Five years at MediaCast has reshaped how I think about the
industry, storytelling, leadership, and what it really means to add value. What
starts as a focus on output and execution quickly becomes something far less
tangible and far more complex. The biggest changes haven’t been visible on
paper, but they’ve fundamentally shaped how I work and lead.
From arts
PR to brands and NFPs
My early PR career in London’s theatre industry constituted
of a very specific way of working. PR in the arts can often be more linear,
involving a simpler and more straight forward approach. When the very thing
you’re promoting is a story, the narrative writes itself.
So, when I started at MediaCast, the creative side of PR was
in fact alien to me. I’d never had to build an editorial worthy storyline from
scratch: the industry I was in simply didn’t require it.
The story you create and the rationale behind it, is even
more important in a growing attention economy. People and relationships are
vital in PR, but the age-old saying, “it’s not what you know, it’s who you
know,” is no longer enough.
Progression isn't a promotion
Over five years, I’ve moved from managing accounts into
multiple leadership roles before becoming Group Account Director in 2025. In
agency life, promotions often come after you’ve already started operating at
the next level, but what I didn’t expect was that the hardest transitions
happen in the least obvious moments.
Early in our careers, value comes from output: being across
the detail, solving problems quickly and driving delivery. As you progress,
those same strengths can become constraints and what made you effective as a
team member can start to limit you as a leader.
I’ve never been much of a box ticker, in fact, bigger
picture thinking has always come more naturally to me than simply following a
set of instructions. In a creative and dynamic industry, this serves me well, and
as a leader, I’ve been able to lean into those bigger ideas.
What I struggled with, however, was learning to communicate
across a spectrum of personalities and working styles. It initially felt like
going backwards. I had found my groove and the way I worked best, only to feel
as though I had to undo that and start again.
One thing that helped was training myself to articulate my
thinking out loud, explaining how I arrived at a solution, which has been
especially useful when training new team members. Talking through the logic and
reasoning behind an action not only helps me communicate tasks more clearly but
also helps others retain and replicate the process independently.
Reframing how I communicated more broadly was also a turning
point for mentorship and motivation, finding the right balance between being
empathetic and approachable, while still being direct and clear.
Structure where it matters, freedom where it counts
One of the most important lessons in that transition was
understanding that not everything needs to be standardised. As long as core
business functions and points of difference are maintained and quality
controlled, how the team gets there is up to them.
We introduced clear processes around the fundamentals of
MediaCast’s values: excellence in communication, beating deadlines and exceeding
KPIs. These are the non-negotiables. They ensure our clients receive a great
experience, create alignment, protect quality and mitigate risk.
Outside of these core pillars, we made a deliberate choice
to avoid over-engineering how people work, because creativity and strategic
thinking don’t thrive in overly controlled environments - they require space,
flexibility and different approaches.
Instead of dictating how work should be done, I started defining
what success looks like and working backwards from there, encouraging the team
to get there in their own way.
The hidden risk of being 'across everything'
My management style was centred on motivation, constructive
feedback and collaborative problem-solving. But this also meant I became
central to everything. The real challenge was building an environment where
everything didn’t rely on a single person.
All work ultimately sat with me - decision-making, reviewing
and approving, team productivity and wellbeing, management alignment, business
retention and development, and process implementation and oversight.
While the intention was consistency and quality, the result
was increased dependency and stalled growth. The team’s ability to operate
independently was limited, with everything bottlenecking through one (often
quite tired) individual.
Scaling the team and the business required a conscious shift
towards a multi-layered structure built on trust, accountability and clarity.
When to add value and when to not
One of the biggest personal shifts in this transition was rethinking
what it means to ‘add value’.
Early in my career, I believed a strong manager should have
all the answers. In practice, that meant being the fastest to respond, the
quickest to solve problems and the most across the detail. But as a leader,
consistently providing answers prevented the team from developing the
confidence and capability to find them independently.
Instead, I’ve learned to ask better questions, guiding
people to think critically, make decisions, and take ownership, while still
offering support when needed. It’s slower in the moment, but far more effective
over time. Today, the team is self-sufficient and collaborative; if I step
away, I return to progress, not a queue of decisions waiting on me.
The biggest lesson from the past five years is that
leadership isn’t about control, but knowing when to step in, and, more
importantly, when to step back. Balancing autonomy with accountability, and
freedom with structure. That shift comes with recognising that the strongest
teams don’t rely on a single leader but are built to operate without one at the
centre.
Our team today is more experienced, more collaborative and
significantly more self-sufficient than when I started. But the challenge of
leadership doesn’t disappear as you grow. Looking ahead, my priority now is to
keep building an environment where people can do their best work, independently,
collectively and sustainably and coaching others to become great leaders too.