SPOTLIGHT: Jan Goldstof
Founder, Jan Goldstoff Public Relations
Written by Vivica D’Souza
For Jan Goldstoff, connecting people isn’t just a skill — it’s a five-decade calling that earned her a nickname she now wears as a badge: “the gal with the golden rolodex.”
A lifetime member of New York Women in Communications (NYWICI) and winner of the organization’s 2014 Liz Hoover Award, Goldstoff has spent more than 50 years building relationships across public relations, communications, publishing, health and wellness, the arts and beyond, and she isn’t slowing down.
“I have a thousand ideas before breakfast, each and every day,” she said. Ask her what it all adds up to, and she doesn’t hesitate: “I spread messages of love, truth, inspiration, spiritual awakening, and the healing power of music.”
From Madison Avenue to Her Own Firm
Goldstoff’s career began at Young & Rubicam on Madison Avenue, after she graduated from Endicott Junior College, where, she likes to note, she once typed on stage alongside the world’s fastest typist. She can still type over 100 wpm. Goldstoff spent the next two decades at CBS Inc., working for more than 30 executives from 1968 to 1987. “Just under 20 years,” she said, “so I did not get the watch.”
In 1995, she founded Jan Goldstoff Public Relations and built a second career as an event producer and photographer specializing in special events, fundraisers and on-location headshots.
A Name That Changed Everything
Two encounters in the 1990s set the course for the rest of Goldstoff’s career. In 1993, she read “Out of My Hands,” a book by healer and author Allon Bacon, and later received an energy healing session from him that she kept notes on. “Once you receive a miracle healing, no one can tell you it does not exist,” she said. From that point on, she found herself drawn to, and eventually promoting healers and health and wellness professionals as clients.
Around the same period, a trip to Michigan to meet award-winning radio host John St. Augustine led to an introduction to a Native American family, who invited her to stay in their home. The next day, she took part in a sacred naming ceremony in their lodge, given by members of the Ojibway tribe. She was named Wolf Heart Woman — meeyengun o-day quay, or “woman who speaks truth from her heart.”
“This one event has guided me in everything that I do,” Goldstoff said. She has since photographed powwows, supported the American Indian College Fund, and built
lasting friendships within the Native American community, including with a well-known film and television actor.
Fifty Years of Golden Connections
Goldstoff’s best-known project is the Golden Rolodex Group, a networking organization she launched in 2014 with a small gathering at the home of author Carole Hyatt. What started as one evening of conversation grew into more than 50 events over the following decade, pausing only during the COVID-19 pandemic before picking back up.
The connections don’t stop at the events themselves. Last November, Goldstoff and her husband were having dinner at Chez Josephine when a young pianist, Andrew Abrahamsen, caught her ear playing the restaurant’s Steinway. “Within moments of listening to him, I was enchanted by his playing and recognized his creative brilliance,” she said. A conversation that night turned into a friendship, and then into Goldstoff becoming his publicist, connecting him to a fellow performer/producer for a widely shared virtual interview on his website, and to her own record producer, who will produce Abrahamsen’s first solo piano album this November. “I have become his fairy godmother,” she said, “helping him make some of his dreams come true.”
Her [Goldstoff] connections aren’t just connections, they are magical connections. It’s a pattern that repeats throughout her career. A similar introduction, made roughly a decade ago, came after Goldstoff met Dr. Heather Shea, an author, healer, medium, animal communicator and life coach. A close friendship developed, bringing with it numerous intuitive and medium readings over the years and, most recently, a “Soul Chart Reading” Goldstoff calls “profoundly life-changing.” Goldstoff connected Shea to several friends and clients, including singer-recording artist Christina Connors, and that collaboration grew into a TV pitch for an interactive mindfulness program for children, a record soundtrack, a book and a YouTube channel.
Behind the Lens for NYWICI
NYWICI wasn’t Goldstoff’s first organization to serve this way. She spent three years on the board of the National Association of Women Business Owners – New York City chapter (NAWBO-NYC) as PR chair and event photographer, a role that set the template for the work she’d go on to do at NYWICI.
Goldstoff has served on NYWICI’s Program Committee and Matrix Awards Committee for several years, and spent years as a lead event photographer for the organization, a favorite memory being the night in 2017 she photographed Arianna Huffington’s “Thrive” book signing and interview with then-NYWICI president Jacki Kelley at Bloomberg.
“NYWICI is one of the best organizations in the US for women and girls who want to succeed, find exceptional role models, create new businesses and support other women,” she said. “What is most important is speaking truth, being true to oneself, and having the courage to say what you believe.”
On AI and the Human Element
On artificial intelligence, Goldstoff is measured. “AI is here and it is here to stay,” she said, “but I prefer being with and talking to human beings. We must not lose human contact.” She said AI’s occasional inaccuracy means people need to read, and verify, more, a habit she’s practiced since her days at CBS, when she read several newspapers a day. She reads five now, plus magazines, books and online articles, to see different points of view.
Speak Your Dream, Find Your Team
To stay grounded amid the noise of the communications industry, Goldstoff relies on daily rituals: qigong, exercise, a morning gratitude prayer, and a notebook where she logs every conversation in a to-do list [spiral notebook]. Her advice to women starting out in communications and PR is direct: “Do what you love and love what you do. Pick a field you are passionate about. Trust your gut. Always tell the truth. Make new friends and find your team.”
Ask Goldstoff for her favorite word, and she’ll answer without pausing: sparkle. “It helps a person to stand out,” she said, and she means it literally, too. Earrings, bracelets, a ring and usually a necklace go on every day, a small daily ritual she encourages everyone to adopt in their own life.
Beyond her PR work, Goldstoff is a pianist and composer of four healing songs, (three are on her website) an African drummer, a tango dancer, a calligrapher and the designer of her own line of greeting cards. She has been with her husband and business partner, David Minshall, for 57 years and, though she has no children of her own, calls herself “fairy godmother” to several young men and women. She has a twin sister who is also happily married.
Her outlook comes back to what she calls her four pillars for happiness and success: “Speak your dream, find your team, live your passions, and enjoy all the moments.”
Jan’s website – https://www.jangoldstoff.com/