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Esther Thomas Smith
Partner in Public and Financial Relations
Qorvis Communications
Career Quick Look
Age: 62
Location: McLean, VA
Education: B.S. in Philosophy
Ethnicity: Caucasian
Salary: $200,000 and up
Years in field: 26
""I think the world is wide open for anybody," Esther says."
Getting Started:
Esther has spent a lifetime in communications, from her childhood love of newspapers to her days as editor of the college newspaper, and later as an intern and editor of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Marriage to a career Army officer, however, meant a great deal of moving around - along with raising three children she was reluctant to leave. "It was difficult for me," she says, "to figure out how to get a good enough job to pay for good enough babysitting so I would feel comfortable."
Though she describes herself as "basically out of the job market" for 15 years, Esther managed to add to her experience. "I edited a learning journal and I did some freelance writing," she says. By 1978, when the family had settled in Washington, DC, she had enough experience under her belt to publish and edit the city's first business newspaper, The Business Review of Washington - and later the Washington Business Journal, with a focus on local technology news. An avid follower of business trends, with an eye to what she calls "community journalism," Esther says she couldn't ignore the technology explosion that was taking place in DC during the 1980s.
Her husband's promotion to General meant another family move - this time to Fort Bragg, North Carolina - but Esther maintained her contacts in Washington, so that when they returned in 1985 she was encouraged to publish again. That year she founded Tech News, Inc., publisher of Washington Technology and subsequently of Technology Transfer Business and the Washington Technology Almanac - all intended to fill what she saw as the major gap in local business - particularly in technology - news coverage.
When the Competition in Contracting Act passed in the early 1990s, she says, "it basically made entrepreneurs out of government contractors." This led to a wave of large corporations like Cisco setting up shop in the region, with a renewed focus on marketing their products to 'systems integrators' who in Esther's words "create these massive systems and networks like the Star Wars program, big defense and national security communications programs, and the Internet." By 1996 the bigger papers were paying attention, and Esther sold TechNews Inc. to the Washington Post. When she found "semi-retirement" didn't quite suit her, Esther joined her longtime friend Doug Poretz whose investor relations firm subsequently helped create Qorvis Communications, a full-service firm.
Education:
Esther traces her interest in journalism back to junior high and high school, where she edited several publications. Her grandfather was an avid consumer of newspapers - "he must have taken seven or eight newspapers that came to his house every day," she recalls, "and I used to love to go down there. When I was 16, my grandfather gave me a subscription to the Wall Street Journal, which I had through college." Esther graduated from Atlanta's Agnes Scott College, a woman's college, where she majored in philosophy, with a substantial load of English classes. "I was the editor of my college paper and got an internship on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution," she says. Upon graduation she was hired to their staff. "That was at a time when it was at its heyday, and it was very exciting ," she says.
Esther describes herself as "very self-taught on the business side." At the Journal-Constitution, she says, "I really wasn't involved in business journalism directly, but I got a huge amount of skills including some management experience." A great believer in practical, hands-on experience, Esther says several years of working for others and "learning on their nickel" helped give her the confidence to start her own publications. "One of my goals was to prove that somebody from the content side of the business could do a good job on the business side," she says.
Greatest Professional Achievement:
"I would say having created these newspapers that continue to make a substantial contribution to informing people about our economy here," Esther says. She is also proud to note the influence her own publications have had on larger media outlets, and their coverage of the technology sector. "They certainly have raised the bar for the Washington Post and other daily sections," she says.
Barriers:
Esther credits her small-town upbringing with shielding her from many of the presumed barriers of growing up female. "All the stuff that was directed at girls or women as being unable to do something totally blew by me," she says, "because I was captain of a baseball team in elementary school, I was an officer of the class from time to time - I did a lot of things and it never occurred to me that there was any restriction, because in a small town all talent is much appreciated." Even when she has come across a challenge related to gender, "I have always been able to either ignore some of the most egregious manifestations of it, or figure out a way around it," Esther says.
Working with Men:
"The business world is certainly much more dominated by men than women," she says. "The great thing about the dot-com boom was that it allowed a huge number of women to work in higher-level and less gender-designated positions than had ever happened before." While the demise of so many Internet firms has undoubtedly affected a number of these women, Esther still sees many success stories out there. The biggest challenge, in her view, lies in gaining access to upper management. "It has nothing to do with ability," she insists. "It's just harder for women to break in at the peer level on the management team."
Advice for Women:
"The world is wide open for anybody," Esther says. "I don't want to sound like a know-nothing, but I think that life experience is almost always better than an academic experience." Particularly in the world of business, she says, "the way you get experience is to just go and get it. Even for people who are going back to graduate school, doing it after they've got some years under their belt makes a lot of sense. I'm also a big fan of the executive MBA programs."
Typical Workday/Environment:
"There is no typical day," Esther says of her current position as partner at Qorvis Communications, DC's largest independent full-service financial and public relations firm. "I have client meetings and I spend a lot of time reading and thinking about problems and how to solve them, or being sure I'm current with what's going on." She is also active with a number of community-oriented projects, which claim a substantial amount of her time. "I also try to speak to as many people as I can, male or female, who are trying to either change jobs or looking for some kind of advice," she says. "I just feel that people were so helpful to me and I want to be helpful to people in return."
Having cultivated numerous professional relationships in the Washington, DC area throughout her career, Esther says she feels fortunate to enjoy "a fairly seamless kind of life … I know so many of the people that I work with on a long time acquaintance and friendship level." Regardless of her work engagements, she makes an effort to be home for dinner most nights. "I do believe it's important to commit to the well-being of your family and close friends," she says.
Career Ladder:
Esther says she has followed a rather untypical path in her own career. "I have sort of created my own ladder," she explains. "I am not a careerist by any stretch of the imagination." Her early work on school and college publications led her to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution internship and staff position, after which she edited a learning journal and worked at freelance writing - but between raising three children and the family's military moves, she estimates she was out of the job market for 15 years. Despite the time away, Esther maintained her journalist's instincts and lifelong interest in business and technology trends, which led her back to covering the DC-area tech industry. "I tell people, as a professional I'm only about 45 because I took all that time off," she says.
Professional Associations:
Esther is an active member of the National Association of Corporate Directors, where she recently served on a Blue Ribbon Commission, a member of the board of directors of The Atlantic Council, and a founding member of the International Women's Forum.
Hobbies:
Esther lists reading and investments among her hobbies, most of which she confesses are "highly related to work…my consuming interest is still the world of business." Married 40 years with three grown children, Esther spends some of her off-time in St. Simon's Island, GA, where she spent much of her childhood.
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