Amanda Squires has had a stellar career in the agency sector. After beginning her career in Business Development, Amanda became Business Development Director for POD, an Ecommerce and CMS agency, before advancing to Client Services Director and then Managing Director of the business in 2011. In the subsequent years, Managing Director and Client Service Director roles followed in BaoBaz and then EY-Seren respectively before joining ?WhatIf! in May 2017.
Finding Amanda Squires the perfect role: Challenging, progressive and with scope for development.
We caught up with Amanda to find out what she was looking for in the next stage of her career and why she decided to work with Leon Milns (Adam Founder), to find the perfect role.
“I’ve been working with Leon since around October 2016” said Amanda. “Adam had just placed a colleague of mine at ?WhatIf! and Leon called me speculatively as he thought I might also be a good match.”
At that time, Amanda was considering looking for a new challenge.
“I decided to look for a new role for a variety of reasons. I wasn’t enjoying my time at my previous company and felt that I had achieved all I could in that role. I was looking for a new challenge. Also, from a purely financial point of view, a new role with a better salary would really help me pay for my upcoming wedding! I decided to work with Adam over other recruiters as Leon comes across very differently to your average ‘recruiter’. He is a good, honest bloke.”
With vast experience in senior agency roles, Amanda had specific objectives for her next role.
“I was looking for a challenging role in a business where I could lean on my previous experience, but also continue to develop. Finding a company that would help me build new skills was a key objective.”
?WhatIf! is an innovation company that invents new businesses, products, brands and services and helps people be more inventive. With offices in New York, San Francisco, Shanghai and London, the agency offered Amanda the perfect “challenge” she had been looking for and the scope for development her craved.
“The whole process to join ?WhatIf! was relatively straight forward. It started with an initial discovery meeting with Leon where we sat down and discussed where I was up to in my career and what I was looking for in my next role. From that point Leon began to position me to the recruiting team. Leon is very respected at ?WhatIf! and secured me an interview quickly with the CEO Elizabeth Real and I bought in to her vision for the business.
Over the course of the next couple of months there were a few interview stages to overcome. I met with my predecessor and then was asked to undertake a task based interview where I presented to the Chief Financial Officer and another Partner. The final part of the jigsaw was to meet with both the founder of the agency and the HR Director. Every stage went smoothly and I joined the business in May this year. Leon was there at each stage of the process with support and friendly reassurance. He’s a good guy. I’d be happy to work with Adam again in the future for my next career move or to find new team additions for my team.”
Amanda’s new role at ?WhatIf! is as Client Services Director. In this role Amanda looks after all aspects of the customer journey; defining, designing, and overseeing the delivery of client work.
“The core objective of my role is to build long term and more profitable client relationships. ?WhatIf! is an exciting business with a lot of unmet potential and this role is a real opportunity to showcase the business.”
For support with your career progress or to discuss your next move, contact the team at Adam on 0161 359 3789 or by emailing hello@weareadam.com.
