Mia Munteanu (Marks): Stand out from the crowd and start making a difference, nobody will do it for you

Cristina Blanaru Business, Creativity, People, Women in Business

As March is a month when women are celebrated, AdHugger asked a few professionals with a remarkable career to tell us their views on developing their career as women working in the technology industry and what were the challenges. And Mia Munteanu, Client Service Director at Marks, offered us her view over the matter.

  • How hard was to develop your career?

In 2011, when I was working as an Account Executive at Cohn and Jansen JWT, the Client Service Director at the time, my then boss, tried to fire me 3 times, telling me repeatedly that this job is not for me. It was my first job. The other colleagues did not share the same opinion, so they invented a job for me and I stayed in the agency eventually. This is how I started to coordinate the PR activity of the team, but I got bored fast because in that time there was no team, and most of the times I ended up working alone, with a few collaborators. I looked for a new challenge, I quit and obviously my next job was again in a Client Service department. I promised myself that I would never, ever discourage my team and I will support them no matter their background and experience. I will be there for them and help them grow as I grow. Years have passed since then, and not only did I end up coordinating the entire portfolio of Marks agency, but I am also actively involved in numerous business projects and successful start-ups.

  • What were the main obstacles to surpass?

What’s the difference between a job and a career? Well, a job can be offered to you by anyone, but only you can offer yourself a career. A job is from 9 to 5, a career is wherever you are because in every moment of your day you can learn new things that help you grow in your domain. Your image counts when you build a career, no matter who your boss is or how cool or not cool your colleagues are. Because when you are very good at what you do, you can work from anywhere because you know where you’re headed and where you want to end up. Extra hours, extra mile, an open heart, an open mind, when you build a career you have to be passionate about what you do. Otherwise, it’s just a job.

You find challenges all the time. There’s always a project in which “something” is not working. The way you act or react can move you forward or keep you stagnating, it’s your choice.

  • How did you managed to achieve success?

No bad days, this is my mantra. I don’t care if it’s raining outside or if the snow is up to the windshields, I don’t care if I missed the bus or if a client is grumpy and difficult. Surprise: life is difficult, the clients are difficult, the team is difficult, some projects seem impossible, things don’t always turn out the way you imagined.

Stand out from the crowd and start making a difference, nobody will do it for you. Oprah won’t invite you to her show, Forbes won’t write about you because you had an idea at some point. You don’t get an Oscar just for showing up. Put your ass on the chair and start working for it.

  • What do you think today’s industry would need more?

Collaboration and real connections. I remember the last Fibra awards where the people in the audience did not applaud the people that were going up on stage, their industry colleagues that had just won an award. Yes, of course, if they were there and you weren’t, it means you lost. But this does not mean you can’t appreciate and support the work or the experience of another team. It was shocking for me, at some point I applauded by myself. I couldn’t stay in the room; I got up and went home.

  • Top 3 things to follow during the current year

I follow thoroughly the way in which certain local communities are evolving, it is fascinating to see the way in which people change the city, the way the city changes with them. A few examples: the ARCEN organization and their Bucharest guided walks, or the “Catalog Bucuresti” project, which highlights all the faults of the buildings in which we live.

Another example could be the community that forms around the Questo app, a Romanian start-up that got financed by Booking and is about to develop in other cities of the world, or Design Meetup, the meetings of the advertising creatives. BNI is another community which I follow closely, this is where I had the opportunity to meet a number of entrepreneurs which are performing in their field. Oh well, I said 4. 🙂