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Senior Project Manager | Bam Strategy | Montreal Age: 27
Nothing will speed a junior’s climb up the agency ladder faster than consistently pleasing clients. And keeping clients happy is exactly how 27-year-old Natalie Farand earned her position as a senior project manager at Bam Strategy in Montreal.
Farand has worked on a slew of projects for one of Bam’s principal clients, Proctor & Gamble, and on each she has delivered. P&G scale and innovation manager Rob Linden says P&G often brings her challenges they can’t figure out, only to see Farand quickly come up with a solution.
On one project, Linden remembers Farand taking the P&G Brand Sampler website from concept to live in just two months back in July 2008, which he says is unheard of at P&G. “She realized the urgency, mobilized the team, and got everything together and out the door,” he says.
Linden, who first started worked with Farand three years ago when she was only 24, says he hopes to see her take on a more senior role at Bam, and says he sees her work ethic rub off on the teams she handles.
Bam, and specifically Farand, were recently invited to join Quadrant as its web partner on a pitch for a Heinz Baby website redesign, a project the agencies were awarded.
Over the past three years Bam has tripled in both size and revenue, growth Bam president Chris Emergui attributes partially to Farand who effectively runs the agency’s account management group with another colleague. Emergui says Farand’s work has led to clients both increasing the work they entrust with Bam and referring other brands to the agency.
When developing programs for P&G like BeingGirl.ca, an online slumber party for teenage girls, and My Olay, an online tool that allows users to discover their optimal skin care regimen, Farand has had to act as a liaison between her tech team of programmers and her clients. “Over several projects Natalie has demonstrated great professionalism and flexibility, which has made digital marketing with Bam a breeze,” says P&G business manager Jennifer MacDonald, who manages Olay’s skin care marketing in Canada. “If every one of P&G’s agencies could deliver like Natalie we would be set up for great success.”
Farand says her degree in graphic design from the Université du Québec en Outaouais helped her understand the technology behind the initiatives, but when she started at Bam, Farand also took a course in basic programming and HTML so that she could understand any problems that came up.
It’s that desire to be prepared for potential problems that Farand says keeps her programs successful, and her clients happy. “I’m proactive,” she says. “I see what challenges can occur before they do.”
