Compering is Art, says anchor Reena Dsouza

A computer engineer by profession, life took a new course for Reena Dsouza when she was in her second year of college. She was auditioned by her professor for an annual day event and asked her to host a spiritual show which the now popular compere readily agreed to. Since then she has been a video jockey (on Namma Tv, coastal Karnataka's TV channel), hosted commercial shows and live events. She also hosted a dance reality show called as "Dance Warriors" while in college.

She says, “I completed my engineering and went to Bangalore to work for IBM and Amazon. I finally made up my mind to quit my corporate career in 2014 to become a professional compere. I am living my life at its best and feel blessed to have made this choice."

Reena informs that she has always enjoyed talking and being on stage, interacting with the audience but her professor’s intuition helped her realize that this was her true calling.

However, it wasn’t easy to convince her family to let her pursue anchoring as a profession.

“My dad was not keeping well and my mom had singlehandedly raised my sister and me. There were many people dissuading her from letting me follow my passion. The second challenge that I faced was traveling for about 45 km to and fro late at nights. Being safe sometimes worried me but I had the energy to just keep going until I accomplished my goals.”

Reena has over six years of experience and has hosted over 1,000 events.

She adds that she doesn’t prepare for an event in the conventional sense but considers every show as a springboard to get better. She is always herself and believes the key to being a successful compere is establishing an instant connection with her audience.

The professional compere who hails from a small town near Mangalore, Karnataka, now wants to prepare herself for the world championship of public speaking and win the title for India. She feels ‘compering is an art, a skill that has a capability to leave an impression on someone's mind’. Her advice to aspiring anchors, “Stay focused, keep working, have bigger and larger dreams and believe that you can make your dreams come true.”