“Learn to accept “nos” without considering them as dead-ends. As a PR expert, hearing “no” is a part of my routine. However, accepting those “nos” and making them stop me from getting where I need to get, is not an option.” – Katerina Antonova

Founder@ Interview

With Katerina Antonova

“Learn to accept “nos” without considering them as dead-ends. As a PR expert, hearing “no” is a part of my routine. However, accepting those “nos” and making them stop me from getting where I need to get, is not an option.” – Katerina Antonova

Today we feature Katerina Antonova, the founder at Aeris PR. We hear their story in their own words, their successes, their challenges and their insights.

Let’s start by getting to know you. Can you please tell us a little bit about you and what you do?

I am a public relations specialist with over 10 years of experience in the communications industry. I am also the founder and CEO of Aeris PR agency, working with tech companies all over the world. My favorite life activity is connecting people 🙂

A great introduction and start to this interview. Can you please tell us, how did you start, from what age, and what made you decide to change direction and start?

Since high school, I knew that my life would be connected with communication with people, marketing, and sales. Since finding a common language with almost everybody is quite easy for me, I can listen to people and be convincing to them. Generally, I have always been quite active and outgoing. I have been working in public relations since my early years at the university.

After getting a master’s degree in PR, I was hired by a cool Russian fintech startup and stayed with them for over 5 years. Afterward, I continued my work with tech startups as an independent PR consultant and, later on, joined an international PR agency. In addition to it, I was also engaged in business development and went to many international conferences in cities like New York, Las Vegas, and Amsterdam. After a while, I decided it was time for a new chapter. So I started Aeris PR agency!

Thank you for that insight. So can you tell us…What does your business do and where is your company based?

Aeris PR is based in San Francisco and helps tech companies and VC funds from Europe, MENA, and the US to develop brand awareness and increase visibility in global and regional media. We are a small distributed team of experienced PR executives, copywriters, and content creators.

What’s the story behind your success? What led to your aha moment? how did you get to where you are now?

Launching my business was probably the most important and life-changing step in my personal story. Up to that point, I believed that entrepreneurship was not a woman’s business and that I could hardly succeed. In my social network, there were hardly any examples of successful companies created by women. As soon as I left the office job and started working as a freelance PR consultant, fundamental changes started happening in my life.

In parallel, I got a divorce. So I became a digital nomad and traveled the world, while remotely building communications and PR services for several clients. Reading books that I had never considered before, changing environments, and meeting new people that I couldn’t have met while staying in one place, influenced my worldview a lot. All of this reformed the system that I had lived in previously. In the end, it cut off my limiting beliefs. So I launched my own business. After that, I asked myself only one question: “Why didn’t I do this before?” It turned out that being an entrepreneur and relishing the level of freedom and responsibility it provides, is what I always really wanted. And actually, now almost all of my friends and the girls I know are entrepreneurs!

Thank you for sharing that. What’s been your life’s biggest lesson so far?

Attitude first. Skills can be developed, and knowledge acquired, but primarily it’s a person’s character that gives rise to our own beliefs, that supports the will to live and to overcome, and the will to change. Having and taking care of an open mind can do any number of wonders to your life if you know how to handle these mental mechanisms. Believe me, it is as important for you as a business person and as a human being. For a certain period in my professional life, I took failures personally. I experienced the blurring of the distinctions between work issues and a sense of myself as a person.

Since I started to sufficiently differentiate between the working side of my life and who I am in general, I have begun to take it easier when someone criticizes my performance. The opinions of others about me is not really me, and my self-esteem does not depend solely on professional success. This understanding saves me a lot of stress and mental health issues. It is impossible to grow without failures, and in our work, we very often hear “nos”. That’s just the nature of communications. It is important to learn not to take it personally, not to give up, and to develop creativity and ingenuity.

Now I understand that I could have started my entrepreneurship journey earlier – if only I had been confident and fearless enough. However, at the same time, I believe that had I started sooner than I did, probably I wouldn’t have had the stamina and personal qualities not to give up. My philosophy is, sort of, that we face things successfully if we’re ready for them. So sooner is not always better, even if we might assume so in retrospect.

If you were to go back in time, what piece of advice would you give to your younger self?

I am a CEO now and a mentor for female entrepreneurs. I would have made it clear to my younger self that I can do this. There was a long period in my life when I didn’t even allow myself something bigger than working for someone instead of myself, leave alone running a company. No one banged this attitude into my head on purpose, it is just the way things still are in society, unfortunately. Yes, female entrepreneurs still struggle in comparison to men, despite our great progress in business. When I decided to change things for myself, I also changed the people around me. So my new social network actually was quite supportive and I was very lucky in this regard. And I have been lucky up to now. No matter how difficult the challenges were that Aeris PR appeared to be facing from time to time, or how callous the global agenda can be, I never regret that I became an entrepreneur. I guess that it’s just in my character to be one.



We’re nearly halfway through our interview so it’s a great time to ask how does your business run. What three tools make your business run better?

Asana for task tracking, MuckRack for optimizing our journos’ database, and Grammarly to polish our texts! These tools save hundreds of hours of mine and the agency team members’ time. There goes the manual labor of PR specialists who are constantly flooded with spreadsheets, databases, calendars, and texts of all kinds.

What do you know now that you wished you had known before?

Now I understand that I could have started my entrepreneurship journey earlier – if only I had been confident and fearless enough. However, at the same time, I believe that had I started sooner than I did, probably I wouldn’t have had the stamina and personal qualities not to give up. My philosophy is, sort of, that we face things successfully if we’re ready for them. So sooner is not always better, even if we might assume so in retrospect.



What has been your greatest or proudest achievement or moment?

I consider each of our clients to be a success, to be honest. Having an opportunity to work with them and tell the world about tech innovations that they bring to the world is very rewarding. I guess my answer implies that my biggest achievement, to this day, is starting my global agency Aeris PR!

What future life goals do you want to achieve and why?

One day, I want to launch a startup that deals with mental health issues. I have already started working on its concept, but I am definitely going to spend the next few years building Aeris PR and working on my side projects that are born out of my passions. For example, I am the founder of the small members-only Womenpreneur Club, where we share experiences and support one another with other successful and ambitious women. Running the agency, contributing to several business publications, taking care of my projects, and designing a startup are already a good bunch of things to squeeze into my life! But there are more big parts of it, like personal relationships and self-development. It’s been a long time since I understood that business is not everything. Having loved ones, spending time with family, and paying attention to being more mature, sensitive, comprehending and kind are facets of my life journey that I will not sacrifice for business.

To finish our inspire questions…”We believe that sharing inspiring words can inspire others.” If there was one positive thing you would say to someone to inspire and empower them what would it be and why?

Learn to accept “nos” without considering them as dead-ends. As a PR expert, hearing “no” is a part of my routine. However, accepting those “nos” and making them stop me from getting where I need to get, is not an option.

“Thank you it has been great learning more about your founder story and Aeris PR”

To learn more about Aeris PR Visit https://aerispr.com/

Find on social media @

https://twitter.com/kate_tonova
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ekaterinaantonova/

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