She observes: “I think that advertising and specifically new business sets you up extremely well to work in start-ups. And she believes her experience has stood her in good stead for start-up life. Hesz still follows adland closely – thanks, in part, she says, because she’s married to DDB global chief strategy officer Alex Hesz, an “advertising obsessive”. Meanwhile, after plying her trade in senior new-business and agency marketing roles before rising to deputy managing director of Mcgarrybowen, Sarah Hesz left six years ago to found Mush, a social app for mums, and she is now chief commercial officer at childcare app Bubble. “When you’re building a new product from scratch, you need to be able to understand your customers and users, and the pain you’re building a product to solve, and know how you can marry data and qualitative conversations to help do that,” Arscott explains. He picks out the ability to empathise as one of the many transferable skills that he has found useful. Based in San Francisco, he says the “pull” of being able to work with his friend of 20 years Paul Galatis meant there was “too much to gain and not enough to lose”. Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO's managing director until 2016, Arscott left to launch people directory tool Names & Faces. In Richard Arscott’s case, he didn’t just leave the UK ad scene, he ended up leaving the country. The bright lights of the tech start-up world has proved alluring in recent years to those looking for a new challenge. While she may not yet have the “tech speak”, being able to manage a disparate group of people and knowing your way around a P&L means she’s amply equipped for the post. "I think that when they met me, they liked hearing about my experiences doing that." How you can continue to let them be emotional and love everything about their business whilst also bringing whatever might be needed to it, whether that be scale or professionalising or changing things about it," she continues. "I really understand that tension between how you look after the founders’ baby. Lee says that landing a chief executive role outside advertising would be difficult, but that the “joy” of her new role was that “a lot of my experience really suited it because I’d worked at founder-owned businesses at Gravity Road, Sunshine and Lucky Generals”. The good news for those pondering whether to leave it all behind is that many of the skills honed in agency life are transferable and desirable. You then think: what would I do after that if I was thinking about leaving?” Lee explains: “When you get to an agency like Lucky Generals, there aren’t many agencies you could go to after that. This particular escape was mostly driven by the specific opportunity rather than a yearning to get out of adland. ‘Lucky thing’Īsked about the reaction to her news from buddies in the industry, Lee says it was split between those saying the role is a good fit because of her strong advocacy on mental-health issues, others registering surprise and a fair few envious quips along the lines of: “You lucky thing, how did you escape?” Between January and May, Google searches on “how to move jobs” and “move careers” went up by 138%, according to analysis by the employment practice of law firm Richard Nelson. Whether they stay in advertising or make a change will only become clear much further down the line.Įven for those who kept their jobs, the pandemic has put a stop to “business as usual”, offering a natural break in which to pause and consider the options out there. Cast your eye over LinkedIn these days and it’s hard to miss the preponderance of #opentowork green badges on people’s profile pictures. The IPA, whose census is released in April, is expecting a “significant dip” in the number of ad workers. There may be more people who emulate Lee and make the escape this year, although for some it will undoubtedly be market conditions driving this change. The team members, in this case, work at the mental wellbeing app Clementine as the former Lucky Generals chief executive has joined the band of adlanders who have left the industry for pastures new. Starting a new job can be a slightly bewildering experience, but of late it has been less about finding the best sandwich bars near work or figuring out a new commute due to the Covid-19 crisis, which has changed the face of office work.įor Katie Lee, add in a dash of homeschooling and a “meet the team” Zoom call (from a freezing house, thanks to a broken boiler) and the weirdness was taken to new heights.
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