So, we got together four of the top ladies in Creative ad-land to tell us how they got the top job. The line-up of speakers was stellar, with Caroline Pay, Eloise Smith, Chaka Sobhani and Vicki Maguire all on board to give us ladies a bit of inside knowledge. Here are ten or so things we learnt from these powerhouses:

“Learn your craft from people who will tear it up” Being surrounded by people who will never be satisfied with the work makes you strive to constantly be better. To be the best creative you need to have your work ripped to shreds over and over. It teaches you to make better work and how to deal with the constant rejection.

“It’s not what they do it’s how you get on. You need to be able to spend 20 hours a day, 51 ½ weeks a year with your partner” Picking your creative partner isn’t purely about their skills, the most important thing is being able to be around them all of the time. You will be living in each other’s pockets constantly it’s pretty crucial that you like each other.

“Learn to fail and fail a lot” Learning to embrace failure is key to succeeding. Getting all the shit ideas out of the way first can lead you to a mountain of shit hot ones.  

“Work out your strengths and weaknesses” If you know what your good at you can bring that skill to the table and smash it. In the same way you can surround yourself by people who have the skills you don’t making yourself part of a super duper wham bam thank you mam mega team.

“If you leave the work world too long you’ll get left behind” The question on every pro-creating females mind, how do I have a baby and a career? All the women we met had bubbas but warned us it ain’t easy! You’ve got to work your way up and pop it out at the perfect moment before coming back into the workplace at jet fast speed.

“Be passionate about everything” Love what your doing and it will show in the work.  

“If you don’t like it you can always stop doing it” If an interesting opportunity lands in your lap go for it. If it doesn’t work out you can always change it, it’s better to have tried it than regret it a few years down the line.  

“You always come out of failure with something else” The joy of messing up is learning from it. If you sailed through life not making mistakes you wouldn’t be challenging the norm, you’d probably be rather boring. You can’t get everything right, but you can learn from everything you do wrong.

“You learn how not to do something from the self serving arseholes” There are so many people who are just genuinely backward. They will ignore you because you’re a woman, they’ll judge what you wear and they’ll attempt to dictate how you behave. Fuck them. They’re ignorance is your chance to push forward and learn from them.

“Just because you’ve won awards doesn’t mean you’ll be a good CD” This quote is fantastic. It always highlights the fact that if you just want to make work, you can. You don’t have to be a CD to be respected and incredible, it’s not for everyone.

Basically these women are all the bomb. They’re so hot right now. They all had completely different journey’s to “making it.” Whether they fucked up so badly they ended up in it, migrated from another industry or just plain smashed everything to get there. It’s reassuring to know there isn’t a formula to success, everyone finds their own way. It’s luck, hard work and talent and you can make it at any point in your life.

Post by Holly Attrill and Young Creative Council team