Gabie’s path to becoming an Account Executive at JMAC is anything but linear. And that’s exactly what makes her perspective worth hearing. She started at the agency as a PR intern straight out of Chico State, worked her way up, took time away to travel and explore different fields, and ultimately found her way back. Today, she leads accounts across tech, B2B, insurance, and restaurant clients, bringing a grounded confidence to her work that she credits to everything she experienced in between. In this Q&A, Gabie opens up about the relationships that make PR meaningful, what it was like to have dinner with a reporter, and why she believes the real magic of the job is in completing the puzzle.
Tell us a bit about yourself and your background.
I went to school at Chico State and studied journalism PR. I first started out at JMAC as a PR intern, and moved up and became an Associate Account Executive, and then an Account Executive. I took some time away, did some traveling, worked on a bunch of different projects, and ended up coming back here to JMAC. I really like the team here, and I’ve been working as an Account Executive, and I mostly work with tech B2B insurance clients and now a restaurant client as well.
What’s involved in your role as an Account Executive on the JMAC team?
From day to day, I’m leading a couple accounts, which means handling a bunch of our client meetings and being the contact person for most of our clients. I’m also responsible for sending out pitches and assigning tasks to the rest of our team.
Do you have a favorite project/account that you’ve worked on?
Recently, it was really fun working with our restaurant client, passe, because I got to go on site for an event with them, and I got to have dinner with a reporter, which was really cool. Spending that much one-on-one time with a reporter, and getting to know a bit more of their background and what they work on, and also getting a different sense of the freelance journalist/writer world. I think being on the PR side, it’s difficult to see how they operate, and in reality we share a lot of the same pains, like pitching to a bunch of different news outlets.
What excites you most about the field of PR?
The connections are my favorite part. Building relationships with reporters is really exciting: going back and forth with them, knowing that they already know who I am. I have one specific way that I spell out “Gabie,” and there’s one reporter who, whenever I reach out, responds with “Gabie”—that’s how they know me. I love the connections you build with people. That’s such an important part of PR: building those relationships. It’s literally public relations. And it’s a great feeling knowing that we can help each other out—I have a source for them, and maybe they’re working on a story that’s a perfect fit. It helps the client, and it also helps them with their story. I love being the one who brings it all together and completes the puzzle.
What did taking time away to travel and explore different fields allow you to bring back to your work at JMAC?
I think that taking some time away and working on a lot of different projects has made me more confident in myself. And I think that applies to my clients today, where I feel more confident in the way that I go about my work versus before that. JMAC was my first job out of college. So I see it from a different viewpoint coming back, where I did work a lot of jobs, and I gained a lot of experience from them, and then now coming back, I feel a little bit more established in myself as a professional, and I think that taking that time away and working in different fields has helped me build that.
