Named in the list of the top 100 most inspirational female entrepreneurs in Britain, Jersey-born Katie Killip spoke to Emily Moore about how she hopes to see more women making an impact in business
SOFTLY spoken and small in stature she may be, but there is nothing small about Katie Killip’s drive or ambitions.
Indeed, the somewhat bold mission statement for her business says: “We help brands to change their message, change themselves and change the world.”
Ambitious? Perhaps. But with several accolades to her name, including her new-found status as one of the “100 most inspirational female entrepreneurs in Britain”, her confidence and belief in her new business is understandable.
But her inclusion on this year’s Small Business Britain f:Entrepreneur #IAlso100 line-up – an initiative designed to “showcase trailblazing female business founders” – is all the more remarkable given that her career choice was inspired by two words which, at the time she first heard them, meant little to her.
“I went to Beaulieu Convent School and, when I was about 14, one of the girls at school said that she wanted to be a graphic designer,” explained Katie, who went on to co-found her first creative agency in Jersey in 2008 before launching Mantra Brand House in 2015.
“I remember thinking ‘wow, what’s that?’ I’d never heard the job title before but, from that point on, all thought of becoming a teacher went out of the window and I told everyone that I wanted to be a graphic designer.”
And it was a second chance conversation which gave Katie her first insight into the role.
“I told a friend that I wanted to be a graphic designer but that I had no experience and no real idea of what that was,” she recalled. “Her father was a photographer, so she suggested that I spent a week shadowing him.
“I thought I was going to spend a week hanging out with a photographer but he worked with one of the Island’s biggest agencies of the day and he arranged for me to spend the week sat in front of a Mac in the design studio.”
Buried in the basement, Katie started familiarising herself with a range of design programs.
“I absolutely loved it, so much so that I asked whether I could work for them again in the school holidays,” she explained. “They involved me in a project they were working on, which involved pitching different logo ideas to the client. I was 16 at the time and it caused a few ripples when the client chose my design.”
It was while sitting her A-levels that Katie saw the agency advertise a vacancy for a junior graphic designer.
“I was trying to decide whether to go to university or get a job,” she explained. “I wanted to get a degree but it didn’t make sense to study for four years and get into debt before going into a job that I could get straight away.
“Having said that, I had no idea how to apply for a job, so I just wrote them a letter, saying I was interested and asking whether they remembered me.”
After developing her skills with a variety of local agencies and learning how to blend “technical design with creativity and conceptual thought”, Katie started picking up awards for her work, with campaigns for The Royal Yacht Hotel and Healthhaus among those to win her plaudits.
“Key to that success was understanding that branding is not about letterhead, signage and branding,” she said. “It’s getting to know a business’s challenges, its target audience, the emotional needs of that group of people, where we find them and how we engage with them.
“That’s when I realised how much strategy work we were doing and I started looking for problems and approaching potential clients, outlining their problems and some solutions.”
It was an approach which secured Katie work with organisations including CI Pride and the Government of Jersey.
“While CI Pride is a massive event now, at the time there were accusations of ‘rainbow-washing’ while, even within the LGBTQ+ community, there was a level of apathy and complacency around Pride,” she said.
“People were frustrated about it but no one was doing anything to change it. I could see there was a huge opportunity to do something and my work gained national recognition at the PRCA Dare Awards for Equality, Diversity and Inclusion.”
After seven years of jointly running Uba Studio alongside Ruthie Hawkesford, Katie felt ready for a change.
“I wanted to live somewhere other than Jersey as I’d never done that,” she said. “I was dating someone from the UK at the time and he wanted to move back to England, so it seemed like a natural opportunity for a change.
“Ruthie and I split the agency down the middle and, although it was a massive life change, I took the plunge. I stayed in Jersey for six months after leaving Uba and setting up Mantra Brand House, so that my clients could see there wouldn’t be any change in the service they received and then I moved to London.”
While she experienced an element of trepidation about the move – “I thought I could come back to Jersey after a year if it didn’t work out” – Katie has never looked back.
“The exposure I got to high-level thinking in advertising and design was incredible,” she said. “I attended lots of conferences on future trend-scaping and the latest thinking in sustainability, and met so many people who I’d followed online for years. Those openings and meetings were invaluable, as I would attend each event with a list of clients in mind and then feed back to them what I had learnt, which gave them a huge advantage, as they were gaining insights into things that you wouldn’t normally see in everyday life.”
Coupled with that knowledge was a conviction which inspired the choice of name for her business.
“At the time I founded Mantra, I was very into mindfulness. I’m quite a high-energy person and, having run a business for seven years, I was very stressed,” she said. “Meditation and mindfulness offered a way for me to control my emotions and feel more level-headed. When trying to come up with a name for the new business, Mantra just came to me.
“A mantra is something you repeat with an intention to bring about positive change, which is just the same as a brand. A brand is a set of aesthetic rules and guidelines that you stick to and repeat until people recognise your brand without you needing to tell them who you are.
“As well as being an analogy for a brand, mantra worked because I particularly want to do work for good and carry out work with meaning. There are lots of easy wins that I could go for but that doesn’t interest me. I like working with purpose-driven businesses, which make a positive social impact.”
While saying that many brands have an opportunity to “do something beyond themselves”, Katie stresses that they have to be “genuine and good at the core thing they do”.
Working now with a mix of Jersey, UK-based and international clients, Katie is supported by a team of three, although Mantra also benefits from a community of creative professionals who use the same shared workspace.
“We call ourselves Miller’s Family after the room where we work, and I build teams specific to each project, drawing on the expertise of web developers, app developers, photographers and other creatives as and when the project demands it,” she said.
“It’s a perfect solution, as I have immediate access to the skills each client needs, and I can also support each creative with paid work.”
And that approach of support and collaboration is one which Katie has embraced throughout her career and one which she believes has contributed to her inclusion on the Small Business Britain f:Entrepreneur list.
“I’ve always fallen over myself to help others and to connect people because I strongly believe that the energy you put out into the world is, ultimately, the energy that you get back,” she said. “If you do that, you also find that people reflect your behaviour back to you, so you can always turn to those people for help when you need it.”
And Katie is hoping that her inclusion on the list will enable her both to support, and receive support from, other “inspirational women”, as well as encouraging other Islanders to put themselves forward for recognition.
“As far as I know, I’m the first woman from Jersey to make the list, and it would be great to see more local girls on future lists,” she said.
“A lot of the application was based on the work your company does to support equality, diversity and inclusion, something which I have always championed both through my own team and through the clients I work with.
“My work with CI Pride was an example of that but, when networking, I always encourage people to send my way anyone who is that little bit different or who is part of the LGBTQ+ community because it’s important to me that my team reflects my clients and their values.
“I am also really looking forward to meeting the other 99 female entrepreneurs who are just as invested in sustainability, social enterprise, equality and diversity. The opportunity to network with them and to support each other is brilliant because running a business is hard and having people to talk to is invaluable.”
With her first networking opportunity having taken place at the House of Lords on International Women’s Day, Katie is hoping that, over the year, she will find more women working in creative fields, so that she can drive more purpose-driven projects.
“I’d love to partner with more women on campaigns and I’d like to meet more people who want to talk to me about the challenges they face when running their businesses,” she said.
“Ultimately, I really want to show businesses that there is a different way to run their campaigns and that, if they are brave enough to do something different, quirky, uplifting and purposeful, they can make a really big impact.”
