#6 A Global Perspective on Marketing with Some Collective Help

While Jamie Read didn’t set out to work in corporate communications or advertising after university, a summer job as a SARS screener at UHN’s Toronto Rehab hospital, started him on a path that he never expected or considered. His innate curiosity led him to explore what the hospital did, and impromptu interviews with staff led him to get the lowdown on the role of the hospital’s marketing and communications department.

Jamie rightly points out that one must be prepared to consider opportunities as they present themselves; however as he admits his ambition extended beyond the hospital and from that early spring board he wound working in Singapore and Dubai. In the early aughts, Jamie went old school dropping his resume off on the desks of agencies he wanted to work for. For Jamie it was all part of his strategy to show initiative. As he says people don’t hire a resume they hire a person so it is important to find a way to stand out. Once in Dubai, he found a city and region that was booming with opportunities and a chance to blaze trails and collaborate with an international team of marketing professionals from around the world.

On his return to Canada 15 years later, Jamie was again looking for an opportunity to take his global perspective into a new direction. This led Jamie to create the Brite Birch Collective, a marketing agency with a freelance model that allowed him to pull together teams of seasoned professionals from around the globe to work on consulting projects. He terms this, agency of the future and a model that creates solutions based around the need. From the early days at Toronto Rehab, Jamie say the multi-disciplinary approach used in health care and it is this approach that he now applies to building teams to collaborate with his clients.

Over his career he has seen first hand the need to be fast and nimble in a disruptive world. The key today is to come with fresh ideas and he advises young people to be skills based because people will find you if you have skills that they need. As he says do what you love and stand out.

To Listen to the episode: Apple Podcast / Spotify Podcast

Jamie Read is the founder of the Brite Birch Collective, an international marketing agency based in Canada. For more: britebirch.com