Our Pathway interviews highlight working life and career options available to staff. Here our Senior Ad Ops Manager tells us about his journey.
What did you do before you began working for Infectious Media?
I had just finished my A-Levels and had a part time job in my local market.
I wasn't ready to commit to further studying at university as I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do and wasn't prepared to spend a lot of money on something my heart wasn't set on.
For me an apprenticeship always seemed the way to go as I'd be able to get my foot in the door and be "earning whilst learning".
I wanted a career in media but there's an array of different industries out there which meant that there were a lot of opportunities.
Excited to start my new role at Infectious Media, in a newly formed AdOps team in a growing space, I've not looked back since.
Tell us about your Infectious Media career journey - where did it begin, and how did you make your way to Senior Ad Ops Manager?
I started in September 2013 in a Junior Ad Ops role as part of the newly formed AdOps team which worked alongside Optimisation. My apprenticeship was 12 months long during which I had one day a week to focus on my assignments/coursework and I also went to 12 college sessions. Using this time and also the experience I was gaining from my AdOps role I achieved a Level 3 certificate in Digital Marketing. The apprenticeship allowed me to learn about the digital marketing landscape which in turn helped shape my understanding of how our company operates in the space and what the AdOps role does to help achieve this.
The next 18 months after finishing my apprenticeship the AdOps team continued to grow and my career progression took me to an AdOps Executive role, then AdOps Manager where I began to manage other members of the team.
Working hard to develop my expertise in AdOps and enhance my skills as a manager, at the beginning of 2018 I was promoted to Senior AdOps Manager and now oversee a team of four.
Describe a typical working day.
Everyday is different at Infectious Media which is great as it keeps you on your toes. I have a range of day to day tasks, one of the most important is overseeing the team's progress on ad-hoc requests and projects and ensure that all deadlines are met. From here I'm able to provide support when needed which can vary from technical questions to advising on best practices. This gives me a great opportunity to identify any knowledge gaps and processes which can be improved within AdOps but also across other teams in the business.
I really enjoy meeting with individual members on a regular basis to hear how things are going and we collaborate to develop skills and achieve career ambitions. This includes but is not limited to organising training sessions and assigning projects to challenge and develop their skills whilst the final output will also benefit not only our team but business as a whole.
What advice would you give to someone thinking about entering into a career in digital? How do you think that you benefited by taking the Apprenticeship route?
What's great about a career in digital is that you're not limited to going down a single path. Working with a vast amount of teams and individuals who each have different expertise means you'll develop a broad range of skills allowing to further your career in whichever route you want to go down.
The digital space is fast paced and constantly evolving which means you'll need to be accustomed to changing how you work on a regular basis. This may seem daunting but it means you're faced with different challenges everyday which keeps things exciting.
What was great about doing an apprenticeship was the fact that I had the same tasks and responsibilities that someone would be given if coming straight out of university and so I quickly learned and developed skills that has allowed me to have the career progression that I have had which would normally be rare of someone my age.
Finally, what do you like best about working at Infectious Media?
The people are definitely the company's best asset. I work alongside incredibly smart people whom I've learnt huge amounts from and everyone is fantastically spirited which creates a good buzz in the office and makes coming into work a pleasure. Infectious Media understand that people have different working styles and you're given the freedom to work to the way that suits you best in order to get the best results for yourself and the business.
What's really great also is if you feel strongly about wanting to do things differently or make a change then someone is always ready to listen and provide opportunity for you to make impact. Infectious Media encourages transparency which means you can express your thoughts and opinions and let your personality shine.
