WASHINGTON--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Molly McLeod, a Senior Account Executive at Hellerman Baretz Communications, has been named PRWeek’s Young PR Professional of the Year.
PRWeek announced the award at a gala ceremony at New York’s Grand Hyatt Hotel last week. In connection with the honor, the publication noted Molly’s ability to produce unusually successful “results for high-profile legal and financial-services clients, including some of the nation’s most prominent Supreme Court advocates, hedge-fund attorneys, and financial advisers.” The award is the highlight of a still-young career in which Molly attained the quickest-ever promotion at Hellerman Baretz Communications to Senior Account Executive, and developed a client reporting system now standard at HBC. One judge referred to Molly as a “dynamic powerhouse,” noting that her varied experience—which spans the legal, financial, and entertainment industries—“will allow greater leadership roles.”
“We’re very gratified that PRWeek has given Molly this tremendous honor, because it is so well deserved,” said John Hellerman, partner and co-founder of Hellerman Baretz Communications. “This kind of national attention is great for Molly, and great for HBC. It’s almost frightening to think that she is just scratching the surface of her abilities, but we know that she is only going to continue to develop as a leader in the industry.”
The Young PR Professional of the Year award is open to those with fewer than three years of working experience. Other winners at the PRWeek awards, known as the “Oscars of the PR industry,” included the Campaign of the Year, Ketchum’s Superman tie-in campaign for Gillette, “How Does the Man of Steel Shave?”
Following her victory, Molly answered questions from Spencer Baretz, partner and co-founder of Hellerman Baretz Communications, about her career:
What drew you to the PR field?
I majored in communications at Boston University, so I suppose I had an early idea that the field interested me. One summer, I worked for Viacom’s corporate communications department, and I can clearly remember an outreach campaign to collegiate newspapers that I ran for Comedy Central’s Tosh.0. It was exciting to see it through from planning to execution to results. When I interned with HBC, though, I knew I had found the right environment for the skills I had learned. I loved the people, and I loved working with professional service providers, whose work is more about intellectual capital than glitz.
What do you enjoy most about your work?
Working with HBC clients is incredibly stimulating. We’re often working with the very best firms and individual professionals in law, finance, and other areas, who are having substantial impact on the most significant legal and economic issues of the day. Working with elite practitioners carries some pressure, but it also makes you want to raise your own performance to that level as well. It’s a combination of that challenge, the constant learning about issues affecting our clients, and the task of translating our clients’ expertise to the audiences that matter most to them that keeps me going. It’s a puzzle I love solving.
Where do you see your career going from here?
This award is incredibly flattering, but I don’t pretend I have everything figured out. For now, I want to keep my head down and keep learning all I can from others at HBC, who share credit for putting me in a position to win the PRWeek award. It’s great to work at a place where innovation and experimentation are encouraged, so I expect that my focus in the future—whether it has to do with a particular discipline, like crisis management, or a particular subject area—will grow out of that naturally.
Tell us something about you that your clients might not know.
I was an All-County shortstop for my high school softball team, and still play when I can. You can sometimes catch me on the golf course, too.
Hellerman Baretz Communications (hellermanbaretz.com) is an award-winning corporate communications agency specializing in thought leadership and branded content development, reputation management, and revenue growth for the world’s leading law, consulting, healthcare, and financial services firms. The firm has been named “Boutique Agency of the Year” and “Small Agency of the Year” by Bulldog Reporter, “Best PR Firm” and “Best Crisis Management Firm” in Washington, DC’s Legal Times, and “Best Crisis Management Firm” and “Best Social Media Consultant” nationally by The National Law Journal.