Who Are You Without the Job Title? Emily Trenouth

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0:37Emily Trenouth: Emily, welcome. Thank you so much for coming on to the podcast. It's great to have you. Great to have you here. And I think you were the most prompt at replying when I'd requested it. For those that don't know you and your background, maybe if you could just give a bit of a potted history as to your career and then importantly why it was important to come on to behind the title today. Yeah absolutely well thank you for having me it's such a pleasure to be here. Fellow podcaster. Fellow podcaster it's nice to be on the other side as well and not having to think about questions and timing and stuff like that.

1:17No so I'm Emily I have been in the creator economy for about 12-ish years. Came into it from an absolute passion point. I used to work in finance as one of my first early stage proper jobs.

1:31Emily Trenouth: We never got into that in the first call. Yeah, I think that always surprises people. I don't know what that says about me. So I started in finance and hated talking about pensions every day and started a blog as kind of a creative outlet and spotted where this industry was going of brands and bloggers working together and then starting to publish posts on Instagram and so anyway so I became fascinated with the space entered by startups eventually went to Mediacom and built out an influencer department for them and then went into Amazon as a brand side role to be able to head up how they strategically view and partner with influencers across the globe I now consult and work for myself I've been doing that for about a year and I work with lots of different brands agencies platforms on anything to do with creators and why it's important to be here today I think my career path has been very untraditional and it's had lots of different pivots and especially the sort of early days of entering my career I left school um at sort of 15 16 had quite a bit of sort of travel around that sort of time and perhaps could never see you know envisage that I would end up where I am today and so I think that it's important to raise awareness of those types of conversations and also help people understand that you don't have to follow a very strict path into the career space or corporate space yeah um trouble around that time you you've you've you've you've put a little thread out there a little bit of thread I mean within the bounds of where you feel comfortable what what what was that linked to yeah I mean I'm quite open about it so I grew up in a really you could probably say quite a sort of middle class household we did quite well my dad was actually in the advertising space a little agency that he sold on to an agency and um mum didn't work and that kind of stuff and um we had a lovely little bubble and that was uh broken with divorce i think i was 13 at the time right and um it was quite a it was quite a well-known thing in our community uh because there was uh What's the word?

3:46I was going to say cheating, but what's the word? Adultery. Adultery, that's it.

3:51Emily Trenouth: I mean, it is cheating. Formal word, cheating, yeah. So, and it was quite a sort of scandal in our local area. And I quickly, well, I didn't really know what was happening. I didn't really understand what was going on. I don't think my parents knew perhaps how to handle that situation with us as kids as well I was the youngest of three um and so it was it was a really challenging time and and you know I get lots of divorces and splits happen you know I think for us there was an element of I was going through this phase of not really sort of not really understanding who I was and where I fit in within the school and you know the world and you're going through a lot of changes at that age anyway and wanting to rebel and so I definitely used that as an excuse used to rebel and you know would sort of not go to school and um you know go hang out in the park my mates drinking vodka and all of that sort of stuff and um but I'd say for a good sort of five maybe even up to sort of seven years there was just a lot of change a lot of drama both my parents remarried divorced you know between them we laugh now but they've had like five divorces within quite a short space of time um and I think at that at that point in my life I just couldn't see what could be possible for someone like me in that situation I knew I didn't want to be living in the home and I knew that um I didn't want to be in my school I kind of felt like at home I couldn't fully decompress or maybe process what was happening but equally at school I couldn't either yeah got involved in the wrong crowd you know all these sort of stuff and and yeah and so eventually I kind of made the decision you know I don't want to go to school I don't want to go to uni my parents were like well you need to go get a job and we're not going to pay for anything um which is fair enough uh and so I had to have a bit of a wake-up call you know I was a bit I was a bit spoiled up until that point and you know bank of mum and dad was always really helpful but that went away after all of these divorces and um and I had to go out there and get myself into the world of work which was no easy sort of feat but I think there's a misconception I think people maybe think that I maybe had an introduction or a leg up or you know because I climbed the career ladder quite young and got into quite senior roles quite young I think the reality behind that is it's fully been strategic and perseverance and a lot of hard work and knocking down doors and banging down doors occasionally to be able to get to that point and it's crazy I mean looking back I used to and this is so I said this on a women's day panel recently and it sounds so silly and cringe to say now but I used to just sit there and think I want to be like 25 and have my own house and have my own car you know or flat maybe maybe not a house um have my own car and just have my independence and I think at that age I just that was the only thing that kind of got me through um but in all honesty I didn't want to be here I was so caught up you know there was a lot I won't go into detail of all of it but you know bad sort of boyfriends and decisions that I'd made bad crowd bad friends not going to school not taking that seriously obviously my parents were kind of handling their own things as well and um yeah I would have times I would literally just be like I don't want to be here I'd call up my mum being like I don't want to be here anymore um and to think now looking back at that person like I wish I could just go back and hold her hand and be like do you know what's gonna be okay um because I think that the the reality is and you know my parents and my family are all super close now and everything but they often say well you could have taken such a different path you could have gone down a completely different road and and the reality is in those moments you don't have someone to drag you out of it you know my parents were good at pushing me you know like the thing of if you want to go and not be at school well we you need to go and get a job and they pushed me to do that um but ultimately the only person that can change things is you and when you left school at such a young age looking back at it now what do you think you benefited from making such a big decision because because transparent i left school at 16 i was actually thrown out of home at 15 um and was fairly self-sufficient now unfortunately for me i made a few wrong or took a few wrong paths made a few wrong choices between the age of 15 and 18 but i would say that if i look back now it's uh it served me incredibly well yeah i'm not I'm not going to say I'm grateful for it, but those choices that I made, I think, helped to set up a mindset and a work ethic and a certain level of EQ that you just, I couldn't pick up by just following the system.

9:05Emily Trenouth: Like, what do you think you benefited from? I mean I totally relate to that I think that you you get this perspective and appreciation for the good bits and the fact that if if you've seen how bad some things can be you can also really appreciate how good other things can be and I think that it gives you this level of of kind of humility and which is is good especially when you're working with teams um i think for me it made me grow up i mean if i'd have stayed at home and it's funny because again when i reflect with parents or family you know back on those sort of times and days which isn't very often i wouldn't necessarily change anything because everything has made me who i am today and it did make me grow up i was very spoiled you know i was the youngest of you know the little girl and I got everything I wanted but that switched you know within a very short space of time and so my decision was well either I can whine about it or I can get up and go and make that for myself and that was definitely the driver behind everything so I think that that for sure that perspective um also made me really uh what's the word like it doesn't phase me to go and ask for things because things weren't ever handed to me so and you'll probably relate to that um through your sort of early career as well of having to go and approach people and having to ask for things and so I think that definitely helped with with my approach throughout my whole career of not having this um not really having a choice you know and then the other side to it is I think that there is also this element of you save a lot of time you know versus your peers and I had a funny moment once in one of my roles and I'd probably been there six months and a group of women who were all my peers I think some probably even like a bit more junior than me all asked my age and I told them I think I was 25 at the time and all of their jaws dropped and then one person said well actually when did you leave school and I said well 16 oh okay so you didn't do this you didn't go to uni you didn't finish school so that's five years some people go to uni for longer so actually you've got so many years on someone and I never really thought about it like that before but there is this element of time that you do save but it's not to say that it's easy so before that were there just casual jobs so I basically had to go into sales I mean I fine I laugh now but like because I couldn't even get a job in retail and there was one day my mum said to me you have to go up into London I was staying with my mum at the time again I was sort of back and forth between them and my nans and you know I didn't really know where I wanted to be and all this sort of stuff and she was living in a quite remote part of Surrey and she said you need to go get yourself to the station and buy yourself a ticket into London and go and hand your CV out as that was the way things were done at that time um and go and find yourself a job and I would literally do that I'd have to wake up it was like something like an hour's walk through sort of like the woods to the station unbelievable I'd go do that and then do that you know however many days a week but could not find a job and to even think that you know I could end up at a place like Amazon is just completely unbelievable but um yes I went into sales and I did various different jobs I worked in recruitment for a bit um and then I thought to myself I really want to work in finance I thought that was like somewhere I could maybe get some qualifications have a longer term career earn good money that was kind of my primary driver at the time um and I do really believe in these moments in your life sometimes you have almost like forgive me for the saying but like almost like guardian angels like there are people out there that will come and just hand you this permission slip or you know they'll come and and there's a spoiler alert to the end of the episode come on it's a nice hook so um you know i i was literally i was working in recruitment and i was going on my lunch break sitting in the starbucks and literally applying to all these different jobs you know try and get into a different industry hated recruitment i actually ended up getting fired from that job i think they spotted that i was going on all these um you know indeed and all of those sites um and so had this interview anyway so randomly got this interview with um a big american insurance company called metlife yeah yeah so they had a wealth management arm in london and it was in the very top floor of the canary wharf tower and it was like something out of the apprentice and um so I'd just gotten fired from my job I think the interview was like two weeks later or something and so I went to the interview walked in I was like oh my god and I just thought you know what I said to myself I'm going to pretend and act like I'm really confident and I know what I'm doing but I have absolutely no clue what I'm talking about I was about 18 at the time and um I went in and there was about 20 people all waiting on seats and I basically just went and shook my hand with all of these people and they thought I worked for the company but they were all we were all being interviewed together in these sort of group exercises yeah so that kind of broke the ice and then um and then we had all these different task-based exercises and then you had to kind of wait to hear your name it was quite x-factor like and I had quite a few sort of scenarios of those types of interviews in that industry but I somehow got that job and I mean I was sat in a room with people that were ex-stockbrokers and ex-this and ex-that and I have no idea how I got that job that was it for me I mean that that sort of permissions that was given by the recruiter and he literally said to me you don't look great on paper but I know that you you can talk to them well if you get in the room with them so we just need to get you in the room um and so he really gave me that kind of I wanted to understand as you were growing up through your career and progressing was it when you got to media the first time when people maybe looked to you with a bit of sorry how old are you you know you shouldn't be in the position you're in um maybe they'd already decided that you hadn't earned the right to be in that room or was it has that been all the way through because my my interpretation of of certainly that kind of explanation just gave or as you walk through that and meeting you is that you come across with huge amounts of gravitas and probably um beyond your years and therefore I can imagine that you could walk into a room and quite easily put people off balance thank you um I wasn't like that before I was very shy as a child I think it was entering the world of work I kind of recognized that that was my only real way of being able to especially being so young walking into these rooms I would only be taken seriously if I acted more mature so it was probably a little bit of like fake it till you make it type thing but the perception with other people was definitely all throughout especially in my years because I um I found that I was quite naturally good at sales you know I was really good at speaking to people and I loved it as well um and so when you're in an environment where you're maybe in a team of say I mean in that job at MetLife there was probably 35 of us in the office and then like 70 plus people out of the office as well probably maybe 10 maximum of those would have been women um majority well all older than me pretty much um well yeah everyone would have been older than me um and so there are elements of i don't want to say it but i'd say sort of mean girl comments and things like that you know on the way that i would look or the way i'd dress you know especially when i worked in finance i very much felt like i had to dress older you know I was shopping in Hobbes which I don't know if you know Hobbes but power suits yeah but that's you know the average age of someone shopping in Hobbes is probably in their 40s or 50s you know and I was wearing heels every day and I felt like it definitely you know it was that kind of industry and time where you had to to sort of dress and you know put your best foot forward to be able to be taken seriously and so I think because of that there was always this concept of you know sort of why is she here or why does she deserve that or you know all that sort of stuff and so the work ethic had to overcome all of those comments um because i almost felt like if i can be so good at my job that no one can question it yeah they haven't got anything to question but of course people will always say something yeah i mean it's it's uh i think it's human nature um and normally it's a reflection of them yeah rather than the individual that they're questioning yeah um was was there um was there a moment over your corporate career the on the outside everything was was great you know the shop window beautifully dressed but the stock room an absolute disaster like falling down to pieces um and you were finding it difficult you know behind you know the scenes i think there's probably lots of micro moments of that throughout every stage you know that early stage of the interviewing canary wharf you know that time was really difficult in itself and i had stuff going on in the background and and it was almost this fake confidence that got me through um i'd say more recent years when i left my last role which was at amazon um there was it was one of those times where probably for the first time in a really long time i had to really figure out like who who i am without the title without the big company um without teams you know and and which you actually covered on an episode with Naomi uh yes I know in fact it was fascinating I took that away and I was like it it was a theme it's been a theme all the way through all of my episodes so I think it's it's quite common yeah it's it's a really strange feeling because on the outside you've got this external narrative that you put out to the world and you know that narrative is true you know so I I had always wanted to go and try working for myself never had the right time or opportunity found the right moment for it and it ended up all kind of working really well together and also it was a time in the creative space as well where I was starting to get lots of people knock on my door say well can you help me with this can you help with that and I thought well actually I could make a career out of this myself and work with lots of different people versus versus in-house building it for someone else and so that narrative is true but behind closed doors you have no idea what the hell you're doing you know you're figuring out your pricing structure who your clients are going to be who's going to follow you who's not going to follow you and very quickly you know I think we spoke about this a lot in a couple of the episodes of my podcast around when you don't have the title and don't have the big name behind you you lose a lot of your friends you know your industry friends um and all of a sudden you become a lot less useful to people and that's almost like a grieving process in itself to think well you know who who am i what's my value that i'm bringing to the world you know what am i um you know what are my values that i believe in it's a whole sort of identity shift when you strip it right back and you go from that name to your name and i think people are afraid of that you know a lot of people are really really afraid of that and they stay in corporate careers for a really long time because of that um so it's a really freeing process and i think you lose a lot of people but you also gain a lot of new people and gain new spaces um but i'd say that's probably the moment more recently where yeah behind closed doors there's a lot of late nights tears days where i'm like what the hell am i doing days where i'm like this is amazing i could do this forever um but i suppose it's it's the process of it all i just i found that fascinating on the episode with naomi uh it's wakeland right no namey walkland yeah walkland um and i just thought i think you were both talking about you know suddenly you're you've gone from you know Emily uh MediaCom Amazon to I'm just Emily

22:31Emily Trenouth: yeah and it's it's it feels quite widowed it feels quite uh silent yes um it you know and it's part of the reason I talk about this a lot on the podcast I think more because it's quite cathartic for me the reason a lot of the reason I do this stuff is because I want to at least leave some sort of um legacy is too strong a word but I want to leave some sort of impact on the industry beyond he can do great work build teams you know uh amazing with clients and actually have people run me for something that I'm trying to make or have an impact or make a change for yeah or on and and so I'm almost fast forwarding the tape and thinking well in whatever time frame that decision is either forced upon me or I choose to make it um hopefully the latter I'll always have this to remember yeah and think that because my job is my job you know what i get most from is being able to give back what was really given to me when i went into recovery and help other people it could be crossing so helping someone cross the road picking up a bit of litter or just having a conversation with someone so i i found that particularly interesting when i was listening to some of your uh some of your content i was like we don't talk about that enough um which is which is bizarre because so many people now are leaving the industry.

24:09Yeah, there's a big sort of mass exodus. Mass exodus.

24:13Emily Trenouth: It's really changed. I think as well, everyone's got to a point where people chase title. And look, I'm not here to bash corporate because it's where I learned so much of my skill set and I would never have been able to have done what I've done without that. And I have so much appreciation for the companies that I've worked for, especially Mediacom. I've got very fond fond memories there and you know they gave me so much permission I probably pissed off a lot of people but for good reason but you know and never say never you know I might go back into a corporate role at some point it's all you live in chapters and seasons in your life and I think that the more okay you can be with who you are as a person as yourself and the impact that you're leaving on the world or the impact that you're leaving on a individual person the easier it is to admit to yourself when you need to go through these different chapters and i think that's the biggest risk that people have is where you kind of feel like you don't listen to those gut signals or gut feelings and you you just push through with the sake of saving face yeah to the external world but perhaps putting your own priorities and needs last 30 under 30 40 over 40 there are many different uh awards that i guess allow the individuals to showcase their worth um allow businesses to showcase their assets and arguably possibly create a platform for people to build their careers um when we first spoke you talked about people shouldn't chase these accolades um what do you think they should chase instead oh that's such a good question i think um you know and i've been guilty of it chasing the awards and chasing the accolades and thinking that's what I need for validation but the truth is you get it and then and then what you know um you can get in a trap of chasing the next one and the next one um and it takes away the meaning and the purpose of what you do like are you doing your work because you want to put it into an award entry and have a award title or badge on your LinkedIn profile or an award in your cabinet it um or do you want to do great work to be great at your job do you want to do great work you know to leave lasting impact look I don't think it's realistic that everyone is going to be someone who's driven by impact but I think there is a world where you can do all of them and I think that you know I I don't necessarily think people shouldn't chase awards I think awards give people great platforms and so I think the awards you know the couple of awards that I've won over the years massively helped me with from a platform perspective and there is no no sort of question how many have there been um i actually don't know maybe two maybe two i've had a few silvers and that kind of stuff um you know but i used to dream of that and i used to think i just want a 30 under 30 i just want this and i think that that was almost this validation that i needed that I'd done I'd done something good you know by the little girl that 13 years old who didn't you know couldn't see the wood from the trees or whatever the phrase is um but yeah the truth is I think one of the awards I kind of I didn't really expect to get and I got it and then I just went home I was living in a flat on my own went home to my flat and then I think it was on work calls and then it was just like okay you know yeah you don't really it doesn't really change anything in your day-to-day life and you know this is obviously on a smaller scale but I think the other thing is there's a lot of great people that I know that haven't got certain awards and it's like well they're still great people and I would massively rate them you know I'd go to them for advice any day of the week and so I don't think it's the sole indicator of that someone is better than or different than other people I think you know awards you know I've judged awards I'm sure you have as well the process behind it you know isn't necessarily linear who you're up against isn't linear you know there's a lot especially in the sort of industry awards I hope no one listens to this and comes from me but you know a lot of like people that pay a lot for sponsorship also get a lot of awards you know so you have to take it with a grain of salt um so I think it's great to celebrate people and great to celebrate good work but I just don't think it's the only stamp of success yeah and actually with Forbes um I applied for Forbes at the final year that I could do it so when I was 29 why I waited I don't know I just wish I'd have done it sooner I applied and this was Forbes 30 under 30 Forbes 30 under 30 yeah I mean that for me was like I need I need this you know throughout my whole career that was kind of what I saw everyone that I thought was you know mega cool had um had achieved and so I did it in the final year put my submission through the reality was at that time I was not happy in my role um I didn't really know where I want what I wanted to do next I didn't really have you know an idea of the impact that I wanted to leave at that particular point I wasn't in a great headspace um and all of these awards are about you know what you've done in the past what you're doing now and then what you're going to do in the future and so I got um like short the shortlist for it and then had to give more information and and you have to put people forward that um like recommend you yeah and so I went to people that had got it in the past and everyone was like oh you're gonna get it easy like there's no no issue and so I really thought I would have got it welcome in the morning not on the list and I was like oh my god like it was almost like everything I'd thought I'd worked for had come crashing down and it was the biggest it it's not only sort of humbling you know it's just a bit of a realization that these things don't impact your worth and the things I said around like different variables in play you know there were people that were in maybe very similar roles to mine but were in different European countries and maybe it's the fact that you know they wanted to have a diverse spread across Europe you just never know or it could be that my submission wasn't as strong no no no no but you know what I mean you know I'd had a great well I say that I say it only because it could be easy to question yeah but sometimes it's just like it's not the right fit and if it's not the right fit that doesn't mean that that's a failure it just means that for that particular year you know and had I done it years before maybe I would have had more to talk about but and so I've had lots of moments I'm sure you're probably too from being quite a sort of self-aware person where something something won't work out the way you thought it might have done but then it will come around in a different shape or form and I remember I I um so I did when I left school I did go to uh sick form for like two months or something and quick yeah I basically just never went because I had too much freedom and just couldn't be bothered to go.

32:03Sounds like there's a pattern there. Yeah. And so I went to Sixth Form, but I really wanted to get into fashion. I don't really know why, but I really just thought it was like the coolest thing ever to go and work in fashion. You know, I read lots of magazines and stuff. And so I wanted to get into this place called the Fashion Retail Academy, which is in central London, and did my application, and I got put on the wait list. and then I think the second day of six form I got a call saying oh we got you're off the waitlist do you want to come and I was like well no I've kind of started this now I don't really want to do that and I kind of thought well you know I'm going to be waitlisted and deprioritized I don't really want to be there anyway um and so anyway it's funny like if I'd have made that decision at that time my life could have taken a very different path but I didn't think anything of it and then years later maybe six or seven years later um when I was working at one of the creators startups tribe I think it was a tribe we got like a message and basically long story short I had to go in there to deliver like a a talk for their students all around influencers and creators and I was just like this is so strange that sometimes what feels like a bit of a redirection in the moment you end up being it can just turn around into some sort of different opportunity later on in life and and I think the same with the with the awards you know there was a another 30 under 30 not a Forbes one that I think I got like silver or whatever and then and then I got a different one that I never expected to get that was also a 30 under 30 so then I was like well I've kind of done it but just in a different way that I thought I maybe would have and I think probably the same with you that who knows maybe you'll get invited to go and speak at one of the future things or invited to come in and apply to join like to um well it's nominate yourself yeah but but it's funny because tomorrow i'm actually going to speak to um all of jc the co uh they have

34:11Emily Trenouth: a uh it's mental health awareness month and they have a a big week of events and on the back of I guess them knowing and seeing they invited me to come and speak to you know 100 120 people about my journey and how I got to behind the title and so that's amazing I think that's my point is like similar to what you're saying there like the the rewards manifest themselves in different ways if your intent is pure and it's not uh it's not got a uh a selfish goal you know what I mean and for me this is a selfless thing i give up my time i do it on day to day alongside day to day um uh but yeah it's just i think it's interesting for people to hear this you know certainly that are of a younger age that it's not all about the awards um uh but i do think you know on that on that same on that same kind of talk track um if i look at the kind of the media and influence our economy right now it's it's fundamentally changed like all i need to look at is people like yourself for example um jordan schwarzenberger um you know amelia sodell there are a raft of different uh individuals who are personalities but are actually next generation changing you know the shape of how brands are advertising and how they need to think about advertising um what's the what's the best thing about that you know for the industry right now yeah I mean it's it's strange because it's also like a lot of us probably felt a lot of us came into it from a space of not really having the skills and experience but coming in from a place of passion yeah you know a lot of us have come into it super young I mean Jordan was like 18 or something I think when he entered the space and myself I was probably about 21 and so it's it's so great because so many of us have you know sort of risen in the industry together and that's that's so important but it's mad because we used to go and sit in rooms or at tables and people would think oh you know just you know these influencer people or whatever it might be you know that really sort of met with a lot of skepticism and so now the shift in that probably over the last little five or six years in the sense of people are now seeking out people like us to say well hey actually no no we need to now get our we need to get a handle on this because there's so much opportunity here like we're really behind and so i think that the space is so vast the creator economy you know it's not just creators it's created tech platforms it's businesses you know there are billions of dollars pounds whatever currency you want to use going into this yeah um and so there's there's been incredible career opportunities you know and so i'd say like a lot of my career success has been you know part hard work and ethic and that kind of stuff work ethic but a lot of it has been getting into an industry at its very early days and then positioning myself as a leader in that industry through education to other people and helping build it um and then that's you know enabled me to get senior roles at media con wpp and amazon um because they need experts in house and the experts happen to be the people that have risen with the space so i think that there's a you know immense career opportunities i think that it's it's only growing and expanding and i think that um in the media world creators they're not only the new form of celebrity you know they they're a whole media channel in their own right and actually they're dominating other channels so i think that none of us really predicted for it to grow as it has done but it's just caused this huge huge amount of opportunity for people especially in today's age with the likes of ai b2b influencers you know you look at amelia sodell like you've mentioned you know she's working with brands as an influencer and so that's also something that maybe none of us even really thought we would be able to do I um I cast my mind back to so what am I now uh maybe I don't know 10 plus years 12 years in the industry maybe a bit longer and I um I came from a world of cleaning cars had a car cleaning business for a long time and then I hustled my way into a business called dot talent um and worked for a guy called danny sprons and danny uh had spent many years working in um mobile gaming um and he's currently at moonbug was previously at maker studios but he created a business that was effectively at the early stage was the vanguard of influencers so it was when zoella and pixie woo and those guys were coming up when talent celebrities were building websites and social pages and these guys are building youtube channels and uh it was an amazing business but it gave me an opportunity after i'd worked there for a couple years suddenly i was a really attractive commodity to a big hold group because i brought capabilities and skill sets that just didn't exist yeah even if they bought and acquired different businesses um but i agree like the you know uh the world has changed i think creators have become you know just just as an equal or just as equal if not greater in some parts um a media currency yeah than tv cinema out of home print radio social digital you know experiential sport like to see what what i would say certainly the likes of sidemen have done is is nothing short of phenomenal and i remember me and jordan have stayed pretty close he you know we got connected a few years ago he came and talked to an event for me and and he told me about the journey i won't share it on here it's not my place to but he told me about the journey he'd been on with them and the roadmap that they all set out and to look and see what they're actually doing you know creating entertainment and ip that brands could only wish to fill wembley stadium you know uh with how many 80 000 fans and raise six million pounds and capture the hearts and minds of, you know, how many people watched it online.

40:57Emily Trenouth: Yeah. It's just phenomenal. Yeah. So to have people like you on the podcast, I think, is so important. I guess, what would you say to a young female that is incredibly ambitious but is being told to wait their turn and get in line? oh um i think it's hard i think that there are times when you have to almost bite your tongue and recognize that maybe you do need to wait your turn you know and i think that is something that i've done over the years and you know when we were talking and looking at questions before this i think you mentioned something about like the time when you wish you'd said something you know lots of times where I've bitten my tongue and not said things but taken the higher road and I think that there are times when that's that's okay so you can take the higher road you can nod and smile and go and work in the background on what your master plan might be you know behind closed doors so I think there's there's times you have to accept that and then times to accept when you're in the wrong room and if you're in the wrong room where you don't see an opportunity to be able to grow at the pace that you need to or the pace that you're capable of then you need to go and find that room um so i think i think that would be the or create it or create it yourself yeah and that's the thing as well it's like because i'd say my sort of earlier career was really about hard work hard work ethic you know not being a person that people knew and so it was a case of you know making a name for myself but then it got to that point there was that sort of tipping point and I feel like MediaCom gave me a lot of that that platform and opportunity for that and they really platformed me as well which was great

42:48where my name people would start to recognize my name and associate it maybe with influencer marketing or MediaCom or whatever and that then got me so much more opportunities and so I think like it's kind of a strategic play that you have to take though like when's the right time to do each part and when's the right time where you think okay well i need to sit and knuckle down i think fundamentally you need to be someone who's really good at your job before you actually even consider anything else and i think as a manager of teams as well it's the most frustrating thing when people just say oh i've been here for three years and i want a promotion and it's like well why you know pay rise is the same however if you can go in and prove your impact on a business then you earn the opportunity to be able to go in and ask for things and demand things and and so yeah I'd say earlier in my career it was all around you know I didn't make very much money early in my career you know and even when I was at Tribe it was a startup and that's a whole you know there's probably a whole other episode in itself we had so much fun but you know I joined a team it was myself and one other person our boss at the time got fired quite quickly and so it was just chaos it was an Australian business so we were the only people in the UK running around town going to all these different brands and agencies and but I put my heart and soul into that business you know I left friends funerals to go and pitch at Condé Nast one day like I would go and work on my holiday I'd be signing up influencers to the app and waiting in line for a gym class I was just so embedded within that business that people thought it was my business but I was being paid you know not very much I was super young and and um I just wanted to learn and do everything and so that opportunity yes it didn't give me even the title at the time or the money but the amount of experience I got and the hats I got to wear fundamentally meant that I was able to leap and get I don't know how much more 50 % more you know higher salary and so I think sometimes you have to think about what's the what's to gain here and if you're in an environment where you can learn and grow in other ways than kind of the title or the seniority then absolutely maximize that if you're not then you've got to go find the

45:08Emily Trenouth: opportunities and spaces to do it and and along those same lines was there were there things that you wish you'd said to people or in rooms over the years uh was there was there a moment where you just thought i wish i would have spoken up more there or i wish i would have shared a point of view better it doesn't have to be the exact detail but it's you know it's interesting um you get a real mix of people that say yeah i wish i said this and you get somebody like not really no um i have a feeling where you might go with this answer but i'm i'm keen to here um I think it would be a combination I mean part of me wants to say no uh you know I've I've had moments where I've been very outspoken you know I wouldn't really say I'm an outspoken person per se I was trying to be quite sort of political and you know democratic in the way I with people but you know there's been environments or times especially when when i worked in finance and i was so young and i'd say when certainly my experience and people that i know you know when women are young going into the workplace there's a lot of things that people say or do or you know people think they can take the piss sorry i hope i can swear on here whatever you want um and and And you don't know how to deal with that.

46:39So there was a lot of that in the early days, you know, in that environment and that sector. And I wish I would have stood up for myself, spoken to people, you know, again, though, this is kind of. There is this tricky conundrum that you get in in that. In those scenarios where you're like, do I ignore it and rise above it and, you know, just crack on despite? right or do I you know take it further there's no right or wrong answer in any scenario um and this was you know with the whole sort of me too movement and everything I think it's it's important for women to be able to confide in each other for sure and I think there's always there needs to be a space and a place for people to confide in um but unfortunately in that at that time I mean this was only sort of 15 years ago 15 16 years ago like I or maybe not even that you know I didn't know what to do in those scenarios and I didn't have someone to talk to so I wish I would have spoken up more but then equally would that have done the right thing

47:48Emily Trenouth: for me i don't know yeah um we have moved on um and i do think that it always takes you know or only takes one uh which i think you know we know when that happened you know however many years ago when the me too movement did start um and so i'm i'm really grateful that that person did speak out or those people did speak out and i hope that people continue to speak out i equally hope that there's always going to be a fair and equitable environment for uh for both sides you know in in those in those stories to be heard but um but it draws me to a bit of a conclusion um in our chat which has been awesome um um you talked about at the beginning and the permission slip that you were given um what permission would you give to people to think feel say do or pass on to others that they know um that can I guess really help to change their life and it could be a small thing or it could be something on a much larger scale I think the main thing I would say is don't wait don't wait to be given permission don't wait apart from my permission slip but don't wait to be given permission you know don't wait to be chosen for things you know and I've seen it so many times where you know women especially be you know that i've managed or you know mentored or you know they've waited for things they've waited to be asked for you know to be put forward for promotion or waited to to do something else or you know even like me it took me a really long time to take that leap to go and work for myself and that's something i dreamed of for a really long time and i have so much admiration there's a girl that i mentor um who's i don't know maybe 21 22 she's done incredible things she worked at amazon as an apprentice and she was like you know what i'm actually going to go be a creator and start my own social media agency and i just think that that is the most admirable thing that you can do especially early in your career because there's less responsibilities there's less risk you've got the opportunity to do those things if you want to go work in a different country like just go do it so i think yeah don't wait for permission i think that that's probably the thing that people will always regret is waiting too long um and actually you can have anything that you want you don't have to come from a certain background you don't have to look a certain way you don't have to speak a certain way or dress a certain way nowadays you know you can you can have and achieve anything you want because of the power of of the internet and social media and also just the way the world is now you know we're more acceptable well accepting and we're more um fluid I guess in certain ways so yeah I would say that what's next for Emily what's next for me I mean I'm in podcast world like you at the moment so planning my season two um lots of exciting stuff on the consulting side but again you know it's still a work in progress and constantly figuring it out so I'm in that process at the moment of figuring out what's next watch the space I guess well look if anyone's listening and wants help with anything to do with creators and the creator economy definitely get in touch with Emily and also I'm sure if you've got an interesting story around your background and your career there might be a space on her podcast as well as mine it's been an absolute pleasure honestly we could go on for hours I'd love to get into the startup world so maybe that's a another episode another day yeah um but truly a pleasure to have you thank you so much for your time and we hope you enjoy listening thank you danny it's been incredible thank you amazing thanks

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