Interviews

More women should control their own destiny

We still have gender and ethnicity pay gaps, and women seem to burn out at a much higher rate.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions

I worked for a mobile tech start up in San Diego in the early 2000s. This had some rockstar founders and was supposed to be a huge thing. I was part of their round one of hires.

DEI is treated as a trend

I said something in a fit of frustration that’s been rolling around in my mind ever since: DEI was made for us, but it's killing us.

Happy people don’t wreck themselves

Hundreds of pounds of gear a week, normalised by the ‘well everyone else is doing it’ narrative. And countless 4 am stop-outs with members of my team, often resulting in carnage at work the next day.

Sensationalism is destroying public discourse

What needs to change is a return to the fundamentals of responsible journalism: thorough research, unbiased reporting, and a commitment to providing readers with meaningful insights.

Share experiences not advice

It acknowledges a bit of humility but also nods to the biggest truth of them all: there are rarely silver bullets.

Growth, no matter what

I was making more than I had dreamed of, but I was tired, unhappy, and resentful of my business. 

Holding hands with the agency president

I had been a copywriter in advertising for about three years by then, which was just long enough to know I didn’t belong in that room. 

Saatchi Kate and Addict Kate

By all conventional measures, I was highly successful..but by 2004, I was struggling with addiction to alcohol.

It’s just media, we aren’t saving lives

I’m a big believer that work ‘fuck ups’ shouldn’t be impacting your own personal wellbeing, so you should never be going home feeling anxious.

Self deception

Biggest fuck up My biggest career fuck up was joining a national news brand in 2015 in a role that I wasn’t suited for. I...

D-list people and upsetting spies

I’ve had some projects that have landed with a bang, but nothing close to nuclear. 

It took me 10 years to recover my confidence

That job, getting fired, and eighteen months of failing to overcome mediocre work set me and my career back.

Pigeonholed

Getting stuck in a career you're not that into, for nearly two decades.

Selling dreams rather than deliverables

Buzzword-driven strategies that lack substance take away from creating value for clients through meaningful connections with their audience.

Blonde PR girl of the week

I get very upset about how PR is portrayed, as glorified spin doctors or the glam, constantly partying consumer PR image.

Trusting people to run my agency

When I realised that staff had lied, been lazy, and we were losing accounts left, right, and centre, it sent me into a spiral of anger...

I thought I was going to have to eat grass

There were times when things did get hairy for me when I had no clients, and I wondered about where the money was going to come from.

Everyone thinks they can do marketing

Marketing is so much more than designing something in Canva and posting it on social media.

Your identity isn’t solely what you do for a living

Of course, it’s great to love what you do. But if you change paths or fall out of love with something - that’s ok. 

Popular

It took me 10 years to recover my confidence

That job, getting fired, and eighteen months of failing to overcome mediocre work set me and my career back.

Please don’t reach out

I understand the need to talk the same language as your audience but does it really have to come at the cost of our beautiful language?

Fuck milk

This was our first project for a huge household brand. I saw our hard work closing the deal, and my financial projections disappear in front of my eyes.

If I could offer you only one tip for the future, sunscreen would be it

We need to learn how to respond, rather than react to other people online.

The reality of a terrible job move

The business values were a world away from mine. A quick chat with a recruiter would have warned me off.