My Biggest Lesson: Alan Fayolle

Alan Fayolle, group managing director at Forever Beta, he is passionate about harnessing the power of strategy and creativity to drive growth, revenue and profit.

With 20+ years’ experience in client leadership roles across globally recognised creative agencies and start-ups; transforming and accelerating growth for some of the world’s biggest brands including Google, Amazon and O2. Prior to setting up Forever Beta, he worked at BD Network, Bates and VCCP.

I'm lucky I've had a lot of excellent professional influences throughout my career. My career has taken me to all different types of agencies; from big networks, independent start-ups, below the line to fully integrated and a bit of everything in between.

One piece of advice that really stands out to me, and something that I have tried to stay close to throughout my career came from my first manager. I was in a sales role in a completely different industry to advertising and to be frank it was a hell of an adjustment for someone fresh out of university. The lesson she imparted was one of authenticity, she had observed that I was adopting some of the approaches of my more experienced peers and her suggestion was that I needed to 'find my own patter'. Finding your unique voice and way of working is crucial in building the foundation of a solid career. 

Now I'm a little older and wiser, I appreciate just how good that advice is, and it's true on so many different levels. It is so easy to fall into the habit when one sees success in others to try and mirror what they're doing and maybe to replicate what they're doing. In my humble opinion, the most successful people out there and certainly the happiest usually find something that plays to their skills, values and brings out the best in themselves. 

Although we embody innovation at Forever Beta, we also encourage everyone to be themselves and find their authenticity at work, as we believe that this is central to enjoying your work life. The joy of the creative process, of developing provocative, effective work or the joy of forming strong and productive partnerships with your client partners is quite often forgotten with other things like time and budgetary pressures taking precedence. As an agency we are reclaiming this concept and we truly believe this is the secret ingredient to being happy at work and producing the best work.