Ali Findlay is CEO and founder of Edinburgh-based creative agency The Lane.
The Lane was awarded Employer of The Year in 2024 by the Marketing Society Scotland, achieved B Corp status, and is now a growing agency of around 50 people.
Findlay founded The Lane in 2008, and then Lane Media in 2015 with co-director Barry Fearn. She is a Fellow of the Marketing Society and developed a programme called Flushed with Success – a series of events for senior business women to discuss the menopause in marketing, with the aim of supporting women through this stage of their careers.
From lucky breaks to failures, she shares all lessons she’s learnt along the way…
Which single daily habit or practice could you not do without?
I need my morning hours with my animals before I can get into my day – that means either walking the Bing my Dalmatian, or checking in with my horses at the yard. They mean the world to me and are a big part of my mental and physical health. I also have a cup of tea and check my messages and emails before I get out of my bed, but that’s a habit I’d like to break!
What’s been your luckiest break?
My luckiest break? In terms of business, 2008 to now hasn’t seen many ‘lucky’ breaks. Business has been hard-fought and won on absolute merit and bravery. However, I have been absolutely blessed to meet a small group of people who have turned into my absolute rocks, several of them are the directors now driving the business forward. Others are clients and friends. The luckiest break of all is to have good health and happiness throughout your career, to be in a job and business you love and laugh in, I’ve realised lately that so many people have never had this.
What’s your best failure?
I don’t have many failures that I would class as ‘best’ – they’re always hard to take, but gosh do you learn from them. The best failures are the failure to win a new employee or piece of business, and then find out in due course that it was a narrow escape, those are the ‘oh well, it was meant to be’ moments. We are good at telling the team about the importance of learning from failures, and not so good at taking it ourselves, so maybe that’s something we need to get better at – fail better!
What is the best investment you’ve ever made, either financial or time?
The best investment you’ll ever make is in your people. Spending time with individuals has revealed talents that every day work would have been slow to uncover. Given that talent is what we sell, it will always be the best investment for us. No hour is wasted that is spent building confidence.
Which podcast or book would you recommend others to read/listen to, and why?
The Sheryl Sandberg book Lean In was one of the first business books that I really enjoyed and that resonated with me, and the podcast How I Built This Podcast with Guy Raz is excellent. Of course, our own Leading Conversations podcast we host with the Marketing Society takes some beating!
What one piece of advice would you give your 21-year-old self?
Travel more. Stop rushing. Have a plan and write it down. No one is responsible for making you happy apart from you. And finally, hire slow. Getting the right people is more important than filling a gap. The right people will always have your back, and you’ll have theirs.
Who or what has had the single biggest influence on your working life?
John Martin – senior and junior. It was the loss of my best friend, John Martin Junior, in 2004 that changed my whole perspective on life and what’s important, and his father, John Martin, who guaranteed our rent and first year of trading to set me on my path as an entrepreneur and business owner. The lessons I learned with them in their business are the foundation of how I’ve grown, survived and thrived in business.
Tell us something about you that would surprise people.
In an industry where talent is everything, arrogance is my biggest trigger. There’s no place for arrogance in leadership. So the people I champion are the super talented who know they’ve delivered more than anyone else, but still say ‘we’ every time, never ‘I’.
If there was one thing you could change about your career, what would it be and why?
I’m of an era where in some industries you were only taken seriously for board/leadership if you put work before all else, including your children. I gave up a lot of time with my girls and suffered a lot of guilt as a result. Now they don’t remember the times I wasn’t there, they have brilliant worth ethics, and are proud of me. But I still have regrets, so that’s what I’d change, if I could.
What does success look like to you?
Pride – feeling proud of the work you do, the people you do it with, and the results you achieve for your clients and your team. Profit is king because it enables all else, but it’s being proud of your work that delivers happiness. A balanced life is more possible now than it ever was, and feeling good about what you do and what you achieve in your waking hours and being able to celebrate that with colleagues and family is a pretty good place to be.
