Insights

If you could attribute one life event to your success, what would it be and why? Moving to New York has completely transformed my perspective on life, career, and personal growth. As a refugee, I spent much of my life searching for a place where I could truly belong—a country or city to call home. Today, New York is that home. The opportunities it has given me for my career growth, and the incredible people I’ve met along the way, have far exceeded anything I could have imagined. It’s also where I met my husband and started a family. What…

What is the very best career advice you’ve ever received? When one of my first CD’s left the agency, he left me a little card that said: “stay who you are, and no one can really be mad at you”. That quote really stayed with me. If you stay true to yourself, you’ll get surrounded with people like you. And as you grow, your personality will also shine through in your work, making it more authentic.  What part of your role as a leader do you find most rewarding? I’ve always felt that the most talented people in an agency are not…

What is the very best career advice you’ve ever received? At my very first job at Digitas as a marketing associate, my manager at the time told me “As account people, we are constantly juggling multiple things on less than ideal timelines; some things are made of glass others are made of rubber. Mistakes are inevitable but it’s imperative we know which ones will break if dropped and which will bounce back.”  I can’t remember what prompted this conversation but I would guess I probably had gone to her to confess I’d done something terribly wrong (the fact I can’t…

If you could attribute one other person or life event to your success, who or what would it be and why? When I graduated from university with an advertising degree (yes, those exist) and a few copywriting internships under my belt, I thought securing a job would take a matter of weeks.  After all, I had, what I thought, was the single most important quality to get into a creative department: passion. We all know how this story goes; the ingredient to get into a creative department does start with “P” but it isn’t passion, it’s portfolio school. And after…