Sonia Domeyko, CEO, Aurora Community Channel
By Author
She says she’s obsessed with entrepreneurship. So what’s she doing in not-for-profit TV?
Sonia Domeyko, CEO of Aurora Community Channel, just 31 years old, one four month old at home, one four year-old at pre-school and two of her own businesses born and sold at either end of a corporate job for a global IT giant, can answer that question. She is getting an enormous amount of job satisfaction.
Her first business, aged 21 and straight out of business school was putting time-poor professional people in touch with the domestic services which would help them streamline their lives. She sold that to join the corporate world in a junior role with the global networking company, Cisco Systems. She joined at a time when the business was growing exponentially and the opportunities for promotion were there for the taking. Before she’d reached 24 she was a sales exec in a male dominated industry and hungry for role models. “I looked around and I could honestly say there was no-one I wanted to emulate.”
At 24 she left to start her next business venture and after some research turned the full wattage of her enthusiasm on the fledgling juice bar trend. She met and was impressed by Janine Allis, the founder of ‘Boost’, and so became the owner of the first ‘Boost’ juice bar in Melbourne (on Chapel St) and the youngest franchisee in the group. A further two Boost bars followed then in 2003, all three were sold. “I decided to sell those babies to make way for the actual ones.”
She thought she’d be content to throw herself completely into parenting but the experience at Cisco and her own passion for entrepreneurs had started her thinking and she couldn’t stop. “Young people were emerging from the universities and choosing to start their own businesses rather than go into the corporate world.” The spectacular fall of people like Alan Bond had ramped up tall poppy syndrome in Australia and helped create a generation of graduates who also needed entrepreneurship modelled in a more positive way. Having long been a hunter and collector of inspiring stories of entrepreneurship, she put together a proposal and pitched the idea for a television series profiling entrepreneurs with the purpose of providing good role models. Foxtel bought it and she became executive producer of a six part series called ‘The Entrepreneurs’. As a result, Nine MSN created an online portal. (money.ninemsn.com.au/small-business)
It was this work that brought her to the attention of Aurora’s Board and she was asked to consider the role of CEO. “There was no way at that point I could see myself working full-time for a not-for-profit but when I met the board and the vision for the channel was explained to me the idea instantly clicked,” says Domeyko. “It sounds clichéd, but I guess I was looking for something which had meaning if I was going to spend time away from my children.”
Aurora provides a platform for community organizations to communicate with viewers. The charter provides for eighty per cent of the content screened to cover what Domeyko calls “our cornerstone - community issues and interests.” A further twenty per cent is made up of short films, documentaries and music videos that have yet to make their way into the mainstream media. One hundred per cent of the content is Australian. The station is wholly independent. Foxtel provides a means of getting the programmes to your screen and helps to promote them. Aurora does not receive any government funding. Nor does it have any production budget. Instead it looks at the issues that carry the most weight with the community then approaches the relevant community groups for the content. For example Landcare Australia, working with Westpac, was one of the content providers during a month focussing on climate change as was Mission Australia around the issue of homelessness.
The content providers pay for the airtime and it’s this revenue which makes up the lion’s share of Aurora’s funding. A further twenty-five per cent of the funding comes from advertising and the remaining ten per cent from a sponsorship partnership with Westpac. In order to thrive the channel needs to continue to provide the community a cost-effective way of growing awareness for their causes, airing their messages or, in the case of other not-for-profits like The Salvation Army, raising money. Domeyko is keen to look for ways for Aurora to enter the online space as the media continues to fragment. “We’ve been able to build a great team so now I can begin to concentrate on business development.” She’d also like to delve into content creation. “If there’s an aspect of entrepreneurship in the role then I’m happy and excited”. Otherwise, she admits, she’ll become restless to have her own business again. “It’s in my blood. My mother always worked. In fact, my grandmother arrived on a boat from Italy in 1954, in her early 20s with a child already, and the first thing she was given when her feet hit the dock was a job!”
She is sheepish about offering advice to other working mums as she says she feels she’s only just beginning that journey. However she is organised to super-human levels, leaving the house on Monday morning with the meals, her clothes and Isabella’s clothes for pre-school planned for the week, and the fridge door papered in notes and lists. She says having kids has helped give her perspective. “It has made me a better businesswoman.” She gives a wry smile. “I think I may have been holding on too tightly before. We women set ourselves high standards. I’ve learned to redefine ‘perfection’ as the best that I can do.”
To be young, female and a CEO means she has had to deal with some prejudice but she says it has been outweighed by the support she has received. She also has unbounded enthusiasm for her job and Aurora’s vision. “I wake up every day and treat it as if it could be my last. I give it my best shot. We’re here for a short time. The big question is, ‘What do you want to do with your life?’”
From Aurora TV
Source www.aurora.tv