After 8 months of travel, and 7 years in London, I moved home and was offered a job at Work Communications who service a wide range of industries and cover a fully integrated 360 marketing offering. My role was Integrated Producer/Project Manager & my key responsibilities included:End-to-end project and production management of integrated campaigns, from quoting through to delivery.Lead producer for video and photography projects across broadcast, online and print mediums.Briefing, direction and management of internal resource and external suppliers to ensure innovative production methods and highest quality delivery.Responsibility of full project lifecycle, ensuring delivery on time and on budget.Management of process and internal workflows while juggling multiple clients and projects.

After 7 years in London, it was time to move back to New Zealand. My partner and I took 8 months off to travel South America on our way home. During this time we ran a travel blog and offered freelance video post-production services to earn a bit of extra spending money along the way.What I learnt.‘It’s not what you know, it’s who you know’ and the importance of networking and growing relationships to gain clients, (all of our clients came through friends or through Facebook networking groups that we were invited to join by friends).I was able to spend some time on self-development and grew my animation skills using After Effects and I learnt new Adobe creative programmes including Lightroom and Illustrator through online courses and YouTube videos.I extended my photography skills and learnt how to take better photos.I also learnt some Spanish.

I was approached by Nemorin through LinkedIn and was immediately excited at the opportunity to work for a narrative-driven video specialist.Nemorin taught me the definition of branded content and the importance of storytelling through video. I was also lucky enough to attend Native Advertising Days in Berlin in my first 6 months, where we picked up the award for Native Advertising Agency of the Year. My next goal was to win an award for one of my projects.I was employed as a Senior Account Manager in a small team which also included a production director, strategist/copywriter, producer, motion graphics designer, editor, team assistant and of course our noble leader/founder Pete. My role was to nurture client relationships, take briefs, prepare quotes, brief the internal team and manage the project at a top-level, ensuring deadlines were met and solving any escalated issues along the way. Through this, I found that a phone call to a client was often a very useful and immediate tool to solve issues. I also learnt to step back and take on a leadership role.I was also involved in preparing pitch decks and attending new lead meetings with Pete, and my confidence grew through speaking to new people.Using my experience in project management processes and learnings from Grand Visual and Stereo, I also implemented new systems which helped to streamline internal workflows, manage resource time tracking and ensure all projects were kept within initial scope guidelines.I was also involved in the most rewarding project of my career to-date, being part of the team who produced a short documentary for NBCUniversal 'Bird Gone Wild: The Woody Woodpecker Story’ which went on to be shortlisted for several awards and won a Silver W3 Award for Branded Entertainment. You can view the 13-minute documentary below.

After 3 years with a digital focus, I joined Stereo as an Integrated Project Manager to broaden my skillset across new advertising mediums. My role involved leading integrated projects and day-to-day contact for our biggest client, Microgaming, and other clients as time allowed.I was able to expand on a lot of the skills I learnt at Grand Visual, from scoping, scheduling and quoting projects, to managing budgets, deadlines and quality checking.I introduced and ran weekly WIPs with key client Microgaming, to track project costs, status and forecasting upcoming work.I learnt project management processes for new mediums, such as concept development, branding, digital campaigns & websites, event creative, print (large & small format) and collateral production. I also grew my video experience in 3D animation.My confidence in working with clients also grew and I successfully ran briefing meetings, learning the right questions to ask, and creative reviews.Dealing with sometimes difficult clients, I learnt the importance of nurturing these relationships, when to give in & push back, and best practice for sharing quotes.A key learning I took from my time at Stereo was understanding the creative thought process and collaboration that goes into a creative idea, including the importance of a project director to assist in streamlining this thinking back to a client brief.

Grand Visual is a digital OOH creative production specialist and leader in the UK. After 1-year as Traffic Manager, I was promoted to Digital Producer while still dedicating some of my time to managing FileDrive.I was lucky to have two incredible mentors, and I learnt so much from them. I will be forever thankful to Nadiya (especially), and Ric.The importance of attention to detail and quality checking was drilled into me as I delivered international campaigns, some with 200+ files, for clients like Warner Brothers.I ran client projects on my own for the first time and learnt the importance of managing client expectations and problem-solving. Equally, I learnt how to best support the internal team.Initially, my projects were smaller and motion graphics based, but later evolved to include larger dynamic campaigns requiring HTML builds. I was also involved as Assistant Producer on 3D animation, AR and experiential projects. I learnt the importance of project processes, from defining the project scope based on an agreed cost to managing scope creep and carrying out post-project analysis.- The use of processes at Grand Visual is something I have used and implemented throughout my career, and experience I will always be thankful for.I learnt how to book and manage resource, and how to brief creative teams. This taught me the importance of relationships with my colleagues and that everyone works differently. Being able to adapt my style accordingly to who I was working with meant I could get the best outcome from my colleagues, and for my clients.During my time at Grand Visual I had the privilege of adding two useful training courses to my knowledge base.1. APA Producer MasterclassA course designed for Junior Producers who have the potential to produce commercials within twelve months. 2. PRINCE2A process-based method for effective project management, firmly established as the world's most practised method for project management.

FileDrive (previously Accelerator) is a digital OOH trafficking platform owned by Grand Visual but run as a separate business. My role involved the day-to-day running of this service, from campaign booking, copy trafficking and campaign support.What I learnt:I grew my knowledge of OOH media owners, national billboard advertising sites and digital spec requirements. Through this knowledge, I advised and offered insight to both internal Grand Visual teams and external creative agencies.I learnt the power of establishing and maintaining positive relationships with clients, media owners and creative agencies. You never know when you might need a favour. I learnt to prioritise to meet deadlines and how to manage workload through a weekly forecast meeting as the platform grew. I was involved in the interviewing processes for new FileDrive staff and training of new recruits.I also learnt the importance of product management and development, through tracking stakeholder expectations on platform upgrade and feature requests, making judgement when these could be implicated to improve the system.Most importantly, working within Grand Visual allowed me to see the workflow of the wider production company and ultimately helped me reach my goal to become a producer.

At the time, Primesight was the UK’s 3rd largest out-of-home (OOH) media owner. I joined the operations team as coordinator of large format campaigns on outdoor advertising sites nationally. It was my first introduction to media buying and media owners which gave me another avenue of knowledge.I learnt how to work in a fast-paced environment to meet weekly posting deadlines (with pressure from the sales team), and occasionally very last minute bookings.I grew skills in stakeholder management being the first point of contact between external subcontractors regarding poster distribution and posting concerns. With subcontractors all over the country, I quickly learnt how to understand a strong Scottish accent (which is a lot harder than you might think).I learnt the importance of communication and attention to detail through liaising with external creative production teams and internal sales to facilitate campaign requirements. And making sure campaign updates and amends were communicated back to clients on project process and challenges.This also grew my confidence in speaking to clients and building important internal cross-department relationships.I was also responsible for training new team members which I really enjoyed.

Component Media is a production company who specialise in post-production and TVC shoots. My role was Production Assistant, but as there were only 2 of us I had my fingers in many pies and in doing so learnt a lot. I utilised and grew my technical skills working in creative programs such as After Effects, Final Cut Pro and Photoshop to produce promotions and TVCs for Sky. I also drew on my video editing skills to draft edits for TVCs, TV series and corporate videos for clients like Air New Zealand.I was involved in the production of TVC shoots and learnt how they are planned and run. During my first year, I helped with production assistance. Later on, as my experience grew, I helped with assistant producer duties and was praised for my thorough and detailed call sheets. This is when I realised my passion for video and my passion for organisation were a good fit to become a producer - which was my next career goal.I also learnt to get my hands dirty by helping with personal assistant duties such as hospitality for clients, taking minutes, booking appointments and organising travel. A skill base I still use today.I will be forever thankful for the opportunities at Component Media which gave me all-rounded learnings of the TV production and post-production industry, a valuable stepping stone in my career.

I worked as a freelance news editor straight after I finished my degree, which was my first introduction to professional video production. My role involved working with journalists to edit their stories to sometimes tight deadlines for the 6 pm news.I learnt the processes of a newsroom from ingesting and filing footage, to quality checking playback of final stories before live. I learnt how to work alongside different journalists and grew my confidence in leading the direction of a narrative lead story. I also learnt how to use a completely new editing software and the technicalities involved in producing video to broadcast guidelines. I feel very privileged to have worked for such an exciting well-known company directly out of university.