Series 2 Episode 03: Kaitlin Maud
On this episode of Strategy Sheroes I’m joined by Kaitlin Maud.
Kaitlin is co-founder of Current Forward a strategy consultancy based in Austin, Texas. Prior to forming Current Forward, Kaitlin served as Strategy Director at T3, an Austin-based innovation agency, where she was a delivery lead on the UPS account. Kaitlin has also consulted in Los Angeles with brands such as Apple and Beats by Dre. In 2018 she published the DIY Strategy Workbook to make strategy processes more accessible to small businesses and independent creative professionals.
We chat about:
How Current Forward’s majority female ownership has shaped its approach
The agency’s immersive approach to insights
Kaitlin’s advice for other women wanting to start their own consultancy or agency
The importance of understanding and investing in you
Digital anthropology and the friction some brands face when attempting to be empathetic
Yoga! A love for both of us and learnings from yoga teaching that are surprisingly applicable to strategy
Check out below some of my favourite quotes from our discussion and listen to our full conversation on Apple podcasts or Spotify
How to make insights human focused and actionable for clients
Our whole philosophy is around making insights actionable. If a creative team or an executive team doesn’t know what to do with the strategy it’s just not successful. So we’re trying to package strategy work in a way that clients remember it, it drives their decision making, they have a face and a voice of someone that doesn’t typically get to have a face and a voice in front of the executive team in the back of their head. We really want to be advocates for humans, at a time when not a lot of companies are putting humans first. And for us that requires leaving the office, and talking to people outside of your immediate network, as your immediate network is only a reflection of you, it’s not a reflection of the world, or your clients world.
The friction of billable creativity
The industry has a major problem with needing everything and every hour to be billable, creativity just doesn’t work that way, you can’t just say I will have inspiration hit at 10am and by 12pm we will have cracked this problem and it’s not done without stimulus looking at your monitor all day long how could you possibly think divergently?
The challenge of empathy in financial services
The financial services industry is not empathetic by default. But the place you can start is by listening to your users or your consumers and talking to them regularly. Whether it’s COVID-19 now or another circumstance that is going to come up in the next few years, having an ongoing conversation and designing for their ongoing needs is the best way you can be empathetic. Empathy doesn’t come from marketing.
The importance of knowing what is truly holding you back from taking that leap
The best investment women can make in themselves is in their personal growth. If you’re wanting to move into strategy or you wanting to make the leap and go out on your own, I would consider what it is that is making you want to do that, and what it is that is preventing you from doing so, right now.? If there is something genuinely from preventing you from going out and starting that business or moving into strategy, can you solve it? Is it possible that you don’t feel like you know enough yet, so could you go take a class and build your confidence and knowledge? Is it that you don’t have enough money saved and you’re nervous about that? How could you perhaps try and ask for a raise right now as a step towards building more financial security so that you can take more of a financial risk later? Is it that you feel like you don’t have a client or an advocate, if so, where could you start looking for one tomorrow?
You are your number one asset in life and in business. If I’m not healthy and if I’m not happy my business isn’t going to do well...Your own self-worth is the key to success. Identifying what can you do to build your self-worth a little bit every day is the best investment you can make to get closer to what you want to do next.
Links to some of the stuff we talked about -
Kaitlin’s agency Current Forward
Rain or Shine the creative recruitment company started by Kaitlin and her husband
The Life Brief by Bonnie Wan
Kaitlin’s TEDx talk on Lessons in Digital Anthropology
You can follow Kaitlin on Twitter @KaitlinMaud
