Katie Dunsworth-Reiach is a journalist by trade, but her desire to stay in Vancouver led her to pursue another type of media.
“It kind of came down to a dollars-and-cents thing, and I wanted to stay in Vancouver so I took a marketing-assistance job,” said Dunsworth-Reiach.
She graduated from the British Columbia Institute of Technology’s broadcast-journalism program in 2002, but found a job at 1-800-GOT-JUNK?, where she was introduced to public relations – a career for which she developed a passion.
When Dunsworth-Reiach arrived at the junk-removal company she was one of the first people to start publicizing it and went on to run its public-relations department, where she oversaw six employees.
“They’re a really great company in that they’re great at recognizing young ambition and rewarding that,” she said.
In 2007, she led her team to win a Stevie Award for best corporate communications team, and that same year founded Spark PR & Publicity.
Spark’s 2008 revenue totalled more than $183,000.
Also in 2007, Dunsworth-Reiach co-founded her second company, the Smart Cookies.
“It was me and four friends who were just not great with money, and we decided that instead of starting a book club we would start a money club,” she explained.
Inspired by an episode of the Oprah Winfrey Show, the company founders managed to pay off $50,000 of their own debt within a year and have been mentoring women about money ever since.
Since then, the Smart Cookies has published a book and signed a two-year deal for a TV series with W Network, and the founders have appeared on Oprah.
Through it all, though, Dunsworth-Reiach said she measures her success not by her wallet but by her watch.
“Success in my eyes is having the time to travel and be with my family and friends.” •
