CEOs during COVID-19: Imogen Hewitt on the challenge of starting a new role just before a pandemic
In this series, Mumbrella’s Brittney Rigby asks media agency CEOs how they’re leading their teams through a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Here, in this final instalment, Spark Foundry’s Imogen Hewitt expresses why leading an agency is easier than year six long division, why she’s grateful to fellow leaders who have abandoned fierce competitiveness to support her, and what it was like to barely be settled into the job before she was forced to tell people to go home and stay home.
The first question I ask Imogen Hewitt is: How are you?
It’s the same question with which I’ve started each interview for this series, because I wanted thoughtful answers, on the record. Usually, it’s one hurriedly asked before the red light on my recorder starts flashing, a way to fill in the time with a little small talk. But it’s taken on a certain gravity lately, for both the questioner and the questioned.
We’re recovering from a global pandemic, a period during which jobs have been (and still are) insecure, people are still (mostly) physically isolated, and, in a CEO’s case, there’s enormous pressure to save jobs and keep a company afloat. So we know the usual ‘good’s and ‘fine’s won’t be true.
+1 to Imogen Hewitt fan club
You’re a bloody legend, and we love you.
+2 to Imogen Fan Club.
Candid and truthful, well done Imogen