Pattie Yu's Path to PR Prominence

College Park, Md. -- Pattie Yu’s day as a PR Professional begins as she wakes up when she wants, wears her choice of comfortable clothing and does the work she feels most passionate about. Creativity, drive and talent are just a few of the traits that have gotten Yu to her “Ikigai”--her reason for being.

“It doesn’t matter if you are working with 5 people or 500, in a big office or in no office, in a dress or in yoga pants. If you have heart, blood, sweat and tears and find your ikigai it’s all worth it,” Yu says.

Yu finds her “reason for being” with her very own virtual PR agency: The Yu Crew. After working at The Washington Star throughout her time as an undergraduate at University of Maryland, College Park, Yu earned her degree in journalism while on her mission to find a feeling of satisfaction.

“Be ambitious and respectful,” says Yu as she emphasizes how much growth she experienced in these years by having a mentor, “relationships really do matter.”

Bill Navelli, whom Yu is still in touch with 38 years later, noticed her passion and quickly took her under his wing.

“I loved what Bill stood for in terms of how he liked helping social issues and did not simply begin throwing his soul out the door to make money,” Yu says.

In the same way, Yu takes pride in the fact that she is always working on a social issue she cares about personally.

Yu’s brief time working in the business communications world helped her figure out that simply being paid for something because she was good at it was not helping her find this “reason for being”. Although Yu was working for IBM and making $250 a day as a young professional, she saw this as a “rigid environment” with “no room for growth”. After realizing this particular side of the business world was not her ikigai, Yu came back into PR and started The Yu Crew.

“A skill that many people seem to be missing is kindness,” says Yu. This kindness Yu brings to the professional world is driven by her fullness and excitement in her daily work. Along with Yu’s innate passion for “figuring people out,” she has truly found her ikigai in the PR world--all while she is wearing yoga pants.