Tell us a bit about your current job. 

My day job is at Twitter. I’ve worked in the London office for over three years, and I’m now a Senior Partnerships Manager in Entertainment. I work with the biggest UK TV networks and awards shows to help make sure Twitter is home to the very best entertainment content. I also matchmake content with brands. So for example, if you see an ad for UberEats running before a video clip from Love Island, I would have helped make that happen. 

In my spare time, I wear a few hats. I produce a podcast, The Dorothy Project, profiling women in gay male culture. I also DJ at clubnight Push The Button, and I’m involved in activism to protect Push The Button’s venue the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, with the campaign group RVT Future.

What and where did you study after school?

I did an undergraduate degree in English at Queens’ College, Cambridge.

How did you get from answer 2 to answer 1?

It feels like quite a winding road, but it’s all taken place in one city! I’d always wanted to be a journalist, so I did lots of work experience during my gap year and while I was at uni - I knew I couldn’t afford to support myself in London for long internships after graduating or a journalism MA. I didn’t have any contacts in the media so it was all cold approaches - I’d find out the names of section editors and attempt to charm them via email. I also edited one of Cambridge’s student papers, The Cambridge Student.

After graduating, I got a permanent job at Runner’s World magazine, working on the website. It wasn’t my dream job, but in retrospect I feel very lucky that the first job I found was in digital. It suited my skills and interests (I’ve always been nerdy and spent a lot of my teen years in online forums), and digital is where the growth has been in media since then.

I was promoted to Online Editor at Runner’s World, then moved into women’s magazines at woman&home. I then moved to Women’s Health magazine to launch their website and social media - it was amazing building a brand online from scratch. 

After seven years in the magazine industry, I decided to move into the tech world. I’d realised what I really loved was working on digital and social content, and wanted to work somewhere with that at its heart.

So I took a job running Content & Comms at the food delivery start-up Hubbub.co.uk (which has sadly since folded). I was responsible for social media, newsletters, on-site copy, recipes, PR, marketing copy... Doing such a wide smorgasbord of things in a small team really helped me work out what I enjoy and wanted to focus on.

After 18 months there, I spotted a Tweet. Twitter UK were looking for maternity cover in their Partnerships team, specialising in lifestyle. I’d never worked in partnerships before, and didn’t really know what it involved, but I knew I loved Twitter (I’ve been on it pretty much since it launched). The role involved working with media and publishers to help them create innovative content for big audiences on Twitter.

I’d only been at Twitter a few months, when the Partnerships team pivoted to more commercial work, helping publishers develop video content which advertisers can align with. I think it was an advantage that I was still so new to the company and the role - I just thought, why not give it a try? Turns out I really like having financial targets - I’m competitive, and find it very satisfying to have a number to beat. I’ve been doing that role since January 2017, and now work specifically on TV, awards shows, and food in the UK.

How does your formal education feed into your present career (if at all)?

Hmm, not much! I always saw my degree choice as something I was doing out of personal interest, that wouldn’t hurt my career prospects but likely wouldn’t lead anywhere specific either. Though in jobs where I did a lot of writing - in magazines, and at Hubbub - the fact that I spent three years reading the world’s best writers helped. I think being trained to look at culture with a critical eye helps in my current role working on entertainment. 

What things have you learnt outside of formal education that have been helpful to your career? 

I learned so much editing The Cambridge Student - being given a newspaper to run aged 20 is amazing! It was a big thing to have on my CV, and something I think really helped me find a job in journalism pretty much straight out of uni.

Since then, the main driver of my career has been using Twitter. It’s where I found my job at Twitter, where I made the contacts that got me my DJing gig, and helps find guests and promote my podcast. It’s really how I built my whole professional network, and most of my personal network too.

What are the really useful skills for someone in your job to possess? 

It really helps to love social media and internet culture. I love being somewhere that memes and trending conversations are the heart of what the company does, rather than what people do when they’re having a tea break.

I’ve always felt like I have a short attention span and get bored easily, but in tech that’s an asset as everything moves so fast!

What does an average day at work look like for you?

Probably like most office jobs - lots of emails, admin, and meetings! 

I meet my partners - which include ITV, Viacom, the BRIT Awards and Tastemade - frequently, and am in touch with them via email daily. It’s all about building relationships. If you have strong relationships, you can move fast when you need to, and do bigger cooler work together.

I also have relationships internally with our sales team, who are responsible for selling the content I develop, to some of the world’s biggest brands. We all sit in the same area so it’s usually a case of wandering over for a chat or having lunch together. We’re lucky to have breakfast and lunch provided on site, and I love grabbing a random seat and just chatting - it’s amazing the ideas and connections you unearth over a meal, and how much easier it is to get to know people.

I try to make time at least weekly for more high-level strategic work - analysing what’s working and what isn’t, and taking breathing space to come up with ideas for events 3-6 months out. For this I tend to find a quiet spot in the office, put on a timer for 25 minutes, and do a brain dump into a Google Doc. This might be my favourite bit!

What’s the best thing about your job? 

Working for Twitter! After three years I still get a thrill when I hear about new developments coming down the line. It’s a platform that’s made a huge difference to my life and I feel really lucky to be in the building.

More generally, I love having a hand in big cultural moments. I work with partners on some of the biggest entertainment events in the UK, stuff I’ve watched on telly all my life, from the BRITs to Eurovision, and I love doing what I can to make them really fly on social media. 

What’s your least favourite aspect of your job? 

Emails. And how quickly we’re all expected to reply to them these days. I feel like Harry Potter deluged in Hogwarts letters - and the contents aren’t always as exciting!

What advice would you give to someone seeking a job like yours? 

This sounds really corny, but lean in to your interests. What might feel like a distraction - what seemed at uni like ‘just pissing about on the internet’ actually laid a foundation of understanding digital and pop culture, one I couldn’t do my job without. 

I’d also say that it’s smart to balance work experience at big name brands with your own personal side hustles. Say you want to get into radio. Interning at the BBC looks impressive, you’ll get great contacts and see the experts at work, but you might not get your hands dirty. Produce your own podcast as well, and you can teach yourself practical skills in a live environment.