Interview with Maddy Sim

Maddy is a digital marketing expert with experience working on cross digital marketing campaigns in both the UK and Australia. She specialises in strategic account leadership - using insight, industry innovations and constant testing to get the most out of accounts. Her key strengths lie in building relationships, whether they be internally, with clients or with suppliers. We caught up with Maddy to find out a bit more about what makes her tick…

Tell us about yourself! How did you end up at Carat?

I actually started in the Dentsu Aegis group in Australia, at Columbus – a specialist search agency. I then transferred to iProspect Melbourne and then home to iP Edinburgh. So I’ve been all over the group!

Carat have some pretty big clients. How does your job role fit with their needs?

It can depend on the objectives and what our remit it with a client. However, what’s always true is that we have a role working closely with a client on exactly what their objectives are, and who the target audience is. Through understanding their consumer better we can understand the opportunities for communication.

What’s your biggest career achievement to date?

Being invited to Mountain View when working in Australia – I was invited as part of the GM marketing / agency team to discuss the latest developments at Google and to define the opportunity and strategy for the car brand in 2014. I didn’t just love it for the chance to snoop around the Googleplex, and for all the free food on offer... the best bit was so many different providers coming together to discuss what was next. There’s a lot to be said for asking for experience in different fields to open your eyes to other stuff.

What’s the fundamentals of a good agency/client relationship?

Being able to work with their other partners is so important – it’s the best means of making sure a campaign is integrated. Also, and here’s a huge cliché coming up, trust – and that goes for both sides.

Who or what motivates you?

A knotty challenge – especially if it’s one that requires excel to reach an answer

If you could look back at your career and remake one of your biggest decisions, what would it be?

It wouldn’t be one of the big decisions – it’d be one of the wee ones, something like a wrongly addressed email or an offhand comment. On the big ones you usually take the time to give it due thought so you can’t regret it

Which living person do you most admire?

Caitlin Moran – she’s a fantastic writer, and she seems a hell of a lot of fun too.

Maddy on Linkedin