It was on my way to the airport to travel to London for the semester that I stumbled upon Liz Stone’s work, via a feature on the HER Europe instagram page, and I’m so glad I did.
Twenty-eight year old Liz Stone is a poised and witty London based digital marketing wizz. At twenty-four Stone left her job in fashion to freelance, following her passion for content curation and creative marketing. As clients began to line up, Stone saw a need for better and more effective digital marketing strategies, and in 2015 Co-founded OK COOL, a creative agency.
This year, Liz Stone Co-founded Ok Mentor alongside Stef Stanely, Senior Account Director at LinkedIn. The duo launched the program out of their desire to give back to young female creatives in London, emparting on them the wisdom and skills they wish they had known in their early twenties. The program just wrapped up its first series (I wish it didn’t have to end, like ever), but luckily for everyone stateside, they have future plans to expand Ok Mentor and take it global!
Who were you at twenty?
I was a loud, excited and ambitious final year student at Fedisa Fashion School in Cape Town, South Africa. I was petrified of boredom and overfilled my time with projects and activities. I was never academic and struggled with subjects like maths and English but I was a hard worker, often working till 2-3am on my projects, but always felt incredibly proud of my work.
On working in fashion & discovering her true passion
I started working for a fashion designer as his Personal Assistant. I quickly worked my way up to helping him run the entire business. I worked on everything from financial, accounting, supply chain management, inventory, e-commerce management, marketing, and sales. I learned how to do a lot of very different things in the space of two years and through that, I figured out what I enjoyed doing most - creative marketing and content creation - I took that knowledge, quit my job and started my company.
How have you evolved since?
I’m still hard-working but have learned to delegate smaller tasks to other people, freeing up my time to work on things that will have an exponential effect on my success.
On founding OK COOL
It was a very exciting/daunting few months as I was setting up the business. Luckily I had a close friend who was an experienced agency founder— he helped me in the initial phase with branding, positioning and business structure, (he later came on and joined me as a full-time business partner and co-founder). I really had no idea what I was doing so I leaned on friends, advisors and the internet to answer my questions. The business grew organically and we didn’t take any money from investors to set it up, the only way this was possible was because at the time, the service we were offering (good quality social media content at a reasonable price) was in high demand. It was this spike in demand that made me realise we were doing the right thing.
On differentiating OK COOL through good morals and values
Truth be told, we are not that different from other branding agencies. We just make better work that’s more innovative, culturally relevant, and cool. People want to work with us because we’re kind, warm people who put humans first. We care about the success of each client and treat them like our own.
On founding Ok Mentor & the program’s mission
Ok Mentor is a free IRL mentorship scheme set up to provide real-world commercial training to young female graduates looking to break into creative industries. The course teaches everything from developing a stand-out CV and portfolio, ensuring profitability and managing taxes, all the way through to writing a good email. The 12-hour intensive program (spread across 2 weeks) includes four sessions that cover fundamental business training. An exciting line up of mentors have signed on, ready to pass on their knowledge. Some of them include Amanda Morgan, Managing Director at Byredo and Diptyque (UK&I), Whitney Rosenthal, Head of Emerging Talent at Instagram, Naomi Walkland, Senior Marketing Manager at Bumble EMEA, and Katie Hunter, Social & Influencer Lead at Karmarama.
My partner in this mission, Stef Stanley and I both felt there is a shortage of resources available to young graduates and young professionals who want to succeed in a creative field. There are no shortcuts to gaining experience and nurturing your own talent, but there are a lot of fundamentals that aren’t really taught at University.
What advice would you give yourself at twenty?
I would tell myself 2 things:
Don’t get too caught up with trying to achieve everything right now. Be patient, have a plan and trust the process. Things will work themselves out.
Start saving! You never know when you might need some capital
What would you say to a twenty-something year old about finding her place in the world?
Make sure that whatever you choose to do is at the intersection of what you love (your passion), what the world needs (your mission), what you are good at (your vocation), and what you can get paid for (your profession). By achieving these four elements you will lead a fulfilled life.
Set yourself a career goal. A dream for the future. It can be wildly ambitious. Visualise your dream with as much clarity as possible. Visualise what you’re wearing, who you’re with, where you are, the work you’re doing, the money you’re making, even the color of the walls. Keep this picture in your mind every day until you start to get closer to it.