Lucie, our Corporate Marketing Administration Executive, joined TOMD in July 2022. In this post, she reflects on her first year with the company, the crossover between working with children and marketing… and her surprising talent for axe-throwing.
“No two days are the same”
As a key point of contact for clients, Lucie has a varied and ever-evolving role. Her day-to-day activities range from running advertising campaigns on social media to using HTML tools to keep websites updated. “No two days are the same,” she says.
One year after joining TOMD, Lucie is still finding the variety an enjoyable challenge. “You can’t predict what will land on your desk each day, which makes it interesting but equally tricky. It can be a very busy role. There are days where I log on and don’t feel like I leave my laptop from 8 until 4.”
Schools and psychology
Unpredictability is nothing new for Lucie after almost a decade spent working in schools. “At 22, I came back from Minnesota, where I had been working as a lifeguard. I started a desperate job hunt and ended up in a local high school – working as a Learning Support Assistant, Group Worker and Sixth Form Lecturer.”
After moving between several roles without finding her niche, Lucie decided to go back to university to study for a master’s degree in Psychodynamic Counselling. “I’d always been interested in helping people and understanding why they do the things they do. After three years of placements, observations, experiential workshops and lectures, I got a job as a Counsellor/Treatment Coordinator at a different high school – a great first experience into the world of fully-fledged counselling!”
When Covid-19 struck, Lucie found her perspective and focus shifting again. “Around that time, a new opportunity arose at a high school in need of a Pastoral Lead for Year 7 students, so I moved there and worked some private practice in counselling too.”
From classrooms to marketing
Joining a marketing company was a significant change from the school environment. “It’s difficult to say what exactly took me from working in schools to marketing,” Lucie says. “I feel like I fell into my work in schools. I did really enjoy it for the most part, but I think I got stuck in a loop.
“At the same time, I was going through a huge personal event which really made me re-evaluate things. And, as I said, I’ve always been interested in using psychology in a role and wanted to branch out and work in a company.
“So, when the opportunity came about to start at TOMD, I took it. My friend, Rachael, also worked at TOMD and I knew her experience had been a positive one.”
Finding her role
At TOMD, Lucie spends a large part of her time in conversations with clients. “I enjoy speaking with clients and turning their ideas into something tangible. Liaising with clients is something I do every day: sending out documents, briefing in projects to other departments, administrative tasks like helping clients to access our store or quoting them for work.”
As well as the regular contact, Lucie is active at various stages of some of TOMD’s more complex projects. “I really enjoy creating campaigns and being part of projects, big or small. I like how it starts from nothing and just from yours and the client’s vision becomes something interesting and different.”
This work often involves a lot of planning, something that Lucie relishes. “With the bigger campaigns, this takes more time and effort but, again, I love the ‘end result feeling’ where everything has come together. I’m big on organising and a bit of a control freak, so I like to see the campaigns all the way through from start to end, knowing that I had some impact on it.”
The best thing about working at TOMD?
“My favourite thing has got to be the people I work with – colleagues and clients,” Lucie says without hesitation. “I’ve never worked in an office environment before and, in the past couple of years, I had roles where I worked pretty much alone, so when everyone is in the office together it’s such a nice atmosphere.”
Axes and other activities
Lucie may not have any axes to grind with her colleagues… but she has an interesting hobby outside the office. “I’ve recently found out that I’m surprisingly good at axe-throwing,” she says, before adding quickly, “as an activity, not randomly!”
A dog lover (“If someone has a dog, I know I’m going to like them!”) and possessor of a photographic memory (“that came in useful when I was younger for exams!”), she also likes paddle-boarding, Major League Baseball (“Go Cubs!”) and the Chelmsford Chieftains ice hockey team.
Family is at the heart of her life. “My family are really important to me and my Dad is my role model. I learnt a lot from his kindness and quirkiness… and can’t hear a Dire Straits song without picturing him dancing around with his chopping board guitar!”
Lucie’s favourite thing to do is travel. “Since COVID, I’ve really got into travelling around the UK – there’s so many places that I hadn’t considered before that are just stunning. My favourite spots so far are Bath and Cambridge.”
What next?
After successfully completing her first year, Lucie is still finding new ways to learn and progress. Supported by TOMD, she is about to start an online training course on Digital Marketing – which she hopes will cement her skillset and help her to hone in on more areas of interest.
Ultimately, she has ambitions to go further. “I would like to branch out and perhaps work more closely with clients and thread some project management into my role at some point in the future too. But for now, I’m enjoying the novelty that each day brings.”
