Mikela Dixon.
In this series, AdNews spotlights young talent in the Australian media, marketing and advertising sector. This time it's The Lab's senior strategy consultant, Mikela Dixon.
Time in current role / time at the company:
I’ve been a Senior Strategy Consultant for 1.5 years, and I’ve been with The Lab Insight & Strategy for almost four years.
How long have you been in the industry?
I started in January 2020, so just over six years.
Was this always the plan?
Not at all! At university, I was still trying to figure out what I wanted to do. I dabbled in graphic design, then started archaeology and finally landed in anthropology. I fell in love with the subject - I’ve always loved art and history and I found anthropology gave me a path to exercise creative thinking, sense making and listening.
After I graduated, I had a few roles in government and then came across a graduate program at a research agency. I gave it a shot and it just clicked. A few years after that, I landed at The Lab - as they say, the rest is history!
Who is your right-hand person / who guides you day to day?
Honestly, there isn’t just one person - that’s the beauty of this industry. I’m constantly collaborating with all my colleagues at The Lab. I can come in and turn to whoever’s sitting on my left and know I can just bounce ideas off them.
That said, Andrew Therkelsen, Managing Director of the Sydney office, is someone I work very closely with and learn from daily.
What’s the best thing about the industry you work in?
I love being able to take the most mundane topics and find an interesting story to tell. I enjoy that for an eight week period, or however long the project is, I get to think about something like sliced bread or laundry detergent - something that most people might see as boring and basic - and look at it in a new way, take a deep dive into the role it plays and how people see it.
I find that really interesting, sometimes even more than the big, flashy kind of projects.
And the biggest challenge?
The pace of change. Trends shift so fast that by the time we analyse and present something, the landscape may have already moved on. Staying ahead is tough, but it’s what keeps the work exciting.
Whose job have you set your sights on in the future?
I don’t have a set role in mind. I stumbled into this career, and as long as I get to keep doing the kind of work I love, I’ll keep moving forward with it. For now, I’m focused on continuing to learn, grow and do meaningful work.
Where do you turn for inspiration?
I find inspiration in other people, both professionally and personally. I’m big on keeping up to date with social media - I love seeing everyday people that have some sort of passion, or any kind of idea, and how they bring it to life in that environment.
I especially like posts or stories that aren’t overly polished - it’s just an idea someone had in their room, perhaps halfway around the world, and somehow it made its way to me.
It’s the everyday people like myself that I get the most inspiration from because they’re looking at the world differently and sharing that with me - not because they have to, but because they want to.
Tell us one thing people at work don’t know about you
I’m a huge traveller - as of this year, I’ve visited over 35 countries. Some fun stories my colleagues may not know include: winning a karaoke competition in Bucharest, buying a 2.5kg wheel of cheese in the Netherlands, holding a World War II missile in Latvia and hitching a ride on a Mardi Gras float in New Orleans.
In five years’ time I’ll be:
I hope to still be in a market research agency. I really like being in an agency and having such a diverse range of clients and projects I can work on. In five years time, I hope I’ll have stepped into a more senior role with more responsibility and mentoring colleagues.
Personally, I want to keep exploring the world. Asia and South America are at the top of my list - I hope I will have gotten to 40 countries by then!
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