Karyn Foster on PR and her love for men

She is one of Australia’s founding females in PR and spin, and here Karyn Foster shares how her love of many men shaped her.

PR Queen Karyn Foster at home in her favourite room surrounded by meaningful object d'arts. Picture: Roy VanDerVegt

Karyn Foster made a name for herself in an industry known for its spin, but SA’s first lady of public relations is famous for telling it like it is. Here, she goes on the record about men.

I was 13, which is a very impressionable age, and one of three girls. We were at PGC (Presbyterian Girls’ College now Seymour), my mother’s family is littered with women and it was just female domination. So, my father Kevin – who I get my creative streak from – ripped us out and put us in co-ed Scotch College.

That was when I really blossomed as a person because I discovered boys. Co-education was pivotal for me. I’d come from an all-female teaching environment and Scotch was such a different school. The principal Philip Roff was quite visionary; we had an underwater scuba diving club and did fantastic school plays. There a history teacher, Peter Read, who we all called Percy, and (maths teacher) Evan Hiscock, who passed away recently; they really engaged with students.

I’ve got fabulous female friends but, from those days, I’ve always forged relationships with men. When I finished my arts degree, I did bookkeeping for my father’s business which was based in an accountancy firm. They said ‘You’ve got an affinity for numbers. If you go on and do a degree in accounting, we’ll give you a job’.

I had an eight o’clock in the morning lecture and one at six o’clock at night … so I got a job at Myer at Marion spruiking during the day.

I went from spruiking, into the promotions department, into the public relations department with Ross Honeywill and he just saw something in me.

I’d found my calling.

Publicity girl about town Karyn Foster in 2005. Picture: Chris Walls

Karyn and her favourite things in 2006.

I was only 24 when I started my own business, and I thought, ‘Well, if it fails, I’ll have babies’.

All these people in PR offered me jobs instead but Michels Warren, started by three ex ABC guys, said, ‘We want to be silent partners’.

They gave me the money to set me up, paid the rent, put me in an office, furnished it, paid for a secretary.

They saw themselves as entrenched in the business community and they could see I was in a completely different arena. They didn’t want to compete, just wanted a piece of the action.

I was the only woman in PR in Adelaide and all my clients were men, as were most of the media. My first sales brochure featured me as a fashion model … they were getting this glamorous entity. It was just exploiting my assets and rapport with men, and it worked.

I only asked to be released from the partnership … after my first husband and I split up when I was 30. I married my second husband when I was 37.

Karyn Foster with Adam Gaite at launch of The Advertiser "Adelaide Magazine" at The Queens Theatre in 2005.

Karyn in 2004.

One thought monogamy was a board game, and the other that adultery was a team sport! They were both adulterers but picked me because of this personality (of mine) … but they had to compete with it, and they just couldn’t accept me for who I am … and they were threatened by my personality.

After that I had a very short relationship. I’d known him for 20 years, and we both happened to be single. He said, ‘Now’s our time’, and I said, ‘Look, I really want to have children … and I’ve really got to get cracking’.

We never had sex … he said, ‘I’m intimidated, I’ve been in love with you for so long’.

Then we went on this fantastic holiday, after which I thought we could get over his intimidation of me and I’d come back pregnant. But he said, ‘I can’t do this anymore, because you’re too out there’ and I said, ‘When, over the last 20 years that you’ve known me, haven’t you known that I’m a tiny bit out there?!’.

I said, ‘Can you tell me exactly what is wrong with me so I can address those issues before my next relationship?’ and he said ‘Well, you’re too loud, swear too much, drink too much, smoke too much, you’re overweight and you’re over-sexed’.

And I went, ‘The only thing that you could not possibly have known is that I am a tiny bit over sexed,

‘You are seriously middle aged, balding, not built like Brad Pitt, and your idea of a great Saturday night out is brushing your Hush Puppies and Napisan-ing your singlets – besides which, you’ve got the sexuality of a garden gnome!’

Finally, I found this man, Adam who completely accepts me for all my flaws, and, apparently, is not intimidated by me.

We’re coming up to 26 years together, and he is very much his own person.

Adam is very entertaining to live with, a talker and I can take him absolutely anywhere and throw him into any situation with anybody.

I feel that my ‘pivotal moment’ hasn’t been one moment. It’s been more like a carousel … of men.

(Editor’s note: Karyn is reminded about the impact of moving to a co-ed school.) If I had been left at PGC, I still would have been quite a dominant personality, probably, but I wouldn’t have developed the inclusive sort of personality that I’ve got and the ease that I have with men … and that would have been to my detriment.

Discovering the other 50 per cent of the world through dad and a co-ed environment … I found men … the good, the bad, the ugly, the inspiring, the lovely …

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Originally published as Karyn Foster on PR and her love for men