Languages, networking and mentoring, with Laura Colapietro

Italian-born Laura Colapietro, an associate director at ING Media, talks about the challenges facing the creative industries, the importance of languages, networking, and the difference having a mentor makes when starting out.

What is ING Media?

ING Media is a Public Relations and Communications agency specialising in the built environment, working with clients across architecture, design, property and culture, both in the UK and internationally.

How did you get started in the industry?

I have a BA in PR and later on did an MA at London College of Communication in managing in the creative industries. After graduating, I started working part-time for a series of awards called Art and Work Awards. They were held in Barcelona in conjunction with the World Architecture Festival (WAF).

A friend of a friend happened to be in Barcelona at the same time for the festival [as ING Media attended every year and she was a director there at the time]. I invited her to come along to our event, and when we came back to London, she told me there was an account manager vacancy and suggested I applied for it. The rest is history: that was 10 years ago.

Be open to what life brings to you if you don’t have very specific ideas, but also try to narrow your options if you can. From LCC, I think I took away obviously how important your personal networks are before you develop a professional network.

In a previous interview, you mentioned your passion for languages and that you also speak Spanish, Portuguese and French. Has this given you an advantage in your career, especially as you work with international clients?

Yes, that is correct. I’ve been lucky enough to learn my languages through personal relationships, actually. I’ve also just tried to really nurture them and make sure I didn’t forget them by investing a lot of time into reading, picking up magazines and watching films in those languages.

It is a massive advantage and it’s what I always like to tell students that I’ve mentored: to not shy away from any language at any level you have in them because you always have a chance to improve if you need to.

It’s also just being able to communicate more freely, openly, even if you just use English as your main working language, but also to be able to crack in a joke or get the cultural references. It just brings closeness to business relationships and it’s really helpful when trading or doing projects together, not just abroad, but also in London as a multicultural hub.

It definitely made me stand out with clients and colleagues. It opened up the opportunities for me to travel and actually work on international projects compared to other colleagues.

Speaking of international projects, who are some of the clients you’ve worked with?

One of my first jobs after university was with Salone Del Mobile since I’ve lived in Milan for five years and was familiar with the design industry. I absolutely loved it. That was also sort of how I started at ING, at first building up to design clients’ portfolio and then working with brands like Knoll, B&B Italia, iGuzzini and later on with Ingo Maurer, and Cassina.

It’s about the architecture, bringing in the design, and now I have obviously built experience working with property developers. I also lead the team working with the Venice Biennale. Being Italian, I was the obvious choice to lead the campaign, and one of the first clients we acquired was the British Council which commissions the British Pavilion. Since then, we have worked with Australia, Finland, New Zealand, the Netherlands and a few other international pavilions. That’s how it all started and developed.

What does a usual day working as an associate director look like, and how has it changed since the impact of Covid-19?

My role as an associate director at ING really consists of leading the account teams, which normally include an account executive, an account manager and an account director. I also have responsibility towards managing the business and contributing to the development of ING as a company. It’s also about well-being, making sure that ING remains relevant and a lovely place for people to work, where people want to stay or that attracts new talent, where everyone can feel motivated and fulfilled.

The account work consists in advising clients on all aspects of communication from media relations to content production, events, partnerships, awards, collaboration, business development, networking and social media. It is extremely varied and very exciting.

The fact is that our job relies quite heavily on media relations, and the media landscape has changed dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic.

Firstly, the news agenda changed as anything related to Covid is now very much at the top. In terms of the editorial staff, the team has been reduced, with people being furloughed and made redundant, unfortunately. Interaction with some of our printed publications also decreased, with others ceasing to exist.

That required from us a capacity to react quite quickly and to adapt, coming up with new ideas for content and stories to pitch to the media but also in-house, crucial for ING as a communication agency.

We came up with the idea of a series of quarterly bulletins exploring the short-term effect, as well as forecast medium- and long-term effects of the pandemic on the built environment and related communication issues, all available online.

It allowed us to share as many ideas and knowledge as possible and engage with our sector and the community to encourage resilience and try to spin it positively into new lessons learnt and look at what good can come out of it, regardless of the current situation.

What skills and expertise do you feel you gained from your career thus far?

First of all, specific sector knowledge and understanding of the dynamics of the built environment. I think at a director level, what you learn after so many years is to develop a really comprehensive and diverse communications strategy.

While there are core values, branding and messaging, you really have to dig deeper today to gain a real and genuine understanding of the client and what the ultimate objectives are. That will inform your recommendation in terms of communication, and then you also realise what role communications play in a company’s success and also how to make the client value it.

In the case of new clients, at times you’re able to challenge the brief as you’ve built enough experiences to challenge it, and to make them perhaps realise that they could shift their objectives slightly and achieve a bigger outreach, a wider audience, etc.

One other thing that I absolutely love doing, and I think it’s an incredible value for clients, is networking. Throughout the years I’ve built a really strong network of contacts around the world because of my work with international clients, but also because of extensive travelling, to attend some of the industry events happening worldwide, from Australia to China to the US and obviously all-around Europe.

I’ve also just always been extremely keen to share those contacts with my clients to create connections between them. For example, my clients go to Singapore or Hong Kong, I would then organise for them to meet either a journalist or curator of a museum, same as when one of my clients would come to London, to meet the director of V&A etc.

Creating new connections between people has just been really, really exciting for me, and my clients really value it. It is definitely something that they’ve always highlighted as one of the best things I bring to the team.

Let’s not forget that you’re also involved in the LCC Industry Mentoring Programme. When did you join and how has your experience of it been overall?

Since 2017. I’ve mentored four students so far, one every year for six months each. I’m still in touch quite regularly with three of them. I can say I absolutely love it! It’s unbelievable. I think it’s been an incredible learning experience for me as well. But it’s just incredible to be able to help students get a clearer vision about themselves and their future, because I think not having that can be quite stressful, especially these days.

I think most students feel disconnected from the real world when they’re studying and they’ve got no idea what career opportunities they have, so did I. I didn’t know what I was going to do because I didn’t know what was out there.

Through the mentoring scheme, I also learnt more about myself. I also understand diversity because they’ve all been different individuals with different backgrounds, experience, feelings and attitudes or just ways of doing things.

You also have the level of relatability as you’ve been in the mentees’ shoes, therefore I think it’s much easier for the mentee to want to learn from someone like you.

Yes, hopefully! I’m also a board member and head of partnerships of an organisation called OK Mentor. It provides free mentoring and training aimed at young women breaking into the creative industries and helping them succeed.

I can definitely say the experience from the LCC mentoring scheme got me there. It has been a fantastic experience and it’s just made it extremely clear to me that mentoring can be absolutely crucial for professional and personal development of young individuals and it’s just so rewarding to be able to kind of give back and help others.

I wish I had something like this when I finished my course because I felt lost myself.

Do you have any moments that left a lasting impression on you from the LCC mentoring scheme?

I can think of two. One is about just getting someone incredibly passionate about your profession – she’s never worked in PR, she came from a different sort of professional background and wanted to change careers. She said she never learned so much in relatively little time. And, in every session there was this super fun brainstorm.

And then, another one, completely different, which was actually realising that you become, you know, a trusted advisor for sort of like personal problems, so you’re not just a mentor helping career wise, giving some advice and tips.

Someone can actually see you as a trusted personal confidante and it’s really great to see that you’re making an impact on someone’s life at that level. I think there’s the excitement of helping someone find a passion and also being able to just make someone’s life easier and alleviate some of the pain that they might have along the way.

Do you have any tips for entering the creative industries as a recent graduate? What about working with ING?

I would say really try to start building your own knowledge about the profession or the sector and, these days, what’s available on social media is just incredible in terms of content and people, so I’d definitely start from there and obviously read, read, read!

If anyone is particularly interested in the built environment and working with ING, please do get in touch! You can talk to me on all social platforms, and we’re always on the lookout for talented individuals with a passion for communications and the built environment so there’s definitely opportunities to either work with us or connect for those who are interested.

Finally, what obstacles would you say you have encountered throughout your career?

I don’t think it’s an obstacle posed by other people, it’s just something that you perhaps pose to yourself. You know, failure, rejection, how to deal with it. From a journalist who’s never ever answering your emails, or a mistake in a client’s presentation, how to stand up, move on, build on your mistakes and make sure that nothing is personal, that it’s not just you.

It’s not really an obstacle, it’s something that you learn to not let it get to you so much. You know, I always look at what I could have done differently or said differently. You need to deal with rejection, deal with failure and move onto the next opportunity.

Feature image courtesy of Laura Colapietro.