In the last year, AKA has welcomed three remarkable women to the team. They are not only guiding their departments with incredible skill, but also leading the agency’s commitment to collaboration. In celebration of Women’s History Month, they sat down to discuss how they are supporting each other in the service of big ideas.
SJ Arnegger, Head of Partnerships and Community Engagement: The three of us are always working together and scheming and coming up with new ways of maneuvering.
Allison Peters, Head of Digital Strategy and Social Media: That’s right. SJ and I sit across from each other, so we’re always popping over to say, “Hey, before I move forward with this, let me check in with you.” And if we’re seeing stuff do well on the organic side, then we raise the flag for Sam on the paid side and say, “You might want to take a look at using this.” And a lot of times they’re creating really good content on the paid side that we’ll want to snag.
Samantha Bussell, Head of Paid Media: Those possibilities are endless. I’ve only been here since Thanksgiving, and I can already see how many chances we’re going to have to create together. It’s bigger than any one department. There’s just this belief that we should be talking to each other and seeing how we can help ideas get even better.
SJA: I’ve got to say, I’ve never worked in a more collaborative environment. I say that with much respect to my previous employers, but in both circumstances, I was a team of one. I was never able to go to another department and create something that felt like synergy. So being able to work with these two women, along with everybody else in the agency, is delightful.
AP: It’s like the Spotify conversation.
SJA: Exactly! We just had this call with Spotify, talking about creating partnerships with some of our clients, and that started with a conversation Allison and I were having. Allison and I weren’t in an official meeting. We were just talking, and this idea arose naturally.
AP: SJ said this great thing about how some our clients could really bring something to Spotify and vice versa, and I happen to have contacts at Spotify. There’s a person there I’ve worked with for years. So I set up that conversation, and it couldn’t have gone better.
SJA: And that wasn’t even something that came from Allison working in social. That was Allison chatting with me and realizing she knows the right person to call.
SB: That’s what I mean about possibilities being endless, because it’s so easy for us to take three steps down the hall and talk to each other. Prior to being in the Broadway industry, I was at some media agencies that were only media agencies. There would be these meetings where people from every agency involved with a client would be there. It would be something like 50 people in a meeting, because you had an agency for paid social, for organic social, for press, media, creative sponsorships, and on and on. And coming here, I’m excited that it’s all in house. Last week, SJ and I were having this conversation about whether we were going to approach a company as a potential partner or as a potential paid sponsor. We could just talk about it and make the best call for the client, instead of worrying about which other agency was going to get mad if we did one thing or another.
AP: We’re definitely a “let’s talk it out” agency.
SJA: I’m always telling my team to throw creative spaghetti at the wall and see what sticks.
SB: I feel like I can go in and ask, “Can we do this?” And the answer is usually, “Yes.” Or at least, “Let’s talk about it.”
SJA: It’s gotten to the point where we will basically lock ourselves in one of the conference rooms for half an hour or an hour and say, “How do we make this work?” That’s gotten us to some very creative things that are going to come to fruition soon.
AP: And we can do that because we’ve all got great teams working for us who can make sure everything is getting done while we go off to brainstorm.
SB: I really appreciate that this level of collaboration is worth it to people all across the agency. We’re encouraged to carve out time for it. And that also gives us the flexibility to work with a variety of clients at once. In one day, I might be talking about the Met Museum and Fotografiska. Those are both museums, but they need different approaches. The way you talk about them is vastly different. And I know I’ll be able to flex different muscles for those two clients.
SJA: There are definitely ways you have to chop up your brain into little pieces because you’re working with so many different types of clients, but we’ve got teams who can do that. I’m never bored.
AP: Nope! Never bored.
SJA: Never once. Because every client needs some different part of what I’m passionate about. It’s daily creative play.