Coffee with Dawn-Louise Kerr

Our CEO, Dawn-Louise Kerr was a Board member of City Women Network in London and was invited to sit down and have a coffee with Jane from their comms team. 

Below is a copy of the final article.

1. Dawn - Louise – tell us what you do and what you love about your job?

I’m a passionate and proactive leader of persuasive digital marketing. A storyteller.

I run a digital marketing agency and no ‘two days’ are the same. One minute I’m running a ‘marketing discovery’ workshop to help clients create a marketing strategy aligned to their business strategy; another day I might be replying to our client’s customers on social media or live tweeting from a sports event to product launches and email campaigns for later life advice. I love the variety in my work and I love meeting new people.

2. You set up your own marketing business seven years ago –what did you want to be when you ‘grew up’?

Oh my goodness, have I grown up now? There is still so much fun and adventure to be had, I think we sometimes forget this as adults. When I was younger, I always wanted to be a physio, a sports physio actually as I was sports-mad in my younger days, but alas university wasn’t an option for me. I actually hated the school I went to. This makes me smile now as many of my teachers said if I didn’t stay on at school ‘I’d be in a dead-end job by the time I was 20 and on the dole at 30’ – you can see why I hated that uninspiring place. However, it taught me resilience and fired my drive to succeed.

3. CWN is a partner with Fractio Vitri – a cross-sector network of young women to encourage each other to be ambitious about their careers. Do you have one piece of career advice that you would share with them?

Yes, get comfortable with being ‘uncomfortable’ and push yourself to do things you may not know how to do, yet. Change is ‘a certain’ thing in life. Roll with it and enjoy the ride. Your rewards are on the horizon.

My daily mantra is “I am braver than I believe, stronger than I seem and smarter than I think!” Change the I to you and you have your own mantra. I’d love to hear if anyone else has a daily mantra or is it just me?

4. You are a passionate advocate of social media – what are you most proud of in that capacity?

Hmm, there are a lot of “proud moments”, but possibly my standout one would be when I helped a charity turn an image of a beneficiary into a piece of art, animated digitally. This, alongside the social media campaign, helped us improve not only the profile of the charity but also raise thousands of extra donations for them over a 3 month period. They deliver ‘personal’ dreams and a customised experience to their beneficiaries and families. These extra funds delivered an additional 5 dreams, which wasn’t in their budget at the start of the year. Lots of smiles and a lovely feel-good factor to boot. 

5. What is the best and /or worst decision you have ever made?

My best decision was to start my own business after being made redundant. It’s not been an easy journey, but I’ve learnt so many new skills that I wouldn’t have had exposure to in my corporate world. I’ve met so many inspiring people along my journey and I’ve also put myself into new learning situations to keep pushing myself to grow.

There are no bad decisions because to FAIL is your First Attempt In Learning. Whilst these decisions may be tough at the time, you need to push through the hard parts to understand what you learned from them. 

6. What do you think women can do to help other women in their careers?

Oh so much, I think our strength, drive and resilience makes us all unstoppable. If we could bottle our energy along with these traits – we would have a winning formula for women. 

I think to answer your question ‘CWN’, we help provide the quiet confidence in our fellow females as they grow into their careers. We listen and can, more often than not, stay silent if that is all that is needed from the conversation… that’s powerful.

7. Who would you most like to have coffee with and where?

Could I opt for a Redbush Tea instead? I’m on a health kick! Seriously, I have so many people I want to meet and spend some quality time with; in fact, if you are still reading this piece to its end, you are no doubt someone I’d like to have a cup of tea with! I think Michelle Obama is such an inspiring lady; with strong values and seems to have mastered being a ‘Mum’ and ‘Wife’ with all her other activities as an ex-First Lady and now role model. I’d love to ask her how she does this so seamlessly and what are her top tips?