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 Kelley Skoloda |
As director of New York-based public relations firm Ketchum's global brand marketing practice, Ms. Skoloda was contacted because of her work studying women ages 25 to 54 and advising consumer product companies on marketing to female customers who make the spending decisions but are too busy for traditional ads.
Ms. Skoloda, who also leads Ketchum's Pittsburgh office, is the right age to understand such consumers. In addition, she has two children under 6 years old and last year traveled enough for work that she passed the 50,000-mile mark on U.S. Airways to qualify for Gold Preferred status.
The North Huntingdon native has crafted a career that somehow allowed her to stay in Pittsburgh and yet have opportunities to work in London, see museums in Madrid and visit the Great Wall of China. Yet she's always worked at Ketchum, where she took a job after getting her bachelor's from Seton Hill University in Greensburg. She also has a masters in business administration from Pitt.
Those who know Ketchum know the firm, founded here decades ago, has had its ups and downs. A merger with Omnicom shifted the focus elsewhere, the ad business was later sold, followed by a downsizing of the local public relations office.
Ms. Skoloda said before the merger, Ketchum was a big presence in Pittsburgh but not a major player nationally and beyond. Now it ranks among the top firms in the world although Pittsburghers may not see that. The payoff comes, she said, in that people here work on major accounts they might not have seen before.
She never wanted to leave her extended family here. Technology helped make that possible as has Ketchum's willingness to let her work a flexible schedule.
Her advice to others comes down to finding the sweet spot between personal interest and corporate need. "If you are doing something you like to do and can find the intersection between that and a marketplace trend," things should click, she said.
