At IGNIFI we’re extremely proud of the wealth of digital, marketing, creative and healthcare specific knowledge within our team. Collectively our team possess a wide range of experience through their diverse work and educational backgrounds. For National Careers Week 2022, we wanted to spotlight two of our senior team members, their day-to-day roles and the career path that led them there
Sarah Thompson, Group Account Director
Sarah is a great example of someone who has grown and developed within her career throughout her time with IGNIFI. Despite both her undergraduate and Masters degrees being in languages, Sarah moved away from a language focused career and has now spent the majority of her working life in the healthcare marketing industry, becoming an expert in client-agency relations.
Sarah first encountered IGNIFI (then NB GROUP) as the key creative agency for medical device, Gelclair whilst at Cambridge Laboratories. After working with us and getting to know what we were about, she then decided to make the jump from client to agency side, joining the business in March 2010 as a Junior Account Executive.
In her time with IGNIFI, Sarah has bolstered her skillset through marketing qualifications such as a CIM Professional Diploma in Marketing and more specialised courses such as ABPI certification and training in programmes such as HubSpot and Veeva services.
Beyond this, her time working in our dynamic Client Services Team gave her the opportunity to put her theoretical marketing knowledge into practice, working across a wide range of therapy areas and products. Sarah has been involved in everything from the localisation of global marketing campaigns to the transformation of physical assets into digital materials that would work remotely. Throughout this, she has gained insight in therapeutic areas such as gastroenterology, women’s health, rare diseases, oncology, respiratory health, animal health, medical devices and much more.
Sarah’s years in the industry and high regard amongst clients saw her progress through the positions of Key Account Manager and Account Director before taking on the newly created position of Group Account Director in September 2021. Sarah now contributes her client insight to IGNIFI’s business development strategy as part of our Senior Management Team, while leading a team of four Key Account Managers, Account Managers and Account Executives to deliver exceptional client service across all client accounts.
“IGNIFI is hugely invested in developing and promoting their team from within through funding formal qualifications as well as hands-on exposure to a range of different projects, brands and external networking. My career at IGNIFI has been testament to this, coming in at a junior level and working through the ranks to now being responsible for a team of like-minded, dedicated account handlers who have a thirst for progression too. We have a strong team ethos where everyone feels part of the IGNIFI family and can learn from each another as we continue to develop and grow as a healthcare marketing business.”
Craig Lambert, Digital Manager
Craig is a more recent addition to the IGNIFI team, joining us in September 2019. Despite his comparatively short time with us, Craig has already evolved to take on new roles and responsibilities within the business, carving out a career path best suited to his skills and interests.
After college, Craig decided to kickstart his career by entering the world of work as a Digital Print Operator for a printing company in Newcastle. Over the following 15 years, Craig worked his way up through various design and technical job roles for the North East printing companies Alphagraphics and PMI Creative. Before he joined IGNIFI, Craig was working in a managerial role, building out fully automated cross media marketing campaigns for automotive, education and hospitality clients.
Craig initially joined our Client Services Team as a Design and Production Project Coordinator, where he was responsible for working as a bridge between our Client Services team and studio team, helping to progress projects for multiple clients. He was also on hand to offer insight and input on more digitally focused projects.
It quickly became clear that Craig was best suited to technical digital projects, after impressing both internal teams and clients with his problem-solving skills and ability to create workarounds to complex technical problems, in some cases going beyond the knowledge of the software support teams themselves.
In 2021, Craig was promoted to Digital Manager, leading our newly created Digital Team. His day-to-day work now includes the management of workload, resources, and the development of skills within his team. However, despite the move, Craig still works closely with both the Client Services team and customers to ensure IGNIFI deliver the best possible digital solutions. Taking a “hands on” approach to some of the more complex development jobs and always willing to roll the sleeves up when needed.
“Getting to lead a group of dedicated and enthusiastic developers and designers is a privilege. One of my favourite parts of the role is making sure that we are continually increasing the knowledge and skills within our Digital Team, both for the personal development of our team members but also to stay ahead of the technological curve as a business.
This focus on development ensures we’re able to create both bespoke solutions, as well as being able to immerse ourselves in our client’s global standards and design systems to support them in their next digital ventures.”
Sarah and Craig are shining examples of individuals within IGNIFI who have progressed their careers internally, demonstrating both the variety in careers and progression opportunities available with IGNIFI.
Rather than progressing up the ranks in a linear fashion based on time served with the company, our team members are able to adopt new job roles and promotions as their skillset and day-to-day responsibilities evolve. We believe this gives our staff the flexibility to help carve out their own career path and is one of the reasons that we have so many long-standing members of the business.
If you’re interested in exploring a career with IGNIFI, we are currently advertising for a range of positions in our Digital and Client Services teams. For more information, or to be one of the first to hear about any new vacancies, you can visit our careers page.
Posted by John Horn
Managing Director
