We at PRNEWS.IO are dedicated to celebrating women in PR through our project, Her PR Journey. Today, we’re excited to introduce Kateryna Doroshevska, an entrepreneur and the founder & CEO of BECOME PR agency, which helps business leaders and top managers enhance their personal brands on both Ukrainian and international markets.
Join us as Kateryna details her journey of founding the BECOME PR agency, navigating the challenges of wartime, and the strategies she used to help her clients become leaders in their industries.
Could you please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and expertise?
My name is Kateryna Doroshevska, founder of the BECOME PR agency and non-profit project UA Business Global. I have been working in communications and PR for over 15 years. For the past four years, I’ve been focusing on helping business leaders and top managers build trust and increase the visibility of their personal brands both in Ukraine and internationally.
I am also an expert and mentor in a variety of projects, including Diia.Business and PRJCTR, and a member of the WCFA World Communication Forum Association. Our team worked with UNDP projects, Ukrsibbank, Kyivstar TV, Megogo, and Galia Baluvana, and I also dedicate 100 hours each year to pro bono consulting for small and micro businesses. In 2023, the BECOME PR agency team developed 33 personal branding strategies for founders and C-level; five of them were recognized in Forbes.
What inspired you to create BECOME, and what are its primary goals?
Before the full-scale war, my boutique PR agency had 6–8 clients, and we also organized the largest offline event for Ukrainian brands in Dnipro every month. On February 24th, when the full-scale war came to Ukraine, business collapsed.
Ukrainian entrepreneurs experienced weeks of frustration, confusion, and uncertainty about the future. Essentially, we all found ourselves back at square one. However, it quickly became clear that something had to be done. I decided to focus on what I knew best — entrepreneurs and entrepreneurship. This marked the beginning of my revival as a leader.
Despite the stopped operations, the lack of clients, and general uncertainty, I decided to stick to my big idea, helping Ukrainian entrepreneurs grow and expand their businesses. So, I founded the NGO UA business Global, which brought together 2,000 Ukrainian entrepreneurs and started a new life. Leadership in this community transformed my own business as well: we evolved into the BECOME PR agency, focused on personal branding, and started working with clients from Ukraine, Australia, Germany, Belgium, Switzerland, the UK, Portugal, Spain, and other countries. The war was not just a challenge for my business; it provided a powerful boost to all processes.
Today, BECOME focuses on two main areas: B2B communications and personal branding for business leaders. Over the past two years, we have tripled in team size, projects, and revenue, and have accumulated so much niche expertise that we are confidently moving towards becoming top-of-mind in personal branding for businesses in Ukraine.
Why do you believe an effective PR and personal branding strategy is key to the success of companies in the current environment?
Customers buy from those they trust. The world literally revolves around trust. According to a PwC survey, building trust directly impacts sales: 91% of respondents buy from companies they trust, and 73% stop buying products and services if that trust is broken. Today, trust is the most valuable currency. PR and personal branding are precisely aimed at cultivating and strengthening trust.
What are the main components of a successful PR and personal branding strategy that you typically advise your clients?
That’s quite a complex question, but I’ll try to answer it briefly. First, we need to define our strategic goals: do we want to set trends, influence people and industries, boost sales, or perhaps be a magnet for talent? This is also where we set the KPIs to measure the success of our PR efforts.
Next, analyze the target audience. For business leaders and executives, thoughtful public communication is a two-way street. On one side, there’s the leader and their narratives. On the other hand, the audience and its informational needs. Effective communication arises when these two directions align.
The next stage is creating a message box. Typically, this is a limited number of the most important messages relevant to your personality. These are the narratives we will communicate to the audience. What do you believe in? What are your personal values? What stories do you want to share with the community?
Once we’ve determined the messages, it’s important to work on positioning. In digital, this includes refreshing social media, your profile’s photos and videos, and search results on Google. Offline, it might be updating your personal image or your elevator pitch.
Now it’s time to develop a content strategy. At a minimum, this includes posts on personal social media, interviews or columns for the media, and participation as a speaker at conferences, forums, and podcasts. The quantity, proportions, and specific channels are determined according to the goal and target audience.
Working for public visibility requires not only time but also professional skills. Here’s the kind of team you’ll need: PR strategists and communication advisors help create the system, monitor how it works, adjust the strategy, and even manage the team and contractors. Ghostwriters will help turn your thoughts into text (posts, articles for media, or books). PR professionals will arrange your interviews with journalists or your speaking engagements at conferences. Producers will handle the creation and promotion of your own media projects, such as a podcast or YouTube project.
Could you please provide a few examples of successful PR and personal branding cases from your clients?
In fact, there are numerous proven success stories. Our clients are featured in Forbes, participate as speakers at national and international conferences, grow their social media followers, and build meaningful connections with their audience. In the last quarter, the content prepared by our team reached almost 2 million people.
One of the recent examples is a collaboration with Oleksandr Mykolaienko, co-founder and CEO of Tallium, who grew the company from zero to 100 people and entered markets in 16 countries. We developed and implemented a personal branding strategy for Oleks: social media and media publications, participation in Forbes Tech Council, mentoring on the GrowthMentor platform, participating in two leadership podcasts, and 6 articles in HackerNoon, Forbes Tech Council, and European Business Magazine.
How do you assess the representation of women in the PR and communications industry in Ukraine? Do you experience any gender-related challenges in your work?
In Ukraine, most PR professionals are women. According to a survey conducted by the communication analysis platform Looqme, 86% of respondents are women. Additionally, most PR specialists are young people aged 25 to 35. In BECOME, we also have an all-women team, where everyone brings a unique blend of talent and expertise.
What advice would you give to young women who want to build a career in PR and communications?
My main advice is to strengthen your network. It’s a foundation that will help you in various work situations.
The next one is to start today from where you are now. If you’re studying at a university, promote a university project. If you’re volunteering, promote your volunteer initiatives. This way, you’ll gain experience.
Try yourself in different types of PR: reputation management, crisis communications, CSR, GR, event management, speechwriting, and marketing communications. There’s plenty of room to explore.
How important are articles in media for effectively promoting the brand of a company or an individual? How do you work on this aspect?
Articles in the media work in several directions. Publications in reputable popular media are one of the best ways to showcase our clients’ expertise. They help shape search engine results about the business leader. It’s a powerful trust point: such publications are like external validation, confirming that the person can be trusted. And, of course, they provide access to new audiences.
How do you choose media channels for placing content about your clients? What do you focus on when making these decisions?
It all starts with analyzing the goal and target audience. We need to understand what we want to achieve and who we are targeting. Then we consider the reputation and brand of the media, the relevance of our client to the media’s concept and direction, reach, and geography.
What are the biggest challenges companies face when building and maintaining a strong brand identity?
Many believe they can start building a personal brand on the fly, but it doesn’t work. Lack of a comprehensive strategy is like moving blindly in a dark space, completely unaware of what’s happening. In PR and communications, this results in chaos — unthought, inconsistent, and uncoordinated communication.
How can companies measure the success of their PR and branding efforts?
Companies can assess the success of their communications using the AMEC framework. This framework suggests considering specific organizational and communication objectives that should mirror the organizational ones. The system recommends evaluating:
- Outtakes, which refer to the response and reactions of your target audiences to the PR activities;
- Outcomes, including the attitude of the target audience, increased trust, online advocacy or preference, and boosting the intention to start a trial, subscribe, or register;
- Outputs, which refer to key measures across PESO (the reach of paid advertising, website visits, media coverage, posts, tweets, retweets, etc.);
- Impact, such as improvements in reputation and relationships, increased sales or donations, changes in policy, or enhanced social change. This is an excellent illustration of a business outcome and how it relates to organizational goals.
How do you see the future of PR and branding evolving, especially with the rise of AI and new technologies?
Year by year, a human touch in communication is becoming more valuable. New technologies and AI let us automate routine steps in many processes and make the core ones faster and more effective. In PR, as in other industries, we are also likely to see prompt engineers and other similar roles. And to be honest, it’s a win-win for everyone involved. AI frees us up to focus on what really matters: building connections and telling stories.
