Ioana Niculae – Ciucurean (FRF) – The story of the woman managing the brand of a male-dominated industry

business-review.eu

Niculae image from interview

With more than seven years’ worth of experience in advertising and communication, in agencies such as Ogilvy & Mather, Saatchi & Saatchi, Cohn and Jansen JWT and fundraiser for “Let’s Do It Romania”, Iulia Niculae – Cuciurean became marketing manager for the Romanian Football Federation in 2016.

Excerpt:

What determined you to choose this professional path? Have you always known you want to work in the communication industry?

When I was 13 years old, I had the first insights that I would like to work in this industry. At that time, my school colleagues elected me to represent them in the Children Council for a 2 years mandate. This was a project initiated by Master Forum and such children councils were established all around Romania and Europe. There, I discovered my passions for volunteering, political science and communication. And these passions followed me through my career. When I was 20, I decided to study Political Science at the University and, in parallel, I was working in advertising and volunteering for NGOs such as Advice Students or IAA YP.

After I graduated the master in European Studies, I chose to focus on political science. Thus, I quit my job in the agency and I obtained an internship at the Foreign Affairs Ministry, in the public diplomacy [JB emphasis] division. Public diplomacy was the perfect combination between political science and marcomm practices. Unfortunately, at that moment, public diplomacy was a relatively new subject in Romania and often it was reduced to institutional communication, so I decided to dedicate myself to marcomm [JB- marketing communication] and returned to the private sector. ...