Having promoted clients ranging from “The Green Goddess” Diana Moran to a Norwegian fish farm, managing director of Troncossi Public Relations Liz Tee has had her fair share of challenging clients.

Opened in the summer of 2000, Troncossi Public Relations (Troncossi) was one of the very first local PR agencies to help introduce corporate communications into Bermuda.

According to Ms Tee, PR as a career choice has now become more popular than Law or Medicine and in the age of accountability PR specialists are more in demand than ever.

Ms Tee realised her PR calling from an early age. As a 16-year-old student in England, she was involved with the Young Enterprise Scheme and elected marketing director for her company. She was charged with researching the company's product and approaching stores to sell it. “It was in my genes from early on,” she said.

She also organised her school's graduation party when she was 17. “People said it was well organised and that I should do that for a career,” she said.

While studying for her classics degree in the US, Ms Tee did an internship in London in the early 1990s where she worked with Diana Moran, “The Green Goddess,” a workout personality who was always dressed in a green leotard.

Ms Tee organised her appearance on health shows, for radio interviews, store openings and so on.

Degree finished, Ms Tee went to London to search for a job, and after literally hundreds of interviews, was hired to work on the Westminster Initiative.

This was an environmental programme within the city of Westminster that encouraged hotels, theatres and businesses to recycle and be environmentally friendly.

After many diversified PR jobs, ranging from financial services to promoting a Norwegian fish farm, Ms Tee decided to return home to Bermuda in 1998 where she filled a new position at the Bank of Bermuda in what she believes was the first ever PR job created on the Island.

Ms Tee said: “When I decided to move back to Bermuda, I thought I would have to change my career, but the timing was very lucky.”

Ms Tee left the bank in August 2000 to set up Troncossi Public Relations which now offers a host of services including media relations, crisis management, conference and exhibition support, collateral material development, event planning, internal communications, media training, promotions, speaking opportunities, sponsorship guidelines and viral communications.

Ms Tee specialises in media relations and crisis management and said while some companies think they have good media relations, they do not.

“In these difficult economic times, companies need to communicate more, not less,” said Ms Tee.

She said her job was to help companies form a better relationship with the media and said: “One of the challenges is getting clients to understand that the media can be an ally. There is a really unfortunate mindset in Bermuda that I didn't experience in London where there are hundreds of thousands of publications. People need the media, they use it every day to extract information. Companies need to understand that they should work with that.”

And Ms Tee added that some companies were gradually understanding this message. “What we have found since we have been in operation is that companies we work with tend to shift their advertising budget to include more PR.”

She added: “In other parts of the world such as Europe and North America, PR is very prevalent and very necessary.”

She said nowadays companies need to have a dedicated PR professional whether they are in house or outsourced. “The customer and the shareholder want to know more and they want to know it faster” she said.

Technology was also a vital tool in the trade as information can be sent by e-mail, on the web or through the media, added Ms Tee.

Concerning crisis management, Ms Tee said: “When companies have something difficult going on, the last thing they can think about is the media.”

However, she said the media was the fastest way to get a message out to shareholders or clients which could be followed up with a letter. “It is quick and cost effective,” said Ms Tee.

Internal communications is another fast growing area as Intranets become more common in the workplace. Ms Tee says that employees of a company should know about something before they hear it from the media.

As an example, Ms Tee said for one of her large clients she had organised a monthly meeting where employees could talk with the general manager to air grievances, talk about ideas and generally keep in touch with what was going on in the organisation.

Another growing niche for Troncossi was “viral communication,” which Ms Tee explained was educating a small group about a new product or service which was then spread through word of mouth. “This is particularly useful in a small community,” said Ms Tee.

Ms Tee said PR is experiencing rapid growth on the Island and added: “I've certainly seen a lot of interest in the two years I've been running. There are now four companies which is a testament to the growth.”

Troncossi is also growing to keep up with demand and Natalie Grimes joined Troncossi as senior account executive at the beginning of this year. Ms Grimes has spent three years in PR and Press office roles, most recently for the Central Office of Information, similar to Bermuda's Government Information Services, in Wales, in the UK.

Troncossi clients include Bermuda CableVision, Cable & Wireless, Emerald Financial, Ignition, the Institute of Directors, Paragon, Phoenix stores and private clients.