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Women in IT - Lyndsay Menzies, Bigmouthmedia

Lyndsay Menzies | Tuesday May 13, 2008



Lyndsay Menzies is Managing Director of UK and US operations of Bigmouthmedia. Founded in 1997, Bigmouthmedia is a leading digital marketing agency with over 200 staff across 13 offices, in 10 countries on three continents. Over the past decade the company has created a portfolio of integrated or standalone digital marketing products focused on Search, Online Media Planning, Affiliate Marketing, Social Media and Brand Monitoring. Bigmouthmedia services over 200 big-brand customers globally including British Airways, MTV, Tesco and Hilton Hotels International.

Hi-Tech Scotland (HTS): Describe your current role.

Lyndsay Menzies (LM): I manage the UK business as well as our US operations. In the UK, we have around 90 staff split across 3 locations, Edinburgh, London and Manchester. Edinburgh is our largest base, with roughly 70 staff here, myself included.
My role is obviously to oversee the financial and operational side of the business but I’m also very involved with many of our major clients. The majority of my role, I would say, is dedicated to people management and working with the management team to constantly refine our strategy.

HTS: When did you first develop an interest in IT?

LM: I studied Chemistry at Edinburgh University and my first job was with Shell in Aberdeen. That was where I first worked on an IT project and I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed it. I think I was excited by the potential of the technology itself, but also by the fast pace of the project and the level of change it brought about.
I went travelling for a while after that and, when I returned to Edinburgh in 1999, I was interested in doing something on the media side of the technology business. I knew that I would enjoy the fast-pace of the industry and felt that it could offer be a lot of opportunities - I could see the Internet becoming more and more important to the world’s major brands.
I’d been back in Scotland for a couple of weeks when I happened to bump into one of the directors of a recently-founded web services company called Bigmouthmedia. Everything clicked and I joined the company days later.

HTS: Has being female ever been an advantage or disadvantage to you in your career?

LM: It’s a hard question to answer simply because I don’t know anything different! It’s not something that I think has affected me personally although when I first started in this industry there were only 3 women I can think of working at a senior level in the UK, of which I was one. That has changed dramatically since then, but it took a few years to get there. It’s still a male dominated industry, but I can’t say that I’ve ever been disadvantaged as a result.
Having said that, I don’t have children, but I know women with careers and young families who have found it demanding to juggle both. Our industry moves so incredibly quickly that, even after a few months maternity leave, I’d imagine that it’s easy to feel as if you’ve been left behind and are out of the loop.
Forward-thinking companies are beginning to recognise this type of issue for working mothers – and working fathers come to that – and put flexible, supportive structures in place that help alleviate the problem and create a happier workforce.

HTS: What are the ‘hot’ issues for your client base at the moment?

LM: We work with a lot of big brands – about 350 in total in the UK - and most of those guys are now seriously looking at where ‘search’ fits in to their overall marketing strategy. In the past, an issue like ‘search’ was seen as more of a techie’s black art than a marketing discipline. These days, though, the marketing industry understands the benefits that come from being able to target and track the effectiveness of digital marketing campaigns.
A lot of our clients are also showing interest in how they can use social media to raise their brand awareness and drive traffic to their own website, but the problem that the big brands have is that the nature of social media makes it much more difficult to reliably measure the impact of any campaign.
It’s a running joke in our industry that “this will be the year of mobile” – it’s been that way for at least the last five years! Despite the massive growth in the use of mobile handsets, the vast majority of people still don’t use their phones to access internet services, so we’re not there yet. The use of location based services is on the rise - people using things like GoogleMaps to find hotels and so on – so clearly there are mobile applications that the public want, it’s just a question of finding them.
As a final point, I was in New York recently on a panel with Google and they have confirmed that they are updating their engine so as to include a huge variety of additional results within the core results generates by a standard search. The way that we use search engines is going to change dramatically in the next 2 or 3 years.

HTS: What are the challenges of growing an international business from a Scottish HQ?

LM: Our experience has been a very positive one. The fact that we’re based in Edinburgh with so many respected universities close-by means that we’ve been able to attract a very high quality of graduate into the business. Edinburgh is a great place to live and work, which makes it easier for us to keep good staff and invest in their futures – it helps that most of our direct competitors are based in London or New York. Likewise, clients and potential clients always seem keen to visit Edinburgh whenever they get the chance.

HTS: Do you have any remaining ambitions?

LM: Well, I’d like to get home before 11pm one night!
Seriously though, my main ambition for the next few years is to continue to grow the business at home and internationally, increase our product portfolio and, crucially, support my staff in a way that makes Bigmouthmedia a fantastic place to work.

www.bigmouthmedia.com

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