Fairygodboss Of The Week: Vanessa Soto

FGB: Tell us about your career. How did you get to where you are now?
VS: Almost exactly 20 years ago, I came home from my honeymoon, responded to an ad in the classifieds (yes, the actual printed newspaper) and landed a job with a tiny direct marketing agency called Times Direct Marketing. At that time the agency was just starting to get into creating small websites, marketing emails and banner ads for our clients. During the 3 years I was there, I built the foundation for what became an early career in digital advertising.

After that I went on to other agencies where I was often part of smaller digital-focused teams where I spent a lot of time educating both my peers and clients on the ways of the internet.

Agency life is not for everyone. The hours are long, the clients are sometimes great and sometimes not so great, and the creative personalities and egos can be trying -- to say the least.  As an account manager, my job was two-fold: manage the client relationship and manage the creative team to get the work done – and in doing this, you are constantly walking a line between the two worlds. I was good at it, but I’d really just fallen into it when I responded to that classified ad, and pretty early on I knew I wanted to make the shift from agency to “client side”.

It’s not often easy to make that shift – but with time, I finally did! And now I use all those skills from my agency years at Charles Schwab, where I’ve been heading up digital advertising for our retail business for the last 4 years.

FGB: What book would you bring with you on a desert island?
VS: I love to read, so I would really probably need one book per day!  But if I really had to pick one it would probably be something by Ann Patchett or Jane Smiley.  

FGB: What is your shopping vice? What would you buy if you won the lottery?
VS: A Beach shack and a pile of books until I got tired of that life and then I’d do something entrepreneurial with a creative bent.

FGB: Who is your Fairygodboss?
VS: While I love to mentor others, I’ve never had an “official” mentor myself. Rather, there have been a range of people along the way who recognized potential in me, encouraged me, and told me what I was good at. These people each helped me get out of my own head and see myself from the outside in.

Laura Schuler was one of my first bosses back at the tiny direct marketing agency, and we went on to work together at Saatchi & Saatchi and AKQA.  We’re now friends of 20 years.  Laura made sure I knew I was an asset when she brought me to Saatchi, and also taught me how to ask for the salary I was worth.