Career highlights of Sam Dixon, Head of Global Marketing at Equal Experts

The most exciting thing about my job is being able to see the trajectory of some truly impressive careers. It’s what drives me and influences the advice I give to ambitious professionals everyday. That’s why I’m excited to share a couple of those career stories over the coming months, beginning with Samantha Dixon , Head of Global Marketing at Equal Experts who has had an incredible career that’s led her through multiple industries, roles and highlights.

Can you give us a brief rundown of your career up to Equal Experts, including a couple of highlights?

I started my career in sponsorship, at Nationwide Building Society before deciding to make the move to the not for profit sector. Later, I headed up New Business and Corporate Partnerships at the RSPCA, building their team and approach to working with the corporate sector.?

Then, after spending some time freelancing, I moved to RSA in innovation and proposition, did a quick stint in consultancy before joining Equal Experts to develop their marketing function. I’ve not followed a traditional career path in one sector, I’ve always joined somewhere that I find interesting and I know will challenge me.?

This type of career has given me a wealth of experiences, challenges and ultimately skills; including, running the conference playoff finals at the new Wembley many years ago, securing RSPCA’s first?charity of the year?partnership, doubling revenue in a business unit. It’s been an interesting 20 years!

What made you choose Equal Experts?

I was looking for an opportunity to build something whilst continuing to embrace new experiences for my own development. Although I hadn’t worked in tech before I was very interested in the possibilities for the future.?

I see Marketing as a science, and you can apply the principles across industries and products, so for me what was really appealing ?about Equal Experts was the culture and people. Everyone spoke very highly of Equal Experts, and the meetings with stakeholders in the process demonstrated the appetite for growth, so it was a very exciting opportunity.?

You joined Equal Experts coming from a completely different background to develop the marketing function, how have the last 12-months been??

It’s been a crazy rollercoaster, but I’ve loved it – we’ve realigned the marketing focus and built up a team. We have simplified processes, identified opportunities and I think we are about to hit our stride and see massive impact from changes we’ve made and others that are in the pipeline.

What have been some particularly challenging projects you’ve had to overcome?

In most organisations the biggest challenge, can be aligning marketing and sales and demonstrating the impact marketing can have if that partnership is successful. Luckily, the team at Equal Experts much more open to more collaborative working that many organisations I have worked with.

The key challenge is in the volume of opportunities and being able to identify where to focus efforts and prioritise!

What have been the key initiatives which made setting up a functional team whilst remote effective?

Most importantly, it’s creating opportunities and systems around communication. We have a slack channel and focused meetings every other day to look at all work streams and discuss feedback.? One of the things that’s been working really well is our Friday weekly wins, mid afternoon where we share the week’s successes. With the huge initiatives and transformation, we’ve been working on, it’s crucial to share success frequently and at the end of each year in a larger way.

We’ve introduced Asana as a project management tool to define projects, increase visibility and make collaborative working easier. Meeting in person is still important and our UK team gets together every six weeks for meetings and of course to share a meal!

What is your ethos for employee engagement and how have you structured this? How has this evolved?

Especially with multiple platform usage and global business units, I really try to have a shared vision and ensure that we all are working towards the same end goal. We are constantly communicating on where we are trying to get to.?

Having an open and honest team who work together and trust each other and learn from each others skills an experiences? is crucial as well as the opportunity to continue to learn and develop is there.

Have you learnt any valuable lessons in your recruitment and team functionality?

One of the key things is trusting your gut and instincts. Often in recruitment you’re hunting for that ‘purple unicorn’ and it’s important to stick to your guns and wait until someone comes along who feels right.

I also recommend working with a trusted recruiter who takes the time to learn your business, team, goals and strategy rather than just farming CVs. Culture is a huge part of our team and recruiters need to bear that in mind at every point.

I’d also personally advise giving yourself time to breathe and sleep on decisions, the right answer will become clear to you with time!

What has surprised you most about coming into a global role like this?

I was expecting the time differences to be an issue but the flexibility of colleagues across the globe and having an understanding of boundaries has been incredible.

What advice would you give to your younger self about your career?

Find your passion and learn from every experience.

I’d also tell myself to have a plan B, marketing changes rapidly - we’ve seen that with the leaps forward in AI in the last months; so be adaptable and always think about how you can embrace change.

What advice would you give to junior/mid level candidates looking to follow your career path?

Stretch yourself! Put your hand up to learn and demonstrate your capabilities whilst being agile and adaptable.

Don’t forget to build your personal brand, it’s simply identifying who you are and your strengths and specialisms.

Finally, explore finding a coach or a mentor to use as a sounding board on your career overall or even on specific projects - they might have answers or a perspective that your manager doesn’t.

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