Lynne Ella joined Leeds-based Brilliant Agency in 2018 as studio manager, helping to shape the agency’s creative offering.
Now a shareholder and studio director, she has taken the lead on branding projects for award-winning start-up HACIEN Tequila, Mrs Elswood, and the 2024 rebrand and subsequent campaign of popular British wine brand Silver Bay Point.
Lynne Ella has also worked across multi-channel campaigns for brands such as Lee Kum Kee and social-led creative for Lyle’s Golden Syrup and Thorntons, to name a few.
Here, she shares how a recent week in her life went…
A Week In My Life: Lynne Ella Pearson, Studio Director, Brilliant Agency
Monday
Having previously worked in fashion, ‘look the part, be the part’ remains a mantra of mine.
Putting an outfit together helps me feel put together, so Monday mornings tend to start with me waking up and thanking last night’s Lynne Ella for picking out my outfit the night before!
Mondays start slightly later for us at Brilliant, with a team meeting at 10:30 am to kick off the week. I usually come in a little bit earlier though, as I need to prepare our meeting board which details all our upcoming business activities.
From the studio schedule to new deliverables, there’s often a lot to organise, so Monday mornings are a great opportunity for the whole team to share their itinerary with everyone and give us a clearer, bird’s-eye view of the week. Clarity is so important to the way the business is run, so it’s important we take the time to check in with everyone.
Our SLT catch up with the team until around lunchtime and then in the afternoon, it’s all about trying to ensure our projects and pitches are at a good stage, giving us time to manage internal reviews and amends before our clients see them.
Tuesday
Tuesday is a ‘doing day’ for me when it comes to work like creative brainstorms, writing up briefs for the content team and working on project updates.
I spend the morning delegating and reviewing our studio planner and ensuring our content creation team and copywriters have everything they need. Then in the afternoon, I chair a meeting with Silver Bay Point, a British wine client we’ve been working with for over half a decade!
We’ve recently helped them rebrand, so I lead our weekly catch-up with the client to track the campaign’s progress and review all the exciting coverage we’ve generated for them. This includes the results of an influencer campaign and reviewing some recent creative we had placed in Take A Break magazine. It was so exciting to be able to grab a magazine off the rack this morning and physically show them their brand in print!
We’ve got a great working relationship with all of our clients and our account team always makes sure we’re presenting back clear comms on all moving parts of our projects across the board. Again, clarity is key, and we want to ensure the client is confident and fully up to speed on where we’re at.
After work, I relaxed by catching up with my family back home in Northern Ireland. My sister has just had her first baby, so I love FaceTiming them all whenever she brings him over to our parent’s house!
Wednesday
Today is our monthly board meeting, so my first port of call is usually to review and print off our agenda and actions from the last meeting. I’ve always been very ambitious career-wise, so becoming a director and shareholder at Brilliant in 2021 was a very proud moment. Board meetings are a great reminder of how far I’ve come!
I’m passionate about creative comms, branding, marketing and doing the best I can to help our clients reach their goals. Coming to Brilliant really helped me ‘figure it all out’ in terms of what I wanted to do and working with our founder and creative director, Laurra Davis, really gave me the drive to push myself. Seeing how accomplished and driven Laurra is has always been a great source of inspiration for me in my career.
In the afternoon, I had a quarterly development meeting with one of my team. I really value this regular one-on-one time and today I sat down with Megan, our graphic designer, and we identified some goals she wanted to work on over the next quarter.
These sessions are all about developing people and giving them the freedom and space to continue to grow and develop.
One of the things I always pride myself on is being approachable – someone you can come to when you want to check things through or need a hand. Open dialogue and clear communication are important for creatives as ambiguity and presumptions are never a good mix for doing your best work. That’s why I try to instill in my team to ask questions and put their hands up when they need help.
Thursday
I wouldn’t say I have our managing director, Mike, on speed dial… but I think he’d beg to differ.
I live just a stone’s throw away from the office and so on my walk in today I give him a call and chat through our agenda as he drives in. We’re pitching for a new client, so need to have a little rehearsal before the big call.
As our pitch is happening in the afternoon, myself and Mike spend the morning reviewing the final deck and adding some finishing touches with Laurra’s help. I work closely with Mike across the people management in our business as well as new business and top-level account conversations. Mike is very astute and measured, so I value him as a sounding board. Since I joined the business 6 years ago, he’s always encouraged and mentored me through pitches, so it’s great to look back and see how far I’ve come in that time to now leading presentations.
By Thursday’s end, I’ve always got one eye on the end of the week and the upcoming month, so I finish my day by reviewing our planner for creative time to ensure we’re planned and booked accordingly.
I love pitch days and you can’t beat that stroll home after one’s gone really well – it gives me a huge sense of job satisfaction and there’s always a little bit of relief too, knowing we’ve done our best.
If you haven’t heard, Thursday’s are also the new Friday! Many of my friends are freelancers and agency folk in Leeds, so we usually like to congregate in my flat on Thursday nights to catch up. Plus it’s the best time of year for it – it’s summer time and the cricket highlights are on TV – so we’ll just have a few drinks and catch up on life!
Friday
I always start my Friday with a trip to our local café Wren Bakery. The lovely ladies there are always great to chat to whilst I get a flat white, I’m still laughing as I head into the office, they are hilarious!
Today, the team is shooting for our client Saint Agur Cheese and I’ll be working on Thornton’s Christmas photography shoot brief (yes, Christmas starts that early here!)
While the photography team is setting up, I run them through the brief and agenda for the day so they can get cracking. Some delicious-looking blue cheese tarts are on the menu and I know the rest of the office will be looking forward to sampling them once the shoot is over!
Fridays are about planning and ensuring we’re up to speed with clients, projects and deadlines, so I also block out time to catch up with our copy team to ensure they’re on track for our monthly content deadline.
I also jump on a call with Thornton’s to chat through some ideas and themes for the shoot ahead of finalising the brief. It’s odd thinking about Christmas in summer, but seeing what festive props we have in our studio inventory always gets the creative juices flowing!
Fridays are always what I call my deja-vu days, as the weeks really do live up to that old adage of agencies being busy environments. I seem to blink and suddenly it’s Friday and the team is packing up to start off their weekends. We are lucky enough to work a 4.5 day work week at Brilliant so we finish a little earlier on Fridays at 3pm.
To finish up, I send a weekly update to our other directors so we’re all up to date on all client and internal comms and can tackle Monday morning with a running start.
Then with the working week over, I’m all about taking advantage of that early Friday finish, so I stroll into town and wander through Leeds’ Victoria Gate before heading to do some groceries. I’m looking forward to a BBQ at a friend’s this Saturday and plan to get a load of R&R in on Sunday!
