Helena Raven - Managing Director of Bloom

0:08Claire:Welcome to My Life in Design, brought to you by the DBA and design-focused PR agency Red Setter. I'm Claire Blythe, co-founder of Red Setter. In this series, I'll be speaking to more people who are shaping the world of design, finding out how they discovered that design was a thing you could base a career around and how they got to where they are today. This week, I'm here with Helena Raven, Managing Director of the Brand Design and Innovation Agency, Bloom. So she's worked on brands such as McVitie's, KP Snacks, Tango, Heineken, Talisker, Virgin Atlantic, British Tennis. Helena, welcome to the podcast.

0:47Hi, Claire.

0:47Claire:Thanks so much for coming on. I'm really interested in your story of how different it is and sharing sort of different backgrounds and stuff. So when you were a child, did you realise that design was something you could base a career around? No, I didn't. I grew up in a household with three older sisters, one of whom was obsessed with Madonna. And we went to a convent school when we were little and my earliest recollections of things on offer as careers were either being Madonna or being a nun. Strangely similar. So certainly, no, I wasn't really aware of design being a thing at all until I got much older.

1:29My first, which you know about me, Claire, my first career was as a ballet dancer.

1:35Claire:Yeah, so tell me about that. How did that, because obviously that's very creative as well, but just in a very different type of way. How did that happen? I just, as a kid growing up, I started dance classes when I was about 10. I fell in love with it. And I always took it really seriously. And, you know, all the way through school, it was always my vision that I was going to leave school and go and go to vocational school and become a ballet dancer. The biggest thing for me at that time was getting a lot of advice from, you know, school careers advisors and teachers saying, you're never going to be a ballet dancer.

2:08That's ridiculous. One in 100 ,000 people make it. Think of a different career.

2:12Claire:Yeah, yeah. And I'm sure that doesn't, I'm sure that doesn't happen so much now, but I had to really ignore all of that, no doubt, well-meant advice and just crack on anyway. someone told me a similar thing about being a graphic designer and I just thought okay and then didn't do it I really loved it I just really really loved it and I was very fortunate I went to an amazing dance school and then I went on to dance professionally for a number of years until I got injured I was at Central School of Ballet in London which was remarkable met some incredible people one of the lifelong influences of my life a woman called Carol Gable taught me there a woman of exceptional strength and presence of character yeah what do you what do you think I'm really interested in the sort of the ballet side of things what do you think it taught you what do you think you take through now in your career because it's such in my head it's such a sort of strength and the poise and the control that you need around it yeah I'm not sure my poise is always all it could be but certainly certainly it teaches one a lot of resilience I would say the biggest thing I took from that career into the rest of my life is strength of mind and resilience.

3:26You have to be tremendously self-sufficient and have a lot of belief in what you're doing.

3:35Claire:Yeah. So that, yeah, resilience is what I really took forward. But it was certainly through that and through dancing professionally that I became much more aware of the broader design world. Obviously, where I was working, there were set designers and lighting designers and costume designers. And then through those people, you start to grow your network of wonderful creative talent. So I started to meet through my network of friends, people who worked in different aspects of the creative industry from advertising to design. You just kind of came across those people and, yeah, I suppose friends, friends of friends.

4:12Friends of friends, yeah. People who went to uni together and one of them became a set designer and one of them became a graphic artist. And, you know, you just meet people.

4:21Claire:So you had an injury that ended your ballet career. Did you realise it was going to? No, it wasn't one of those sort of catastrophic moments in time. It was a chronic injury that just got worse and worse and worse. Right. And I always had this feeling that once I once it was more painful than it was enjoyable, it was probably time to stop. I, yeah, I didn't want to suck the joy out of it by muddling on. So I decided the keen break was best. And I was very fortunate. I had some friends who offered me an opportunity to go and work. I was living in Europe at the time. They they gave me an opportunity to go and work.

5:02they had a small marketing agency where was this this when I was living in Israel oh wow okay

5:08Claire:actually yeah oh that's wow that's amazing so yeah and a marketing agency and you thought in Tel Aviv yeah oh fantastic I've never been it's a remarkable place I haven't been for a long time but I was working there for a little while I made some very good friends and they were just very kind people and they could see that I was a bit lost and I was sort of you know in my late 20s I didn't really know what to do next and they gave me an opportunity yeah oh so how did you start what was the agency what did they do and how did you start because it's such a shift in my head from that kind of like being a ballet dancer to even having a five job yeah it was a shift it was a big shift yeah so they were they were mostly sports branding and sports marketing a bit of fashion as well okay so there's a connection there isn't there yeah yeah bit of a connection I sort of did a bit of everything really I went in slightly terrified didn't really know what to expect relying on my instinct I suppose yeah and I had the opportunity I did some account management I did some studio management I sort of did quite a lot of mucking in with you know administration yeah just learned how an agency works learned what was important in an agency what was important to clients at that time I wouldn't say I at any point became particularly good at anything but I certainly got a really good understanding of the business I think it's hard to become really good at something at that stage in your career isn't there when when you're just starting yeah and do you know what I learned Claire is I didn't necessarily have to be good at anything I just had to be helpful.

6:53Claire:Yeah I think that's really that's amazing advice isn't it? Yeah I just tried really hard to be helpful and I think that's what made it a really positive experience for me and for the people who were giving me an opportunity. Definitely. So what how long were you there for? A couple of years I did that for a couple of years and then I came back to the UK and I sort of came back quite suddenly wasn't really sure what to do next my sister had been quite unwell so I came to spend some time with her and to sort of care for her for a little while which was a lovely experience but once again sort of found myself thinking what do I do now where do I go from here yeah so what did you do what was the what was the next step did you take a little bit of time out and then try and sort of re-establish yourself took a bit of time out and then weirdly got offered a job working in government doing oh wow sort of trainee comms marketing pr role right okay was that just one of those things that you came across as a recruitment consultant or was it friends or yeah it was one of those sort of looking for looking for I don't know recruitment speaking to various recruitment agencies someone said why don't you just have a go at this I was in that mode of just say yes to everything see what sticks still at this point probably really missing being a dancer having sort of this great experience at an agency in Israel but not sure how I could translate that to the UK which felt like a much more intimidating place to try and restart things I assume was this going back to London then was this yeah yeah I think London in particular can feel like that I think so yeah I mean even though I'd lived in London for many years being away and coming back yeah yeah I love London and I think it's a fantastic place I love working there but I do think it's because it's so amazing isn't it because it's one of the best cities in the world it's like it's in your head that sticks which has got good and bad sides.

9:01Yeah, I think you're right. I think you're right. Yeah.

9:04Claire:So tell me about working in the government department. I have no experience of anything like this. So it'd be really interesting to know. Well, do you know what I would say about it? It's so incongruous with everything I am in terms of being quite a, I'm not very good at process. I'm not, I'm not very good at bureaucracy. I'm, you know, not particularly conformist in any way. And it was, It was excellent grounding for me. And I think the thing is, you have to take opportunity and give it a go. And what I learned there was phenomenal in terms of learning how to run a business, how to have commercial acumen.

9:42Claire:I wouldn't have thought that within government of how to run a business and commercial acumen. I would have thought it would be more process-led. So that's really interesting. Yeah, really, really tough on how one manages a budget, how all of that stuff they were very, very hot on. although you didn't have a P &L in the same way you had to you still had to manage a budget yeah very tightly yeah operationally very useful and then just dealing with big I can't really talk about exactly what I was doing a lot of it's quite confidential official secrets and all of those sorts of things but a lot it was very very high profile big risky stuff things that you know you'd get a phone call at three in the morning and action stations and you had to go and deal with something wow so it was pretty good in terms of dealing with a crisis actually since that and I think it's probably why I'm generally quite a sanguine person in life because since that point in my life nothing's really seemed that bad it's good to set that benchmark really if it's really low or really high but and I had a lot about about comms and marketing and it was it was a really good grounding for me building on sort of the much more consumer stuff that I'd learned in the agency yeah absolutely so how long are you there for how long do you work in that kind of role I think three my grasp of time somewhat hazy but I think about three years three years three or four years yeah and then did Did you actively decide to move on or did you?

11:15Claire:Yeah. And then I thought, this isn't, government's not for me. Or did you think? I thought it's definitely not for me. I've got what I need out of this. I sort of found my feet, got my confidence that I was ready to be sort of, sort of come out of yes mode. I'll take whatever opportunity is going and be a bit more assertive about what I wanted to do. Yeah. So, so this is, this was sort of the point where I took a bit more control, had the confidence to take more control of my career yeah yeah that's a really nice stage to be at so what did you find so I had a real interest in doing some charity work um I went and worked for the NSPCC for a while yeah in their comms marketing brand team well brand marketing team how was that that sounds amazing as well it was amazing it was amazing I worked for an exceptional woman there called Ali Jeremy phenomenal comms director a very inspirational woman and she I think she just saw something in me and basically said right what do you want to do where where do you want to take this let's get you to the place you need to be and I just had loads of opportunity so that was where I really started to understand that I had a natural instinct for leading design teams for spotting good design for shaping advertising campaigns and knowing what good looked like and I started to sort of recognize myself that what I really enjoyed was leading teams in that space that's great starting to recognize that in yourself I think is really important yeah I think it's for any sort of like young people listening and seeing how to build a career I think it's interesting how long it takes to get to that point so many many years into your career I know I was like that it's probably like at least 10 years or so before I started to realize what I was good at and what I enjoyed exactly and figuring out how it all comes together in the different skills and the different abilities you have if you're like me and you're a generalist I'm you know I'm not a I'm not a designer I wish I was I'm not a brand strategist I'm I'm sort of a generalist and realizing that that's a strength and that's something you can actually use to do good things and make positive change.

13:33Yeah, that was a good turning point for me, really.

13:36Claire:So was it after that you met Bloom and you started? Yes, so you did the charity for a while, absolutely loved it, felt like I'd done something, you know, good, I suppose. Yeah. And then decided to, with all the stuff I'd learned, and during that time I did another qualification, another marketing qualification. Why did you decide to do that? Well, it was something Ali encouraged me to do. She suggested it might help me consolidate some of my learning to date, build my confidence, feel like I, you know, had more depth of grounding and understanding. Yeah. I'm glad I did it. I think I could have survived without it, but I'm glad I did it.

14:23It was a good experience. And then I went on and sort of did my own thing. So it was sort of freelance brand marketing consultant for a while. And it was whilst I was working with British Tennis that I first came across Bloom. I see. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. So I was working with them to do brand repositioning. By this point, I'd realised that what I really loved doing was taking a brand, helping it understand how to thrive and grow. So I was helping them with a piece of brand consultancy, repositioning their brand, making British tennis more appealing to more people. And then we engaged Bloom. I engaged Bloom to be our design partner.

15:07Claire:Oh, wow. So you started out as a client of yours. Yeah. Fantastic. That was, what, 10 years or so ago? Eight or nine or 10. So that was a little while ago. You obviously liked what they did. I loved what they did. And I really, I immediately warmed to Bloom. I immediately loved their culture, their energy, obviously their work. I think that's important itself, actually. I think that's something that ways to stand out and ways to, as a design agency, and ways to stand out. It's kind of good work. It's what you'd expect from everybody, isn't it? It's more about chemistry. You're not going to survive as a design agency if you're not good at design.

15:45like yeah but the the magic comes in the chemistry the culture you know being able to excite your clients being able to anticipate their needs being able to inspire them that's what's exciting it's not doing good work everyone does yeah you'd expect that yeah yeah definitely not many people say that i think it's yeah it's an interesting point it's one of the reasons i find pitch process is so interesting but I'll not go off on that.

16:15Claire:I could talk about pitch courses for a long time definitely yeah a waste of time there can be but indeed yeah completely so how did that conversation happen from were you did you like working on your own as a marketing consultant? I did I do what I loved it and I worked with some amazing amazing brands amazing clients I did a lot of work with Virgin Atlantic through the COVID period, which was, you know, very difficult, but also very sort of powerful work. And I had an amazing experience and really built my knowledge base and got a lot of confidence in how to grow brands in today's world. But being, you know, it's I always think design and brand, it's a it's a creative community, right?

17:04it's a endeavor for the collective it's not something that's a solo effort so as much as possible I would try and embed myself with in-house teams and feel like I was part of that team but when the opportunity to join Bloom came along I was really ready to be part of something again definitely definitely so what position did you start working with Bloom at I went in as the head of client partnerships and comms so using my marketing background leaving blooms new business

17:36Claire:marketing stuff and their client service team right okay and then how long how long were you doing that for was it so you had to kind of embed yourself with the team kind of almost as a senior position from the start yeah yeah I did I did which is not something to be taken lightly yeah definitely yeah tell me about so when did you become managing director about a year ago so well september last year can you talk about a little bit about sort of your leadership style because the way i see him from like we've known each other before this podcast and i think that you you've got an amazing team around you and your leadership style really works and i see a lot of design agencies and businesses have someone come in at a senior level and it always lasts like a shorter period of time because it doesn't quite gel in the right way but I'm really admire what how you've done it and how you sort of bond with your team thank you tell me about your leadership style do you have something in your head that you could kind of explain about it or well I can try and I can well I can certainly talk about what I try to do I think I think the thing for me about leadership is you have to genuinely care about the people you are leading yes so leadership for me isn't really about me it's not about what I want or what I need leadership for me is about making sure that the people I am leading get what they need to be as brilliant as they can be and if they can be as brilliant as they can be my job is never going to be anything less than joyful and successful so that's always been my lens is how do I give those people the support that they need the opportunity that they need how do I listen and understand and try to create a culture in which people can really thrive and it's probably not in rocket science but that for me is the priority and I think that's why it's perhaps easier to come into a place like Bloom that has got a really tight-knit culture and the people there have a lot of kindness toward one another I think coming in and really thinking about how to put them first is more helpful than coming in and thinking about laying stakes in the ground about standards of work or revenue targets or all of these things come all of those things work yeah it's just a different way of thinking about it so you're kind of building it from the sort of the bottom up to rather than coming in and saying we need to reach these targets you're making sure everyone can produce excellent work that then achieves those targets anyway yeah i mean i couldn't couldn't run a successful business if we didn't have a super clear business plan and targets but you know for i don't think for a designer it's motivating to talk about how much revenue does the agency need to make i think for a designer it's actually probably quite worrying to have to think about those things.

20:37So letting people do what they're really, really good at and making sure we have people who are really good at the other side of things. So, you know, equally, I'm very fortunate. I have an incredible finance team. I have an exceptional operations team, people who also love how to run a business and make it financially successful. So it's helping all of those people play to their strengths rather than trying to put square pegs into round holes helps I think yeah definitely I can see that your team always

21:09Claire:feels really happy and you're doing really well as a business so it's hopefully yeah yeah I hope so I hope so can I ask about the sort of wider design industry yeah what do you do you feel part of it what do you think the challenges are I do feel part of it I think that there are a lot of lovely industry networks and events that are very warm and welcoming and inviting. And I think my peers and colleagues in other agencies are all, well, not Unmetmore, but all the ones I've met, I think we all understand that there is a lot of shared learning that we can, even though we're competitors, we can still support one another.

21:49I like that level of sharing. It is important. Of course we compete, but it's a small pool of people. It's a small world. I think the more we can support one another, the better. And I've got a few very good friends in other agencies and it's nice to have that network and that camaraderie and knowing that we're all sort of facing the same challenges and we're all trying to achieve the same things. That's important. So what was your other question? Do I feel part of it? So yes, I do. And what do you think the challenges are? Well, obviously today's world is challenging for the design industry because of, you know, obvious things that you and I've talked about before, but AI has changed the landscape.

22:30There is worry. There is a lot of fear, I think, around that. Yeah, I talk about it. Yeah, he's talked about it a lot. Yeah, a lot. And if I'm honest with you, I don't find the technology challenging. I find the attitude and behavior around it challenging. I find the doom mongering challenging. I'd hate to be in that sort of headspace where you are so terrified of it that you just think,

22:55Claire:there's no point carrying on I think that happened time technology changes I'm sure it's happened from the industrial revolution to now people just saying well we can't work like this and kind of giving up when there's lots of exciting stuff out there yeah yeah I agree with you I see a lot of stuff on LinkedIn you know the creative industry is dead coming from outside of the creative industry i find that quite challenging like we're not dead we're here we kind of know what we're doing yeah definitely yeah it's a challenge it's one that i i hope bloom arising to we're enjoying doing things differently exploring things in different ways supporting our clients through changing times so that's you know it's it's a challenge but it's also a great opportunity pitching we mentioned earlier i do think pitching is something that every design agency in the world finds challenging about our industry?

23:52Claire:Pitching is such a difficult one isn't it? Do you do creative pitches and strategic pitches? We're part of the DBA we don't do free creative pitching feel very strongly about that but to be honest with you you know strategic pitching is not free. Yeah of course it's still a huge it's a huge amount of intellectual property that you're giving out a huge amount of thinking huge amount of effort and energy and that's okay I understand it I've been a client I understand why you want to compare agencies and you want to give yourself the opportunity to look around totally get that but I think that there's not enough understanding of how to run a good respectful pitch and I find that difficult and I probably find it more difficult because I've been a client and I know how hard I tried to either pay agencies for their time yeah or to be really honest and say look what really matters to me is to know you can do the work and do we get on are you bright people do we exist well in one another's company yeah definitely don't make people jump through hoops for no reason you know it's hard though isn't it because it's such a massive global problem in the in the industry I have every sympathy for that because it's tough out there.

25:13You know, it's not like, you know, we're all inundated with new opportunity every five minutes. I understand why people would go ahead with it. But unfortunately, it does perpetrate the issue.

25:26Claire:Yeah, completely. It's a massive problem. I always think it started with huge ad agencies in the sort of, you know, many, many years ago, giving away creativity and strategic thought free of charge and making all that money on the media. So the pitches you just throw in, the clever bits we're talking about now, and make all the money on the media side of things. So then it's kind of created an industry where people don't value the strategic thought. yeah it's a really good point and it's almost now habitual and people forget why it was a thing in the first place yeah completely that's just what happens yeah yeah i think you're absolutely right claire it's going to take a huge shift away from it i think the dba do some great work in that area they really do yeah they really do and you know i think we're very lucky to have that sort of advocacy as an industry but yeah it might get better i think in my whole career in working in design people have always been saying the same thing so yeah it'll happen but yeah we just have to we just have to keep going yeah yeah and there's a lot of really active voices my voice probably isn't as active as it should be but you know a lot of agency peers are very active and speak very intelligently on the subject which is great to see yeah yeah definitely I agree can I ask you a final question about tips to people starting off in the industry you mentioned a few things but how to stand out sort of beyond design skills and beyond that sort of the things you'd expect how can people get your attention that's a really really good question and i'm thinking about people who started bloom recently we have interns and we have people new into the industry join us i think my advice would be be curious be curious and show curiosity I think inviting opinion asking people to look at what you're doing or to ask them what they're doing is a really good way just to one make yourself seen and heard and two make connections I said earlier be be helpful but I think though no I don't mean sort of running around making people cups of tea that's absolutely the opposite of what I mean I'm I think what I mean by that is if you get to know the people around you and you see what they're doing and you find opportunities to say could I have a go at that would it be helpful if I tried doing some of that bit for you inviting yourself into things by showing that you care and showing you're interested I think that is a great way to make yourself integral to a team really quickly yeah definitely yeah but someone was a very wise a very wise woman called Susan Howard once said to me, nobody in business is really indispensable.

28:14The trick is to make other people think you are.

28:19Claire:That's a really good line. Yeah. And I've always remembered that. Yeah. Because it's very true. If people come to rely on you and they think they need you, then that's a great way to build a career. Yeah. At the same time as staying humble enough to know that actually we could all be replaced, I suppose. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think that's important. Definitely. Helena, thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun to record. Oh, it's been lovely talking, Claire. Thank you.