Her Story
About Mahaillie
I'm a performing artist who has been on stage since I was young, and when I was in college, I discovered the behind-the-scenes part of production and media entertainment. I started working as a producer and a production manager on my college's late-night talk show, in addition to working as a production assistant for nationally recognized television shows that would shoot in my area, like The Real World, America's Next Top Model, and Practical Jokers. From there, I rocketed into staying on the corporate end of the industry, working in operational seats. I've been in the media marketing field for a decade now. I'm formerly a Paramount employee, where I was very proud to introduce an acquisition team to a project managing tool and build their systems inside of it so they no longer have to do anything manually. Currently, I'm contracted through Advanced Systems Group, working at Amazon Live, where I design and implement new operational processes and workflows. My responsibility sits at the top level on the business sector, making sure all departments speak to one another and that we're able to properly achieve successful campaign execution throughout the pipeline in the most efficient way. Starting April 1st, I'll be going freelance.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Mahaillie
01What do you attribute your success to?
I attribute my success to a purpose to continue to keep the arts alive. I'm very passionate about making sure that folks have the best access that they possibly can to either being artists themselves or being able to witness art. In what I do in my volunteer life, what I do when I sit on professional boards, and what I do in my work, I'm making the systems simpler and more efficient so that people are able to have higher access and visibility into the things that are being created to showcase people's opinions, views, and perspectives of the world we live in.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
The best career advice I ever received is that when you're networking, you're not making acquaintances, you're making friends.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say that a lot of the times, you're going to face some opinions about the way that you either direct or assert yourself into the work that you do. I would always say just to continue to hold confidence in the work that you do, and get very aligned with your personal mission and values in life, because when you do encounter folks that want to knock you down, you always have a pillar to lie back on to know why you're doing this in the first place.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
We're seeing a lot of changes in how people ingest content and where they view it and watch it. I've found that in my role, I've had to learn not only formal production and how the entertainment industry has functioned in the past, but also how it functions now, especially as it has intersected quite a bit with technology. When you're entering the field or coming into this field now, I feel like being open-minded to technological advances that you might be exposed to in the field is something to definitely lean into.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
The values most important to me are being genuine or honest, transparency, being human-centric and people-first. And finally, I would say just moving with kindness and always being empathetic.
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