Tara Comes
Listen to the interview (approx. 40 min.) or download it.
Graduated in 2012 with a major in Music Business. Principal instrument: voice.
Position: Account Manager at the NYC branch office of P.I. Global, a branding and visual agency that helps companies establish and promote brands for products, providing both the strategies and the imagery to use. Tara “wears many hats” at this relatively small agency, communicating with clients, handling administrative details, reviewing strategies and design work and representing the clients’ perspective during meetings with her own company’s creative/design people.
Overview: While at Berklee, Tara worked for Cornerstone Agency, a company that promote artists and helps them build their brands. She worked on street teams and did online campaigns, including during her intenership with them in New York. After her internship, Tara found herself very interested in branding, and sought a career in that. Reaching out to a recruiter, she got a position at a company that designed and built props and displays for liquor companies, working mostly on the production end. After a couple of years, she was ready to move on to a job with more creativity and opportunity. She applied to many companies, and in relatively short time got a job with P.I. Global as a business development coordinator, doing a lot of market/client research. But as part of Tara’s job she supported the Account Management Team, so when 1.5 years later a senior person on that team left Tara was promoted into that role.
You can see Tara’s LinkedIn profile here.
Choice Quotes: “The way P.I. does branding is similar to music in some ways. I’t’s understanding the DNA of an emotion and what you want to communicate from an emotional perspective and how to bring that to life from a communicative perspective. You become a storyteller, bringing something new to the world. It’s gratifying when consumers gravitate to that. There’s an intimacy to that–understanding the market and being in tune to the ever-evolving world that we live in. I really enjoy it.”
“Something the Berklee community has is openness and a different kind of sensory understanding of our surroundings. This helped me perceive consumer behavior in a different way. take a step back, listen to something or see it or have an idea in mind, and create a sensory for it and create a world that people will understand.”
“A lot of people think they understand how to communciate a brand and brand themselves as artists, but until I worked at PI I never understood the DNA of waht it meant to do that properly.”
“If you want to be an account manager, you have to be very good with people. Know that even when you’re right, the client is always going to have to be right. Understand when to push back, when to not. It’s really a job where you have to understand behavior patterns and people and have the stamina to be involved in very difficult situations.”
“Be grateful for the Berklee community. Use the community and keep those friends you make at Berklee close. There’s a bond you’ll always have, so cherish that.”
See the full index of successful Berklee alumni.