A Day In The Life

Briana Dougherty Chester

Posted 01 August 2016

London Program

March 2003 Intake

Our Day in Life of Briana Dougherty Chester (London, March 2003) recently relocated back to LA from London where she worked in music PR for 10+ years. At present, she's consulting for a digital marketing company handling all the social and digital strategy for acts such as The Rolling Stones and AC/DC. Briana credits her Mountbatten placement with The Financial Times' marketing team in London as setting her on her current career path. "Someone in the team connected me with a contact at MTV and I was off and running so to speak", she says.

Briana explains, "Since Mountbatten, I've lived in London working in the music industry. Most recently, I was Head of Press for Atlantic Records UK. After 6 years with the company, I went on maternity leave and that's when we decided to make the move back to the US. My consulting work is very rewarding. Great to see how passionately the various fanbases interact with the artists via their social networking platforms. Also, interesting to see what kind of content they engage with most. The job is really to keep the fans up to date with the artists so finding the write tone is incredibly important.

"My days are a bit atypical at the moment as I've got a 1 year old named Oliver and we've all just moved back to California. As a result, I wake up between 5-6am if I'm lucky. I either work out while Dad watches the baby or I let Dad sleep in a bit and I get on with feeding the little guy and getting him dressed. He goes down for his first nap at 9:30 and that's when I get started with work. I'm consulting for a London-based firm while I job hunt out here. There's usually quite a few emails for me as soon as I log on. My main duty is to schedule and create content for all the social platforms for The Rolling Stones and AC/DC. This involves sourcing images/videos and writing copy. We send reports on Powerpoint at the end of every week to show our work and progress. The nanny comes at 10:30 when Oliver usually wakes up, and she's here to put him down for his 2nd nap at 2:30. I work consistently from 9:30am - 3:30. I'm also on the hunt for full time work so I'll send out my resume or organise meetings with new contacts. I then hang out with the baby once he wakes up from his 2nd nap and occasionally carry on working once he goes down in the evening.

Since at the moment my workplace is my home, I don't have a commute. Also, there isn't too much travel at present, though I suspect that will all change once I am employed full time.

For friends who have never been to LA, I would suggest coming westside to Santa Monica where I live. The air is clear, it's never too hot and you are right on the beach. Perfect!"