Talk us through an average day in your role
Having a global role, I keep my availability open from early morning to get time with colleagues in APAC and can run quite late to get the US calls covered. I’ve worked this way for several years, and I’ve learned to punctuate my day with time away from my desk to ensure I maintain a healthy work/life balance. I fit in a four-mile dog walk every day, using the time to think through any challenges, ideas or listen to a podcast. I have at least one individual one-to-one meeting every day, my marketing team meeting is weekly, but we also run multiple matrix teams, so I might be in a campaign, website, forecast, comms, sales, event or business unit meeting on any given day.
One of the joys of my role is that I get to engage across the whole company, while invigorating, it means marketing carries a wide range of work and requires a lot of cycles. Calendars get full quickly, being able to manage a committed schedule comes with experience and I couldn’t do my job if I hadn’t learned how to delegate! My role is to set marketing strategy, communicate that clearly to the team, provide ongoing direction, definition, and review so they are successful and empowered with a clear understanding of objectives, deliverables and expected outcomes.
How did you get started in the media industry?
I didn’t know I was in it until I was! I joined a subscriber management company way back in 2000, our clients were broadcasters on the Sky platform who needed to have their customers managed independently. It was an exciting time in the UK industry as content owners changed their business models to engage directly with paying end-customers coupled with what felt like light-speed pace of technology innovation. During my tenure there I spent a lot of time getting to know not only the clients, but also the broadcast tech vendors across the whole industry and the community around it. I’ve been lucky to have worked in some progressive organisations over the years such as IP video company Exterity (now Vitec), Ericsson Media (now MediaKind and Red Bee), Avid and now Telestream.
What training did you have before entering the industry?
I started out in hospitality before segueing into marketing. I feel coming from a service industry background has served me well, it established my customer-first mindset which is how I encourage my team to always think. During a recent marketing offsite, containing lots of passionate debate, ideas and planning, my then boss turned to me because she knew what was coming… ‘what does this mean for our customers?’. My favourite question! In marketing, we can’t ask that question enough, and we should always have a good answer.
Why do you enjoy working in the industry?
I love the global and accessible nature of it; everyone can connect to the broadcast and media industry in some way. I still get a thrill when I know that Telestream products and solutions were part of the broadcast value chain responsible for the Olympics, or processing millions of video files for OTT globally. In recent years, being part of the industry diversity initiative, Rise, and becoming a mentor on their award-winning programme has been incredibly fulfilling. This industry is full of good, smart people who enjoy what they do and have a seemingly insatiable passion for driving innovation, it’s completely infectious and I’ve made some lifelong friends along the way,
What piece of advice would you offer someone looking to explore a role similar to yours?
Don’t get overwhelmed with multiple requests coming at you from all directions, take a beat and learn how to prioritise. Give yourself space to listen and really consider the impact and outcomes. A good marketing plan is one that is aligned to drive business goals, but also needs to be able to pivot when required.
