OPEN Spotlight Series – Lauren Williams
30/06/2021
Category not found
/Category not found
/Category not found
/Category not found
/Category not found
For this month’s edition of the Spotlight Series, we’ve spoken to our Operations Manager, Lauren Williams about her new role and her growth over the years at OPEN.
What do you do at OPEN?
I’m OPEN’s Operations Manager, so my main focus is making sure that everything is running smoothly across the board. That can range from anything from campaign management, creating policies/processes, tracking KPIs all the way to making sure there’s paper in the printer.
I read a quote that said “An operations employee contributes to making an employers wheels run less expensively with fewer squeaks and bumps” and thought it summed it up perfectly.
What was the transition like from Office Manager into Operations Manager?
I feel like I have a really good advantage in coming into the business and working my way up because I’ve had a broad view and education on all different aspects of the company and industry while learning a lot through actually doing different jobs within the business.
Through my role as Office Manager I learned what the business does thoroughly and felt as though I was confident enough in that aspect that I could start managing how we do what we do. I’d already started implementing new processes and really enjoyed the problem-solving aspect of it all. Moving to operations just felt like a natural progression for me within OPEN and it’s been exciting to start focusing on that aspect of the business.
How are you finding being in a role that sits in the centre of the company?
For me it’s my absolute favourite part of working at OPEN because I get to work with every department within the team. The people are the heart of this company and they’re why I love coming to work, so getting to spend a solid amount of time with everyone and feel as though every day is different is a massive bonus for me.
What are you most looking forward to at OPEN Media between now and the end of the year?
It’s such an exciting time at OPEN Media! We’re all finally back together after last year and looking to grow our team — which is a massive testament to the business. So I’m definitely excited to see how we evolve and obviously for some overdue team nights out!
How do you think the International Women’s Day, Pride Month and Black History Month campaigns have impacted OPEN Media?
Massively. It’s so important for us to use our platform to raise awareness and keep conversations going around certain issues.
For me personally, as someone who grew up closeted, I think seeing proud members of the LGBTQ+ community displayed in city centres celebrating and talking positively about their experience would have given me such a confidence boost and made me feel so much better about what I was going through. To think we could be doing that for people in similar situations makes me so happy and so proud to work here!