Meet Sophie Medland, our fantastic new Senior Account Manager

I knew the South Coast had a reputation for brilliant digital agencies. Fresh Egg stood out with its customer-focused approach, slick recruitment process and impressive clients and case studies. It looked like a place where my existing skills would be valued and where I could learn much from those around me. Set an alarm how are you

Sophie Medland, Senior Account Manager 

I started my journey into digital with an SEO and content marketing internship in European fashion retailer Zalando's head office in Berlin – a far cry from my tiny Channel Island upbringing! Living abroad and learning about digital growth at one of Europe's largest and fastest-growing scale-ups was a steep learning curve – but one I absolutely loved.

After a few years and lots of fantastic projects - from the viral Royal Wedding Dresses project I led to an award-winning festival fashion content hub, I found a new challenge heading up a creative start-up's UK presence.

Launching the German brand's 'sip and paint' parties and art workshops in the UK was a fantastic (and fun) challenge. It involved me wearing every different hat – from operations to product management, digital marketing, HR and recruiting and account management, sometimes all at once!

Relationship and partner management was something I had always enjoyed and managed to weave into each role throughout my career. I got to build on it here – managing over 500 artists globally.

After ten years in Germany, the pandemic prompted a move closer to home, and I was seeking a new opportunity that would allow me to continue working on what I loved – building relationships and making people happy!

Despite working in-house for over ten years, I’d always worked closely with (or managing) our partners and agencies and always secretly wondered what it was like on the other side.

I knew the South Coast had a reputation for brilliant digital agencies. Fresh Egg stood out with its customer-focused approach, slick recruitment process and impressive clients and case studies. It looked like a place where my existing skills would be valued and where I could learn much from those around me.

I think my European experience and broad client-side digital, marketing and business development background will allow me to see things from different perspectives and spot new opportunities for our clients.

I believe the key to excellent relationship management is having open two-way communication and a strong focus on expectation management.

My favourite phrase is ‘there’s no such thing as a stupid question’, so I’ll strongly encourage my clients to throw as many questions at me as possible. I’m looking forward to getting to know my clients and their sectors inside-out and understanding all aspects of their digital transformation journeys with them.

Lots of positivity and enthusiasm for their projects – whether big or small.

My fiancé has told me that his Irish granny could often be heard telling the staff at her salon, "we live and die by our customers". Whilst I'm sure it sounded slightly less dramatic in an Irish accent, I think it's a great ethos to keep in mind – without its customers, no business would exist. It can be easy to get wrapped up in 'following the status quo' or rigidly stick to top-down forecasts and plans. Still, if your ears and eyes aren't open to your customers, you can miss amazing opportunities to grow, develop and improve. What works today might not tomorrow (or the day after), and I think it's so important to remember that and be open to pivoting and adjusting or even revisiting old work and measuring it up against your customer's current needs, wishes and standards. 

Having worked with different agencies before, I’m looking forward to moving from in-house to agency-side and understanding how it works, as well as getting fully back into all the digital channels and absorbing and learning as much as possible from my new colleagues. 

It’s rather dull, but I think it would be WhatsApp – essential for staying in contact with my family and friends abroad. I also love to draw, so I am having a lot of fun learning how to digitally illustrate with ProCreate.

So far, so good! Everyone has been so welcoming. I already feel like part of the Fresh Egg family, and I’m excited to get started properly with the clients and teams.

I asked my Mum, and she said very succinctly, ‘Digital marketing at Fresh Egg’ (well done, Mum - top marks!), but when I probed a bit further, I got a lot of random buzzwords, question marks and this emoji 🤷‍♀️ 

In a sandwich – boiled and mashed (together) with salad cream - controversial but delicious!