Q&A With Bellmont Partners New Account Strategist, Angela Seutter

We’re excit­ed to intro­duce the newest mem­ber of the Bell­mont Part­ners team—Angela Seut­ter! Angela is an extreme­ly tal­ent­ed and expe­ri­enced com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­fes­sion­al who, like sev­er­al oth­ers on our team, start­ed her career in jour­nal­ism, work­ing at NBC and MSNBC in New York and Lon­don before mak­ing the switch to PR. For the past sev­er­al years, Angela has spent her time con­sult­ing, pri­mar­i­ly in the areas of cri­sis com­mu­ni­ca­tions and train­ing for large agri­cul­tur­al clients. Recent­ly, she decid­ed to make the switch back to agency life—and we couldn’t be more pleased she chose to work with us!

Join­ing our Tech­nol­o­gy, Man­u­fac­tur­ing and Food & Agri­cul­ture prac­tice groups, we sat down with Angela to learn more about her career, what type of com­mu­ni­ca­tions work she enjoys, and of course, what she likes to do for fun!

You’ve had an impres­sive career, work­ing as a jour­nal­ist, TV pro­duc­er, com­mu­ni­ca­tions con­sul­tant, and have also worked at agen­cies. What drew you to the com­mu­ni­ca­tions field? 

That is very kind. Thank you! Grow­ing up, our fam­i­ly had a tra­di­tion of read­ing the local papers and dis­cussing cur­rent events. This pro­pelled me to study and work in jour­nal­ism. And while I start­ed out on the more tra­di­tion­al broad­cast jour­nal­ism side, once I made the move from cable news to cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, I quick­ly real­ized that I was drawn to the B2B seg­ment and have spent most of my career in the tech­nol­o­gy, man­u­fac­tur­ing and agri­cul­tur­al indus­tries, which I’ve real­ly enjoyed.

In mak­ing that switch, what aspects of com­mu­ni­ca­tions do you enjoy doing the most? 

I still con­sume a lot of news dai­ly, so any research and ana­lyt­ics around cur­rent events is always enjoy­able. And I do like plan­ning and exe­cut­ing a fine-tuned event!

Dur­ing your time at NBC News/MSNBC in New York and Lon­don, you’ve cov­ered some inter­est­ing sto­ries. What is one of the most mem­o­rable sto­ries you worked with them?

Across all my time at NBC, from intern to pro­duc­er, an expe­ri­ence in the Lon­don bureau stands out the most. I had the priv­i­lege of get­ting to know a young man who had recent­ly escaped the geno­cide in Rwan­da. His jour­ney to the U.K. was facil­i­tat­ed, in part, by two jour­nal­ists he met while at a refugee camp. Learn­ing his sto­ry, and how the kind­ness of two strangers changed the tra­jec­to­ry of his life left a last­ing impres­sion on me.

Work­ing the past 17 years as a free­lancer and con­sul­tant, what made you want to take the leap back to agency life?

I always missed the col­lab­o­ra­tion, con­nec­tion and ener­gy of agency life, but the oblig­a­tions of care­giv­ing for kids, a par­ent and grand­par­ents made it dif­fi­cult to find the right entry point back into an agency. As my care­giv­ing role has changed over the past year, I start­ed think­ing about mov­ing back into agency work and was look­ing for a com­pa­ny with strong sys­tems in place to sup­port staff jug­gling care­giv­ing out­side of work. Bellmont’s rep­u­ta­tion for its sup­port­ive work-life cul­ture made it stand out, and after meet­ing with folks here it checked all the box­es on my agency wish list.

At Bell­mont Part­ners, you’ll be join­ing the tech­nol­o­gy and man­u­fac­tur­ing, as well as the agri­cul­tur­al prac­tice groups. What excites you the most about join­ing these teams?

After so many years of sup­port­ing clients in those indus­tries, it has been great to com­bine my insti­tu­tion­al knowl­edge with the deep bench of tal­ent and social media exper­tise we have here at Bell­mont Part­ners. It feels like I’m part of a well-bal­anced mix of shar­ing and learning.

How about out­side of work—how do you like to spend your free time? 

With fam­i­ly, friends, and vol­un­teer­ing at the Min­neapo­lis Insti­tute of Art, where I’ve been a guide since 2015. I found a love for art after tak­ing an art his­to­ry class in col­lege, so vol­un­teer­ing as a guide allows me to ful­fill that pas­sion as well!