Page 43 - Adnews Magazine May-June 2021

www.adnews.com.au | May/June 2021 43
Trust us: You’ve got this
How to build a dream career in a creative industry.
WORDS BY
CHRIS PASH
Bec Brown
Creative Sides
Bec Brown is known to move people to tears.
Every year she bakes commercial quan- tities of brownies, slightly crunchy on the outside and soft when you bite through. These are Bec’s Brownies and they are addictive. The tears come when someone thinks (probably wrongly) they may miss out on a brownie delivery.
She sends these to her media contacts and key people on her client list, either as a thank you or after a big win together.
Brown has her own communications company. Many also know her for her work with Australian Radio Network, Amazon Prime Video, or hayu but she has several other companies on her list.
She also has a creative side. One of her brownie deliveries heralded the launch of her first book, You’ve Got This, with Penguin Random House. It’s described as the ultimate hack for anyone wanting to build their dream career in a creative industry.
“I’m 40 years old and live near the beach in Sydney with my husband, Dom,” says Brown. “For the past nine years I’ve run my company, The Comms Department, a public relations, corpo- rate communications and crisis manage- ment company. We work with some of the biggest names and brands in the media, entertainment, travel and lifestyle industries.”
However, life was not always so straightforward. As a teenager and into her early 20s, Brown often felt life was out of control. “While trying to carve out a successful career, I battled eating disor- ders, anxiety and depression,” she says.
Her first career was as a performer. She grew up on a farm outside of a small coun- try town in South Australia and on Sundays the family went to church. That’s when they discovered Brown has a good voice. She dreamed of being a musical theatre star on Broadway or London’s West End.
She went on to study at the Conservatorium of Music at Adelaide