Balancing a global fashion job with a young family might seem tricky but Wendy Duggan is taking it in her stride. She speaks to Jen Stevens...

Wendy Duggan is a marketing powerhouse. Having always worked in the retail sector, she is currently the Global Director of Marketing for Primark overseeing launches, PR and communications for stores in Ireland, the UK, Europe and the growing US market. She does all that while being mum to her adorable two-year-old daughter. 

“In any one week, we were in three countries. You'd be over and back to Germany in a day, the same with London. Then you could do a store opening in Spain with an overnight.”

Wendy is recalling her pre-Covid travel schedule and we’re laughing at the mania of it all. Having spent a year at the start of her Primark career flying back and forth to America, she thought nothing of jumping on a plane to London to meet her team and flying from there to a store opening in Europe. While she doesn’t think her business travel will return to pre-pandemic levels you can tell she’s itchy to see her teams based in other countries. 

Wendy became Director of Marketing when she returned from her maternity leave. Coming back to a new title, during a global health crisis could have been stressful but Wendy has taken it in her stride.

“I absolutely love it, I have to say. Primark is an amazing company to work for. I've been there seven years. They're very good for the promoting internally and urging people to develop within the organisation which is amazing. In Ireland, those pure fashion, in-house marketing roles don't come up that often. When you get the challenge of working in Ireland on a global brand like Primark, yes, it's incredible.”

Wendy started in Primark on a maternity cover contract seven years ago and since then has taken on exciting projects and launched some of the biggest Primark stores in the world.

“I looked after Ireland and Europe when I came in to cover the contract for 12 months. About a year in, they were launching in the US and were going to open in Boston and they asked me to stay on and look after America. I pretty much spent a year in the states.

“It was the craziest thing I ever did. I was so used to everyone knowing Penneys but marketing Primark across America was different, they'd go, "Primark who?" It was a much harder sell. But I learned so much doing it.”

Fashion communications is in Wendy’s blood at this stage. We first met when she worked in the A|Wear press office in 2007. She started there as an assistant and worked her way up to Head of Fashion PR. She then moved to Heatons, another Irish fashion business, before finding her way to Primark. She now runs the biggest fashion comms team in the country. 

“I'd have to do a count but when I think of the marketing team as a whole now, it’s 50 plus people across all the functions. There’s social media, marketing, fashion pr and our other markets. It’s a big team," she says.

“I do sometimes I take a step back and think about the breadth of it and think, this is enormous, but at Primark we have this culture of taking it in your stride and you get on with it, and you get it done. I'm very lucky as well, I love my job and I love what I do, so it makes it fairly easy for me to get up and to get on with it. I've got an incredible team around me that I've built up that are phenomenal as well. I probably never sit back and go, 'Oh my God, this is huge.' That would be quite rare for me. Every day is different which I think is what keeps me on my toes.”

I have seen firsthand how important that word team is to Wendy and some of her current team at Primark have been with her since she was in A|Wear all those years ago. There has been a lot of talk about how teams worked together during the pandemic and how hers has operated is a credit to Wendy. 

“I actually think it's actually brought us closer in terms of team. I'm not sure if this is the right word, but in a way, it forces you to do it and to make sure they upkeep relationships because, for me, it's fundamental to my job. If I didn't have certain relationships within the business, the department wouldn't be a success. If anything, it made me know team members I didn't know before. Don't get me wrong, the socialising, the going out and having a drink with people, makes such a huge difference. I'm definitely looking forward to having a bit of that back. But I do like the balance and I think it's worked.”

The balance Wendy is talking about is the one that comes from a hybrid work environment. Primark has made massive strides on that front over the last year. 

“There's been a massive shift especially over the last year. Even at Primark, you can see everyone is a lot more understanding across the board in terms of taking holidays or being on a day off - when you're out of the business, you're now out of business. We finish at two o'clock on a Friday as part of that. No meetings are scheduled after that time and I think you have to lead by example and say, "My commitment is, you won't have requests from me after two o'clock on a Friday." 

Wendy is passionate about supporting women on her team and in the business as a whole and knows that balance and being about to work flexibly is key to harnesses female talent. 

“We’re very lucky that our Group Director of People and Culture is a woman and she’s very vocal about the female culture within Primark and promoting women. We only announced our new hybrid working model recently and I haven't had anybody react in any way but positively around it. You can work two to three days in the office and then you manage your life around those other days and what you need to do.”

That support of women extends through to women having families and Wendy says she felt nothing but connected and supported the whole way through her maternity leave. 

“They really do support you all the way through and they do different things. I had Keeping in Touch Days where I could drop in and join a presentation, or meeting, and in that way, I felt quite connected, but I was also given the time to take what I needed and let them know when I was ready to come back. 

Mentorship has played a big role in Wendy’s career and the relationships she forged early on in her work life are still strong. It’s something she believes in and continues now in her new role. 

“I'm very lucky to be surrounded by incredible women in the business. Lorraine Culligan, our Group Director of People and Culture is definitely one but there are so many. I lean on those women and learn so much from them. But I also spend a lot of time with Paul, our CEO who's just an incredible mind and incredible to learn from because he worked for so many different organisations. Outside Primark I learned everything I did from Vivienne Bushell when we worked together in A|Wear. I worked with her for a long time and we’re still very close. I'm all about that young talent in the business now as well and bringing that in and keeping us fresh.”

Although Wendy’s job is global now, Penneys is, for most Irish people very local. Because of that Wendy sometimes has a hard time explaining that she doesn’t always know when the good pyjamas hit the shop floor!

Wendy laughs as she says: “It's a huge business, and I think in Ireland people forget that. I talk to friends and sometimes family and they just think I work upstairs in Mary Street. They don't understand global markets and the expansion in America. They often ask me if a certain top they’ve seen is in, or if I can get them pyjamas. I’m like, “Lads…”