Employee Spotlight: Jose Niembro

Senior Account Manager Jose is an integral part of The Marketing Store's Happy Meal team, as well as a brilliant champion of all things DE&I. He's been the driving force behind many of our events celebrating Pride and supporting Mental Health over the past few years, and is a keen cook outside of the office. Get to know him, and a few of his favourite dishes below...

What are your pronouns?

He/him/his

What type of work experiences did you have prior to joining The Marketing Store?

I did a number of weird yet wonderful jobs at University, from an intense call-centre-like job as a Clearing Assistant, which either involved sharing fantastic news and being a small part of someone’s celebration, or having to deliver a bit of heartbreak. I was also a Student Ambassador staffing stands at HE Fairs and giving campus tours to promote the University. 

Straight out of uni, I had my first full-time job at an experiential marketing agency. It was a big learning experience, as I’m sure anyone’s first fulltime job is. It was a great introduction to the industry, even if being thrown in at the deep end. It was a very small agency, but with big-name clients, including Unilever, Nestle and Campari to name a few. It was very creative and hands-on, dare I say, too hands-on at times, like staffing the inside of a drone testing enclosure for teenagers. I quickly discovered they like to aim directly at you…

What’s in your headphones currently?

Controversial… but I don’t have any earphones. So I’ll tell you what I’m currently watching:

• The White Lotus. Dark humour, check. Social critique, check.
• Drag Race España, one of the best yet. Bring on UK season 3.

Describe The Marketing Store in one word:

Camaraderie 

During your time at The Marketing Store, what piece of work are you most proud of?

Working with the global icon that is Happy Meal is genuinely really fun. We work on projects for considerable amount of time about 10 months, so they really do become like your babies. There’s a lot of pride in seeing that key visual or Happy Meal box design that you worked so hard and long for in restaurants even when travelling far and wide, from my local Clapham Highstreet McDonald’s to the far quarters of Vietnam, and virtually every country in between. I have had the chance to work with incredible licenses which were my absolute childhood favourites, like SpongeBob, or BIG movies like Space Jam, and that’s just the cherry on top.

I’m equally proud of having become a line manager, I’m a big mama bear at heart and being able to help my colleagues on their development, through guidance and mentoring or supporting when they need it means building the best team with shared success.

What would the title of your autobiography be?

Tipples and nibbles (*with a side of anxiety)

Which person (dead or alive) would you most like to be stuck in an elevator with?

Depends how long for. Either Oscar Wilde – I bet we’d have an outrageously good chat – or a therapist; the uncomfortable situation would make for the most insightful of sessions I’m sure. A bottle comes in at a close third.

What's the best piece of career advice you’ve been given?

Working in client services, there are many fires to fight and many a crisis to answer to, so you find a few of us have impossibly perfectionist tendencies. But the wisest advice I’ve ever received is to remember we are not the ones in control, the clients are. They can and will change their minds. Be adaptable, be solutions oriented, but don’t put undue pressure on yourself with matters completely out of your hands.

What’s your current side hustle?

The closest I ever got to a side hustle was selling banana and choc chip muffins out of the boot of my car outside my old high school to partially fund a secretive and impulsive escapade. Pre-order Tipples and nibbles (*with a side of anxiety) to find out more. 😉

These days I have a (not so) secret Bree Van de Kamp identity at home, mastering Italian dishes and decadent bakes, creating cocktails (I see you Gin-gerbread Sour), tending to roses and being my best amateur interior designer, mostly through indulging in my passion for Mexican handcrafts.