Get To Know Us – Jenna Gordon

Life can be chaotic at an advertising agency with so many ongoing projects, but thankfully we have our Project Manager, Jenna, to help us keep everything straight. Between making sure projects stay on budget and adhering to scheduled deadlines, Jenna is also typically the first point of contact for our clients to ensure they’re satisfied with our work.

A big chunk of Sayvee tasks are managed by Jenna, making her indispensable to the team. Plus, her humour and sass always spice up the work day in the best possible way. Even when there’s chaos swirling around her with projects and tasks, she calmly doubles down and works even harder to straighten it out (honestly we have no idea how she does it). If you’re looking for her, you can find her either in meetings or responding to the mountain of emails she receives daily.

So Jenna, why did you choose to work at Sayvee?

After working as a Marketing contractor for a few years the thought of joining a rockstar marketing team was appealing. The job of Project Manager had already felt very natural to me and I loved the idea of further developing my leadership and marketing skills. Plus, joining a team as a PM seemed like a natural next step forward along my career path and towards my career goals.

In ten words or less can you describe your favourite part of your job?

The satisfaction of marking a challenging project as completed.

If you could write your own job title for what you do here what would it be?

Professional Chaos Wrangler.

Alright now we get into the real questions. First up: Would you rather time travel to the past or the future, and why?

From what I’ve learned from Star Trek, time travel is never a good thing! I have always been a strong believer that the past happened for a reason so I would definitely go to the future, ogle over the latest tech and maybe check out the stock market while I’m there… for research purposes of course.

What would be your ideal dessert and what’s the worst topping someone could put on it?

Anything with cherries and dark chocolate would be an ideal dessert. Mustard is definitely the worst topping someone could put on ANYTHING, let alone dessert.

Surprise! The dessert was a ruse and you’ve been challenged to a duel by a mysterious stranger, what would be your weapon of choice if it was a fight to the death?

If it was an option I’d love super powers so I could be my own weapon, however, the gamer in me has to say a Desert Eagle. This magnum pistol has come in handy many-a-nights while fighting off hordes of zombies, so it would be my duelling weapon of choice with any mysterious stranger.

On a less challenging note, what’s one of the top five TV shows you’ve ever seen?

One of my top five TV shows is The Office. I’ve seen it so many times, and it’s my go-to when I need to laugh, cry, or just exist.

Pro Project Manager Tip: No matter how good you think you are at multitasking – do not get distracted by laughing at The Office while curling your hair – burnt results may vary.

If you had to be trapped in the movie universe, what movie would you want to be trapped in?

If I was trapped in the movie universe, I would want to be trapped in the new Wonder Woman movie. I’m a sucker for all kickass female superheroes in comic books and movies alike so Wonder Woman would be awesome. Plus, think of all the horses I could pet! I also think the invisible jet would come in handy when avoiding traffic.

What would you name your cruise ship if you had one?

Eh, both my middle names are named after Queens, so I’d have to say Queen Elizabeth.

Alternatively, I would have to go with The USS Enterprise, purely because it would get me brownie points with my loved ones.

If you could have any mythical creature as a pet, what would it be?

A Pegasus, because honestly traffic is the bain of my existence, and I’m sure the bosses would be cool with me keeping “Penny” in the back office. You have an office dog? That’s nothing compared to our office PEGASUS!

What’s the craziest/weirdest conversation you’ve ever had?

While waiting for my parents at the airport, my best friend and I had a hilariously long conversation about how she would wash my mouth out with soap for calling her old. It wouldn’t even be the “good” bath and body soap, but the crappy, discount, dollar store soap. It resulted in about twenty minutes of two girls in a car laughing maniacally in the airport parking lot – it’s honestly a wonder security didn’t roll up to my car.

Let’s switch back to marketing, what’s one of your favourite ads you’ve seen?

I’m a total sucker for any ads involving cute animals (who isn’t), however, one of the ads I thought was really neat was an augmented reality transit shelter ad. It’s definitely not an “every” client advertisement but wow is it a show stopper, and I believe that this will be a big part of the future of advertisements as our society progresses further into virtual reality.

What’s one aspect of your job you’d like to see future developments for that would make it easier?

I’d love an AI that can problem solve and help me to automate my production pipeline to make projects move along faster and more efficiently. I have a special someone who I am already trying to talk into building me one (or two) because an efficient project manager is a happy project manager.

Thanks for taking the time to answer, Jenna! Look forward in the coming months to more interviews with the superb, sublime, smart, and savvy Sayvee team!