Falling in love with the Gold Coast
Rachel Hancock had a CV spanning two decades plus in journalism, a decorated career including two editorships and deputy editorship of metro daily The Courier Mail.
Despite all that and unrivalled corporate connections everywhere she worked - Adelaide, Darwin, Brisbane and the Gold Coast - she admits she “doubted myself” when tempted to apply for the role of Destination Gold Coast head of stakeholder and strategy.
“I nearly wasn’t going to go for it.” A conversation with Gold Coastbased Urbis boss and close friend Matthew Schneider convinced her to: “He said ‘Rachel, put your application in, back yourself, let’s see what happens’. He was a great support. You need people in your corner to remind you about how good you can be. I think it’s crucial paricularly in roles if you get to the top as it can be quite lonely.
“I feel like imposter syndrome is really real with women. They second guess their abilities whereas I don’t feel their male equivalent would. A male would just go in and have a crack but I was like ‘Maybe I shoudn’t go for it’. I’m glad I did.”
She got the job, bringing to a close a journalism career that started more than 20 years earlier as a cadet on the Murray Valley Standard in Murray Bridge.
From there she fought for a role on her home paper, theadelaide Advertiser, getting intern Sunday shifts whilst still at the Standard.
It led to a role at Adelaide’s Sunday Mail where she pushed to get a job on the daily – without success until she applied for a media advisor role in frustration. It sparked a call from the Advertiser’s then-editor Melvin Mansell.
“He gave me the fork in the road speech. We still laugh about this to this day. He said ‘If you take this job, you are heading down the media advisor-pr road’. And he said ‘But if you stay here you are heading down the journalism road’.
“I said ‘I want journalism’. He said ‘What do you want to do?’. I said ‘I want to be a police reporter’. He said ‘Ok leave it with me’. He rang back and I got job as a police reporter at the Advertiser.”
She kept moving up – night chief of staff, deputy day chief of staff, day editor, entertainment editor, network editor, deputy editor weekends.
“Then I remember Mel asking me for lunch one day and we went across the road and he said ‘Do you still want to be an editor - you have a gig, you start on Monday, and it was Thursday. He said ‘It’s Darwin’. I went ‘oh my God - Darwin, the blokiest city in Australia’. It was very different to conservative Adelaide.”
At that stage she had two children – aged four and nine - and thus began the first of multiple relocations with partner Simon.
“It was a great ride, great paper to work on. I really cut my teeth. The town was so welcoming. Some of my greatest friends are from Darwin.”
They spent three years there before moving to Brisbane for the co-deputy editor role alongside now Courier Mail editor Chris Jones.
“I was missing being closer to home and wanted a bigger city. It was just time. I learned a lot.”
She says by now she had started promising her eldest son it would be the last move – but then the Gold Coast editorship came up.
“News Corp is the type of company where you move around and every experience is totally different. Even editing all those papers…or deputizing at all those papers, they have such different personalities. Moving to new cities each time, you have to start from scratch.
“That’s where I honed my skills networking. I’m actually quite shy meeting people for the first time but you have to be good at networking or you won’t be a confident editor if not out meeting as many people early on as you can.
“As a result I just have the most amazing friendship group across Australia. That’s a pretty cool thing to be able to say. It’s amazing that you can work for one company but have so many different lives.
“I have a frame in my bedroom: ‘Find your tribe, love them hard’. I’ve always found my tribe whereever I’ve lived, got all these tribes around Australia, really close mates you can just trust your life with, say what you want and know it’s never going to go anywhere, support each other. It’s usually likeminded and career driven women. Every move I made I’m glad I did it.”
But she notes she fell in love with the Gold Coast the moment she arrived: “The Gold Coast kind of had everything.
“And I thought this (Destination Gold Coast) role had the best parts of what got me out of bed every morning. Which in my mind was loving this city, celebrating this city and I know it sounds cliche but this was the part of the role I really connected with. This job lets me do that every day. It allowed me to really put roots down after moving the family for the best part of 10 years - but they never complained once and just did it. I thought it’s time for me to give back to them a bit and they’re not having to listen to me coming home and saying there’s this amazing oppportunity and we are going to move again.”
I have a frame in my bedroom: ‘Find your tribe, love them hard’. I always found my tribe whereever I lived