Roxy Jacenko and husband Oliver Curtis launch new PR business venture targeting China
High-profile public relations practitioner Roxy Jacenko is launching a new business, 18 Communications, targeting Australian companies which want to raise their profile in the hard-to-crack Chinese market.
The owner of Sweaty Betty PR is going into business with her husband, Oliver Curtis, who was released from Cooma Correctional Centre 18 months ago after serving time for insider trading.
Due to Curtis’ conviction, he is disqualified from managing corporations until June 2022. He will be 18 Communications’ chief operating officer, and told The Daily Telegraph this weekend it’s all above board.
“I haven’t been banned to work. It’s just simply being a director,” he told the News Corp publication.
Jacenko said she was good at counting the money anyway, and that the reunited couple form a “deadly duo”.
“It’s taken some adjusting for both of us, but there is no doubt we are a deadly duo with his back-end and strategic ability mixed with my my creative comms ability, and I am very excited to see the business evolve even further.”
18 Communications will aim to help Aussie businesses build a presence with the Australian-Chinese community, and then launch into mainland China
Jacenko founded Sweaty Betty PR in 2004 and is a staple of Sydney’s tabloid and gossip columns. She also placed third on the third season of Celebrity Apprentice Australia.
Sweaty Betty PR works with food, retail and fashion clients including Chargrill Charlie’s, Pierre Haddad Hair and L’Occitaine.
Let’s hope for all our sakes they have to move there too.
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Nothing says “I know China” than two privileged white founders and a handful of cringe-worthy hashtags. Just because you read The Art of War and watched Crazy Rich Asians doesn’t make you an expert on the Chinese.
If you’re a brand who seeks to crack the Australian-Chinese market, you’re better off with a PR firm who understands the Chinese and the diaspora, rather than an ex-con and a Sydney socialite.
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Good luck to Oliver getting a visa for China!
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Ha ha Jo indeed.
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Tough to see Curtis getting through big procurement departments being disqualified from managing companies.
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Success in China requires much more than the combined IQ of these two empty suits.
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Tall poppy syndrome is alive and kicking. Best of luck to them
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When no one else will employ you, you start a company catering to a market where they have limited Western news coverage in the hope no one will know you’re #dodgy.
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Oh my god Nick. This made me HOWL with laughter. Nailed it.
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“Jacenko said she was good at counting the money anyway..”
Clearly he wasn’t.
It would be funny if insider trading wasn’t such a crime.
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Not to mention the only reference to their China expertise are hashtags for Weibo, Wechat and… Mao’s Red Book?
C’mon.
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This. One hundred per cent this.
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At least they’ve got the right idea with their Chinese numerology…
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Not sure the ill thought out proposition of this business would be helpful to anyone trying to crack the China market. Equally bemused why this duo don’t just get on with life and disappear into obscurity. If I were old Oliver, I’d much rather a job filling shelves at Bunnings than the embarrassment that comes with putting my noggin on these press releases in an ill thought out PR strategy… (whoops do they do PR strategies?)
Nothing beyond preying on the local Chinese who don’t consume mainstream Australian media and know who this crook and his associate are…..
How do they know anything about China though people ask?Depends who you’ve shared a prison cell with.
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Some time back a CEO, who’s company had operated in China for several years, was quoted as saying, “China is a country of limitless opportunities for profitless endeavor.”
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At face value “my wife will handle the money and my title doesn’t have the word manager in it” seems like a pretty feeble attempt to circumvent Curtis’ ban from managing corporations.
I wonder if ASIC will have anything to say about it?
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Doesn’t matter who they are, there will always be jealous people that hate on them and have something negative to say. At least he works and so does she. I’m completely sure that everyone that has commented has made a mistake in their life. Its laughable that people think they are better, let’s make your life public see what skeletons you have in your closest and get people to message you each day and say awful things about how shit you are.
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Clients would get better return soaking $100 dollar bills in soy sauce and lobbing them in a sizzling pan that retaining these two dipshits. If you a. Don’t speak the language b. Aren’t based in a China, then you have as much chance of getting any skerrick of PR than the Tibetans have of getting their land back.
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