Power 50 Publication - Flipbook - Page 24
Page 24
Working your way up through
multiple agencies
Jemma Peers, managing director of Top Banana, knew
from the outset that she wanted to have a career in the
events industry.
“From day one, it was never just a job for me. I
was only 19 and I knew that was my career path. I
didn’t think I wanted to be an MD as I wasn’t
thinking that big at that stage. But I knew that I
wanted to progress, and that happened quite
quickly for me. Within 18 months in the industry, I
knew I wanted to aim for a leadership role.”
In her first job at Corporate Innovations (now CI Group),
Jemma quickly worked her way up to event manager,
then account manager, senior account manager, and
business unit manager. “From there my next step was to
aim for a board member role, I knew I had the ability and
the knowledge, I just needed a shot. I refocused on my
personal development and made my aspirations clear
and achieved a board place as client services director in
11 short years just as I turned 30.”
After a short spell at AYMTM as event director, Jemma
took a sidestep into an account director role at Top
Banana before joining the board as commercial director,
and it’s been since working there that her ambitions
changed. “If you’d asked me a few years ago if I wanted
to be MD, I would have said no. I was so focused on
leading projects and being on the client side that being
MD didn’t enter my head until I went further on in my
leadership journey and saw that the rewards you get
helping other people succeed and achieve can be more
fulfilling than the rewards you get from
delivering an awesome project.”
She admits that she was honest with Top Banana
founder Richard Bridge about her ambitions to become
MD, which was essentially his job at the time. “Richard
was respectful of that and encouraged it. We started the
process slowly, so when he went on holiday, I was the ‘go
to’. One of the real catalysts was when I started working
with two different external coaches to focus on making
the improvements that I needed to make to do this role
and unlock my full potential. During that time, I also had
lots of coaching and mentoring sessions with Richard,
but he gave me autonomy to work out the leader that I
wanted to be, which was incredibly
empowering.”
Jemma’s advice to young aspiring female
leaders is to break down the steps you need to go
through to get to your end goal.
• Don’t try and do them all at once.
• Break them down into bite sized pieces.
• Make sure you recognise your achievement
when you have reached each of those steps and
reflect on what you could have done differently
and how you could improve your journey to the
next step.
• Learn from everyone around you already at that
step or above. Don’t follow one person and think
that’s the leader I am going to be.
• Look at everyone and everything around you
and identify what the good bits are, what the not
so good bits are, and shape who you want to be.
