The accidental entrepreneur

2014 has been an exciting year of adventures and growth for urban espresso. When I started urban espresso, would would focus on PR, I was confident in my PR skills and expertise. Starting and managing a business – not so much. Early in 2014 I started seeing a business coach, Brent Spilkin (affectionately known as @spillly) to guide me in the principles of running a business. The extent of which urban espresso has flourished because of Brent’s guidance and expertise in business management is something that astounds me every day. The business coaching Brent runs is aptly called “Growing Pains” which aims to work alongside new (and established) business owners and entrepreneurs.

Brent recently profiled me, along with some of his other Growing Pains clients. Check it out.

The Accidental Entrepreneur | Gabriella Brondani #ProudProfile

The Accidental Entrepreneur | Gabriella Brondani #ProudProfile

Gabriella Brondani, affectionately known as “Gabbi” to her friends, colleagues and clients, never set out for a career in PR, let alone starting up and running her own business in the PR space. She landed in PR purely by accident. Her idea was to finish high school and get into advertising or law. As would happen, things don’t always go according to plan, and by chance, she landed up in public relations. As Gabbi puts it, PR is everything she never knew she ever wanted to do. Her love of writing, interacting with people, building relationships, and finding creative solutions to building brand reputation and conveying key messages, were a bonus when “landing” in the field.

When she isn’t running outdoors or running in heels, she’s running things at her boutique PR agency, Urban Espresso, which specialises in travel, lifestyle, entertainment and corporate PR. She works with well-known and high-profile brands, as well as with entrepreneurs and start-up companies, in managing their PR strategy while incorporating a dynamic approach to the traditional forms of PR. Her idea is to put a fresh spin on how PR is typically practiced, to impress the pants off of her clients (and the PR skeptics.)

Although she never thought of herself as an entrepreneur, and never imagined that she’d one day be running her own business, Gabbi can’t imagine her career having gone any other way. Being an entrepreneur (albeit “accidentally”) has challenged her in the most creative and unusual ways; has taught her many things about herself; and has up skilled her in ways she never thought possible.

Amidst embracing the adventures, stress and excitement that comes along with being an accidental entrepreneur, she enjoys taking the time to write on a topic that she is immensely passionate about: travel. She is a regular travel writer and contributor for Tripadvisor and Bizcommunity’s travel section.

According to Tripadvisor, she has travelled 125 190km’s across the globe, which equates to having seen 5% of the world. Some of her favourite memories contained in that 5% are: walking through the ruins in Pompeii, hiking to the top of Mount Vesuvius (which is what sparked her fascination with volcanos,) watching the sunset on the steps of Piazzale Michelangelo in Florence, and snowboarding in the French Alps. Gabbi travels for business, she travels for leisure, but most of all, she travels for the fun of it and for the memories that come along with it. The idea that “you should take vacations and travel the world – because you can always make money, you can’t always make memories” is something that has stuck with Gabbi.

Her typically-sounding Italian surname doesn’t allow much room for people to realise that she is also Lebanese. A belly dancing mafia, of sorts (with no connection to the actual mafia.)