LATEST INTERVIEWS

Start where you are

It’s normal to look at an ambitious goal and feel daunted by the journey ahead. It’s also human to look at people around you and compare how you’re doing.

Good ads wear in, not out

There’s this fallacy among marketers that, even if it’s working, an ad should only be run for a couple of months before audiences will get sick of it.

Venture capital is not runway. It’s an obligation

Raising money doesn't alleviate pressure. It creates new pressure. It creates literally millions of dollars worth of pressure.

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.

Best of NWB

The mother of all mistakes

There’s no other single thing that’s had as significant and negative an impact on my career as having children.

CEOs called Elizabeth, risky strategies, and how to get lucky

Luck plays such a significant role in so many successes, yet it seems somehow disingenuous or deceitful, so we look for rational reasons instead.

A death-threat-inducing fuck up, and adlands obsession with ‘why’

Biggest fuck up? Over the last 15 years, there’s been...

Brave advertising and where being a creative goofball can take you

Someone along the line becomes afraid of making a statement; afraid of being too ‘out there’; afraid of upsetting their boss.

Poisoned partnerships, being the wrong age, and how you can have it all

Slow down, you're going to have a very long life, and you will work till you are at least 70. You don't have to work full pelt for nearly fifty years.

Echo chambers and LinkedIn police

My biggest fuck up was growing up thinking that being older or being in senior management meant that you knew what you were talking about.

How not to be an arrogant prick

Lessons learned: don’t be an arrogant prick, never show off, engage brain before mouth, and ALWAYS have empathy and respect for others.

You say it best when you say nothing at all

I forgave him and learned my lesson long ago. I don’t know if he ever did. We haven’t spoken in twenty years.

Giving zero fucks

This supposed imposter syndrome isn’t a result of your fragile brain, it’s the structural toxicity of many managers and work environments.

Change Your Life by Understanding Yourself

When it comes to truly changing your life, I think most people should avoid "prescriptions" in books, podcasts, and even articles like these!

The Contrepreneur

THE self-appointed, uninspirational, backwards thinking "leader" currently influencing thousands of below-average people

Confessions of a HR Professional

I spent too long ensuring that the captains of the industry got free rein, encouraging toxic cultures.

Mental illness and new beginnings

At the age of 39 after developing severe depression, I realised I had been aiming for the wrong career goal.

Learning about self worth in Weston-Super-Mare

He wanted me to be in the office every day because of his apparent insecurity and need to be overly controlling.

Losing your corporate innocence

That moment marked the end of my innocence in the corporate world. It marked the end of loyalty, the end of trust, and the end of my youth.

I’m a materialistic, ambitious, status-craving idiot

We don’t think about this stuff because it’s bloody scary. It’s hard. It’s embarrassing. It’s a bit hippy, it makes us feel vulnerable.

Taking business lessons from Sylvester Stallone

Being punched in the face repeatedly by a man twice your size is great motivation to get your act together.

Hot right now

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.

The Yes Man

In retrospect, I should have just watched “Yes Man”...

Reducing your reliance on devices and social media

I was summoned to London to see the sales director. I knew I hadn’t royally screwed up, but when you’re dealing with a hairdryer of a human, you never know.

Lazy phrasing can hurt others

Seeking to be inclusive and politically correct is a good thing in business and shouldn't be seen as a weakness

All the names above the door were creatives

Before long, we were having secret chats about what a creative agency for the new millennium might look like.

Agency life

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. 

Self-doubt, freedom from bureaucracy, and the search for meaning

I dream of a world in which people doing creative work are able to suffer only their own internal pain and not be pushed through bureaucracy that causes them additional pain.

Red flags and the toxic topless boss

I'm scared because of what the people in these stories might say and what you might think of me. But putting it out there feels cathartic and unburdening.

CEOs called Elizabeth, risky strategies, and how to get lucky

Luck plays such a significant role in so many successes, yet it seems somehow disingenuous or deceitful, so we look for rational reasons instead.

The pressure to grow, cherry-picking zealots and proving yourself wrong

If you tell someone you run your own business, the next question they ask is, ‘How big is it?’. This creates a lot of social pressure to make the business as big as possible (regardless of whether that’s the right thing to do). 

Echo chambers and LinkedIn police

My biggest fuck up was growing up thinking that being older or being in senior management meant that you knew what you were talking about.

Speak up, hang up and cheap personalisation

My biggest mistake would be not speaking up enough earlier on in my career. It’s taken a while and I wish I’d learnt to do it sooner with confidence and conviction.

Selling dreams rather than deliverables

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

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...

CAREER DECISIONS