A Day in the Life of Frank Freeman

Name: Frank Freeman

Company: Personal

Job title: Senior Account Manager

What keeps you busy all day?

Being the people’s DJ in our open plan office. It helps to remind people that music feeds the soul as we all work on our various stages of the advertising brief. Plus it gives the agency a good vibe – although people here with different musical tastes may disagree.

What keeps you awake at night?

Recently it has been finance reconciliations and spreadsheets waking me up at 5am.

Describe your working day:

I’m the first up in our house during the week. Firstly, to keep to our shower rota. Secondly, to ensure I have a better than average chance of getting a Metro and a little bit of personal space on a crowded Northern Line tube every morning. We have a staff canteen with free breakfast before 9am, which is probably the healthiest meal I eat each day. That fact alone keeps my Mum happy (Mum, I am looking after myself).

After breakfast at my desk it’s head down for the next few hours on specific projects going through the agency at the time, involving various media channels such as DM, Press, Radio, Outdoor, Online and TV to name a few. Working in Soho is great to people-watch with a walk around the block during lunch and then it’s back to the grind for the rest of the afternoon. More music.  More advertising madness. The day usually ends with one of us trying to drag another of us to one of the nearby Soho pubs. I usually get the blame for this.

What’s your busiest time of day?

Some days, you can’t see the wood for the trees, some days you have a brief calm respite, but it is usually pretty constant. I like to be organised which helps avoiding any last minute panics when the unexpected inevitably occurs.

What brands/accounts have you worked on?

Cable & Wireless (in Australia when I was on the marketing side of the fence), then I saw the light that is agency world in the UK: Prudential, Churchill, British Airways, Travelex, iShares, Bulldog, BUPA, Eskimogul, B&Q, School Food Trust.

Best day at work:

Being taken by clients to Frankfurt during the 2006 World Cup to watch Portugal vs. Iran with full corporate hospitality. Does that count as being ‘at work’?

Worst day at work:

Sometimes there are days that go wrong from the minute you get out of bed. You try not to take it personally and pray that the day is a rare blip. Thankfully I don’t have many of these and there always tends to be someone around who can get a smile out of me in the midst of it.

Name one thing that has made your boss sit up and take notice:

Working on VAT recovery for one client that saved them £1 million in 1 year, and reconciling another client’s billing of over £1 million to the penny. No wonder I have sleepless nights.

Ambitions:

To keep working with talented, wonderful people in great agency environments. And to have botox before I am 40.

Advice to other rising stars:

Be nice to the people you meet on the way up…

Quote from the boss:

“Frank who?” – Chris Ward, Managing Partner.