Her Story
About Amy
I began my career in media and advertising in 2010 as an assistant media planner and buyer, but after two and a half years, I realized I loved talking about media but didn't enjoy the back-end systems work. I wanted to focus on the people element, so I researched careers involving client work and leadership, which led me to human resources and recruitment. A family friend advised me to start in recruitment to truly understand the organization and key players. I took that advice and joined WPP as a freelance recruiting coordinator, quickly proving myself and filling over 100 entry-level roles across the United States for Mediacom. I then moved into an HR coordinator role at MEC (now WaveMaker), was promoted to generalist, and eventually crafted a hybrid role that let me focus on my strengths in recruitment while still contributing to HR. I grew into a recruiting manager role around 2016, managing one to two people. After five to six years with WPP and Group M, I became the first media recruiter ever hired for MediaHub (part of IPG), where I had a unique seat at the table reporting 50-50 to the President and head of HR. I hired across Boston, New York, Winston-Salem, and LA, becoming deeply embedded in the business. After about a year, I took a recruiting director opportunity with mbooth, overseeing two people and learning about leadership, process implementation, cost management, and maximizing recruitment impact. About five and a half years ago, I joined Publicis to lead the centralized recruiting team for PMX Center of Excellence, supporting all agencies rather than just one brand. I came into a struggling team and completely transformed it by implementing a business partner approach, rolling out KPIs and metrics, eliminating third-party costs to under $50K annually, and scaling hiring to over 225 people per year. What I'm most proud of is developing my team, overseeing about 10 promotions over five years, growing people from coordinators to associate directors. I believe in making my people visible and taking them along the journey with me rather than being the face of the team myself.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Amy
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think being first generation has definitely been something that has always driven me. My parents came here when they were young, and they really always instilled to just be gritty. Just because you don't know something today doesn't mean that you're not going to know it tomorrow, so I think that enabled me to be super resilient because of that mentality. I don't feel like anything is ever owed to me. When there's a setback, I just work towards finding a solution. I don't really sit and dwell a lot on things that have gone wrong, because of course there's plenty of things that have gone wrong under my leadership. I make mistakes all of the time, but I don't dwell on it, I move on.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say don't do invisible labor. The more experience you get, you will quickly realize what will get highlighted and what won't. It's always important to make sure that you attach yourself to something that is high impact, something that is going to be seen by a lot of people, and if it's not going to be under your name, then you really shouldn't work on it. Yes, say yes to things, but be smart about it. Say yes, but ask what's the intention, what's the goal? I don't believe in doing invisible work.
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