As part of the Morning Lazziness series highlighting empowering women who are making a remarkable impact with their ideas, I had the pleasure of interviewing Justine D’Addio.
Justine D’Addio is the founder and lead publicist at Hyde Park PR, a boutique firm specializing in earned media for lifestyle brands, experts, and creators. With over a decade of PR and Marketing experience, she has executed global campaigns for tech startups, indie beauty brands, influencer-backed fashion labels, CPG products, luxury boat accessories, and more. Justine is particularly passionate about products and services that improve our spaces and daily routines, which she often features in her Substack “The Hyde Out” and YouTube channel.
In this candid conversation, Justine shares her journey, insights, and the strategies that have helped her build a results-driven business—and empower other entrepreneurs to do the same.
What inspired you to start your own PR agency, and how did you get your first client?
I wasn’t born with a natural entrepreneurial spirit, so it was a combination of things that motivated me to start my own firm. The year was 2020. I had been working in PR for five years and felt stagnant in my Account Manager role at my previous agency. I was working with a tech accelerator at the time and was motivated to secure national press for their startups, but our agency’s focus was mostly local opportunities.
Another motivator was an impending move to San Francisco with my Coast Guard boyfriend (now husband). Remote work wasn’t widely accepted at the time, and I reasoned that if the relationship worked out, I would need to create a sustainable business to support our mobile lifestyle.
My first client was a referral from a marketing executive I met through the tech accelerator account at my previous agency. He introduced me to the founder of an adtech mobility startup who was looking for media visibility, and we worked together for nearly a year, securing placements in top outlets like Forbes and Business Insider. The startup has since been acquired by a robotics company in California.
What unique challenges have you faced as a woman entrepreneur in the PR world, and how did you overcome them?
The public relations industry is dominated by women, which makes the job feel like a safe space. It can get isolating as a solopreneur, but networking with brilliant PR pros online seems accessible somehow, and anyone I’ve reached out to for advice has been incredibly supportive.
Honestly, I thought breaking into the B2B tech startup space as a woman would be met with more challenges. I previously worked in-house at a beauty brand initially and then at a female-owned lifestyle PR agency, so I had only been surrounded by women business leaders for the first half of my career. As a solo PR practitioner, I signed an account with a tech company valued at $100 million and retained them for several years. It was a new experience to be a young publicist on a marketing call with all senior male executives.
Overall, I have only had positive experiences as a woman in PR; however, being an entrepreneur presents several challenges each week. One I can recall included hiring a PR contractor for a client that had an upcoming private equity investment announcement. When she had a conflict, I had to step up and execute the entire campaign alone. It all worked out in the end, and the client was very happy with the results, but hiring reliable contractors is an art in itself.
How do you stay ahead of trends in an industry that’s constantly evolving with media and technology?
I make a daily, concerted effort to read industry news and interact with relevant content that my peers are posting on LinkedIn. Following and interpreting trends has become a necessity for PR pros with recent AI advancements and media fragmentation. It can be overwhelming at first, but I’ve figured out ways to make it more fun.
That’s where my Substack, The Hyde Out, comes in, where I share real-time PR trends and media opportunities for lifestyle brands, subject matter experts, and digital creators. Publicists have to be forever students, and the Substack is a way to keep myself accountable while sharing what I’ve learned with my community.
What’s your go-to strategy for building strong, lasting relationships with clients and the press?
Personalization is the name of the game in PR, and it’s something that AI can’t replicate. For clients, I am always going above and beyond, whether it’s serving up an opportunity outside of scope or creating a custom resource for them. Unfortunately, PR is still considered a luxury arm of marketing. That means I am consistently delivering white glove service across my roster, but especially when it’s a client’s first time investing in PR services. Quality results build trust and help maintain strong client relationships. There’s just no way around that.
My media relationships are similar. All the press wants from publicists is help to do their jobs better and more efficiently. That might mean going the extra mile, packaging up a client’s assets in a particular way because I know it’s the journalist’s preference, or doing a ton of homework with my client before we even approach a contact so they have all the information upfront. Journalists want a story that fits their publication’s demographic, is on beat with their coverage, and shows you’ve been paying attention.
It’s always nice to build those relationships organically at times when you don’t necessarily need to tap into them. Simply engaging with a journalist’s work in a thoughtful way on social media can help you stand out from the crowd while also learning more about them.
Can you share a campaign or media moment you’re especially proud of—and why it stands out?
There are a few that come to mind, but I had so much fun working on beauty guru Jaclyn Hill’s DTC fashion brands a couple of years ago. It was the first influencer-led brand account I signed for my business, and it pivoted me to a whole new client direction that I’m focused on today.
My team and I were responsible for boosting brand awareness for Jaclyn’s athleisure and jewelry brands, which led to placements in The Zoe Report, Business Insider, The Hollywood Reporter, Oprah Daily, Byrdie, Fashionista, and more, generating more than 3.5K backlinks to the brand website. We also implemented an affiliate approach to their editorial strategy, which has become known as performance PR in 2025.
Which platforms or tactics have been most effective for growing your own brand visibility?
LinkedIn and Instagram have attracted the most client leads for Hyde Park PR. Posting original thoughts about industry trends or behind-the-scenes lessons in your business tends to get great engagement on LinkedIn, which has become my primary platform since that’s where most business decision makers live.
Substack, as a long-form platform, is also great because I can repurpose the trend posts and highlights from the week for social media. As a solopreneur, the only way I stay consistent is to make posting as simple as possible. I’ve found that creating a piece of long-form content as a central source helps me break it down into bite-sized versions for short-form platforms.
What role has mentorship played in your journey, and how do you pay it forward to others in the industry?
It took me entirely too long to seek out a mentor, but it was a complete eye-opener when I finally did. I think mentors and coaches can truly take your business to the next level. A few years ago, I jumped at the chance to work alongside my all-time favorite publicists when I saw her advertise for a tech publicist contractor on Twitter. I spent the next year learning from her, and I even returned earlier this year to assist on one of her lifestyle accounts. It’s a privilege to learn from people whom both you and the industry at large respect.
I have mentored several junior publicists at Hyde Park PR and championed them as they grew. I still keep in touch with past interns and contractors who kicked off their PR careers working for me. It’s so gratifying to see them secure their first media hit they’re really proud of or lead a client call entirely on their own.
How do you handle high-pressure situations or crises, whether for a client or your own business?
In PR, we’re taught to take charge of crisis situations with a calm yet calculated approach and a great sense of urgency. Even if you’re not a crisis communications consultant, crises happen every day and there’s a protocol that should be followed. It’s our job to proactively prepare in order to prevent them, but if they do, we already have a plan in place. Having that plan eases a lot of anxieties on both sides of the fence. I highly recommend that all PR professionals have a crisis plan in place for retainer clients, even if they don’t think they’ll ever need to use it.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give to women entering the PR or communications industry today?
Find a way to fall in love with the news. Get really good at quickly assessing which macro and micro news trends affect your client roster and tweak it every day. That way, you can come prepared to client meetings with fresh story angles and have a cheat sheet for whether a pitch will actually land that week. Stay curious. This will serve you in many ways, like staying on top of the headlines, experimenting with industry-disrupting technology, and tracking where your favorite journalist landed after a layoff.
Is there a quote, mantra, or philosophy that guides your decision-making and leadership as a PR entrepreneur?
I recently listened to an episode of the Working Hard podcast with Emma Grede, and her advice really resonated with me as a business owner. “Make a decision, and move on.” She mentions how it’s easy to get stuck in a perfectionist trap and become paralyzed by all the possible paths we can take. It sounds simple and straightforward, but I think more leaders need to hear it.
Here is our signature question: “What Are The 5 Things You Need to Overcome Self-Doubt and Build Confidence?”
Be uncomfortable and do it anyway. The only way to build confidence is to show up and do the thing, even if you’re unsure how. It’s half the battle. We have access to more resources than ever before, so find comfort in knowing that someone has done it before you, and sometimes it’s as easy as looking it up. The other part is putting yourself in situations that you’ve never encountered in order to build up exposure and a “lessons learned” bank. The more situations you’ve handled, the more confident you’ll be in the future. Anything I’ve learned in my business has been incremental and cumulative. There’s no way around it.
No one knows anything 100% (even your mentors). It’s just a fact that we’re all figuring it out as we go. No one is an omniscient being. Even your role models. If you’re just starting out in PR, I hope this puts you at ease. The dynamics of a PR agency can be a lot to absorb when you’re first starting out, but as long as you’re paying attention, it will make more sense each day. It’s a myth that anyone has it all figured out, and once you realize that, it will set you free. We’re all just doing the best we can with the information in front of us.
Lead more client meetings. Rip off the band-aid and just do it. If you want to work in PR for the long haul, whether that be starting our own firm or promoting to a VP role, you will always have client face time. Learning how to run a meeting with precision and professionalism is essential to your success in a public relations career. If you’re a junior publicist, ask your manager for the opportunity to run an upcoming meeting with a client you’re extra familiar with, so it’s a low-stakes environment. There is an art to client communication, and the sooner you learn, the better.
Execute a campaign end-to-end. If you’re only contributing to one part of a client’s campaign success, it can be difficult to understand how the full scope of its effectiveness (or not). Knowing how to initiate, plan, execute, and report a client campaign will take you from participant to leader. Most importantly, it will increase your PR literacy tenfold so you can communicate why something did or didn’t end up working.
Why not you? I love asking this question to quiet limiting beliefs that pop up. Chances are, no one on your team or someone who is running their own business is particularly smarter or more gifted than you are. Learning that you can and should take up more space will change your work life. As long as you’re putting in the work and you’re a decent human being, you deserve to be at the meeting table too.
Ok, we are nearly done. You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
Storytelling is so powerful. My movement would be centered around the stories of underestimated and underrepresented groups to help people feel seen, understood, and less alone. The lived experiences of others have the potential to be so educational and inspiring that they break what we thought was possible wide open. That’s how ordinary people accomplish great things.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
You can follow me on social media @justinedaddio and @hydeparkpr. If you’re interested in receiving curated lifestyle media opportunities and real-time PR tips, you can subscribe to The Hyde Out Substack for free.
