When I went freelance during COVID, I didn’t see myself returning to working full-time for one company again. I loved the freedom of designing my time, working from anywhere and variety of working on different brands. But you really never know what’s around the proverbial corner.
In September 2020, I started chatting to Josh Guthrie about a position in the then nascent UK team at Mollie. Two years and nine months later, I’m living in Amsterdam and have this week been appointed Marketing Director (a.i.). I’m so proud, and thankful for the journey until today.
My Mollie chapter has had three distinct phases: I joined as UK Marketing Manager, reporting to the one and only Josh who I simply can’t commend / recommend / describe in sufficiently adequate terms; he is an absolute G (legend).
For a year, we grafted as a tightly knitted team of around eight, my first experience going in to an office after seven years working fully remotely. I loved it! King’s Cross is a buzzing spot to work and play in London.
In my first six months, while we waited on some key product features, I had two mini rotations in central marketing on Partner Marketing and leading Mollie’s PR and Comms for the Series C, to cover some gaps. Green field for learning, I tell ya. Then UK focus kicked in: we were building Mollie’s presence from scratch and I was trusted to experiment with various marketing investments – from SEO and content marketing to bets on events like Ecommerce Expo and IRX and hosting a quirky Christmas party for partners.
The next phase: taking on a newly created role as Head of Country Marketing within the central marketing team.
Working in the UK and learning how to ‘relate to’ and work with the central team, I’d spotted various inefficiencies and inconsistent ways of working across our five markets (UK, France, Germany, Belgium and Netherlands). I think I might have a further blog post / book in me looming on marketing operations and optimal setup between central and local teams; it’s a thing.
Our CCO Ken Serdons challenged me make some recommendations around how things could work differently / better and in September 2022 he made the call to centralise Country Marketing, shifting the team of nine marketers working in field – and at the time reporting to the local MDs – into a single team of which I became the lead. This was an inflection point for me – an opportunity to level up in many ways.
Towards the end of last year, still very happy at Mollie, I felt stirrings for some location-change after eight years living in London and made the decision to relocate to Amsterdam. I was up for something fresh and had loved visiting the watery, tiny-commute city for Mollie trips. I signed a new contract on Boxing Day whilst enjoying some sunshine in South Africa with my family and in March 2023 made the move. Being in Amsterdam for a trip with friends doing the marathon in October helped the decision, it’s such a great city!
To round out my Mollie growth path to date, we come to phase three: this week I was appointed Marketing Director (a.i.) and am absolutely pumped to rise to the challenge of leading marketing at Mollie.
Mollie has a punchy, unique growth story and the DNA that brings out the best marketer in me – my roots in Yuppiechef and WooCommerce betray my love for scrappy, product-led, ‘founder-strong’, online-focused businesses. We have ambitious plans to grow further across Europe and continue to disrupt the status quo of banking and I couldn’t be more excited for the onward journey.
My heart is full of thanks to Josh, Ken, Adriaan, all of the marketers and the many others Mollies that show and tell me in various ways great and small that they believe in me – which is rewarding and gives me the beans to go after it.
🚀🚀🚀🚀
