There are plenty of reasons to celebrate the remarkable contributions women are making to all aspects of society today. In this issue, DG had an elite opportunity to speak with Dina Naeem, Area Director of Public Relation at Starwood Egypt Hotels. She’s successful, stylish, sophisticated and utterly intent on exposing her extensive experience and encouraging the new generation to soar high - because after all, hard work combined with ambition lead to success…

Let’s start off by asking you to describe your career background?
I’m an AUC graduate. I majored in psychology which has nothing to do with what I’m doing at the moment. However since I joined Starwood 14 years ago I enhanced my marketing knowledge through various relevant workshops and trainings, latest of which was my Chartered Diploma of Marketing from the UK.

How did your career lead you to marketing?
I would not call it marketing, what we are actually doing is marketing communication. It was by coincidence actually, I found this marketing coordinator job 15 years ago and I fell in love with it and I’ve been doing it since then.

What were your internships like? Did you find that they gave you a better idea of which areas of PR you liked / disliked?
Yes, they did but then each person has his way of mastering and doing things differently. After all, if I don’t like what I’m doing… I don’t do it.

What skills does an Area Director require?
Relevant Skills, years of knowledge & experience, availability, flexibility and above all patience…

What are the biggest challenges of being Area Director of Public Relations?
To convince the board of Director of Sales/GMs with what you believe as an opportunity.

With the online and digital world moving so quickly, how do you find yourself keeping up-to-date with the communications industry?
I have to be on top of it if I want to survive in this career… As part of my daily life I’m no different than any other internet users… I’m always online as part of my daily work operation + addictive social media user as everybody else nowadays and I believe that keeping myself updated constantly with new trends, techniques and media channels is what makes me good at what I’m doing.

Can you brief us a success story — what’s the best thing that’s happened as a result of your participation on social media, say for instance, Twitter?
One of the best stories is that of ‘Flat Stanley,’ It’s an international character that I received drawn on a piece of paper by 20 children in 4th grade from the USA, and they wanted me to make him visit all the exciting sites in Egypt and write back and tell them about his journey. I took ‘Flat Stanley’ to the pyramids and to every other city where we have a hotel and took a lot of pictures of him in those places and I made him a facebook page under our Starwood hotel page so those 20 kids can constantly follow up on Stanley’s adventures and see his pictures online and socialize with him. I have to tell you that those 20 kids were extremely happy that the drawing of ‘Flat Stanley’ is online and that they can see new pictures of him every week.

And lastly, any tips for PR students trying to network themselves into an internship / first job?
Start early, don’t rush about the title, educate yourself and be creative…