We’re always talking about the subject-matter expert team that makes KAYBE the go-to spot for all your marketing needs, but who are the people behind our award-winning agency? In this blog post, we’ll introduce you to the KAYBE team and let you in on what makes each of us the experts you’ll want to work with.
Subject matter expert: Steph Oliver
Area of expertise: Planning & Diary Management
Joined KAYBE: January 2023
Steph joined KAYBE as Personal Assistant to the Directors back in January 2023 and became an integral part of the team almost instantly. While the background work of diary management, drafting agreements, invoicing, balancing communications and the countless other responsibilities of a PA often go unnoticed, we want to shine a light on Steph’s amazing work. She is, after all, a subject-matter expert.
So, I asked Steph “What’s it like managing Kris & Christiane’s diary?”. She simply replied “Let me share my screen with you” and proceeded to show me a jumble of mind-boggling colours, dates, times and details I couldn’t comprehend. Somehow, through “juggling, seeing where people can be flexible, a lot of back-and-forth and communication”, Steph makes sense of everything and keeps everything running smoothly.
Despite managing all that for both the directors and the rest of the team, Steph insists she’s “just a helper”. But what makes a great “helper”?
“Making things happen,” is the short answer. Steph goes on to explain that you have to be able to prioritise what’s urgent and bear in mind that everybody wants a meeting but there’s only one Kris and one Christiane. Ultimately, nobody’s better at keeping all the cogs turning in sync than Steph, and that’s what makes her a subject-matter expert within her field.
Subject matter expert: Chris Oliver
Area of expertise: Digital Graphic Design
Joined KAYBE: June 2021
Every office (even a virtual office) needs a married couple, right? While Steph only joined KAYBE in January 2023, Chris has been with us since June 2021, having joined as the first non-founder member of the team as a subject-matter expert in digital graphic design. While not being a founder, Chris’s early introduction and hard work led to a promotion to Creative Director in July 2023. Chris is responsible for all the design work that comes through the agency, including social media posts, whitepapers, infographics, landing pages and anything else that’s wanted or needed. What’s his process for executing such a varied range of work so well?
“I read through every brief thoroughly and assess how we can best promote the product, then ask myself ‘How can we make them stand out from the crowd?’”. But Chris sees his role as going beyond just graphic design and into what he calls “Visual quality control”, with the objective of ensuring everything he creates is interesting and engaging because “If a site is interesting enough and engaging enough, it can keep a consumer there even if they don’t want anything, then they can change their mind.”
But how can you become a subject-matter expert in creative digital design like Chris? He has some pretty clear steps to follow.
“Have a passion for it. Immerse yourself in it. Keep practicing. Learn from everything you do. Keep developing. Keep wanting to do new things.”
The last step there is critical, since Chris points out that the world of design is ever-evolving and even a subject-matter expert will get left behind if they don’t keep up-to-date with the latest tools available. Fortunately, he’s such a design “nerd” (his words, not mine!) that Chris is happy to always been on the lookout for exciting design inspirations and tools – even outside of work!
Subject matter expert: Luke Brennan
Area of expertise: Marketing Technologies
Joined KAYBE: November 2022
Luke joined KAYBE back in November 2022, with a Masters in marketing alongside a Bachelors in Software Development, making him a perfect fit for his initial role of Junior Marketing Technology Assistant. In July 2023, after months of impressive work and progress, Luke was promoted to Technical Marketing Assistant.
Luke is a subject-matter expert when it comes to creating what he calls “blank spaces” and what I would call the world’s most complex canvasses, which allows Chris to “hop in and work his magic”. Creating websites for clients requires incredible attention to detail and an array of technical skills, with no room for error as Luke – along with every other subject-matter expert at KAYBE – holds himself to high standards. In fact, it’s less like creating a blank canvas and more like the organised chaos you’d find backstage at a West-End theatre production, hence the nickname “staging site”.
The good news is that Luke says his role “never gets boring, because every client’s website is unique”. But his responsibilities don’t end there, as he’s often called upon to edit, improve and evolve clients’ websites in order to keep them fresh and functioning at the highest possible level. He says, “Working with so many different clients, whether it be learning about all types of businesses to improve SEO, or implementing new functionality on our clients websites, every day is a new challenge and absolutely keeps you motivated. There’s never a dull day!”
Subject matter expert: Vicky Palmer
Area of expertise: Content Marketing
Joined KAYBE: June 2023
Vicky discovered her passion for writing at primary school, where she loved to create stories. This passion has never left her, and she’s spent the past 10 years putting it to good use in the world of marketing.
Having written about pretty much everything, including ladders (yes, you read that correctly) aesthetics, location intelligence, and insurance, Vicky is not afraid to work on niche topics. She’s also super passionate about researching, so give her a pen and paper and a topic to get her teeth into, and she’s happy.
What makes Vicky a content marketing expert? Having worked in the industry for a decade, she’s picked up a whole host of skills that she’s stored in her copywriting armoury. She loves creating content that clients are not only chuffed to bits with but that also delivers results, and she feels passionate about turning tricky topics into relatable and deliciously readable pieces of copy.
Subject matter expert: Emma Harris
Area of expertise: Campaign Delivery
Joined KAYBE: November 2023
Relatively new to the world of marketing, but possessing every quality needed and more to do her job and get incredible results, Emma Harris is a great addition to the KAYBE team! Having met Kris Britton a decade ago, she was thrilled to jump onboard KAYBE, where her role is to help generate leads for businesses of all industries and sizes.
Talking about her role, Emma says, “It requires me to run multiple campaigns, daily, each with a different target or focus, which keeps it really varied. I can be so many different Emmas, which I love.”
Emma’s motto is “be too much”, and this fits nicely into the world of marketing, where everything changes so quickly. And she certainly puts everything into her work, proving this mind set works.
Subject matter expert: Grant Naylor
Area of expertise: Data and internal communications
Joined KAYBE: July 2023
Data whizz Grant describes his career as “a little odd”. Having spent a long time in further education, specifically in the fields of Genetics, Molecular Biology, and Biochemistry, he realised he was actually far more interested in the emerging digital world.
After spending time working as a Multimedia Courseware Developer, in various Project Management roles, and then running his own business, he decided that data combined with digital was where his heart lay, and he found his place at KAYBE, where he’s now able to happily combine the two. Grant says, “I love my role at KAYBE, as it truly utilises all my knowledge and skills that I’ve taught myself, or learnt in my professional roles and non-professional roles.”
Grant’s an integral part of the KAYBE team, flying the flag for all things data-and-project-management-led. And after starting out as Assistant Data Curator, he was quickly promoted to Data and Internal Communication Manager, showing his incredible work ethic and talent. He’s truly leading the way with some incredible internal initiatives that are transforming the way we work.
Subject matter expert: Christiane Baier
Area of expertise: Operations Management
Joined KAYBE: At the very beginning
Christiane is an original KAYBE-r, and has a great deal of passion for the company. Alongside Kris Britton (below), Christiane set up the business with the goal of creating a customer-centred marketing agency. For her, it’s all about putting the client first and becoming an extension of their marketing team, as opposed to them feeling like they’re employing an agency.
A typical day for Christiane involves dealing with all the technical aspects of the business. She’s your gal when it comes to web hosting, servers, infrastructure, cookies and data privacy, and compliance. Essentially, she’s there whenever there’s a technical issue.
So, how and when did her passion for marketing begin? Christiane got her first taste of marketing at school, where her classmates would nominate her to be in charge of events and promotions, thanks to her creative flair and organisational skills. She says that it was clear early on that this was what she was truly good at.
But her real superpower lies in the fact that she’s not only an incredible marketer but an absolute tech whizz, too. Combining these two passions has led Christiane to discover what she does best, and she’s followed this path all the way to KAYBE. She’s the rare breed of marketer who is not only adept at creating a superb marketing campaign, but who can also fix things in the event that anything goes wrong.
What makes Christiane an expert in her field? Her strong background in the B2B world of marketing (specifically software tech and healthcare) has given her an incredible insight into how the industry works.
For Christiane (who, it’s worth pointing out, is extremely modest), though, it’s all about troubleshooting. She’s made it her mission to learn as much as possible from the ground up, and has a genuine interest in discovering how things work…and how to fix them when they don’t.
Kris Britton
Area of expertise: Inspiring, mentoring & winning business
Joined KAYBE: On Day One
The hardest part of writing about Kris is picking which areas of expertise I’d list. While Christiane’s brilliant brain works magic behind-the-scenes, Kris is front & centre of all things KAYBE. That’s probably not surprising, since it took Kris plenty of pleading to convince Christiane to join him on what I think they’d now both agree has been a wildly successful venture.
Kris is a strong believer that “Inspiring curiosity and providing purpose” among members of the KAYBE team is a major part of being effective in his role as a director of an owner-operated business.
While he does have to drive new business through the door, Kris puts a huge amount of emphasis on ensuring every Subject-Matter Expert is working in an environment that offers motivation, enjoyment and, ultimately, results in outstanding content for clients.
If you want to “turn a traditional agency of its head”, as Kris says, you have to have both credentials AND passion by the bucketload. Critically, in order to keep moving forward, you must innovate. You’ll find no better example of that than KAYBE’s unique Connect:X ABM strategy; developed by no other than Kris Britton himself.
So, there we have it. We hope you enjoyed meeting the entire team of Subject-Matter Experts at KAYBE and if you have any questions or curiosities still lingering then please don’t hesitate to get in touch with us.