Hannah Huffman

I attribute my success to finding where I truly belong in the industry. It's been a long road of discovering where I feel I'm at my best. I originally wanted to be a photographer, but around my senior year of college I discovered photo editing and art direction, which felt right. My joke now is that I boss photographers around instead of being one. For a long time in the high fashion magazine world, I was wearing so many hats and doing everything from production to creative direction, so I never really felt like I could do the greatest job at anything because I was always doing as much as I could with what I had. Finding my niche and having a more clear trajectory has been huge - whereas previously there was always that 'where do I go from here' feeling. Now I feel like I have a dream job. I also grew up in a pretty artistic household with my dad who went to Otis Art and Design and my mom who was a professional makeup artist working with famous photographers and celebrities, so I was immersed in creativity my whole life. That foundation, combined with my training at Los Angeles County High School for the Arts and studying photography in college, helped shape who I am. And honestly, my ADHD has been both a challenge and a gift - I've learned to work with it by getting everything out of my brain and onto whiteboards and lists, which helps me stay organized and effective.

The values most important to me are confidence, protection, and community. Through jiu-jitsu, I've learned to move through the world differently and regain my confidence after being beat down working in fashion in New York as a young person. It's given me this inherent 'don't-mess-with-me' energy that affects how I communicate with people, how I direct on set, and how people treat me. All the girls at the office know that if anything goes down, or anyone does anything to them, or even if somebody gets upset at them for something they didn't do, they just call Hannah. It feels really good to me to be known as the protector of my people. I also value finding what makes you happy - I always tell people who want exercise to try and find something that just makes them happy, not something they feel they should do. For me, the social aspect of fitness is a big part of it, and the jiu-jitsu community has introduced me to people from all walks of life that I never would have met otherwise. I value creativity and having my hands in everything, working closely with my team. And I value organization and structure - for as ADHD as I am, I'm pretty Type A because I have to be, otherwise nothing gets done. I can't do my job unless everybody else does their job, so collaboration and cross-functional communication are essential to me.