day and you have to be ready to act if something slips out to the media about your client. You are basically the gatekeeper between your client and the media. The best thing is that I have advanced a lot in my career since moving to LA. I’ve connected with people I never imagined I would meet and my network has grown enormously over the last years. I feel very grateful for all the opportunities this city has given me. I work with a team where it’s allowed to dream big. We have created projects that many people back home would have expected to fail because they were so big in range, but we accomplished it anyway. I often question why I chose this fast paced lifestyle. It often feels like a rollercoaster at such a rapid speed that you have a hard time hanging on to it. I’ve become much better to handle failures and setbacks in the last couple of years. My mindset has changed a lot and I have been practicing being more adaptive and open to changes. Instead of breaking down when life happens in a different way than expected, then I’ve learned to believe that ‘okay maybe this sucks, but it’s a blessing in disguise because something better is waiting for me.” Believing something better will come your way is comforting and gives you the strength to continue on very dark days. I always say that LA is the toughest city to live in. LA is a melting pot of people from all over the world that all move here with dreams and goals they hope to achieve, so the competition is high. You’re constantly measured in every sense possible and there’s no time to relax and rest on your achievements, it’s non-stop moving forward. It’s a city where you always feel lonely in some way no matter how many amazing people you have around you.

“If I can convince people to like the artist I work with, then it will benefit his sales,”

industries? Art is such an interesting concept. You cannot fake it. Like, if you want to be able to have conversations with someone in the art world you have to have minimum knowledge about how the industry functions, know the names of different artists, genres, periods, etc. It’s a very sophisticated world and you meet so many interesting and creative people that inspire you. It’s a field that you can keep studying and there’s always more to learn. I feel the more I learn, the more I realize that there’s infinite knowledge to gain. At the same time, art is subjective, which also is so interesting. What I believe is beautiful might not be your taste, and that’s such an interesting aspect of my work as well. If I can convince people to like the artist I work with, then it will benefit his sales, prices, and career in general. You have to be very strategic and convincing when wanting to sell art or the artist him/herself. Art is so much more than “just” a canvas with paint on it. And my job is to build those added attributes via image and branding so that the artwork can become more and more valuable over time. There is no right way to do it, but I’ve been very fortunate to work for an artist that has a lot of success which has opened up many doors for me in my job. Switching industry from fashion to art I realized that I prefer branding a person over materials. It’s so interesting to help to form a person’s image, to be it gives me way more purpose. The art world simply just appeals more to me than other industries I’ve touched base with.

How does one become a PR director? In Denmark, there is no specific PR education, but a more general and broad communication degree. PR is one of the areas you will get introduced to. It’s a great education as you touch upon all areas of the field of communication and it gives you a good indication of what direction you want to go in. I always felt drawn to PR more than anything else. I’m such an extrovert that it felt natural