I think I have one of the best jobs ever*.

My career has enabled me to travel the world. From recruiting a team in China, to a bi-lingual brand naming project in Hong Kong, regular trips to London to visit Head Office and a company weekend away in Spain, my work has allowed me to keep my travel bug satiated and for that I am enormously grateful.

In my role as Managing Director of the APAC operations of BrandOpus (an independent, brand-led creative agency) no two days are ever the same. As MD I am across all aspects of the business, from finance, marketing & PR, HR, operations, strategy, creative, production and, most importantly, client relationships.

My career has evolved somewhat serendipitously though (say 90% hard work and 10% serendipity).  There was never a grand plan, never even a 5-year plan, which is unusual for me as I’m known to quite like to be in control. Largely, my career has evolved through me following my gut, and working damn hard.

As a young adult I thought I wanted to work in PR, but the universe had other plans for me. I tried and failed (TWICE!) to get into the course of my choosing before landing at RMIT in the Bachelor of Business (Applied Marketing) course kind of by default.  On reflection, this outcome has set me up perfectly for a career I didn’t even know existed in my younger years.

I landed as a fresh faced 20-something in London in the late 1990’s. My roles there exposed me to agency-land, and while I’ve dabbled in client-side roles over the years, I feel most at home among the creative thinking and variety agency life exposes you to, day in, day out.

But the one thing that has kept me interested is trying to properly understand this thing called “brand”. Brands fascinate me. Understanding what they are, this curious combination of design and psychology, these little famous things, and the way we can use creativity to reinforce or communicate a brand’s positioning and create untold value for a business. It’s such a vastly interesting thing to me, the perfect combination of business and creativity. It’s taken me years to even scratch the surface, and I consider myself privileged to work for an agency that is at the forefront of this thinking.

Marry this with the world of FMCG marketing and I am in my happy place.

My words of advice to my younger self would be:

Be Curious.

Ask questions. Ask stupid questions. I think stupid questions are potentially the best questions. Don’t assume the obvious.

Show up… and keep showing up

Put your hand up. Say yes. Make that phone call. Attend that event. In this way, you make your own luck. The laws of attraction will guarantee it.

The people who challenge you the most are also capable of teaching you the most

This doesn’t mean you need to like them! But recognise the lesson in it. And focus on that.

Throw yourself out of your comfort zone

This is where growth occurs. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable.

I’m excited to see where the next decade takes me, especially if I follow my own advice!

*excludes: professional cocktail taster anywhere in the Caribbean, house music DJ with a Las Vegas/Ibiza residency or any job that involves puppies and/or kittens.