To Australians, Canberra is known as the Bush Capital. Not because of any remoteness or a connection to the outback, but because it was influenced by the garden city movement. The bushes in Canberra are more likely to be privet hedges than bottlebrush or eucalyptus. To the teenage Susannah Clark, now global vice president of communications at mobile gaming company King, the well-laid out streets and manicured lawns were a dreamy fortress of boredom.

“I think I spent my entire childhood begging my parents to move to a bigger city. I can now look back and think it was a lovely place to grow up, but as a young girl I dreamt of traffic jams, thousands of people and bustling streets.”

One of four children, she seemed the only one struck by the bright lights, big city wanderlust. At the earliest opportunity she moved to Sydney to study for her degree, the only one of her siblings to do so.

Clark had originally wanted to study journalism. As a child she spoke of becoming a fashion writer in the way other girls might talk of becoming a vet or a doctor. However, her ambition was less a need to write, and more a dream of becoming the next Anna Wintour at the helm of Vogue. Perhaps in recognition of this lack of vocational direction, her parents talked her out of the journalism course, arguing that she shouldn’t pigeonhole herself into any one career so early on. “As my mum put it, learn to think more broadly and then decide what you want to do.”

Clark studied English with sociology instead, doing better than she had anticipated. Half way through her course her mother died of breast cancer. It’s a subject she doesn’t dwell on, perhaps a coping mechanism that originates from her father’s encouragement when she was at university, not to focus too much on life outside, but to enjoy the time she had there.

Clark took her father at his word – it was not quite one non-stop party but, as one of a handful of students in residential quarters, she made sure she enjoyed her time there. Her agreement with her father was that she would focus on her studies and not take-up any student employment, but, as her $50 a week allowance failed to cover her active lifestyle, she ignored this advice and took up not one, but two, part-time jobs. One was as a part-time medical receptionist, the other working in a fashion outlet called Esprit. She made an impression with Esprit – when she finished her degree course they promptly offered her a full-time job; not on the shop floor but in head office as a fashion buyer. To the young Clark, this sounded fabulous. It wasn’t quite the editorship of Vogue, but being offered a job in the fashion world, without really trying, seemed the next best thing.

Sadly, within weeks Clark was miserable. The promise of catwalks and colourful dress designs became a reality of hours staring at spreadsheets. Sunday nights were spent on the phone to her father in tears, who encouraged her to persevere in order to get a solid year on her CV.

Ten months in, the unhappy Clark was walking to work when, quite by chance, she bumped into a friend of her sister from Canberra. Confronted by a vaguely familiar face, she offloaded her misery. The sister’s friend asked what she wanted to do. “To this day I still don’t quite know why I said public relations.” She says, “I’d half heard about it and thought it was a bit like journalism. What I didn’t know was that this friendly face worked in PR. She told me her company was looking for an account executive as someone had quit the day before. I called the number she gave me, went in for an interview the next day and got offered the job.”

From the outset Clark loved her year with Cohn & Wolfe. She felt so grateful to have been rescued from Esprit that she threw herself into her work. As Clark recalls, “I started in the IT practice, and knew nothing about tech. I didn’t want to be caught out by a journalist, so I spent my first year staying at home most evenings, reading every single tech magazine, tech journal, white paper – anything I could get my hands on. My first clients produced data warehousing software and I made sure I knew everything about it.”

Then Cohn & Wolfe won the Samsung account. Samsung were the main sponsors of the forthcoming Olympics, and Clark went from data centre seminars to sitting with the Olympic athletes at the Sydney Olympic Games. She was working 18, 19, 20 hour days for two weeks. “I loved it. I loved the intensity. I loved the collaboration of everyone working together for the same goal. From that fortnight, I knew that I would stick with PR and communications for ever.”

Despite the post-Olympics high, Cohn & Wolfe struggled and a decision was made to close down the Sydney office. Clark was devastated – she loved it there. She spent the following year with a small independent agency called Impact, before receiving a call from Helen Connealy, her old boss at Cohn & Wolfe who was now at Howorth Communications, part of the Ogilvy group. They had just won the Microsoft account, and Connealy wanted Clark to join them. Connealy had been a mentor to Clark at Cohn & Wolfe, so it was an easy decision to make.

Clark spent nearly five years at Howorth. She credits it for giving her many of the skills she has today. There was still a focus on consumer PR, but she was working across business to business and tech PR as well. It was a tremendous grounding and Clark loved her time there.

Shortly after starting at Howorth Communications, Clark went off, exploring. Cramming in, among other cities, London, Paris and New York during a six week break, she realised how much she loved travelling. On her return she started planning for a working trip to London. Two years later she set out, reassuring her family that she would only be away for one year.

Clark’s plan was to spend her first few weeks sightseeing in London and looking for the right job. She sent her CV to a few people, and a week before she was due to leave, her boss at Howorth, Kieran Moore, asked if there was anyone she was planning on seeing. When Clark told her she had an interview lined up with Bite PR, Moore laughed. It transpired that Moore had learned the ropes with Bite’s MD, David Hargreaves. Calls were made, Clark turned up for an interview on her first day in London, and started work the very next day.

From the outset Clark loved her time at Bite. She was working on major accounts, including Apple, and she found that PR is a career is particularly suitable for an ex-pat lifestyle, with long hours and sociable work events. At the beginning, with a couple of exceptions, Clark knew no one in London. “All of the friends I made were through work, so all of my time was work- focused, but I also really like working. I have been really lucky throughout my career as I have enjoyed everywhere that I’ve worked. I hope it will always be like that.”

Clark feels fortunate that any career move has happened while still enjoying the incumbent role. Even after two years she had no desire to leave Bite, but, turning up for what she thought would be a social drink with an old friend one Friday night, she was surprised to find he’d brought along Giles Fraser, the inspirational founder of Brands2Life. She had no idea it was an interview until, after an hour of questions and banter, Fraser turned to her saying, “So, if you were to join us...”

Clark was with Brands2Life for nearly three years. It was an enjoyable time and she progressed to associate board director – the day she handed her notice in was the day the company had planned to make her full director. Her plan had been to stay at Brands2Life for a further three years, and then take over the reins of a small agency. She certainly hadn’t planned to move in-house. “My impression was that in-house wouldn’t have the variety or be as fast- paced. It wasn’t something I wanted to do at that time.”

However, a call from a headhunter convinced her otherwise. “He had done his research,” recalled Clark. “MoneySupermarket were looking for someone who could make financial news more consumer friendly. He said ‘You made Microsoft Office exciting for mums on breakfast telly. Money Supermarket want you to do that for finance. I went to see their head of human resources, but I wasn’t convinced. I’d never done financial and I’d never worked for a listed company and I’d never been in-house.”

To his credit, the HR director persevered, and persuaded Clark to meet with Peter Plumb, MoneySupermarket’s CEO. That was the turning point. “Peter was so bright, so clever. What was most intriguing was how he saw communications. For Plumb, comms was something important from the beginning. When he made business decisions he involved comms people from the outset. He wanted to know what the impact might be externally, what the impact might be internally, how to tell the story properly and so on. I took the job.”

Clark was there for three years. It was her first experience of corporate PR, but, as a consumer-facing organisation, it was a good transition role. “My experience in making complex issues more interesting by telling the story in a way that consumers could understand was actually really useful for the corporate comms aspect. I led Peter away from just worrying about earnings releases, and spent more time talking about MoneySupermarket’s impact on British families.”

Clark’s relationship with Peter Plumb was a close one. Despite that, and the close relationship she currently enjoys with Riccardo Zacconi, CEO of King, she has yet to find herself on the executive committee of an organisation. She does feel it would be a useful place for communications professionals, “The main thing is that companies get the right people, but also that they see that person has value beyond when and how they say things, that they are able to advise on the impact that business decisions might have, externally and internally.”

After two years at Moneysupermarket, King started wooing her. She was adamant that she wasn’t ready to leave, but the headhunter persuaded her to meet more of the team. She was courted by most of the senior executives until, finally, she assured them that that she really was happy at Moneysupermarket and that she felt that there were still things to achieve there. Eight months later King called again. Clark was told they had seen a lot of people, but still wanted her. This time, she said yes.

Clark had obviously done her homework on King. She thought that the role would be excellent on her CV, and was excited about working for a consumer-facing company. But she had this niggling thought that King would be her transition job before the big one. It wasn’t until she started that she realised her new job was the big one. “It really was full on, and I realised that in my very first week. You know what first weeks are like. Normally quite gentle. On my second day I had to handle a really tough call from Jeremy Paxman’s producer. I was on the phone, with the chief legal officer on one side of me, the chief operating officer to my left and the CMO. I came off the phone and Rob Miller, chief legal officer, said, ‘I knew we hired you for a reason’. I thought, ‘thank God. I got through that one.’ Then the next day Katherine Rushton from the Telegraph called and said, ‘right I’m running with a really well-sourced story about the fact that you are filing for an IPO.’ That was day three and it’s been like that ever since.”

Over two years in, Clark is still excited about King. The pace hasn’t let up – she worked closely with the management team during the announcement of the company’s sale to US-based Activision Blizzard; twenty-hour days holed-up in the Beverley Hills Hotel.

There is still something of the girl that dreamt of a life away from sleepy Canberra all those years ago. Clark runs 10km every day, and her energy and enthusiasm is contagious. She still loves communications work, but is adamant that a lot is dependent on the right kind of company and CEO. Clark says, “There is something really great about working for people and companies that understand the value of comms, treat it as an important part of the business and see it as something relevant and intelligent.”