Growing up in Queens gave Cindy Rakowitz what she calls her fast-paced “New York sensibility.” And it’s a sensibility that’s given her an edge as she’s worked her way up through public relations industry.
In her new position as the senior vice president and general manager of New York-based 5W Public Relations, she sometimes works from 6 a.m. until late at night on high-level lifestyle, tech, and integrated media accounts.
“When you come from Queens, you have parents that have a working mentality,” she said. “So many of them come to America for the American dream. My father had me working when I was 5. We were all babysitting by the time we were 10. I am definitely a do-it person.” She jumped a number of grades, not because she was a genius, but because she worked hard.
After graduating from Queens College CUNY at 19, she took a typing position at a local television station. “I was a little aggressive at Channel 9,” she remembered. Within her first week on the job, she marched into the boss’s office and told him, “I don’t want to be an assistant for long.” She quickly moved her way up to the publicity department.
When Rakowitz left the business environment on maternity leave, she found that she couldn’t wait to get back. When she got a call about a position opening up at Playboy magazine, she got a nanny and went back to work.
At Playboy, her work ethic eventually drew the attention of Hugh Hefner. “He was like, ‘Who is this girl in New York who keeps getting the New York Times articles?” she said. Rakowitz was promoted to vice president of the company’s public relations and marketing division, managing a staff of 53 and directing the company’s marketing, advertising and online divisions. She was the official spokesperson for the brand and reported directly to Hefner and his daughter Christine, now the CEO of the company.
Part of the job also meant moving to Los Angeles, where she noticed a different environment. “Everyone here wasn’t walking around ready to have a heart attack,” she said.
But that didn’t mean she slowed down. “I brought that New York sensibility to L.A.”
The most challenging part of the job was marketing Playboy as a men’s magazine as opposed to a skin magazine, she said: “Penthouse was 80 percent pictorial and 20 percent editorial. We were the opposite of that.”
In order to do that, she created events where subjects of the famous Playboy interviews spoke about important issues.
But after 15 years at Playboy she opted for a change of pace.
In 2001, she started her own L.A.-based media and entertainment company called RNR Entertainment Inc. Her first client was Patron Tequila. “The Playboy job gave me a lot of leverage in the industry,” she said.
Recently she got the call about a job at 5W and jumped at the opportunity to run the L.A. office, which manages about 20 active clients.
She hosts a live weekly radio broadcast called the Stars of PR on VoiceAmerica Internet Radio, which discusses issues related to the public relations field.
Rakowitz is married. She lives Agoura Hills, but spends the week in corporate housing near her L.A. office to cut her commuting time. Her daughter goes to the University of California, Santa Cruz.
