Have you ever wanted to walk a working week in someone else's shoes? Welcome to our series that gives you a no-holds-barred look at the Monday-Friday diary of successful women...

Rebekah Lloyd is an Associate Director / Head of London for the healthcare design agency, minds + assembly, and Founder of This Independent Life, an organisation educating and inspiring women and young people on how to achieve personal independence in their life.

I’ve had quite a colourful career path to get to where I am today, but I was always driven by a desire to be self-sufficient and independent whilst helping and serving others. My first job was as a cleaner in my Dad’s offices, and since then I’ve worked in retail, language training and translations, scientific research laboratories, the NHS, a dementia care home, applied and failed to be a doctor twice, hospitality in France and Austria, pharmaceutical companies, and healthcare advertising.

Since the transition into healthcare advertising, I was headhunted by a NYC agency to open, build and run their London office. Working for an agency using design as a force for good to help patients with life threatening and altering diseases get access to new treatments felt like the perfect way to combine my creative, scientific and business mind in a fulfilling and meaningful way.

I always knew I wanted to have my own business, I just never knew what. Both of my parents are entrepreneurs - my mother is a nurse who started her own baby sling business after I was born, and my father is a chemical engineer and accountant who’s run various businesses over the years - so I was always surrounded and inspired by individuals who were driven by being in charge of their own life. The importance of personal independence was instilled in me from a young age, and this sentiment ultimately clicked as the idea for my own business.

Throughout the pandemic I started to feel more and more disconnected and disengaged from my work and my life, and it came to a head in June 2021 when I was so burnt out that I found myself in the darkest place I’d ever been. I knew something had to change and that it was time to take control of my life, but I didn’t know what or how. Over the next 6 months I went on a personal development journey - I signed up to AllBright, enrolled in a confidence course with Confident & Killing it, undertook an investment course with Female Invest, attended networking events and business breakfasts, and digested webinars, books and podcasts. During this time, I was also diagnosed with endometriosis after a 10 year journey and was told I needed to have surgery. Everything I learned and experienced helped me finally make the decision to start my side hustle and to quit my job to work on my business full time.

I’d be lying if I didn’t say the transition is challenging as it’s a true balancing act to ensure my team and clients are still 100% supported, however it’s exciting to know that I’m finally taking the positive steps towards following my dream in my own time.

I wouldn’t say I had any regrets as I believe I wouldn’t be where or who I am today without the experiences I’ve lived to date, however I would say that listening to my gut is definitely something I will be following more closely moving forward.

Monday

 Whilst there are similarities across the days, every day is truly different in my job and that’s what I love about it. Monday is the day where I ensure everything is set up strong and planned ahead for the week across the board. I think it’s important to start the week off on a positive note, and so I also take time to book exercise classes and personal events to make sure the time is secured and that work-life integration and balance is factored in.

I wake up at 8am, meditate, and make a strong cafetiere coffee with cream.     I have weekly check ins with my whole London agency team and with my client service and production team to go through priorities for the week.

I go spinning, I love it as it energises and motivates me for the rest of the week.

We have a status meeting with our clients based in Switzerland. I make these fairly informal meetings as I find it’s easier to get to the heart of what we need to discuss.

I work on the slides and content for an international workshop I’ll be facilitating in a couple of weeks for one of our global clients and their local affiliates, before sending to them to review make sure we’re aligned. I enjoy developing and facilitating workshops as it allows me to be creative and engage with people from different disciplines, backgrounds and cultures all working together towards a common goal.

Every afternoon I go through emails and Slack to ensure everything for the day, and the next day, is in a good place.

Tuesday

On Tuesdays I like to combine a mixture of 1:1s with my team with various meetings across different disciplines of my role as the lead of our London office.

I attend some office viewings to identify an inspiring space for our team to grow and thrive in, before meeting with a potential agency partner to help expand our London based capabilities.

I interview a candidate for a potential new hire for our London team - I enjoy interviewing as I love the process of searching for those special individuals that I know will bring something unique to our team, and every interview is different.

After work I attend a networking event to meet inspiring women across different industries, which although slightly nerve wracking is always a wonderful experience (at the wonderful AllBright no less!)

Wednesday

Wednesdays are usually a mix of different standing meetings. I receive feedback from my global clients on the upcoming workshop, so I work through changes to the deck.

I discuss with team whether or not we want to pursue with hiring the candidate we interviewed. It’s important to me that everyone in the team feels great about a new hire, as we work so closely together and the energy and connection needs to feel great.

Today I do yoga, working remotely full time currently means there’s even more time in front of the screen so I find it relaxing to mix up the exercise and do some yoga to stretch the body and mind.

We have our weekly all-agency meeting lead by NYC headquarters. This week I gave a presentation I created around imposter syndrome and how to recognise and manage it. I was overwhelmed with the reaction and thoroughly enjoyed sharing my story and experiences to help others.

I have my weekly Spanish lesson as well. I’ve wanted to learn Spanish my whole life and would love to live somewhere Spanish speaking, so this year I decided no more excuses! They’re fun, and challenging in a good way.

After an afternoon of meetings I have a date night with my partner going somewhere we’ve never been before. We started doing this recently as a way to experience new things in our beloved city of London.

Thursday

As we near the end of the week lots of things will have evolved across different projects, so Thursdays usually involve a range of meetings to check in.

After three meetings I go to my monthly five elements acupuncture session. I started doing this last year when I was struggling with my mental health, and have found it completely transformational. Then it's a meeting with our global clients to present new creative campaign concepting for our product launch. I enjoy presenting with my team as it allows us to express our passion for creativity and ideas.

This is followed by a meeting with one of our agency partners on a project we’re collaborating on for a mutual client. Collaboration with other agencies and stakeholders is central to our work and it’s fun to be able to mix things up in this way.

I have a weekly meeting with our finance team to review overall financials across projects and agency, including revenue, projections and invoicing. I enjoy discussing our finances as I think a solid understanding helps to lays a strong foundation for everything, and helps to identify and evaluate potential opportunities.

I meet a friend for dinner and drinks - I’m a big foodie and am about to start my level 2 sommelier wine course so any excuse to combine this with quality friend time is a win!

Friday

I try to avoid internal and client meetings on Fridays to give everyone a break from meetings, time to work through their to-dos, and to sign off on time for the weekend.

I have a monthly 1:1 with my mentee who I support through Creative Access. I enjoy this as I feel it’s important to help people grow and learn in the creative industries, especially those from underrepresented backgrounds given current representation stats.

I do an exercise class and work on some creative briefs for upcoming projects that we are due to kick off soon. I enjoy doing this as it allows me to get into a flow on the strategy and ways to tackle the problem.

I get a takeaway and watch a film to unwind and settle into the weekend.

Rebekah is always looking to connect with inspiring women and would love to hear from anyone looking to chat further. You can reach out via her website rebekahlloyd.co