Berlowe, Phyllis

Phyllis Harriette Berlowe was a public relations executive at a time when women were largely absent from upper management in agencies. Born in New York City on Dec. 10, 1922, she was the daughter of Louis, a businessman, and Rose Jatches Berlowe, a homemaker. Her father and several partners owned a beer distributorship that was wiped out during the Great Depression. Following this setback, he remained a salesman in the liquor industry. Phyllis had a brother, Max, and three sisters, Shirley, Yvette, and Dorothy. All of the Berlowe siblings followed creative pursuits.

Ms. Berlowe lived most of her life in New York City. She made the first step toward her career in public relations while attending New York University, where she majored in journalism and marketing. After a time, however, she went off on a tangent for two years pursuing a premedical degree at Hunter College.

On graduating from Hunter College, Ms. Berlowe took up her first position as an editorial assistant on the petroleum publications at McGraw Hill Publishing Company in 1953. She left this position in 1955 to become head of the public relations department at Toscony Fabrics. Her agency experience included Theodore R. Sills & Co. (1959–1963), Harshe-Rotman & Druck, Inc. (1963–1965) and later work as executive vice president of Edward Gottlieb & Associates (1965–1978) and vice president at Hill & Knowlton (1978–1979).

It was at this point that she was accredited by the Public Relations Society of America (PRSA) and steadily rose to the positions of vice president of Doremus Public Relations, in charge of their Mindshare division, and president of Padilla Speer.

Ms. Berlowe was asked to mentor a client, and thus, she left Padilla Speer in 1986 to establish her own consulting firm, The Berlowe Group. Through The Berlowe Group, Ms. Berlowe provided specialized advice in a variety of business areas, including firm management, crisis management, and marketing strategies. Her expertise lay in understanding existing and emerging trends and connecting clients with the relevant publics through these trends.

Over four decades, Ms. Berlowe worked on an array of accounts offering different kinds of products and services aimed at a range of audiences. Her clients included comedienne Phyllis Diller, RT French Company (makers of French's Mustard and other products), Armstrong World Industries, and Pfizer, for which she created a major program with Ms. Alice Fay. Her global endeavors included working for Russian, French, and Dutch governmental agencies.

Her flair for public relations led her to win the prestigious Silver Anvil from PRSA in 1977 for her “cooking for the blind” program for Thomas J. Lipton, Inc. She also received the John Hill Award for balancing her conflicting professional and public priorities. Ms. Berlowe was also made a member of the PRSA College of Fellows in 1990.

She eventually returned as an instructor in public relations and advertising to her alma mater, [Page 77]New York University, and other institutions, including Russell Sage College. She was also the Chairperson of the Counselors Academy in 1981, where her monograph on effective budgeting was published.

Ms. Berlowe was a member of PRSA, Women Executives in Public Relations, the Publicity Club of New York, American Women in Radio and Television, the Society of Consumer Affairs Professionals in Business, and the World Futurist Society. Remarkably, unlike most, she was an active member of all these societies, serving as mentor, president, or secretary. She was intensely involved in the formation of the PRSA accreditation program.

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