Laura McCullough
Joined: October 1999
Degree: BA in French from Leicester
Current role: Client Team Leader

I came to ACNielsen on the Graduate Programme soon after finishing my degree. When I joined I went through an intensive six-month training programme, and then moved straight into Client Service to begin my career working with a household-name client.

In just over six years with the company I’ve progressed from Trainee Account Exec to Team Leader on one of our biggest and most strategically important accounts, where I manage a team of nine people.

It’s hard to describe what a typical working day is like here because no two days are the same. The challenge for me is striking the right balance between managing the account and managing the people on my team.

I tend to spend around 50% of my week onsite with clients: giving presentations, planning projects and giving progress updates. Then the other 50% I spend in Oxford, and at least half of that is dedicated to developing my team – with regular individual and group meetings, as well as informal catch-ups (and gossip of course).

The rest of my time is spent focusing on strategic responsibilities like dealing with the financials, catching up with European contacts and looking at development and delivery against our overall business plan.

I can’t imagine many places where you could move forward this quickly, or that offer this much variety in the work you do. There’s always another challenge to look forward to.