Alumni Spotlight: Sarah Maguire ‘13

Meet our December Alumni Spotlight: Sarah Maguire ‘13, founder and owner of the PR consulting firm Sarah Maguire PR. Sarah is an innovative brand-builder, with a focus on meaningful storytelling in the food and beverage space, working with brands such as Partake Foods, MOSH, Haven’s Kitchen, Lupii and Taika. Learn more about Sarah’s career, how to work with her, and her favorite spots in New York in our spotlight below.

What neighborhood do you live in NYC? Nolita!?

Favorite place in NYC? This is so hard as I really do love my own neighborhood along with the East Village, but hands-down my favorite place is Left Bank in the West Village as the most charming place for happy hour drinks and memorable meals. You can’t go wrong with a cosmo, the cacio e pepe and maple pie from here!?

?What did you do immediately post-grad? I was the last of my friends to land a real-world job, so I always tell new grads to embrace that summer after graduation as much as they can since you never get that time back! I started off as a six-month Public Relations Associate at Outcast Agency, working on a mix of consumer and tech brands. I learned the ins and outs of being at a PR agency while living for the first time ever in NYC and exploring the city as much as I could!?

What do you do now??I started my own PR consulting firm Sarah Maguire PR in May, focusing on meaningful brand storytelling in the food and beverage CPG startup space. So far I’ve gotten to work with amazing brands including Partake Foods, MOSH, Haven’s Kitchen, Lupii and Taika.?

What’s your best advice for someone who wants do PR in NYC? Immerse yourself as much as you can by keeping up with media moves and reading constantly, but also going to events and networking so that you can be the person ~in the know~ since that is such a valuable asset to have.

While people say it is who you know in PR, it is really more about consistently making new connections and being a reliable, nice human at the end of the day because PR can be such a stressful job.?

What’s your advice for navigating a career in PR and communications? It took me a while to realize that I could make my passion of eating and drinking into a full-time career, so I would encourage you to explore what type of clients or industries you enjoy and hone in on it since there are so many PR roles out there. Put in the hard work and take every job opportunity you can because sometimes it really is learning what you don’t like to do to figure out what you do like doing.?

Did the Elon network help along the way? If so, what was most impactful? I did a lot of cold outreach via LinkedIn messaging early in my career, so I am so thankful for all the alumni who took those informational interviews and calls with me. It is amazing the power and reach of Elon, especially as I grew in the PR world and saw so many journalists along with agency folks that all came from Elon where we could instantly bond over our education and college memories. At Jennifer Bett Communications (JBC) where I was a director level, I was pleasantly surprised to find out that they hired the majority of interns from Elon because they had the best interns come from the Comms School progam with several full-time Elon employees there!?

Are you hiring? If so, where can alumni apply? I am not currently hiring right now, but open to working with the talented Elon community for any junior-level support as I continue to grow my business and would love to hire an alumni!?

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