Mia Powell is currently the New Business Director (Branded) @ Lammas Park.
Mia has worked for many highly established businesses across the advertising, media and fashion landscape. A creative, strategic hybrid, Mia lends her skills to help develop and nurture teams and talent to create award-winning work.
Within her role as New Business Director for the EU/UK at Ridley Scott Creative Group, Mia successfully launched a creative portfolio review, set up to help give young and underrepresented creatives professional guidance, the campaign also helped source new directing talent to join the global roster.
Prior to RSCG, Mia was Head of New Business at PRETTYBIRD, a position she held for 4 years, helping to define a strong and diverse roster of talent working with brands such as Nike, Vogue, Amazon, On Running, H&M, The Glenlivet and the first ever branded entertainment series to hit the UK TV with Channel 4, Balmain and Sunshine.
Awards for the work she collaborated on include Ciclope, British Arrows, Kinsale Shark Awards and AICP.
Today, Mia shares a glimpse into a day in her life…
It all starts...
When my alarm goes off at 7.45am. I realise this is probably late for most but I’m a night owl and have gradually been getting my head around the morning routine, at a previous production company I’d been known not to perk up until about 11am!
I’m much better now as I have kittens to feed and a Vespa journey into Soho to get my synapses firing.
On a typical day...
There is no typical day! The life of New Business is an ever evolving machine, I’m currently developing a branded department alongside Anna Smith Tenser (Ex Iconoclast MD) at Lammas Park, Steve McQueen’s production entity which already has a fully formed longform division.
This involves a lot of foundation building, like working on getting the website launched, searching for directing talent to join our roster, creating brand awareness and reaching out to my black book of contacts from agencies, seeking opportunities and proposing ideas directly to brands.
What I truly love about my role is the variety of things that keep me on my toes, in particular, working with a director to develop a treatment and deliver a strong pitch concept to an agency or brand and working closely with a producer to ensure the ideas can be delivered to a budget is where I come alive.
Pitches ebb and flow, you never know when the next one might come into your inbox so being present and having my ear to the ground, going to events and building relationships industry wide is a core part of what I’m here to do day to day also.
I got into my career by...
Doing a potential scheme which was set up by iris Worldwide about 7 years ago. I joined as an account exec and meandered my way through agency life before I was inspired by someone who came into our agency to do a show and tell. That was my catalyst to switch to production to be closer to the action.
Before my time at Lammas Park I was Head of New Business at Prettybird, working up to this title across my 4 years there. I had a small stint at a company which didn’t quite align with my values, so I quit after 3 months which was just enough time to get 2 projects out of the door. I approached Lammas Park through a mutual industry connection who kindly put me in touch with Anna.
I pitched myself, with a deck and my CV. They had no branded department and I wanted to change that, unbeknownst that the company had just worked on an incredible campaign for Nike x Patta which was due to launch a few months later.
A position was made for me and their ambitions to open a branded department were already planted so it was incredible timing and a serendipitous situation which led me into this role I have now.
The positives I have taken in the last 12 months...
Taking the leap and changing roles, reigniting my column on LBB has been a real highlight, seeing people I mentor flourish in their roles is also so rewarding to see. Also… becoming a cat mum!