It’s time to celebrate the achievements of CommsCouncil career accelerators. In this new series, we’re profiling recent completers to share their learnings, goals and overall inspiration. Meet Stacey McMaster, digital account manager at One Green Bean in Sydney, who not only took our AdSchool Digital Strategy and Design course last year, but can be found posting Instagram-worthy meals in her spare time.
TCC: How long have you been in the industry and in your current role?
SM: I’ve worked in the comms/marketing industry for three and a half years, and have spent two of these years at One Green Bean where I currently work as a digital account manager.
TCC: What was your degree in?
SM: I have a Bachelor of Arts in Public Communications.TCC: What is the best thing about your job and being in the industry?
TCC: What is the best thing about your job and being in the industry?
SM: The diversity in our industry is something that resonated with me early on – the fact we have the opportunity to work on many different brands and projects means no two days are ever the same. Curiosity is in my nature so I love being able to expand my knowledge and expertise in new sectors. People also play a huge part and at One Green Bean I’m fortunate to work with a bunch of legends.
TCC: What made you want to get into the industry?
SM: Weirdly enough, at the age of 16 I decided I wanted to know more about marketing and ended up completing work experience at a public relations firm. While I’ve adapted my skillset to become more digitally focused since then, I’ve always felt like I’ve been in the right industry from a young age.
TCC: What are your wider career goals?
SM: I see myself working agency-side for quite some time and consider myself pretty driven towards eventually stepping into a leadership or exec role later down the track. I’d also love to have a crack at running my own ‘side-hustle’ and developing a brand from scratch that stands for change or good. For now though the plan is to keep working hard, learning and taking any opportunities that come my way.
TCC: Who do you look up to in the industry?
SM: Every time I go to an industry event there seems to be more people I add to my mental list of ‘how can I steal this person’s brain?’. That said, our Managing Director, Claire Salvetti is someone I hugely admire for every quality she possesses – a strong leader, a brilliant operator and team wrangler, a caring mentor and a new mother. I could go on, but you probably get it. She rocks.
TCC: What are your main sources of career inspiration e.g. podcasts, blogs, books, magazines etc.?
SM: Feedly is my go-to. It’s a curated feed of marketing, digital and industry news, which generally keeps me inspired and up to date. I also enjoy reading Digital Buzz Blog and One Green Bean’s very own digital mag, Creative Juice – a fortnightly fix of creative inspiration that the whole agency contributes to.
TCC: What motivates you on both a daily basis and to keep striving towards your goals?
SM: Working collaboratively to achieve results that actually impact business objectives is generally my motivating factor. That coupled with getting to work on great brands, with great people makes working towards my own goals a lot more fun and rewarding.
TCC: What made you want to do the AdSchool Digital Strategy and Experience Design course?
SM: The digital environment is ever-changing and I wanted to expand my thinking across areas I don’t necessarily deal with in my day-to-day work. I essentially signed up for the course to better understand online consumer behaviour and identify new opportunities for clients and One Green Bean.
TCC: How would you describe it in a nutshell?
SM: Challenging, collaborative, insightful and incredibly valuable.
TCC: What was the best thing about it?
SM: I loved the practicality of the course – we all took away a heap of new tools, skills and processes, which have since changed the way I approach my work and new briefs. We were also lucky enough to have Bohdi Lewis as our course lecturer, whose passion is contagious and knowledge is unrivaled.
TCC: What was the number one thing you were able to apply in your day-to-day work?
SM: Since finishing the course I’ve found myself applying new strategic frameworks to better plan across channels and think consumer first.
TCC: What is your favourite project/campaign you’ve worked on to date?
SM: There’s a few, however Virgin Mobile’s #mealforameal is a campaign that has always been a standout and something I’m still proud of working on. Teaming up with Oz Harvest we used social currency to deliver over 400,000 meals to Australian’s in need.
TCC: What’s your passion outside of work?
SM: Cooking (and eating). If my Instagram story doesn’t have a snap of a meal my friends actually start to get concerned.