Phie McKenzie, Creative Ally

💭 Thoughts on female-led impact-driven businesses, The Rest is Entertainment podcast, and eBay’s Fashion Week Campaign.

Phie McKenzie is a Strategist and the Founder of Creative Ally, a talent agency that champions purpose-driven digital creators in the UK. After spending many years in the digital and entertainment industry, as Editor of music and style magazine Notion and then Head of Brand and Communications at Studio71 UK, Phie launched Creative Ally in 2022 to work with creators who are passionate about social and environmental causes. In 2024, she was included in the BIMA100 Class of 2024 Strategists & Consultants. Creative Ally was shortlisted for Boutique Talent Management Company of the Year at the 2024 bCreator Awards.

Phie is also the co-creator of Creatives Cymru Supper Club – a community event series that aims to empower the voices of Welsh creatives in London.

Phie lives in a predominantly orange flat in a trendy borough in London, with her husband, and a cat called Puss Puss, with almost always 5 unfinished books next to the bed.

🎯 Current focus

Together with my friend, Dagmar Bennett, Welsh director and filmmaker, we co-founded a Welsh community called Clwb Creative Cymru in London. Our initial idea was to host a supper club to connect with fellow Welsh individuals and to celebrate our heritage, but it has evolved into something much bigger. We are now organising larger events, all of which showcase and are supported by incredible Welsh creatives and brands. Our community's enthusiasm and eagerness for this initiative is truly inspiring. We are even considering creating a more permanent presence in London next year.

Traditionally, I think the Welsh have been viewed as the underdog nation of the British Isles, and we have not received much recognition in the creative industries. However, it's been amazing to witness a new generation of emerging creatives challenging outdated perceptions of Wales, Welsh interests, and talent. With Clwb Creative Cymru, we aim to further promote and support this movement on a global level. We want to live out our strapline: Wales to the World!

Throughout this journey, I have embraced my culture and heritage more than ever before, and I feel a greater sense of authenticity.

💪 Female-led impact-driven businesses

I've been on a funding learning course to help accelerate our agency's mission alongside a group of fellow female-led impact-driven businesses, and my peers have totally inspired me. These business women are working incredibly hard to create a better world for everyone. From Skylight Ventures, a community-led fund offering interest-free microloans to refugee entrepreneurs, to The WIP, a platform and community supporting small businesses to be sustainable and prosperous, it's heartwarming to see how passionate and dedicated these entrepreneurs are.

🎙️ The Rest is Entertainment podcast

I am a podcast obsessive (it’s this over TV and film for me) and I’m currently listening to the podcast The Rest is Entertainment with Richard Osman and Marina Hyde. It's a lighthearted but insightful look at the entertainment industry, where two veterans discuss the goings-on of current pop culture, films, music, and TV, as well as decades of funny anecdotes and stories they pull out at any moment.

🙅🏻‍♀️ How socials have become less social

I've been thinking about how social platforms have become less and less social in nature, and instead have commodified us all. Now, we're tactfully selling one another, whether it's broadcasting a lifestyle on Instagram, selling a business projection on LinkedIn, or actual products on TikTok. What's meta it feels like we're all – not only those in marketing or advertising – aware of the mechanics of increasing our likes, reach, and popularity by doing X or X, or posting a type of visual.

I really love social for democratising information, allowing marginalised voices to be heard, and helping upskill and empower many, but when I see people, often from lower economic backgrounds, selling super low-cost items to their peers on social media, all shipped from the global south, the social feels like a really icky space.

I have however begun to see brands invest in more community spaces and experiences, from running clubs to creative workshops, and I hope that social platforms work to create spaces, on and offline that facilitate real and genuine connection.

🎥 Aftersun + Triangle of Sadness

A couple of films I have really enjoyed recently are Aftersun by British writer and director Charlotte Wells and Triangle of Sadness. Visually, they are both pretty stunning, but the narratives also took me by surprise. There is a lot that is left unsaid, and moments lingered in my mind for several weeks afterwards.

🌻 People who go out of their way to make places, spaces and work better for others

Isabel Sachs - Founder of I Like Networking, who is one of the most hardworking and supportive women I've met. She's built a whole community to support women and non-binary people in the creative industries and she's killing it - but she always has your back.

Similarly, Pip Jamieson, Founder of the Dots, is terrifically influential, and no doubt equally as busy, but also so kind and gracious of her time.

Jasmine Douglas, Founder of Babes on Waves, has been building the most amazing business community for women of colour, which now has its one recreational spin-off for busy babes.

Roshannah Bagley, who works across It's Nice That, POC-focused nature group and Where Are the The Black Designers?

I suppose I am inspired by people who go out of their way to make places, spaces and work better for others.

🍃 Gaining perspective from stillness and nature

I have spent the last two weekends either dancing or camping under the stars in the countryside or in Ibiza, so what I'm really looking forward to is a few lay-ins and some grounding in the countryside. Whenever things feel a bit "too much" (stressful/emotional/overwhelming), my body literally aches for nature and stillness. I guess when you're deep in a woodland or near the sea, away from the high rises, the traffic, and the wifi, it's a little easier to get some perspective. When you understand you're nothing but a tiny dot on an enormous mass turning in space, it feels crazy to get stressed about a 9x16 asset.

🍿 Purposeful content consumption

Like everyone else, but more so because of what I do, I notice I am consuming content more passively in general. How we consume content is becoming increasingly mindless - the length of social videos, the editing style, the breaking down of any subject into minute detail.

Over the past 6 months, I've made time for purposeful content consumption. By that, I mean I don't want to turn on the TV and passively tune into what's trending on Netflix; one eye scrolling Vinted or Wikipedia, I make a conscious effort to give it my focus. I like to choose a film based on recommendations and reviews; I get the right lighting, my phone goes to the side, and I fully immerse myself in it. Deliberate and immersed is a much better way to consume anything worth consuming.

👠 eBay’s Fashion Week Campaign

I loved seeing eBay participate in Fashion Week this year, hosting the Endless Catwalk at the London and New York schedules and only showcasing existing, vintage or archive looks. It was a moment. More brands need to participate in the topic of sustainability and fashion in a more meaningful way. Calm recently created an installation, 'Missed Birthdays,' which featured 6929 coloured balloons to raise more awareness around suicide and highlight the shocking fact that suicide is sadly the leading cause of death for people in the UK under 34.

Follow Phie on Instagram & Linkedin and check out her agency here.

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