For four years I co-led a branding and design studio in the Toronto area. My primary responsibilities were growing and leading the team, supporting with strategy on some client work, and overseeing many of the operational aspects of the business.

Overseeing the Employee Journey

When I started, the team was made up of 3.5 roles—3 of those were the founding team, of which I was a part of. During my time there we grew the team up to a maximum of 14 roles, including designers, copywriters, strategists, account managers, and even interns. I was responsible for overseeing the employee journey. This included:

• Interviews and hiring;

• Onboarding process;

• Daily check ins during their first two weeks;

• 30/60/90 day reviews.

As a remote company, it was an interesting challenge to try and help people settle in and integrate into the team. This was done primarily by establishing an early connection with myself as a safe space for role troubleshooting and making a key part of every new hire's first two weeks a 1:1 call with every other person on the team.

Managing and Coaching

My role also included direct management of our whole team of creatives. This allowed the other members of the lead team to focus on finances, sales, and client relationships. Team management involved:

• Bi-weekly 1:1s with every person on our team;

• Hosting weekly full team meetings;

• Creating and facilitating a quarterly review process;

• Troubleshooting role difficulties, feedback, and inter-personal conflicts.

The most fulfilling part of this for me was the opportunity to do some coaching. We were able to talk about their career goals together and find ways to take steps towards them within the roles they were currently in.

People Infrastructure

Managing people well requires more than just good relationships, you need good systems in place. My role involved ensuring our systems and processes for managing a remote team worked well. Some of the systems I managed were:

• Humi (HR software);

• Asana (project management & 1:1s);

• Employee Handbook.

One of the fun projects I worked on in this space was creating an Employee Handbook that captured everything in one place. It had everything from our policies to defining what software we used and how to use it.

Strategy and Special Projects

One other part of my role was providing high level org strategy, specifically on things to keep us in line with our desire to be a socially good company, and supporting with strategy and copywriting for several clients. Projects here include:

• Overseeing our B-Corp Application process;

• Strategy lead for our company rebrand (2022);

• Writing and pitch strategy on fundraising decks for Henry Rose, Home (now Dwelling), Bright, and Simplii Bank;

• Brand strategy support for Manifest Climate, Three Ships, Threads, Wellfield Technologies, & MoneyClip.