She has been in the public relations market for 19 years with her own company: CRF Comunicaciones, during which she was also a professor, columnist and trainer. She also shares her business woman aspect with art, being a television and film critic, fields where she has also worked in production with experience in Mexico and the United States. Carla Rossi talks about how she got into the world of public relations, the challenges she faces every day and her projects.

How did you get started in the world of public relations?

I traveled to Mexico to study communication with a major in public relations, I worked for many years in television production and when I returned to Ecuador, in Quito, I continued to work in the same field until the channel I worked for was sold and everyone was fired. A great friend and mentor gave me an opportunity in an advertising agency and I didn’t stop there, I was promoted in a position and then I was promoted to Guayaquil to open the public relations department.

When did you start your own company?

Public relations in the late 90s and early 2000s were unknown and underdeveloped. Together with my colleagues from different agencies, we developed the industry little by little and in 2004 I realized that there was a good market and decided to become independent. It was time to take a risk and I did, I quit my job and with a settlement of $3000 I opened my mini-office in Kennedy and for three years I worked alone, without help, and it was really hard, but rewarding.

What challenges did you face when starting your own business?

The most difficult thing was to get clients, I came from a large agency with many advertising clients who also hired a public relations department. But when I quit, I didn’t take on any clients that were part of my portfolio of additional work due to ethics.

I spent about three months without a client until the first one, La Escuela de los Chefs, decided on me and we worked for about five years; now we have 18 clients. Another challenge was to evangelize business people about the importance of public relations.

As CRF Communications grew?

We are turning 19 this month, we had our own office 13 years ago. We are 10 people, who serve clients in a personalized way, who in many cases have been with us for more than 13 years.

As of 2022, we are part of a network of communication agencies covering the whole of America called Latam PR, we share several clients from some countries, including the United Kingdom.

What is the hardest and the easiest part of working with the public?

The easiest thing is to be sociable, this profession forces you to be highly sociable, and at least for me and my team it’s really wonderful to meet new people, professions and stories.

The most difficult thing is to surf on the endless waves of economic, political, legal and tax events. I always say that being an entrepreneur is an act of faith, because we risk our personal assets to make a dream come true.

And as the company “surfed” with the pandemic, did it lose customers?

We haven’t lost any customers, but we’ve reduced ours fees fixed users, which obviously affected us, but we managed to get new users in the same period. It was very stressful, but the whole team did their best and we came out empowered and grateful to the media and clients for continuing to show us their trust.

Is public relations a female-dominated field?

Women still dominate, no doubt, perhaps because they are more sociable, patient and thoughtful. But clearly we need male input, his brain is more practical and teaches us to see other different perspectives.

How do you classify the public relations market in Ecuador, is there much competition?

I think the pandemic has cleaned up the negative competition a lot, serious companies have realized that they need agencies with credibility, ethics and experience to manage their reputation.

Markets will always be for everyone, it is important not to confuse the profession with the job of promoting events, night clubs, etc.

What are the future challenges and projects of your company?

Continue to grow in the digital area, for example, further develop the PR market influencers, looking for real opinion leaders on social networks.

In these first months of 2023, we have really felt the reactivation of companies and brands in terms of events, launches and activities. Our challenge is to follow and advise clients so that everything they do is effective and efficient in post-pandemic Ecuador, with high insecurity and political instability.