Why talent agent and mega-influencer Roxy Jacenko is giving away $10 million Cronulla house

Talent agent and entrepreneur Roxy Jacenko is resolute. She’s done with public relations, the profession that helped make her a household name that is now almost synonymous with Sydney’s affluent and at times eccentric Eastern Suburbs.

“I won’t do it again, it wasn’t an enjoyable career,” she said.

“I never liked it at all but I did it and I made a lot of money. But by the 18th year everything had changed and you know what?

“I’ve made as much as I can make — It’s time.”

Jacenko’s never been one to be held back by labels and definitions, having spent the past two decades managing talent, starting businesses and occasionally landing herself in gossip pages.

Now Jacenko, who’s left Sydney for Singapore, is giving away a $10m house with water views in Cronulla on International Women’s Day to a lucky customer who purchases one of her online Brand Bootcamp courses.

With prices starting at $29, Jacenko knows she’s taking a risk and might not sell enough courses to make up the value of the four-bedder complete with Venetian plastered walls, a heated pool and Smeg appliances.

“A lot of business people would be like ‘are you mad?’”, she said.

“I don’t look at things like that and I suppose that’s the whole risk as an entrepreneur. You take the risk and the risk is generally worth the reward.”

Less lucky winners could still nab a watch or a Birkin bag.

The blonde Jacenko is bursting with energy and is as immaculately styled as the floral arrangements of orchids, hydrangeas and dahlias around the Cronulla home, wafting through which is the scent of freshly laid Venetian plaster.

Jacenko grew up around Sydney’s eastern suburbs, her parents buying and selling properties in suburbs such as Woolhara and Bondi Junction.

She got her first job at McDonald’s at the age of 14, worked as a florist for seven years and at a local Kodak shop in Double Bay developing film before starting her first business at the age of 24.

Jacenko says she did the bare minimum at school so her parents would leave her alone and bought her first property at the age of 21 with a $37,000 deposit.

“Now you couldn’t buy a tent for $37,000,” she said.

Jacenko says the source of her seemingly infinite energy and drive is a hunger for success.

“I created the online master classes because people are interested in seeing this girl who didn’t go to university or didn’t succeed in school actually create something for herself,” she said.

The former PR maven is dubious of the concept of a work-life balance and said she wouldn’t be where she was in life if she hadn’t worked for most of her working hours.

“The whole work-life balance thing, I don’t know who gets it right but I certainly didn’t,” she says.

The former PR maven is living in Singapore with her husband Oliver Curtis and their two children but is still remotely operating her talent management business Ministry of Talent in Double Bay.

Jacenko has mixed feelings about Singapore and described the southeast city as soulless and transient but is enjoying the increased opportunity for travel and time away from work.

“Sydney is a fabulous place but I can’t travel the way I am travelling now,” she says.

“I can’t give my children [Pixi and Hunter] the opportunity to explore the world as easily as I can from Singapore as I could from Sydney.”