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Robert Berkeley  0:02  

Hello and Wwelcome once again to Inside Jobs inside jobs with me Robert BerkeleyBarclay brought to you by IHAF I have and express KCS, the round the clock all media production partner to some brilliant brands In House Agencies in house agencies. This episode we meet Maria Verastegui varis daggy, who has her own unique and fascinating story to tell she was drawn to her employer due to very personal circumstances. Both her background on the family and their health issues directly inspired a lifelong devotion to a rare employer, that could make a positive difference to both. Only once there Did she resolve to find which of her very many strengths would be best applied. Currently, Maria heads theIn House Agency  in house agency for a quarter Therefore, a biotech company based in Westchester. And as we'll learn, they've certainly had their ups and downs. But as ever, I wanted to start at the beginning and ask her where she grew up?.

 

Maria Verastegui  0:59  

I actually grew up in Queens and moved up to Westchester when I was very little. So I've had the privilege of growing amongst the trees, which is I've been amazing. Whatwhat brought your family from Westchester out into the countryside then? Well, my dad, he was an economist, and he worked for the Peruvian mining company. And he helped to import and export chemicals from the US to Peru and minerals. And his company moved up to Hartsdale.

 

Robert Berkeley  1:24  

Okay, all right, well, that's a good start for you. And it sounds like you relish growing up in the countryside. Yeah. Yeah. Loved it. Wwas art and creativity, something that you were kind of drawn to from an early age?

 

Maria Verastegui  1:34  

No, actually, you know, it wasn't an I was very diverse in what I was drawn to. But I think the the pivotal point in my life that sort of changed, the way I looked at everything was my dad's illness, he got Parkinson's when I was between 13 and 14. And that really changed the way I looked at the world. Because, you know, here's this man that I, you know, completely admire, and, you know, the epitome of a dad and gentleman, and he was going through this horrible disease that was robbing him of his ability to move to speak to, you know, just act the way that he normally did. And it was devastating for him and devastating for our family to go through. Luckily, for us, my dad thrived through the disease in a very courageous way. But still, it really affected the way that I looked at life. And it gave me a very concrete appreciation of living and having those around me to love and the functions of my body. You know, I was very grateful for all of that. So I decided that I was going to focus on math and science, because I thought that being a physician would be the best way for me to be hands on helping people with that. But I made that decision a little bit later, in my high school career where I had been very sort of applied in school in in arts, I was good at arts and not as applied in the other subject. So I needed to make a quick turn. So I did as best I could. And I decided when I graduated high school to attend community college, because I was still a little bit unsure as to what was the subject that really got me going, you know, the the subject that really made me see the purpose, you know, for myself, and Community College was perfect. I loved it, I took it incredibly seriously. And I studied, like I was at an Ivy League school. And that really helped me because I began to understand, you know, my love of science, my love of math. And that's, that's what I focused on, primarily there. And then I decided, obviously, I couldn't get a four year degree from a community college. So I needed to transfer and it was really a beautiful time because I'd never been, I never felt so wanted by universities, because I had a high GPA. And I was a very diligent student, and I was getting a lot of offers for scholarships and partial scholarships. I went to go see a bunch of institutions. And it was it was a very amazing, honourable time for me. I was like, Wow, it paid off for me to you know, work, not sleep couple nights a week, because I was I was

 

Robert Berkeley  4:06  

Sounds like it lucky came very naturally to put in that amount of effort.

 

Maria Verastegui  4:09  

Yes, it did. And on that same path, I had started working at a court because I decided to go into science. I said, you know, it would be good for me to get some practice, like know what this is about. So I went to the student office, and they had posted a job for a lab assistant, and they had their mission statement on the paper, it said they were going to help develop therapies for people with neurological disorders. And Parkinson's was one of them. And I was like, Oh, my God. Absolutely.

 

Robert Berkeley  4:36  

It was must have been quite a new company at the time, though. Maria.

 

Maria Verastegui   4:39  

Oh, yeah, it was they they were established in 1995. The CEO established that and this is 1998 that I'm talking to you about. So okay, I went in and I interviewed with the with the head scientist at the time and he you know, let me know this was going to be a very grassroots job because it was about sterilising the equipment and they were still building In the labs, there might be some painting and cleaning. And I met my my first boss, which is a dear friend of mine who's still here today. And she was we were the same same age. And she was a scientist, though. So I said, Yeah, I'll start working here. And you know, I liked the the camaraderie and the passion that I saw. There were only 10 people there because I was employee number 11.

 

Robert Berkeley  5:23  

Wow. So this was a full time job. Was it?

 

Maria Verastegui   5:25  

Tthis one, it was a part time job. So I think time Yeah, at the time, it was like 25 hours a week or something. So and because it was so close to the community college, I could just come and go, and they were cool with my with my school schedule. So so that was happening in parallel to me kind of deciding what was I going to do with my educational career. So I had this sort of, I found it very foundational to have this kind of job with these people that were so passionate. And as I got to know them more, you know, I really just fell in love with what they were promising the world, which is to bring something that is incredibly difficult into the hands of people that need and then I decided to transfer as I was, you know, proceeding in my educational career. And I applied to a bunch of schools and very last minute, Yale calls, like literally, I think two weeks before I do before I went to another university that had already accepted a place and they said, we've accepted you. Do you take your place, and I didn't hesitate? That was like, that was like winning the lottery for me. But this was a this was a fine arts

 

Robert Berkeley  6:35  

But this was a this was a fine arts degree. You were going after it? Yeah, it wasn'?t. At least that's we know, I was still

 

Maria Verastegui   6:39  

I was still pre med. So I was on track with the community college, I was a science, chemistry and calculus concentration. So that's, and that's the, those are the essays that I wrote, when I applied to school, I wanted to be a physician, I explained why and what I was doing today. So I was accepted as a pre med, you know, concentration. When I when I went to Yale.

 

Robert Berkeley  7:02  

Okay, so I'm very curious what happened to you, because I've got written here, you ended up with a bachelor final.

 

Maria Verastegui  7:06  

I did, I did, I did. I went to my first day of school that I'm humbled every single second of being part of that institution and those great minds and wonderful hearts. But as I as I went through, you know, the science and math curriculums, I realised that there was a passion and love for the subject matter missing for me, like the struggle and the the work was there. But there was something missing. And I spoke to my dad about that. And he said, You know, my love, you have to love what you do. He's like, I get, I get what your end is. But he's like, you have to enjoy the means, you know, there's probably another way for you to get there. And at the same time, at a corta, they started a communications group. So I transferred from working in the lab, to working with the head of communications, all of the materials, all of the presentations, all of the visual communications that the company was doing. And that was the thing with me, like, I think that's why I gravitated towards math as well, because I always saw that I could make order out of any chaos, whether it was numerical, or visual. So I gravitated towards that. And I knew how to use a lot of the software. So I had been exposed to Photoshop and Illustrator and, and the like, but it was difficult for me from like, a soul level because like, for me, it was like, I'm gonna give myself to this. And all of a sudden, it was like, okay, it's not that and I'm like, Oh, my God, what, what do I do, and then I started looking into the design programme that they had at Yale, and they have the very first design programme that is existed in the United States, and they had such a history. And, you know, I was like, Oh, I wonder if I could transfer into this, you know, into this amazing group of people. But the biggest challenge that I had is that being an artist or starting to go into that realm, I had to be in the beginning about me, right? It had to be about how do I express myself? How do I, you know, create these things and the eye part I had a hard time with, because with the math and the science, it wasn't about me, it was about me helping people. And with the, with the design part, I had to develop myself, right, my I had to develop a lot of things that started with I, for me, in order for me to be, you know, the facilitator, the communicator that I wanted to be, but once I understood that, I really just found that design was an intrinsic part of my being, I had done some work at a small chemical consulting company that IBM bought out, like a couple days into me being there and we were doing a lot of presentation work. So I understood the complexity of concepts and how to break them down into Visual bites for people to get order from chaos, you know, beautiful order from chaos was was really just a part of me. I just didn't know how to exhibit it, or how to practice and use it. So all of this was helping me right and I had all these little blocks that I can I collected along the way, like, I went and wanted to go into graphic design. And the company I was working for had helped me because I ended up with a portfolio work, we launched the company's first website and I did it while in while in the graphic design programme at Yale. So alongside me sort of learning how to be, you know, a designer, I was also practising it and in the company that I was working for, and it was really a great privilege for me to identify this thing that I had right this talent to make things and represent them and do them for a company that was full of integrity full of the right purpose for me, which is to make life better for people and, and even more to make life better for people that are suffering from neurological disorders. So it was just, it was passion and love and dedication and, and curiosity because I was in the middle of going through my my educational career at the same time. So you know, I just kind of blossomed It was not easy because I was also the first telecommuting employee that the company had. So I commuted to acorda. Once a week, I didn't sleep on Wednesday nights, there was no sleeping on Wednesday night because all my work was done on Thursdays when I would come in to the office, but it was it was worth it.

 

Robert Berkeley  11:19  

So you started. I mean, I it says here you you started in Well, 20 years ago, you started may me 99. Rrecorder, but you were still studying then when did you finish? When did you graduate? I graduated in 2003. 2003,. aAnd looking at your resume here, you were then into your art director for marketing and senior creative director. And but it was a relatively small company still was it I presume throughout the 2000s?

 

Maria Verastegui  11:44  

Yeah, yeah, it was. We were working on a clinical trial for spinal cord injury. And I came in as an art director. So a lot of my work had to do with communications around the clinical trial and then preparing for the launch of the of the drugs and we purchase another another pharmaceutical product that we very immediately commercialised and put on market and that education of purchasing and commercialising a product was amazing, because we did it all ourselves. And it was a very small marketing and communications team. And we were all very hands on.,

 

Robert Berkeley  12:21  

Diddid you recruit people with that as well?, we

 

Maria Verastegui   12:23  

We did the product, we started working with the creative recruitment firms to bring on freelance folks that could come and help me you know, part time, which then became into, you know, more full time. And then a couple people, that was an interesting journey, too, because I had to learn not just how to be a great designer and communicator, but how do I lead people? How do I inspire them? How do I direct them? How do I, you know, be a place that these people love to come to work for? So it was and I was I was very young in my career. So there was a lot of things that I was doing well, and a lot of things that I had to improve significantly rapid.,

 

Robert Berkeley  13:05  

Bbut a lot of can do attitude as well, that goes along with that confidence, right?

 

Maria Verastegui   13:09  

Yeah, yeah. Cuz end of the day when you come to work, and you know that the people that you work for, are the people that are either going to inhale and just or inject a product that you made, that's going to help them in their life, like that's the North Star that I carry with me every day.

 

Robert Berkeley  13:24  

So just just to give a little bit of context for Inside Jobs inside jobs, listeners, you started out in marketing, communications, they're not direct marketing, but you were then a senior creative director, which I guess was around this time, actually, you're talking about, was there an In House Agency in house agency such or did you use external agencies? Do you have a kind of traditional marketing and you'd engage external relationship, external agencies? or How are things evolving in that side for the for the business?

 

Maria Verastegui   13:53  

So the way it evolved is the product that we purchased, right, we launched that ourselves and kind of got to learn the ins and outs of everything you needed from an advertising perspective, marketing perspective. So when it came time to launch the larger drug, we partnered with agency having had. to learn from the first launch, which I

 

Robert Berkeley  14:13  

You learn from the first launch, which I presume you did yourself, because Well, that was just kind of the obvious way forward at the time. But yes, when the second one came along, you'd learn some lessons and something taught you you needed external help. What was that?

 

Maria Verastegui   14:23  

Well, we needed the expertise, right. So it was we needed more brand strategy, we needed more infrastructure, it was a significantly larger drugs. So we needed to have something have a have a support system from an agency that had launched before. And that could bring the breadth and depth of creative creativity that we needed, quite frankly, because

 

Robert Berkeley  14:49  

they were specialists in pharmaceuticals as well. Whether Yeah,

 

Maria Verastegui  14:51  

agency. Yes, yes, this agency was and it was a great pleasure to work with them. And my role was to work very much hand in hand with the marketer, so I would help to translate the business strategy into creative direction for the agency. And luckily, this agency that we worked for, they were very open minded. So I would go in and I would brief with their chief creative officer, I would go in and become part of the team with them, really kind of fuel their love of our company, right? Because that's very important for any creative person is to really have love, be in love with the work that they're doing. And and our work in particular in biotech pharma is very challenging, you know, and you can come up with the most amazing, beautiful idea that's just going to communicate everything that we need to and then there's regulations that were will potentially hold us back from saying that because they're very valid reasons. And so how do you communicate that to the creative team? In a way? That's not just like, no. So I believe very much in in depth explanation of potentially why we are or are not going down that route, so that people have an understanding of, you know, the strategy behind what we're doing and the the human behaviour behind what we're doing.

 

Robert Berkeley  16:11  

Okay. All right. Well, so you you built up an In House Agency in house agency of I think, around 40 odd people, was it?

 

Maria Verastegui  16:17  

Yes, at its peak, it will we were at 40 people, we were pretty much 60%, remote and 40%, in house at the headquarters.

 

Robert Berkeley  16:28  

Aand what so you were you were driving this, you were leading this with all your experience of a corridor and your knowledge there. And you were consciously at this point, building an In House Agency in house agency, what did you look for in the people you were recruiting?

 

Maria Verastegui   16:39  

Well, I, every time, you know, I sat down with somebody to chat with them about their potential of being a team member. And Icore I cor, Icore I, of course, is the name of the agency, and I would let them know, that I was looking for a person that was half of them was brilliant, they rock their discipline. And, you know, this is how they find purpose. They love this thing that they do. And then the other half of them is just a nice person, they're good people are going to stop me in the hall. And they're going to say, hey, Robert, he's amazing. I love working with that guy. You know, kinds, it sounds like an easy combination. But it can be a hard combination. Because, you know, I found that at times, you know, I could find the nice, the nice side, but then, you know, the the level of experience or talent, you know, wasn't exactly what we're looking for. Or they were brilliant, but they walked in the door with an ego. But I did thankfully, eventually find 40 individuals that fit that description. And one of the other things I would always say is, you know, this is our world that you're coming into. So you're just as responsible for it as I am. So I want to hear from you. If something's going well, if something's going wrong. The only way I know is if you tell me so this door is always open, you know, come talk to me come and they did. They did thankfully. And it made it made for a really fruitful, safe, collaborative environment that that we all really loved coming to work to every day. And I say this, because I've gotten notes from people that those are probably the, the most flattering pieces of writing that I've received in my career is when I have somebody that's either, you know, left our left our studio, or we we've had to transition, you know, folks, and I get this note, after that just says thanks for the opportunity, I'd love being there. You know, Icore I Corps forever, let me know if I can ever be a part of this, you know, opportunities. This group, again, obviously, we've had a lot of changes. So we've had to grow and expand at times. And that can be challenging as well being an In House Creative in house creative team where you have to ebb and flow with the needs of the company. Right. So when I was looking for example, for my creative directors, I ended up with some folks that didn't have any farm experience at all, it was more consumer goods. And they came in though with with such heart and such passion for the work we were doing coming into it knowing that we were going to be parameterised and regulated, you know, and I always very clear about the environment that people are coming into. And they were game, they were game and they rocked it. They did an amazing job. But it's because I was willing to bring on people that were from a from a diverse experience. I have a senior designer that purely did packaging, but his his passion and again, his ability to communicate today, you know, he's done applications. He's done websites, you know, definitely expanded out and most recently actually asked him to start taking a video did amazing internal video work, you know, I said just, you know, look it up and because that's the way that I grew up, right. Nobody said.,

 

Robert Berkeley  19:57  

Yyou know, they'll approach it perhaps an unknown way, they may not have the expertise, but they'll have a different approach.

 

Maria Verastegui   20:04  

Yeah, may give them the open door to fail to I'm like, Look, this is an experiment. Let's see, let's see how you do. I've had a lot of folks that I've given the same opportunity to, they've not been good at it, and they didn't like it. But good to know. And thanks for trying, you know, so I've we very much have that environment where experimentation is good. And part of experimentation is failure. And, to me, failure is an opportunity to learn something. So we we very much take it as that.

 

Robert Berkeley  20:31  

Ffantastic. I'm how inspiring for the for the people involved, but you mentioned you grew to 40 people, but then you had another you had another hurdle to cross the quarter, right? Just very recently.

 

Maria Verastegui   20:42  

Yes, yes. So, you know, obviously, being part of the, you know, being part of drug development can be very challenging. And there are, there are roadblocks, and there are obstacles, and my commitment has always been, you know, to support the organisation with what it needs. And do that do that in a way that's beneficial for the business that feels good for how we make things together. So unfortunately, we had to reduce the the amount of folks that we had on a team. And we do that in in the best way possible, obviously, you know, and I give as much explanation as I can, or as much characterization as I can, and then help, you know, the people that are transitioning, you know, as as much as I can, I think a lot of folks find that the time that they've spent with us was incredibly invaluable, because it's rapid learning, it's, it's applying learning and you know, seeing in market, right, so it's the the prototyping process that we have here is very rapid. And it's and it's very, very much a part of, you know, the way the organisation works, too. So that learning is fast. And I think a lot of folks that had the opportunity to be a part of icore, for the time that they were here had a really great learning, and I've been happy to see, many of my team members move on to greater assignments. And that's really always what I say to folks, you know, when it's time to part ways, which is, which is always very sad. And at the same time I said them, you know, one door closes, another door opens at this is going to be a great door for you because you've got an amazing experience or a wonderful human being. And, you know, I'm here to help out as much as I can, you know,

 

Robert Berkeley  22:31  

while you do people, few people have to deal with quite such extremes, growth and shrinkage of an In House Agency in house agency, but but you're coping with that right now I know that it's what you're working with is an awful lot smaller than you had before. But you're still positive and you're still optimistic, are you able to how are you able to deal with a lot of the work that still comes your way and a lot of the things that need doing when you've got such a reduced team, I don't know, if you want to say how, by how much the team has reduced, but

 

Maria Verastegui   23:01  

Well, we're still in the process, you know, of the of the reduction. But the other thing about the model that that we run is it's a hybrid model. So we still work with agency partners, small big. And that's that's where, essentially, you know, we lean on when we make these kinds of reductions, right. And obviously, the budgets change all around. But there's, there's a greater leaning on our agency partners. And thankfully, we have very dedicated, incredibly, incredibly talented agency partners that are helping us to get through this time. So the role really, it's the my role switches a little bit from sort of managing, you know, an internal agency of that magnitude to then having sort of more of a think tank is what I like to call it, because what we'll come in and do is sort of disrupt, you know, whatever project or initiative that we've come into and have a different perspective, even even when we're working with our agency partners, that is something that that we that we do that I do. So we help to facilitate from a creative perspective, you know, how how we see either through design thinking, you know, how we can look at this through the research and the the prototyping and you know, sort of having that mindset still, you know, of design thinking and then always using a human centred approach, because at the centre of everything that we do is a person so we build everything that we do around a person and and that's also something that, you know, we we help to remind.

 

Robert Berkeley  24:35  

Yes, and it's interesting, you've had to switch from running that internally. And now you're sort of load balancing with with external agencies, but it sounds like along the way, you've always kept those relationships, you've used those relationships. So it sounds like what you've done is you've managed to build a structure a balance between you and external agencies that has created a built in continuity.

 

Maria Verastegui   24:56  

Yes, because when we started the idea of the agency account years ago, the idea was for us to strengthen our ability to think and create together, but never to abandon the partnerships that we had with our agencies. So that we could, you know, really have the strength internally, it gives us a great understanding to I have to say, everybody overall as to what what it really takes to run, you know, an agency because it wasn't just the creative that we were putting out, we had finances to deal with we had, you know, dashboards and you it was it was like, the whole thing, and I think it gave the company a really good idea when these estimates come in for our agency partners. It's like, why is this and why is that and now we know, because we, we've been through it ourselves. So

 

Robert Berkeley  25:47  

from the inside,

 

Maria Verastegui   25:47  

Yesyes, it gave us a great amount of empathy for one. And a lot of realisations, you know, about what what a true beneficial partnership looks like, with an agency. And I think, you know, today, you know, unfortunately, we've we've had to reduce the team, but we have a lot of strengths to on how to partner with our with our agencies, which I think is very beneficial for any organisation.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:14  

Yes, yes. Well, if you really do sound like a very steady shipping quite a stormy sea there, Maria, and things are obviously very choppy around you. And nevertheless, the course your steering seems to be relatively straight. So I think I think you need to be credited for that. How do you win when you're not working? How do you how do you keep your your mind on the straight and narrow? Do you read? Do you? Do you have any hobbies outside work?

 

Maria Verastegui   26:41  

I do. I do. I not sure sometimes you know how that happens. But we, my family and I we meditate, I meditate, I practice Transcendental Meditation.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:52  

Funnily enough, now I should be able to have been able to tell that shouldn't I given your calmness in this? In everything that's going on? But go on? Yes, yes, you’re a practitioner.

 

Maria Verastegui  26:59  

Yea, I'm your practitioner. I'm a practitioner, and I practice twice a day. It's been a lifesaver for me, I think it's been like eight years now that I started practising meditation. And it's just really an amazing thing. Because it helps you helps your body to get rid of all those toxic stress hormones that you've been marinating in all day, right? Because because not everything goes right every day. So that has been really enlightening for me, and it gives me a lot of focus. And I have found in my career that, you know, I'm often brought into things that are a little on fire or situations that you know, need rapid thinking, and I just listen, that is probably one of the biggest things that I've learned in the last decade is just listen, you know, just tell me, tell me what's going on. And I just sit down, and I listen, you know, and and I take it all in. And then I say, Okay, let me let me give that some thought. But I know, I know, I can help you get through this, or I know we can find a solution that's going to be helpful for all beneficial, you know, because it doesn't help to add to the to that fire, you know, so I found

 

Robert Berkeley  28:11  

What are you find often when you listen that, in fact, people answer their own problems as well?. Yeah. And all you have to do is listen carefully so many times they'll give the answer. You don't have to be clever, you just listen. And then you repeat back the thing they said at that particular moment, and they'll tell you what a great idea that was, and go off and sorted. That happens so often, I think, well, Maria, if any listeners to Inside Jobs inside jobs feel inspired by what you've been saying or need help to get in a car more indeed to help with a rocky time with their In House Agency in house agency? How can they How can they reach out to you? What's the best way to communicate with you?

 

Maria Verastegui  28:43  

Well, they feel free to reach out to my personal email. It's airam10 air I am 10, which is Maria backwards and 10ten@icloud.com. The free to feel free to reach out to me on LinkedIn, there's been actually quite a few people that have reached out. And I'm always always always more than willing to provide my experience because the way I think about it is I went through all this for a reason. And it wasn't just, you know, to have a crazy roller coaster ride is because at the end of the day, somebody is going to take something away from what I learned either what to do or what not to do. I think sometimes what not to do is the biggest helper, you know, in in a career in decision making. So I'm always more than willing, you know, to chat with anybody that's either looking to go into, you know, an In House Agency in house agency or making any In House Agency house agency or people that are looking to go into design in pharma. It's very challenging and incredibly rewarding when you have people come up to you that you know, are taking your medication, I received a piece of communication and say thank you, thank you for making something where I felt somebody was thinking about me. I that's the biggest reward.

 

Robert Berkeley  30:00  

I've got to say after 20 years recorder, your passion is clearly undimmed. You've learned a lot along the way. And the fact that you're so willing to share that with other people I think is really the essence of In House Agencies in house agencies as I know them too. So Oh, well, thank you. Unfortunately, we need to wrap this up. I want to thank you so much for joining me on Inside Jobs inside jobs. And I wish you well over the coming months and years at a quarter. Thank you, Robert. It's such a pleasure. Thank you so much, Maria. Have a quarter and good luck with all the challenges that you're continuing to face. I do want to thank Emily foster of IHAF I half and my producer for Prateek deep Srivastava for making all of these things happen, and also Divya chokrachakra to express KCS for handling the podcast editing so magnificently. If you've not heard this podcast before then a very warm welcome to you do take the chance to visit our website at InsideJobspodcast.org insight jobs podcast org to see the ever expanding back catalogue of episodes. And there you can also sign up to my extremely intermittent IJij newsletter. I tried to reply to each email from you in person as well. So do please keep the feedback coming and feel free to find me on LinkedIn and click that button there to also please do yourself and me a favour and recommend us to a friend and if you get the chance, maybe post a comment and a review to iTunes especially if it's a nice one. Anyway, either way, hope you enjoyed the show. Till next time.