E16 | Mimi Turner: Bringing Innovation To LADbible, Lib Dems and LinkedIn
Episode description
Mimi Turner likes to make complicated things simpler. Over a career of twenty years she has found out - often the hard way - that while the price to be paid for this process of reimagination can be painful, the results will be transformational and spectacular.
Driven by a desire to connect on ideas, Mimi became fascinated by journalism during her time at university and eventually became a science writer for the Sunday Times, where her engineering training came in handy deciphering complex journals and peer-reviewed papers.
A few years later, she joined the Hollywood Reporter as the European Broadcast Editor in a field that helped her to understand the cogs and wheels of corporate strategy. After the paper made the shift into a more glossy Hollywood magazine, Mimi found herself interviewing celebrities such as Arnold Schwarzenegger and Colin Firth and discovered that, while fascinating, it wasn’t the career fit for her.
Mimi landed the role of Group Director of Communications at Northern & Shell, a British publishing group, and found herself managing reputation and communications issues in a publishing empire spanning television, newspapers, magazines and a lottery business. Just a few months into the role, Mimi was given a commercial task she had little experience in, and was left to sink or swim. After a lot of angst, and time spent wandering around in a strategy wilderness, she managed to complete the task by reinventing the problem and was utterly thrilled to make her first commercial deal.
In 2014, Mimi became Marketing Director at LADbible. After the announcement, a friend of Mimi’s jokingly pointed out that she didn't have any experience in Digital Media and she realised that, while true, it was not something that had been afraid of going into the role. She knew that she could bring something different, that she could innovate and that she could rely on the people already in the business for their expertise in the core platform. Mimi visited the offices in Manchester, and after meeting the young LADbible team, was struck both by their generosity and the scale of their unique talents. She knew that although she was non-one’s idea of ‘a lad’ she felt comfortable with an incredible new family and was able to bring new ideas and approaches that helped put the brand on an elevated track. Coming from traditional media, Mimi did have to learn the world of social media humour and for a very, very, short time had a pretty good handle on football memes.
Mimi became Director of Strategy, Messaging and Research at the Liberal Democrats in 2020 and is now Head of EMEA & Latin America, The B2B Institute at LinkedIn, a think-tank which helps to provide businesses with advice on long-term brand growth strategies.
To hear Mimi share her advice on changing career roles, the pain of failing, a quantum physics-inspired mental model of storytelling and a love of innovation, listen to this episode of ‘How I Became’.
Chapters:
(00:00:00) The Power of Journalism
(00:35:00) The Publishing of Controversial Photos
(00:37:15) The Acquisition of Lad Bible
(01:12:58) Changing the Perception of Young Men
(01:15:36) The Power of Local Heroes in Social Media
(01:35:16) Finding an Unfair Advantage
(01:54:01) The Story of Becoming Mimi Turner
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Episode Sponsor:
Gray Matters - A straight-talking business development consultancy that empowers agencies to position, market and sell themselves for new business success
Unity & Motion - A London based production company specialising in commercials and branded content
Email: [email protected]
This is a UNIFY Podcast. Produced by Unity & Motion
Credits:
Director: Charles Parkinson
Poet & VO Artist: Ashley Samuels-McKenzie
Sound Recordist: Paolo Neri
Editor: Catherine Singh