WILDGEESE: EMIGRANT BUSINESS LEADERS ON OPPORTUNITIES ABROAD:Lorna Donohoe, Senior vice-president of global strategic marketing, Playboy Enterprises
“ON MY second or third day on the job, I was at the Playboy Mansion,” says Lorna Donohoe, a Dubliner who is now the marketing linchpin of the burgeoning empire of Playboy Enterprises.
The visit wasn’t a costume fitting or a tutorial in the bunny dip, it was the beginning of her 10-year corporate career with the media and lifestyle company which last year saw her promoted to the role of senior vice-president of global strategic marketing.
Leaving school in Ireland in the early 1990s, things weren’t rosy. “There were no jobs, well a couple of government jobs, but that was it,” says the Clondalkin girl.
While studying languages and business at DIT Kevin Street, Donohoe went to Germany for a year and never came back.
“I applied for a US green card. When I got it, I thought ‘I’ll go for six months and come back and finish school.’”
That was 15 years ago.
With ambitions to be a writer while at college, Donohoe had a bent towards publishing and, landing in New York aged 24, she pitched straight to the top, sending a speculative CV to high-end publisher Condé Nast.
“I got called for interview to be a temp and was asked if wanted to temp in the chief executive’s office,” recalls Donohoe. “I went to meet him and he hired me full-time. That was kind of my first job in the US so it was totally landing on my feet.”
The "him" was Steve Florio, who oversaw titles such as Vogue, Vanity Fair, Condé Nast Traveller, Wiredand the New Yorker,which together drew more than 70 million readers a month.
“I was at the bottom, but at the top,” jokes Donohoe.
Aimed at wealthy consumers of luxury goods, Condé Nast thrived on selling expensive advertising for expensive products. Donohoe admits it was a glossy life with its fair share of Th e Devil Wears Pradamoments.
“I worked there at the same time that the lady wrote the book – I can beat all her stories!” she says. “The office was exactly like it was in the movie. I think people were very surprised that I had been hired. Usually when you get those positions, you’re related to someone or you’re part of New York society.”
The newbie soon became a native New Yorker. “I loved it. It was right at the time of Sex and the City and women were really coming into their own in the workplace. All the things you see on TV were true and I was living them.”
Donohoe describes her four-year stint with Condé Nast as “like a free MBA, and then some”.
She was ready for a new challenge, however, and a friend suggested she apply for a PR opening at Playboy. "I thought, why not? I'll go along and see what they have to say."
Bagging the job, her first role was in publicity for the magazine, which she describes as “the engine of the brand”. Mixing with celebrities was par for the course.
“Cindy Crawford was one of the first people I worked with. She was so humble and lovely – we’d be on set and she’d be making sure I had water. When you work with the more A-list celebrities, most of them who are at the top of their game are really warm and not demanding at all.”
Just as Donohoe joined, Playboywas starting what she describes as a "tiny little business in licensing", beginning with a jewellery line.
Donohoe got in on the ground floor and soon her role morphed into press relations for the company’s product-licensing arm. Her language skills got her posted to Germany where she was tasked with getting the European business up and running.
She successfully capitalised on the company's brand name and rabbit-head logo, and says "licensing is now probably the biggest revenue generator in the company". The logo appears on everything from lingerie to cigars; fragrances to luggage; homewares, energy drinks and slot machines. The company's licensed products now generate more than $900 million in retail sales in 150 countries from which Playboyearns royalties.
Of course, there's also PlayboyTV and radio, licensed retail stores across Asia and Playboyclubs and casinos in the US that enable customers to "further experience the Playboylifestyle".
Donohoe describes the company’s business culture as “very progressive”. “The number of senior female executives is one of the highest of any public company. You get promoted on merit not on tenure so there’s no old boys’ club. There are no boundaries.”
And what of those who think that images of scantily clad women or in bunny costumes is far from progressive?
"Of course we disagree. Women have been and always will be objects of male desire, just as men are the objects of female desire. I think Playboyhas been instrumental in defining acceptable boundaries of sexuality. Images in Playboyare romantic, respectful and healthy."
She says the company's charitable arm, the PlayboyFoundation "has fought divorce and immigration laws onerous to women, supported the fight for equal pay and was the first and, for quite some time, only corporate giving programme to support safe and legal reproductive choice".
She says people were inevitably curious when she got the job.
“All my male friends and brothers wanted to know when they could go to the mansion and all my girlfriends wanted to know if I’d met Hef.”
Of course she has. She describes Hugh Hefner, the company’s founder “as funny, witty and intelligent . . . he makes you feel like you are the only person in the room”.
Her mother, who at first “had a little bit of trepidation” about the role has visited too. “She came out and met everybody. She’s come to my events in various countries. She’s very proud of me.”
Though now based in Los Angeles where she says there is more work/life balance than in New York, Donohoe says Ireland will always be home.
“I love my job. I work hard, but it’s a dream job. I won’t say I would do it for free in case my boss sees this, but it’s pretty great.”
