Her Story
About Terra
I graduated with my Bachelor of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from Oklahoma Christian, thinking I was going to do graphic design for my profession. After an internship at a grocery store marketing department and a brief stint at a toxic packaging design company, I answered a Craigslist ad that said 'Media Manager' and thought, I can manage media, I can be organized. That led me to DSG, a consulting firm in Arkansas, which really set me on the path I'm on now. That was when I first entered the B2B world, and I realized there's a lot of need for design and creativity within the business context. They need things that are editable and that business people understand and can consume. I was the lead designer and the only designer for a long time at DSG. As the business grew, I hired and trained two more designers and started to manage that team. When I first started, everything was just done via email with no project management platforms or tracking. I implemented tracking systems for design requests and presentations, kept all the files structured, owned all the assets, and built the website for DSG. My team supported all the way from marketing through client delivery. I loved DSG - it was amazing, the culture was so amazing. Then it was bought through an acquisition and we merged with Corporate Visions at the beginning of 2023. My now-boss asked me to merge the creative team from DSG and the creative team from Corporate Visions. When we came over, there were 15 people on my team, half from DSG and half from Corporate Visions. Pretty soon after we merged, there were severe layoffs across the organization. I assumed management of this larger team and then immediately had to find 3 people to let go in that round of layoffs, which was not fun. After one round of layoffs, I had someone else decide to leave. Then the next year, we had two more rounds of layoffs - rolling budget constraints after budget constraints. Now I only lead a team of two and freelancers and contractors. But I am proud of the fact that through all of that, we continue to manage all of the client deliverables for Corporate Visions, which is a much larger company than DSG was. My team creates presentations and infographics, ebooks, teaser videos, executive briefs, challenge briefs, all of those corporate documentations that you would want in the B2B world. We custom brand everything so that it feels like we follow the brand guidelines from our clients - we're kind of like an agency, but in a consulting firm in the B2B space.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Terra
01What do you attribute your success to?
I would probably say this feels counterintuitive to say, but I feel like the reason I'm the most successful is just humility, and that I rather think of leadership as I'm just here to enable other people and to serve. I don't think of any task or work as that's below me, or someone else needs to do it. To me, the leaders of a team should be the ones to take on the most and do the grunt work first. And if anyone needs to sacrifice, it should be the leader of the team, not the team member being asked to sacrifice by a leader. I feel like that fostered a lot of loyalty and goodwill from the people on my team, and then from those above me, they see that culture that is built through servant leadership, and that has taken me really far. The comment that I've gotten throughout my career has always been, you just do everything with a smile, and so people are always happy to work with you. I think that's because I don't think of myself as above anything. I'm willing to get in and do whatever needs to be done.
02What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would probably say that another thing that I picked up from DSG was leading with insight, and that it will get you so far in life. Not ask people for their problems or what needs to be done, but to proactively offer your insights and the way that you see things. If you see a problem, and if you see a solution, or you have a way of thinking that hasn't been tried before or hasn't been done, a lot of times the reason things go unfixed is that no one says anything, and that people are too afraid. So I would say just to lead with insight and be confident in the things that you see and what you have to say and your opinions and your perspective on things, that it all matters.
03What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I definitely think that one of the biggest challenges is how AI is reshaping everything. Whether you're a creative or not, we're all figuring out what work looks like working with AI, in spite of AI, how you manage that process. It's here whether we like it or not. One of the things that I've been telling my team is that instead of being threatened and feeling like it's here to take our jobs, to try to pivot and think what are the things that take my energy that I really hate doing, and how can I automate that and give it to AI so that I can spend my time doing the things that give me energy and that use the most creativity that need a human to think through how these things go. I'm personally excited about the ways that we can offload some of the busy work and then get down to the things that really energize people. I think that that mindset shift is important, but it's also hard when it feels like you're asking me to work with my competition instead of beat them at this creative game. But I think that's true for really anyone working right now that AI has taken over everything.
04What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
Probably honesty is the main one, like that would be the top. Challenges will come, but if we can talk about it, be open - I guess honesty and openness would probably go hand in hand. I think that when people keep things inside or withhold information, withhold the truth, nothing's going to get resolved, nothing's going to get done, because we're not operating with a clear picture of what is really happening and what challenges there actually are to address. I think that's true for personal relationships and professional relationships. Openness is a two-way street also, that they should feel free to come to me, and I should feel free to go to them if there's a problem, if there's a challenge, anything that we need to work through. Whenever you feel like you can't approach someone, that's when breakdowns start to happen.
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