I joined Collective Bias immediately after graduating college as its first-ever intern and seventh overall employee. The company described itself as a social shopper marketing agency, operating at the intersection of national brands, influencers, and retail. Keep in mind this was before the term influencer was even remotely well known. It was early, scrappy, and moving fast. There was no playbook. There were barely any processes. I had to explain what the company did and the name countless time before we were ever recognized in the community. And that was exactly the kind of environment that I needed to build the foundation of my career.
Over five years at the company I grew from intern to Senior Account Manager, building instincts around client leadership, execution, and what it actually takes to scale a services business while keeping clients happy.
When I joined the company, we were growing quickly and really figuring out what our offerings were, what our clients truly needed and what client services really looked like. It was all hands on deck pretty much at all times because there were so few of us. That meant that every day would look different, from flying across the company to an influencer conference to recruit new influencers, to racing down the street to meet our clients to ensure their campaign went off without a hitch at Walmart, to meeting a plumber at our office to ensure the plumbing worked in our new building. We were increasingly supporting complex national brand programs while internal teams and processes were still being defined. It required flexibility, accountability, and the ability to figure things out in real time without the safety net of established systems.
As an early employee I operated across functions before roles were clearly defined. That turned out to be one of the most valuable parts of the experience. When you have to figure out how something should work vs. how it actually works, you develop instincts and adaptability strategies that you carry with you for the rest of your career.
As I progressed through the company, my responsibilities expanded from day-to-day program execution to strategic client leadership. As a Senior Account Manager I served as the primary point of contact and strategic lead for national brand accounts including Coca-Cola, Starbucks, Tyson Foods, ConAgra Foods, Nestlé USA, Johnson & Johnson, and Hershey, primarily within the Walmart and Target channels.
I led and mentored a client services team of six, including account executives and interns, supporting execution quality, professional development, and delivery during high-volume periods. I also contributed to the development of internal processes for blogger payments, program kickoffs, and post-campaign analysis, several of which remained in use well beyond my tenure.
I authored bylined thought leadership for Adweek and was featured across industry publications including Chief Marketer, sharing insights on influencer marketing, shopper behavior, and reaching millennial consumers at retail. That external visibility reflected both the quality of the work and the agency's growing reputation in the space.
I was also selected as the client services representative to support Collective Bias's expansion into Minneapolis to support growth within the Target channel. I worked closely with the sales team to sign new clients within that retail channel and manage their campaigns through execution.
One piece of work that stands out most is the Coca-Cola Share It Forward campaign at Walmart. Coca-Cola launched the Share a Coke initiative exclusively at Walmart first, and our role was to drive influencers in-store to build excitement around the launch. I served as the account lead for the influencer portion of the campaign, partnering closely with Coca-Cola's agency partners to ensure the influencer work was aligned with in-store signage and sampling activations. The three elements were intended to work together to tell a cohesive story at retail. The campaign ended up delivering a measured sales lift for the product in a category that had not experienced significant new growth in quite some time. As a result of the success of the campaign, we earned a Gold North American Shopper Marketing Effie, one of the most prestigious awards in the industry.
Over five years, my work contributed to more than $6M in new and repeat business through strong program performance and client retention. I led and mentored a team of six, the Coca-Cola Share It Forward campaign earned a Gold North American Shopper Marketing Effie, and our work and writing was featured in Adweek, Huffington Post, and Chief Marketer, reflecting both the quality of the programs and the agency's growing reputation in the influencer and shopper marketing space.
Collective Bias gave me the agency-side foundation of my career. I learned what it means to truly serve a client, to balance their needs with internal constraints and relationships, and to deliver results when the stakes are real. I learned how growth actually happens inside an organization, and what it costs when execution and communication breaks down.
I also learned something about the value of being early. When you join a company at the beginning, before the roles are defined and the processes are built, you develop a different kind of range. You learn to operate across functions, to figure things out without a manual, and to build trust through performance rather than title. This served me especially well in later roles and continues to serve me to this day.
That's the experience I bring to Blue Iris clients. Whether I'm stepping into a function that needs to be built, a team that needs direction, or a program that needs to perform, I know what it takes to make it work.
