Sarah Golley talks 'Mentoring Matters' with Paul Hackett

Tell me about yourself

My background is creative comms and strategy; an international advertising and marketing agency managing partner, director and COO. Former Saatchi & Saatchi, Asia Pac divisional MD. Now founding partner of two separate but integrated early-stage companies; The WellBeings.London and Criss Cross.

TWB.L is a strategy and content development collective, created in collaboration with UCLH, the UCL Institute for Women’s Health and UCL Centre for Behaviour Change. Through our understanding of how health & wellbeing-led behaviour is influencing brand advocacy, we help develop ‘wellbeing-driven’ solutions to everyday commercial challenges.

Criss Cross is?on-demand community of advisors, innovators, strategists, futurists and thinkers who wish to guide and support?socially-conscious?businesses, as they try to scale, sustain and thrive in a more purpose-led economy.

Members of the Criss Cross community have lived through many of the challenges facing commerce and society today. Every organisation has been set new customer, employee and societal expectations; we know that through collaboration, (with exceptional people such as yourself, Sarah) comes the kind of innovation and inspiration required to shape our world for the better.

So I’m excited to channel my fascination with brand strategy, creativity, digital media and team building into these two entirely new but integrated enterprises. Beyond that, I’m working on the development of an actionable innovation hub and have recently become increasingly involved in bringing two new FemTech products to market.

If I may, I’d also like to mention a social enterprise of which I’m a trustee; at EventWell, we give voice, training and support to the mental health and wellbeing of members of the Event and Experiential industry. EW has just turned five and we now have a fledgling presence in the US, too.

Why is mentoring important to you?

Mentoring is important to me because experience has taught me that organisations sometimes lose good people not because of money or status but because, as humans, we need to know we have a purpose – that what we do or what we can offer matters.

As COO of an Omnicom Group network agency, I was the first to recruit and staff a Board-level HR function with specific remit to identify, nurture and retain the agency’s future leaders. Essentially, as communicators, we were at risk of failing our own people.

I empathised immediately with WICT’s ambition and passionately believe there is a?real need for organisations to acknowledge that performance, productivity and even cultural optimisation is?not?a one size fits all process.

Being a small part in helping someone realise a goal is a joy.

Do you have a mentor?

I don’t and WICT has shown me what a missed opportunity that is and has been. We all need advice and guidance, don’t we? Role models, too. There are a couple (literally) of folks whose judgement and opinion I have trusted throughout my working life; I look to them to stress-test my thinking, knowing they always tell it like it is.

What advice do you want to share with LinkedIn?

I’ve been fortunate to work in leadership roles here and overseas that have afforded the opportunity to work with some remarkable people; you quickly learn how to empower creative, strategic, analytical and operational teams. As a newly-arrived MD at Saatchi & Saatchi, New Zealand, a priority was to build a multi-disciplinary team, drawing on existing resources, whilst bringing in recruits from around the world.

Key insights?

1.????Take time to listen, to understand the culture and values of the environment you are in and do your utmost to involve everyone in your thought process and plans.

2.????Look for ways to set the example of leading from the front; ensure everyone knows that you believe the buck stops with you.

3.????Never expect anyone to take on a challenge you are not prepared to take on yourself; everyone has the right to know they are supported.

What’s the best piece of advice you’ve been given in your career?

A person far wiser than me once told me,?‘the best work is yet to be done’. I don’t think that’s a bad way to approach each new day.