AMP3 co-founder Alyson Roy had to balance being a new mother with piloting her firm through the pandemic over the past year, and she shares the lessons she learned from that experience with Doug Simon in the latest “PR’s Top Pro Talk” video interview.

Roy says “there were many times where I felt the pressure of am I succeeding at being a mom and am I succeeding at being an employer, and sort of the clash there.”

One big lesson Roy learned: “You just have to set boundaries and be intentional with your time.” While she says that she “had to accept the fact that there were times where I was going to be distracted and only half wearing each of my hats,” she says that it’s important to set aside blocks of time devoted solely to either work or personal issues.

She also talks about how negotiating the conflicting demands of work and home responsibilities is often a bigger issue for women than for men, citing the example of a viral meme that said “women are expected to work like they aren't moms and then mom like they don't work.”

The “new normal” hasn’t just affected working habits, Roy says, it has also changed what clients need from PR professionals. “I think media relations and influencer marketing were more important than ever because people were living online and spending so much time on their devices.”

Roy also discusses her agency’s CAMP3 initiative, a complimentary PR boot camp for students. Going against the image of the fashion and beauty industry as a cutthroat environment, she tells Simon that CAMP3 is just one way that AMP3 focuses on “building each other up, supporting each other and kind of diffusing the competitiveness that can come with agency life.”

Another agency initiative, AMP3 Impact, encourages clients to prioritize such “elements of impact” as sustainability, gender equality, racial equality and environmental issues. “What we're trying to do,” Roy says, “is help our clients to work towards as many of those goals as possible.”

She also stresses that giving back needs to become a central part of an agency’s mission. “I think the consumer really demands that brands have transparency and that they're doing their part to make the world a better place,” she says.

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D S Simon Media helps clients get their stories on television through satellite media tours and by producing and distributing content to the media. The company also produces live social media events.