Bobbie Wasserman
I started out in more of a marketing realm, but enjoyed the communications aspect of that. I worked with large international PR firms, worked in-house as a PR executive, and had my own PR agency. What I do as a communications executive is really take complex issues and simplify it for people. It helps with transparency, it helps with understanding what you're getting, whether it's a product or a service. It helps with corporate reputation. There are a lot of companies that actually want to do good and want to do well in the process, and I help them navigate the business fields that they're in. When I bought my house in Los Angeles, I had some unexpected issues that put me into dealing with the city, dealing with contractors, dealing with all these different entities, but there wasn't really anyone that could help me with the entire system. There was nothing in place that I could prioritize. That's something I had to figure out on my own. Part of the problem with the house had to do with a road condition above the home, because I lived in the hills. Through my efforts working with the city and giving the story to the LA Times, we were able to change a law that helped 274 residential streets get repaved. The law was over 80 years old, and we were finally able to sunset it due to the issue with my home. It became bigger than me, which helped me keep going through all that. That experience helped me shift the company. First, I looked at women homeowners, because some of the issues I was going through with my home and being treated differently, which you can't really put your finger on as a woman, but you know it's there. Helping women homeowners, a lot of it had to do with confidence and socialization and how we're raised, which actually came down to confidence. Then I broadened it to the Home Ownership Collective because of the fires in Los Angeles, and everyone was having problems. I felt like the women were the canary in the coal mine, and then when the fires hit, everyone's having really the same problem. It was really, how do you talk to professionals with some knowledge so you don't get taken advantage of, and that you get the answer you need.
• BA in Economics from UCLA
• MBA in Finance from USC
What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
Number one, I would help. Number two, I would just kind of give her the lay of the land. There's things that you can look back at after decades of work and just say, oh gosh, I wish I would have known that earlier. The world is changing, but I think basic structures are in place that you still have to navigate successfully. One thing, too, that I find with younger people or younger professionals is they don't have the context of why. If you have a context of why you're doing something, or why something is important, you will do a better job, because you'll have a better understanding of the whole picture. That's, when I've managed people, and when I had my firm, that basically was kind of the direction that I would give people.
Locations
TheHomeownershipCollective
Santa Monica, CA