POSTCARD FROM NEW YORK CITY
UOW graduate, Carol Stojanovski has recently relocated to New York City in the USA to take up a position with Time Inc.

Time Inc is the word’s largest magazine publisher and is part of Time Warner, the largest media entertainment company in the world. Time Warner is total entertainment and includes Warner Bros, New Line Cinema, HBO, CNN, AOL and Time Inc. Time Inc has a portfolio of more than 125 titles worldwide and it represents some of the most powerful, recognizable and trusted brands including Time, People, In Style, Sports Illustrated, Fortune and Money just to name a few.

Carol’s position is the Associate Brand Manager for Real Simple magazine. Real Simple launched in 2000 and has continued to grow each year. Real Simple is life made easier and is targeted at affluent, professional females. Carol is responsible for creating newsstand promotions that will increase sales of the magazine, increasing the awareness of the brand in the market place, reporting and estimating sales, tracking competitor trends and market share and return on investment analysis. She also manages the financials and sets the budgets.

Carol’s week is split between the main office located at the Time & Life Building on Avenue of the America’s at Rockefeller Centre opposite Radio City Music Hall and the New Jersey office. Carol is in the Manhattan office three days a weeks and the remaining two days she is in the New Jersey office which is their disaster recovery building and was set up after the 9/11 attacks.

Carol is currently living in Chelsea at 26th and 6th in a very New York high rise apartment building that has a doorman and a rooftop deck where she has an amazing view of the city.

We interviewed Carol about her experiences and what it is like to live and work overseas.

When you applied to work for your current employer, did you know that it would be likely that you would work overseas and was this one of the reasons you chose to work for them?
I have always dreamed of working in New York City and I wanted to work for a multi-national publisher that could make my dream a reality. When I first applied for the position at Time Inc in Sydney Australia I believed that if I was meant to work in New York I would be offered the job and I would make my way to our head office in the next 2-3 years. Well, they loved me and I was offered the job! I was so excited, I was working for the world’s largest publisher, managing brands like WHO, Time and In Style that I am truly passionate about and love. I had worked in the Sydney office for a year when I came back to New York on a vacation. I decided that I wanted to spend three days working in our office in New York learning about the US market and meeting my colleagues. I reached out to Human Resources in New York and they put me in touch with Vice President’s in Marketing on both the Newsstand and Subscriptions sides of the business. Over the three days I experienced what my life would be like working in New York City and I just loved it. The three days of my vacation were spent in back to back meetings but the contacts I made gave me a job a year later!

Why did you decide to work in this area?
I have always been passionate about magazines. I was the teenager that would spend all of their pocket money on buying the latest issues of Cleo, Cosmopolitan, Smash Hits and anything else that I could get my hands on. Magazines were always a part of my life and after completing my Bachelor of Commerce degree at the University of Wollongong my first position was at ACP as an analyst in the Circulation department. I spent two and a half years learning as much as I could about how magazines are distributed and coordinating promotions and reporting on sales. I was not passionate about the brands I worked for and I would only get excited about and actually read Time, WHO and In Style, our competitor titles. I left the industry for a couple of years and after an extended vacation in the United States I decided to return to my original love, magazines. I have always been passionate about the Time Inc brands and I was so lucky to have the opportunity to work with such a vibrant, energetic and passionate group of people at the Time Inc office in Sydney.

Why did you want to work overseas?
The US magazine market is the largest market in the world and I have always loved American magazines. They have a 3-tier supply chain where the Wholesalers essentially control the industry, which is completely different to Australia’s 2-tier supply chain going directly into stores. I wanted to learn as much as I could about this market and challenge myself to think outside the box to be able to execute unique promotions in the US newsstand.

Did you have to apply to work overseas/ did you have a choice on where you could go?
I applied for the position using our company job posting site. I actively pursued a position in our New York office over the last year and resigned form my position at Time Inc in Sydney to take on this new role. I used my own initiative to make it happen.

What do you see as the benefits of progressing your career overseas?
The ability to learn about a new market and to gain experience in dealing with multi-million dollar marketing budgets and sales volumes that are more than 15 times greater than the magazines I worked on in Australia. This experience will be invaluable when I return to the Australian business world.

What do you see as the personal benefits of working and living overseas?
The personal growth that comes from leaving everything that is familiar, all of your family and friends to pursue a dream is definitely character building. The benefits are personal as well as career building.

What advice would you give to fellow alumni who are thinking of working overseas?
You are the driving force in your career and life. Take action now and have a plan and make it happen. You need to choose the right company to work for that will give you the opportunity to work in their international offices. Ultimately if you want to work in a particular city you will need to do the ground-work yourself to make it happen. Plan a vacation in that city and then arrange to meet your colleagues, you will make invaluable contacts that could give you a job in the future. If your company has an internal job search website utilize it and constantly apply for all of the jobs you are qualified for and interested in. Working overseas is an amazing opportunity to experience a new culture, to broaden your skill base and to learn to adapt to new environments.

What are the challenges of working overseas?
Australian’s and American’s enjoy a very warm relationship thanks to Paul Hogan and Steve Irwin! I can’t tell you how many people have asked me to imitate Steve Irwin’s “she’s beautiful”! There are still cultural challenges that I face daily. I have had to modify the words that I use and be very careful how I phrase sentences to clearly state my message. Australian colloquialisms are unheard of in the USA so it has been a challenge to think before I speak and to carefully construct emails. I am learning to speak American! Luckily we live in a time where technology makes the world a very small place. I might be a twenty hour flight from my family and friends but with telephones, emails, Facebook and web-cams using Skype you feel very connected to everyone.

Has working overseas been everything you thought it would be?
New York is living up to my expectation, the work is very challenging and the pace is much faster than the Australian business environment. I love exploring the city and making new friends! It’s important to have a work life balance and I am very lucky that Time Inc isn’t your typical American company and it has wonderful benefits that far exceed the norm.

How long do you plan to stay in New York for?
I have an E-3 visa which means that I am authorized to work in a particular job as long as my Commerce degree is a minimum requirement for the position. My work visa is valid for two years but renewable indefinitely. With that said, it’s a long term career move for me and I plan to stay in New York for a minimum of 2-5 years. As long as my career is progressing and I am enjoying myself I will stay.

What are your goals and ambitions for the future?
My long term career goal is to become the Group Marketing Director at Time Inc, managing both Real Simple and In Style magazines. I believe this is achievable in the next 2-5 years and is what I will be working towards.

Last reviewed: 18 April, 2008