00:00One of my favorite pieces of advice that I've gotten from mentors, peer mentors, was leave the red tape behind.
00:08Don't ever let fear stop you from doing what you want to do.
00:12I had always wanted to be an editor-in-chief of a publication, and I think everything that I've done
00:19throughout my career has set me up, skill-wise, passion-wise, for this role.
00:24I'm Simone Oliver, global editor-in-chief of Refinery29.
00:32Welcome to the offices of Refinery29 here in Brooklyn, New York.
00:36I'm going to take you through a little bit of my day-to-day, talk about my career journey, and
00:41hopefully give you some practical advice.
00:43Come on, let's go.
00:45When I had been at the New York Times, I said, my five-year goal is to run a dot
00:50-com, right?
00:51Like a fashion, beauty, lifestyle-oriented dot-com.
00:54And Refinery was a brand that I had loved from the very beginning.
00:58I've always felt like it spoke to me, so when I got the call, obviously I'm going to take the
01:02call.
01:02My anxiety, though, really, really lied in the fact that the media industry could be hard.
01:08Like, it's straight-up hard, but it's also wildly exciting.
01:11I've gotten a lot of advice in my career, and I think when I'm looking at a potential employee, one
01:18of the biggest things that I look for is, do you ask questions?
01:22Even if they might be uncomfortable questions, but are you a thoughtful person, right?
01:26And are you thinking things through?
01:28Are you a critical thinker?
01:29And a lot of times, the type of questions that you ask, it reveals a lot.
01:34What I've noticed is that a lot of young employees in general, they tend to have a lot of anxiety
01:40around cold calling people, reaching out, emailing, hitting people up on LinkedIn.
01:45And I usually just tell them, like, just do it.
01:48But when you do it, don't just do it and say, hey, I really admire you.
01:52Can we talk one day?
01:53Be specific in your intention.
01:55If you are lucky enough to get time with that person, come to that call with three things, right?
02:00Three questions you want to ask them, or three things that you're maybe having trouble working through.
02:05And that'll be a very productive call.
02:07Cultivating relationships is wildly important.
02:11It's really important that you keep following up, right?
02:13You keep in touch.
02:14And we always say, keep in touch, right?
02:16But what does that really mean?
02:17That means reach out to them when maybe you saw somewhere that they got a new job, or they did
02:22an interesting project, and maybe they shared it, right?
02:25It means when you've done something interesting in your job, and maybe you're proud of it, and just saying, hey,
02:30you know, happy Valentine's Day.
02:33I just wanted to tell you I worked on this really cool photo shoot, and I wanted to share my
02:36work.
02:36You know, hope all is well.
02:37For some people, it may feel kind of braggy, or it might feel a little uncomfortable, or even purposeless.
02:42But that keeping in touch, it lets that person know that, A, you're in touch,
02:46and you're not just coming to them when you need something.
02:49It also keeps them abreast of what you're working on.
02:51One of the moments that probably had the biggest impact on my career was when I pushed for creating the
02:59first New York Times Instagram.
03:01At the time, the paper was very against creating an Instagram account because they didn't really feel like there was
03:09value in a platform that didn't allow users to link back to the New York Times, right?
03:14And their main goal was to get subscribers, right?
03:16Makes sense.
03:17So I had asked permission and was told no several times, but I felt like if we're going to be
03:24talking to the next generation, it's really important that we be where that generation is.
03:30And so I started.
03:32I got a very nasty note from our social editor at the time, which I ended up saving forever.
03:38I still have that email.
03:39It was a little bit scary, right?
03:40Because I didn't want to go on record as losing my job for starting an Instagram account, right?
03:44But then on the other hand, that's been something that is very much a part of my story and very
03:50much a part of the paper's, you know, digital journey as a whole.
03:53You can't let fear stop you from what you want to do.
03:55That's the one thing my dad told me when I was younger, but honestly, getting a chance at this opportunity
04:00to work at Refinery and help evolve a brand that you've loved for so long and lead a team of
04:07amazing people, you can't sleep on that.
04:09So it's a good job.
04:11So now that you know a little bit about my journey, let's go to my office.
04:17So what I love about Refinery29 is it is truly a safe space where people can come and just be
04:22themselves.
04:23We're the brand that doesn't care if they get invited to the party because we're having our own party.
04:28As the global editor-in-chief of Refinery29, it's my job to lead the vision on how R29 shows up
04:35in the world.
04:35So every day my responsibilities change.
04:38Every day is different.
04:39When I wake up, all of London is already messaging me.
04:42So I'm communicating with them, responding to emails, and I'm looking at what's on fire, what's simmering, what's everywhere in
04:50between.
04:51On an average day, I get about anywhere from 1,000 to 1,400 emails a day.
04:57So I have to go through, scan, scan, scan, and make sure that I'm attacking what's most important.
05:03You have to be a ruthless prioritizer.
05:05You have to make a list.
05:07To be honest, on most days, I don't get everything done.
05:09I take everything that was on my list of what was to get done today and I move that to
05:13tomorrow.
05:14And then I know that tomorrow I'm going to try to tackle it.
05:17I'm going to try to do the best that I can.
05:18But being okay with the fact that not everything is going to get done.
05:22I think my favorite part of the job is doing a lot of steering, right?
05:27I set the vision for the brand, but I also need to make sure that all of what we do
05:33across our entire team globally is in line with that vision.
05:37And that requires a lot of communication.
05:40And probably one of the most important parts of my job is managing people.
05:44It takes a lot of people to put together the content that we put together and they put their hearts
05:50into it.
05:50But they're also people and they have lives, they have families, they have pets, they have plants, you know, and
05:56they have real things going on in their lives.
05:58And they're also amazing and have ideas that they often need mentors, you know.
06:03They're trying to navigate their lives and careers.
06:05And I'm no Oracle, but I do take management really seriously.
06:09One of my favorite pieces of advice that I've gotten from mentors, peer mentors, was leave the red tape behind.
06:16When I first started the New York Times Fashion Instagram account, that was a moment where I had a choice.
06:22And I could have not done it, but I asked for forgiveness after the fact.
06:27And so it's not something that applies to every situation, of course, but leave the red tape behind is something
06:33that sticks with me in everything that I do.
06:36Take risks, calculated risks.
06:38And with that, thanks.
06:42Remember, stay in touch.
06:56See you next time.
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