Making Big Bucks

Who says one has to go overseas to make mega bucks?
They are here, for those who only choose to see and work hard towards achieving that goal, as one young media industry personality has proved.
Ms. Joanna Adams from the local media industry, at only 24 years of age, makes that much of money, which local journalists, even with several years of service, could only dream of.
A radio, T.V. and show presenter, the secret of Adams’ success may be attributed to a combination of hard work (she starts her day at 4 a.m.), coupled with talent, self confidence and discipline.
“I’m a free lancer, and I like it that way, my mentors advised me to be so, because they said that there are only a few women who are as talented as I, in my chosen spheres of work,” said Adams.
“That gives me that much of space to pick and choose my jobs without being tied down to any one company.
And if the offers are low, I simply turn them down, i.e., mainly to compere company activities such as launches, that way I don’t make myself cheap,” she said.
A product of Holy Family Convent, Bambalapitiya, her first job was in 2004, as a presenter at a popular radio station, for a salary of Rs. 8,250 per mensem.
Adams then moved over as business development manager for a vehicle importing firm in Colombo, but continued with her radio shows whilst working there for 1½ years, before joining a Colombo hotel as its P.R. Manager, but chucking up that job as well, to devote full time to her media work.
At present she conducts a weekly Saturday show over a t.v. channel on the movie industry; hosts the morning show, Mondays through Saturdays, of a new radio channel and reserves the evenings to compere corporate launches which may be as long as three hours, though such jobs may not be that regular.
“In my first compering show, which was a few years ago, I got butterflies in my stomach,” confessed Adams. It was an all male audience, some 350 of them, including the foreign principals of a company that deals in plastic goods which hired me through an events management company, she said.
“But I made eye-contact with the audience, and that gave me that confidence to pull ahead,” said Adams.
Living with her parents and her younger sister at Ratmalana, her dream is to have her own talk show like Oprah Winfrey.
She said that her boyfriend, a former radio presenter himself and now an engineer, supports her in her endeavours.Adams is also reading for her post graduate diploma in international relations at the B.C.I.S. She has also completed her C.I.M. exams.