Entrepreneur and Philanthropist,
Regina Kulik-Scully
Founder & CEO, RPR Marketing Communications
Founder & President, CareerPeeks FoundationA gifted entrepreneur, Regina is the founder and CEO of RPR Marketing Communications (RPR), a premiere public relations firm with top-notch clients from around the world. Her career began in journalism, with stints at such media outlets as Seventeen magazine, FOX Television, and CNN. She later segued into the public relations field, first working at the acclaimed Hill & Knowlton Agency and later serving as Public Relations Director for L'Oréal Cosmetics and Fragrances, and Christian Dior Perfumes.
Today, at the helm of RPR, which specializes in brand marketing and publicity for a wide range of consumer products and luxury goods, Regina primarily focuses on developing new business strategies and programs, and cultivating new talent within her Agency. Regina is an extraordinarily savvy businesswoman who has built RPR from the ground up and developed her company's client roster to include such major international brands as Johnson & Johnson, Spiegel, Neutrogena Corporation, Aveeno, Givenchy, Boucheron and Polo.com to name a few.
In addition to other numerous philanthropic efforts, in 2002, Regina founded CareerPeeks, a non profit organization that focuses on expanding career options for young women ages 20-38. The Foundation provides young women with opportunities to visit real working environments, and spend time in mentoring sessions with highly successful, dynamic professionals.
CareerPeeks mentors include: Katie Couric, Dr. Patricia Wexler-Noted Dermatologist, Debra Shriver-VP/Chief Communications Officer/Senior VP magazines for Hearst Corporation, Barbara Kotlikoff-Vice President of Development for The Museum of Television & Radio, Jill Scalemandre-Senior VP, Global Beauty Brands at Avon, Caroline Gundeck-Chief Diversity Officer Global Wealth Management at Morgan Stanley, and Tom Brokaw.
Regina is married to John H. Scully, managing director of SPO Partners & Company. He is a trustee and a vice chair of the board of trustees of Stanford University and vice chairman of Stanford Hospital and Clinics. In 1989 John became chairman and founder of Making Waves Education Programs in the San Francisco Bay area.
A natural leader with a big heart, Regina further tends to our youth by serving on the board of the Making Waves Education Program, Cosmetic Executive Women (CEW), the advisory board of the Stanford University School of Education, and The Girl Scouts of Greater New York. She is a trustee of The Horace Mann School in Riverdale, New York, is on the board of International Initiatives of Georgetown University, an advocate for mental health awareness, and is an advisory board member of The Stay Strong Foundation, a national non-profit that supports and educates youth.
Regina possesses that rare quality of instantly contagious enthusiasm. I was immediately swept up and transported into her world where people matter and it was fun. One of the things that she shared with me was that she hopes that she is the kind of person who leaves people better off for having been with her. I was energized after talking to Regina and definitely better off.
Regina Kulik Scully inspires because she is –
inspired.
DR: Tell me about your work.
RKS: My background is in communications.
I started as a journalist. I worked at CNN, I worked at magazines and what I found out is that I liked packaging the news more than I liked writing it. So, I went into public relations working for large agencies like Hill Knowlton and from there I started working in-house for companies like L'Oreal, Christian Dior and other health and beauty organizations which was great because I have always been interested in beauty, health and well being, for women in particular.
Eventually I started my own agency RPR Marketing Communications. I run it with my partner Cora Rood. We have been fortunate. The agency is twelve years old now and very successful. We are an all female agency with fifteen extremely talented professionals. Our largest client is Johnson and Johnson. Our other clients include Neutrogena, Aveeno, Givenchy, Spiegel, Boucheron and Polo.com, to name a few.
CAREERPEEKS IS A MOTIVATIONAL AND EDUCATIONAL ORGANIZATION DESIGNED TO BROADEN THE PROFESSIONAL AND CREATIVE HORIZONS OF YOUNG WOMEN.
We assist young women in determining their career paths by connecting them with active leaders in todays business world. CAREERPEEKS sessions are 60-90 minutes in length. Participants listen to professionals talk about the joy they hold and what it takes to get there. Everyone will have the opporutnity to ask their own questions.
ALL SESSIONS ARE FREE OF CHARGE
UPCOMING SESSIONS
Monday, Sept 10, 2007
6:00p.m. – 8:00p.m.
Rena De-Levie
Management ConsultantRena De-Levie, Management Consultant, has over twenty years of marketing, financial and management experience, including eight years at J.Crew and six years at Kenneth Cole Productions. Two years ago, she launched her own consulting practice. She is an expert on management, understanding office dynamics, promotion, and maneuvering up the corporate ladder.
Upcoming Peeks:
Sep 13: Dinah Day
Executive Image CoachOct 1: Lindsey Pollack
Author, Speaker, Training ConsultantOct 2: Catherine Orenstein
Journalist and AuthorOct 3: Susan Schulz
Editor-in-Chief of CosmoGIRL!Oct 4: Meredith Wagner Executive Vice President of Public Affairs and Corporate Communications at Lifetime TV
FOR MORE INFORMATION OR TO SIGN UP -- info@careerpeeks.org
Because of the kind of work that we do, we have interviewed hundreds of young women. My partner and I were quickly becoming a career counseling service. Young women were coming in to interview with us and we were spending a lot of time connecting them to people that we knew:
"You know what? This really isn't the right job for you. You should be speaking to my friend who is an editor over at Instyle magazine, since you love to write"
So here we were doing our own little mini connecting sessions and finally I realized that there is a real need out there. I could see that young women who are right out of school or a couple of years out of college were in need of career support. That is how CareerPeeks got started.
The first CareerPeeks session that I did was with Tom Brokaw when he invited me to bring a group of girls to NBC Nightly News. We met and talked in the control room and a "Peek" session. It was just extraordinary! Then we did another session at Seventeen Magazine. This was our beginning.
Right now we are video taping all of our sessions because we are hoping to create a CareerPeeks library that we can offer to colleges across the country. We are doing this so that a young woman who is a junior or senior at Washington State University or Hunter Community College or Princeton or Grinnell in Iowa --- she can log on to "The Peeks" and check out what we are doing. She'll log on and she'll get to see and hear Naomi Wolfe and Toni Morrison....
DR: What I love about that is that they will actually get to see professionals in a setting where they are interacting with young women like them, asking the same questions that they would be asking...
RKS: Exactly!
At the moment, participants have to come through New York to attend the sessions - at the moment. We will eventually be offering sessions in San Francisco, running East Coast and West coast sessions simultaneously. However - the library is building up and eventually everyone one will get to see everything just by logging on!
DR: What does it mean for you, Regina, to be able to do all of this?
RKS: When I go back and reflect on my own life and when I am at my most contemplative I consider:
Where were the roadblocks? Where were the steps up? Where were the helpful hints?
I look back and wonder where I could have gotten more help. Where did I stumble and fall? I am in my forties and at this stage I am really looking at how I got to where I am. I wonder how I could've have gotten here, where I am now, not necessarily sooner, but smoother.
As someone who is a recovering from an eating disorder, I recognize that there are tremendous stresses along the way in life. We put enormous pressure on ourselves as women, particularly young women. Because of that and because of what I went through, I am very protective of young women. I want to try and protect them. I experienced stress when I was young and so I am going back and trying to give to them what I didn't have and protect them as best I can in ways that I wasn't protected.
I like to help when and where I can because I think that the only way that any of us can grow and learn and get to where we need to get to is through the help of others. No one does anything alone. It is not possible. Yes, we need the volition and the self effort for sure, but we also need those helping hands. The more we share and the more we help each other the more we will evolve.
DR: What have you learned about yourself as a result of doing this work?
RKS: I have learned that it is never too late to learn and to become who you want to be.
I have learned that we can really be whomever we want and we can do amazing things when we just get a little spark. If you give someone a spark they will create a bon fire. I see how valuable that is. I believe in this so much which is why I am trying to light a match for as many young women as I can.
DR: What do you think the young women who participate in the CareerPeeks are saying about the experience?
RKS: "For me!"
They are surprised that we care.
"All of this for me?!"
They are delighted with what we are doing. I think what they say is "Wow. This was done on my behalf." One of the things that they find out is that women who are busy and successful are not too busy to care about others and that is one of the things that we try and instill in the young women that we work with -- the element of giving back.
I am all for young women getting to where they have got to go, but they have got to do with an inclination that somewhere along the way they have got to give back to others. They are being given to, and we make no bones about it. It is for them! The only string attached is that they do something for someone else.
DR: What I love about that is that the giver ends up getting more than the person being given to.
RKS: Isn't that always so?!
DR: It always is...
RKS: I realize that people go through the fire and unhappy times. I am not minimizing that. But one of the main ways out of unhappiness is to do something for someone else. Make someone else's life a little bit better. I have never known any not to feel happier after that. Have you?
DR: Never. It is so much more than a cliché.
RKS: Having said that, there is probably a selfish element involved in what I do. It feeds my soul. It excites me and it makes me happy.
DR: What would you tell a young woman who came to you and asked "What does it mean to be successful?"
RKS: Success is about wanting to get up in the morning and dig into your day. I would say that to be really present in your day and to be very present in your life and living consciously is to be successful. I would also say that giving to others makes a person successful and I would say that being able to rest your head on your pillow with peace of mind at the end of the day - man! That is a successful life.
DR: Is there anything that you would change about your life if you could?
RKS: I would like to spend a little less time doing the things that I think I should be doing and spend more time doing more of the things that I want to do.
DR: What are the things that you want to be doing that you aren't doing?
RKS: I would like more meditation, reflection and quiet time.
I would like to take more time to pause because I thing that it is in life's pauses that we come up with the genius things. I was really able to pull it together with CareerPeeks during "a pause". There is something to be said about taking a long walk or sitting on a park bench or being at the beach, sitting quietly with a pad and pencil and thinking - just pausing. That is where things get created. It is our challenge to find that time to pause so we can really move forward.
DR: A hundred years from now what do you want to be remembered for?
RKS: I want to be remembered as somebody who cared about the people that I loved and made a difference in their lives and I want to be remembered for leaving the world a better place than it was before I got here.
Thanks Regina!
RPR MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS
Rpr Marketing Communications is a full-service public relations and marketing agency, specializing in Beauty & Skincare consumer products We develop strategic communications and marketing programs catering to mass, prestige and specialty outlets.
By developing an unmatched, integrated approach to public relations and marketing, we act as an extension of our clients' in-house communications and marketing teams. Our methodology is straightforward, no-nonsense and smart, using marketing, research and development, consumer affairs and promotions.
Based in New York City, we have built an extensive network through our combined years of experience in beauty, business and media. Rpr has taken reporting results to a new level with specialized analysis of individual client programs.
We create, develop and deliver an effective brand message thanks to our strong, daily working relationship with the dermatology community, editors, celebrities and beauty experts. With highly customized programs, Rpr provides our clients the results they need in raising consumer awareness and strengthening their brand equity.
A boutique-size agency by design, our team consists of a diverse and talented group of senior executives - the best in the industry. From award-winning writers to seasoned communications experts, with experience both in-house and at the agency level, our team knows what it takes to make a program work.
Rpr understands...
- Brand Equity and Strategies
- Skincare and Beauty
- Dermatologists and Influencers
- Ingredients and Science
- Consumers and Media
For more information on Rpr Marekting Communications, visit their website at http://www.rprny.com.
