For almost half my life, I’ve worked at 438. Pretty unusual in this industry, or maybe any industry. It certainly wasn’t what I expected to happen when I arrived at our shiny blue door back in 2006, ready for a few months of work to save to travel. My starting role entailed packing rugby balls in mailing sacks as part of a redemption service we offered our then client Henkel. Sophie (a friend from school) recruited me in a taxi from Warrington at 2am one Friday night and that conversation changed the rest of my life. Just come for a few months she said….
With a degree in journalism, I was a little over qualified to pack rugby balls (even if I do say so myself) so I started sticking my nose into other things going on in the agency… What’s that Pritt packaging you’re doing? Can I help with that UniBond press ad? It’s 12 o clock, my balls are packed and posted, what can l do now?
I thought the ad industry was as I’d seen it in films… full of pretentious people and back stabbers, so I never aspired to work in it because I thought I wouldn’t be welcome. But what I found from day 1 at 438 was a collective of real humans with real lives. Imperfect, humble but ambitious, fair, talented people who laughed every day, enjoyed what they did and created great work…I couldn’t believe this was what ‘work’ could actually be like.
So, I was dead happy when Paul and Andy invited me to return as an Account Exec after travelling if I wanted to. Course I did. Off I went to do the classic gap yah thing and in late 2007 came back to a new client of my own…TNT Express, creating global campaigns with a Head office in The Netherlands. Pretty handy all round since I’d returned from my travels with a Dutch boyfriend. My world turned orange (Pantone 021 to be precise).
On the TNT account I learned all the most important lessons of a client services person – how to manage an integrated campaign, how to speak to a scary senior client, how to implement brand guidelines, the importance of copy checking and most importantly how to truly own a mistake…and jeez, I made a lot of them. (One of my best/worst mistakes was when I sent a World Cup football chart to print with double as many games as were in the competition. It got translated into multiple languages and took a lot of undoing. Fun times.) But, despite my royal f-up, 438‘s values shone through and I wasn’t made to feel stupid, no one got cross, I was reminded of the collaborative process and of my humanity. Another tick in the box for being a great place to work.
In the years that followed, I’m grateful to have had loads of what I call ‘I love my job days’… With TNT we shot a Boeing 747 landing at 2am in Liege, with Element I travelled across the USA East to West in 5 days shooting labs full of experts much smarter than me, as Account Director on VIP I managed an extremely controversial vaping campaign, with PepsiCo I’ve been a part of true culture changing events, and alongside Isuzu I’ve had more amazing days than I can count being one of the ‘pick-up professionals’. It’s impossible to list the amazing projects I’ve been a part of. Things are rarely as glamorous as they seem and often so stressful I didn’t sleep but looking back, how lucky I am not to have had a monotonous working life so far. And how lucky to have relationships with clients who’ve often become friends all over the world because of the life we’ve lived together. 
Being here for so long is both my strength and my weakness. I don’t know how processes work in other places for instance, or how others ‘do it’, but I know how we do it here – we do it well, we do it with enthusiasm and we do it with humility. And we must be doing something right because I’m writing this blog.
I’ve always said variety and opportunity is what has kept me at 438. I’m grateful to have had buckets of it. But in a reflective mood as I write this all down, I realise together with those things, the best thing it’s given me is friendship. In 19 years, I’ve suffered heart break, loss, grief and stress but I’ve also fallen in love, moved house, renovated another and had two amazing sons…and I’ve lived through it all with the support and company of my fellow 438ers. They’ve seen me on my best days and my very worst days too, and provided a stability I didn’t know was possible. Special shout out to the OGs – Damian, Keeno, Whitters and Uncle Mike, and of course Meggers – Thank you for EVERYTHING. You changed my life.
I feel enormously fortunate now to be trusted to shape 438 as MD. It’s a massive responsibility (and honour). I’d be lying if I said there aren’t days where I doubt myself, but on those days thank goodness I’ve got people to lean on. So, to my colleagues and pals – ‘I appreciate you.’ All the pep talks, swift hugs, heated rants and quiet gestures of confidence I get on the daily make all the difference.
So, to everyone who’s been a part of our past and is a part of our present – thank you so much. We’ve got the strongest team we’ve ever had, the most wonderful partners and clients we could only have dreamed of 20 years ago… Here’s to the future.