Welcome 💃🏽
📍 Based: Berlin
👶 From: Northern Ireland
🌎 Previously: Bath, London, Singapore, Toronto
🔎 Currently: working at Trim
My Reading Journey
Current Fave: Breath, you’re probably a mouth breather…
Interests
An extremely small collection/attempt at a current top 3 (whoops 4):
Ireland
It’s what got me my job with Enterprise Ireland. A true obsessive admiration for the creative people and places of Ireland. Here’s some of my fave Irish brands and designers: Aisling Kavanagh, Pestle & Mortar, Foxford, Inner Island. And here’s some of my fave tech companies: tines, Wayflyer, Vaultree, Akeero. And here’s my Ireland Guide :)
Circular Economy
It was when we were driving through home and mum mentioned, ‘that’s where we used to get the TV fixed’ and I just wondered what the heck happened. When did we stop looking after things, when did we stop getting things fixed? My big area of research at the moment is textile recycling and wow it’s juicy - I’m only tipping the iceberg but I look forward to seeing where it goes. I’ve had the pleasure of visiting many mills throughout Ireland, understanding their focus and challenges with sustainability solutions. I’m focusing on building my own capsule wardrobe to understand circular challenges/repairing/recycling on a minor scale.
Canoeing
I knocked out my two adult front teeth in a canoe accident at 12 and I couldn’t step foot in the water comfortably after this. Growing up in Northern Ireland in an area with extensively beautiful lakelands (Fermanagh Lakelands) made me eternally sad about what felt like an irrational fear 🥲. So I joined Scouts and it finally hit me, TAKE CONTROL. So I became an instructor, felt under control in my canoe and have enjoyed every minute ever since, having gone on expeditions in Ireland and Canada (and now planning across Europe - any tips, my Twitter DMs are open!). I love being on the water because I think beauty can really overpower fear and nature is simply just, sheer beauty. My favourite moment is the blissful peace and quiet in the middle of the lake where the light twinkles off the water.
Brands
I knew I couldn’t keep it to 3 - but in the essence of top 3 - here are my top 3 favourite brands right now (subject to change). Paynter Jacket, Apple (still the best customer experience story I have ever had), Pestle & Mortar, Tenzing.
A little bit more on what fits my top brands criteria - I love brands who tell their story, I’m Irish so storytelling is a habit and a draw. It feels like it breathes connection and honesty and this is what I want from a brand, that if I buy their product, they trust me as a customer and I trust them to look after me as a brand. And the real magic is when if you’re lucky enough, to catch their launch from the beginning, which for Paynter, I was lucky in this, you get to see the evolution and grow with them as a brand. Another key thing for me is quality, all of these brands undoubtedly have this and the price tag to go along with it often... I’ve been testing this idea of price tag. I wonder if you’re a patient shopper, do you see value in each item you own and saving up for a price tag doesn’t seem so crazy no matter how long it takes? With this mindset, brands moving away from seasonality likely attract this customers?
Work
Roles
👚 Trim, Founder’s Associate (Berlin)
Supporting brands and manufacturers to get back their time and save waste. It’s no doubt overproduction is a huge problem in the industry - we’re aiming to fix it. I’m currently being a jack of all trades, supporting our founder with the financial operations, fundraising and GTM strategy.
🛍️ Enterprise Ireland, Trade Development Executive (Toronto)
During my time with Enterprise Ireland I had the great pleasure of supporting Irish brands and tech companies enter the Canadian market. I talked to founders, helped out with buyer introductions, PR & marketing, talent, and incorporation requests. Outside of this, we welcomed Ministers to market and I led PR & marketing for the team.
🍋 Choco, Talent Acquisition Intern (Berlin)
I connected Choco to an ongoing top-tier hiring pipeline with UK universities. I hosted Choco at Uni in Bath for a student event where the venue host very kindly let me know “no more students or the floor will fall through”.
🌱 The Baobab Network, Partnerships Intern (London)
I supported the founders on partnerships and looked after brand marketing and product development. I helped run a pre-seed accelerator programme in Cape Town with a Zimbabwean HeathTech start-up, DrCADx.
🔎 Deloitte, Data Analytics Intern in Financial Crime (Singapore)
I joined the team at a super busy time and became the first client-paid intern. I learnt SQL and created lots of data visualisations using Tableau. I designed a transaction monitoring system for an emerging market bank and was invited to the Tableau offices to present my use case. I led Design Thinking and Tableau workshops internally.
Projects
🤖 University of Bath:Creatorspace
The first-of-its-kind in University of Bath, it first started with a research report from Pitchbook. Myself and my friends Alex (fres.fyi) and Jorge (jorgemiar) got together virtually on Notion back in 2019 and wrote a proposal, Entrepreneurship & Innovation: Growing the Funnel. I then pitched it and pitched it and pitched it. Pretty soon we were sitting in on architectural meetings sharing our designs of the room and suggesting where the plugs should go. And now the building is finished and the room is built, the Creatorspace is yet to be officially launched but here are some sneak photos from a recent summer visit pre-students.
🖼️ Raindrops on Roses
Just as Covid-19 hit, a wonderful small business with a stunning store, needed to get online fast. They are a not-for-profit where all profits go to Action against Cancer. I set up their online Shopify store and transferred their in-store system to Shopify Plus so their inventory lined up to be managed from one place by the Store Manager. I got very carried away in taking product imagery for the website.
Thanks for reading folks,
Ciao!
Last updated: July 2023
This portfolio was developed using Notion and a few tricks, check it out!