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Life as an agency head

In my role you get to meet quite a few MDs of PR agencies and it seems to me that the agency MD (or whatever job title equivalent you care to mention) is a tough job, well paid of course but tough. How well paid seems to depend on the rock star qualities of the individuals involved, and the size of the agency involved. The PR agency model seems to be to pay the top person a top wage and then the salary level drops off quite quickly. That said, I reckon the agency owners get their money’s worth! The MDs that I meet are nice people, very often less PR’y than the people that work for them. But they’re busy. And I’m talking almost “banker busy” (for those of you with friends in the city.) The mix of client work, and keeping the agency finances on track, means that every second of everyday is normally accounted for (just ask their long suffering PA’s!) and that they are normally pretty stressed - just ask their wives or partners. But the money’s good and the works interesting. Don’t imagine you’d want to do it forever though...

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