Oltea Zambori in Women in Business: I think PR industry needs more humbleness

Cristina Blanaru Business, People, Women in Business

Oltea Zambori is one of the best-known cultural marketing specialists in Romania, known blogger and Managing Partner of the PRbeta public relations agency in Timisoara. She started her PR career by joining a fundraising for a young man suffering from leukemia. After switching from a sales job to a career aimed to bring people together for what really matters, she handled communication for music festivals (Plai or Jazz TM), the International Festival of Theater in Sibiu (FITS) and many more. She also works with commercial clients like beer or coffee producers.

As AdHugger recently started a series dedicated to women in business, especially communication, Oltea agreed to share with us insights regarding her experience and her career.

How hard was to develop your career?

I don`t think I really have a career. More likely I found a way to keep myself happy doing what I like and constantly challenging myself to do new things. My so-called career was something that happened after a lot of work, after I started my partnership with Cristina Putan (we founded PRbeta Agency together); I never planned for this, all I wanted was to create a community for the communication industry in Timișoara. We managed to create the community and, on the side, I tried to market myself as communicator for cultural events. It was hard work, but it also was great fun and I wouldn’t change a thing.

What were the main obstacles to surpass?

First of all, our journey began with a PR conference in Timisoara, in 2011. At the time, the marcomm industry was almost nonexistent and we had to create the audience for our business event. We knew it would take some time to do it, but we were young and naive and we didn’t think that it will take so many years. We’re pretty far from Bucharest and people here don’t accept new ideas easily.

Then, after our agency was brought to light, one of the biggest challenges was to juggle with all the tax laws that we weren’t aware of. Maybe we could write a book about the three-year-period that we literally fought to stay alive. And inside all that tempest, to manage to bring new business and stay creative – which is kind of hard when you struggle financially.

How did you managed to achieve success?

I don’t know if I am a successful person, I don’t even know hot to measure this success. A lot of people didn’t hear about me, but they heard of PRbeta. And the other way around. Personally, I think I am very lucky to do what I do, even if there are a lot of days when I start work at 6 AM and finish it at 11 PM. The people I meet and the different team that I have to coordinate keep my mind healthy, strong and young.

What do you think today’s industry would need more?

I think PR industry needs more humbleness. Especially when it comes to praises for our work. We’re all proud of what we do (otherwise it makes no sense to do it), but we need to stay with our feet deep into the ground and acknowledge our work is for our clients not for our personal show off. I also think that we need less anger, but this is a ”bug” that we have to fight with in every industry, not just in ours.

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