For Julia Sibley, The Smallest Special Touches Have The Biggest Impact

Prior to joining Partners + Napier in 2017, Julia Sibley worked in CX and operations at disruptor-brand Warby Parker during its start-up infancy, and at Rochester Optical, an independent lab and one of few US frame manufacturers in the country.

Her current position as director of agency experience – a fairly unique role only now gaining traction in the ad industry – taps into her exceptional capacity to champion the Partners + Napier brand through curated experience, and bring colleagues, clients and partners together in creative and collaborative ways.

LBB> How is this role different from being a traditional brand manager? 

Julia> Brand management is all about what you’re putting out into the world and influencing perception. Agency experience is definitely about bringing our brand to life, but doing so dynamically at every chance we get – both internally for our employees, and externally with our clients and partners. It’s events, culture, communications, hospitality, and telling the Partners story through experience.

LBB> How did this role evolve and take root at Partners + Napier?

Julia> I started as the executive assistant to our chair and founder, Sharon Napier, and almost immediately began supporting the whole senior management team and special projects across the agency.

Our executives have always been so heavily invested in agency culture that supporting the agency at large became a natural extension of my role – and cue COVID – going beyond that to much more intentionally approach the ways we engage employees in a hybrid world and champion our brand values and agency culture started to matter even more. 

LBB> In what ways do you consider agency experience its own discipline?

Julia> In a traditional agency structure, parts of this role might sit with HR, account leadership, new business, PR, or even with the CEO – but there are both operational efficiencies and cultural benefits to “putting it all under one roof,” so to speak. As director, I have a bird’s eye view of all things experience, so I can act as a resource and sounding board to create consistency across agency initiatives, and actively curate how employees, clients and community partners engage with our brand. 

LBB> How does the existence of this role give your agency an edge over the competition?

Julia> I keep hearing that CMO is one of the fastest growing roles at agencies – and if it’s not a CMO, agencies are investing in lots of roles to level up their own self-promotion capabilities.

What agencies really need are doers dedicated to brand amplification in meaningful ways – engaged employees are more productive and double as brand ambassadors, and clients like when you are who you say you are and working with happy employees. I learned from Maya Angelou that people forget what you say and do, but never forget how you make them feel. That’s our edge.

LBB> What is your background that led you to this role?

Julia> My first job out of college was with Warby Parker where I learned the power of purpose-driven brands and magnetic, authentic leadership (Hi, Neil and Dave!). Working on a CX team that was truly a pioneer in exceptional customer experience and managing our optical lab operations and vendor relationships, in retrospect, shaped much of how I approach agency experience today – with a balance of playfulness and intention.

I was drawn to Partners + Napier as another type of purpose-driven brand with creativity at its core where I could really leverage my experience and leave a mark in a pretty unique way. 

LBB> How do you measure success?

Julia> Most directly, we can look at anonymous surveys measuring employee engagement, inclusivity, or event-specific feedback – plus things like Top Workplaces, a third-party-run award based entirely on anonymous employee input we’ve won the last four years. We also look at employee retention (2.5x the industry average), and client retention (2x the industry average) as major benchmarks of success.

Even our new business win rate ties back to agency experience since logistics, hospitality and personalisation are now part of how we formally approach a pitch.

LBB> Please provide a couple examples of specific initiatives you've led that demonstrate that success.

Julia> “First Wednesdays” are something we started to bring everyone together monthly around something fun and purposeful.

Most recently we hosted a “potting party” to plant flower seedlings in the office, and sent wildflower seeds to anyone based outside of Rochester. In April we did an art supply drive for AutismUp. We’ve done food drives, supply drives, and collections for victims of domestic violence to support the causes our people care about – and we’ve done bake-offs, picnics, and potlucks to engage people in relatively low budget and high impact ways.

First Wednesdays draw more than 80% of our local employees into the office despite working from the office being entirely optional under our “Work Where you Leave a Mark (WWYLAM)” policy.

We also host annual “Hive Days” when we fly in all remote employees and come together as a full team in the Rochester HQ for a curated program focused on collaboration, community and learning (doing things that are just better in-person, like themed educational wine tastings featuring our own client brands, or guest speakers and interactive workshops) – while also allowing for plenty of team touch-points and everyday work.

Our most recent Hive days were rated 4.3/5 and 94% of attendees said they believed the time together would benefit both future virtual and in-person work.

LBB> What part of your job do you enjoy the most?

Julia> The collaboration. It’s fun to lead curated events like First Wednesdays and Hive Days, but my favourite part is amplifying all of the amazing things we have going on across the agency.

These include things like “Leave a Tip,” where we crowd-source a lunch order or happy hour and add a generous tip for minority-owned businesses, “Leave a (Book)Mark” book club, our collaborative “Tune Together” playlist, a community spotlight speaker series, and “NeighborGood,” our program to provide pro bono marketing support for BIPOC local businesses.

These are all initiatives started by our entirely volunteer-based DE+I team. Our media team puts out a “Midweek Mark” trend report weekly and provides a monthly roundup on the stairs. Vine, our proprietary design studio model, spearheads the Edu-tasting series featuring our client wine, beer & spirit brands. And a huge part of my role is enabling and enhancing these initiatives with my own executional expertise, and again, that bird’s eye brand view.

I love our “more is more” approach to culture -- it’s the best way to be truly representative and engaging. 

LBB> What is the biggest challenge? Is it the same or different from two or three years ago?

Julia> Keeping a distributed workforce engaged would have been most people’s top answer a couple of years ago. This is still partly true, because maintaining a level of meaningful employee engagement in general is no easy task – but it’s no longer a tech challenge or particularly unique to remote workers. Now the challenge is more about how to be inclusive and engaging and current – and how to care about the whole person while also caring about our bottom line. 

LBB> What advice would you give to anyone considering a career as a director of experience or related brand-amplifying role? 

Julia> Find a company you believe in and pave your own path. Curating experience means caring about every detail and searching for every opportunity to surprise, delight, and animate your brand. It’s not all about glamorous events or big ideas, and often it’s the smallest special touches that have the biggest impact. 

LBB> Where is your focus for 2024?

Julia> Sustainability. When it comes to experience, it’s hard not to always prioritise comfort and convenience – but convenience and climate-friendliness are rarely aligned. We’ve always limited single-use plastic in the office by providing all real dishware and utensils, using bean-to-cup coffee makers, and supplying all employees with personal Swell bottles and Yeti mugs – but we know this is truly the least we can do as partners to the environment.

We’re making moves this year to eliminate plastic all together and looking into policies that can incentivise employees to make eco-friendly decisions; sustainability should be part of our story, and building it into day-to-day experience lays the groundwork for larger investments in supply-path optimisation and decarbonisation.