I live in Durbanville with my husband and two kids. My Cape Town office is in Montague Gardens with the Johannesburg office in Dunkeld West. I spend most of my weekends with family and friends at surrounding wine farms or friends' houses. Our weekends are determined by how we can spend time with our kids and keep them entertained!
I’m a mom, a wife and an entrepreneur… it’s not an easy task balancing all three, but I certainly try my best.
Any woman that works full time and is a mom is a hero in my eyes.
During my varsity days I started working for a brand activation agency, doing promos in my spare time. I then got employed by that agency and after four short months in their Cape Town office, I moved to Johannesburg as the operations manager for the same company. During this time I became the client service director and, after spending four years in Johannesburg, I moved back to Cape Town. I still loved the vibe of Johannesburg though, and regularly commuted between the cities.
I then worked in a BTL ad agency for two years before deciding that events and brand activation was really what I enjoyed, so at the age of 30 I started my own agency, Urban Striker, doing exactly that.
Over the past six years, I’ve been given the opportunity to work on incredible brands, with great clients. I still enjoy being client-facing, so I choose to remain involved with clients and the creative, planning and implementation side of what we do. I have an incredible team behind me and nothing makes me happier than seeing them grow and getting to bring creative ideas to life.
Spending time with my family and friends, my kids are my daily entertainment. My husband and I love to travel, so we go abroad at least every two years.
I love that no two days are ever the same, no brief is ever the same, so we are constantly challenged to think on our feet and find creative, practical ways to bring ideas to life. I’ve learned that with technology, nothing is impossible these days.
The average day really is a juggling match of doing what you planned in between the last minute requests that get thrown in!
Creative thinking, logical mind set, administratively strong, attitude, and you have to absolutely love what you do, otherwise the curveballs and long hours will get to you.
Anyone managing to merge experiential marketing and digital effectively.
Probably timelines, but we know that’s never going to happen, because when a great idea comes along, you have to make it happen before someone else does. We work in an extremely pressured environment and timelines are always the biggest challenge, but we always make it happen, no matter what.
A very cool experiential activation plan for a top secret, super fun “limited edition” brand that launched end September. We are also working on Enel Energy, Indigo Brands, Lindt, Bos and lots of other smaller activations that consistently roll out month after month.
My most used catch phrase would be “This too shall pass”, we go through some highly pressured times and often I need to remind myself and my team that once we get through it, we will look back and have a breather.
We are heading into peak season, what I call the pressure cooker, where there is laughter, tears, screaming, lack of sleep and utter craziness, but come January, everything goes back to normal.
Probably in the evenings when I am relaxed and not in front of my laptop, or when I am driving. Mostly when I am alone and zoned out but my brain is ticking overtime.
I work incredibly well under pressure.
I’m probably somewhere in between, the younger generation in our office keep us abreast of the digital world, as do my incredible digital suppliers.
Apps for my kids and loads of photos and videos of my kids, and in between the photos of my kids are photos of events or activations that we are implementing. Apart from photos, you will find all the shopping apps… online shopping is my thing these days. It’s nearly impossible to shop with two kids under the age of four!
Be eager to learn and get stuck in to whatever opportunity you get given to work on a project. Each event or activation will give you different learnings and that bank of experience dealing with different situations will give you the confidence to take on any project in the future. It will teach you to think on your feet and be solutions-orientated. There isn’t a book that will tell you how to make a creative idea come to life, technology is evolving, creative thinking is evolving so what we did 10 years ago is very different to the experiential concepts we get to implement now. You need to be solutions-orientated and have an attitude and desire to bring ideas to life.
Simple as that. Click here for Rapolthy’s MyBiz profile and interact with her on Twitter and Instagram. You can also visit the Urban Striker website directly.