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Robert Berkeley  0:02  

Hello, and thank you once again for joining me Robert Berkeley, for another episode of InsideJobs, the podcast for in-house agencies about in-house agencies and brought to you by the in-house agency forum or IHAF in partnership with Express KCS, who help in-house agencies do more through outsource production. This episode, we get to meet an in- house agency leader with the most incredible backstory. The first part of her career was as a journalist where she got to cover some of the most significant well known news stories of our times. In large part we know about them precisely because of her work. Harriet story is specifically interesting that she doesn't come from an agency or creative background, and nor does she support the work of marketers, as we're going to hear. It's her huge exposure to a range of cultures, that informs the way she works with her internal customers. So I started by asking Harriet, what does she do at the IMF?

 

Harriet Tolputt  0:59  

I am the head of the IMF's in-house creative agency, which is called Creative Solutions. A...and my official job title is Division Chief. 

 

Robert Berkeley  1:09  

I think you told me you work in Washington DC, is that right?

 

Harriet Tolputt  1:12  

That is correct. Yes.

 

Robert Berkeley  1:14  

But I don't think you're a native...Washingtonian, are you,

 

Harriet Tolputt  1:18  

you picked that up p...pretty quickly. I'm a fellow Brit,

 

Robert Berkeley  1:20  

I can understand every word you're saying. Which is, which is, which is why

 

Harriet Tolputt  1:23  

w

 

We can talk this in British English,

 

Robert Berkeley  1:26  

shall we? Tell us more? Where are you from?

 

Harriet Tolputt  1:29  

So I'm actually from Chorley in Lancashire in the northwest of England. For those who aren't familiar with the geography of the of the British Isles? Well, they normally say, I've spent many years traveling and people say, Where are you from? And I'll say, Have you heard of Manchester United? And they're like, yeah, so.

 

Robert Berkeley  1:47  

Of course, yes. That's true. Yes. They will have heard of it. In fact, probably keen supporters of Manchester United. If they further away from Manchester, they come. Is that not right?

 

Harriet Tolputt  1:54  

Exactly. Yeah.

 

Robert Berkeley  1:56  

So they say. So you're brought up in..in Chorley? And...did you from an early age study graphics creative? Did you did you follow a path that has consistently led to where you are or what?

 

Harriet Tolputt  2:09  

A...so I guess no to both of those questions, I wasn't brought up in Chorley I was. My parents actually lived in South Korea. A...when I was born. My mum flew back on her own because my dad had to stay at work to have me and then flew back with me about three weeks later. So I spent the first part of my life in South Korea, and then we moved to a couple of other places. We lived  in the Congo for a while and we lived in Saudi for a while, before my family then actually settled in Derbyshire, which is the the next book one county from Lancashire. And it's really only now as an adult, when I've been traveling, that I really appreciated the sort of the, I guess, the sense of adventure and courageousness that my parents had, to do the things they did when when I was little, but your formative years were spent back in England during Derbyshire. Yes, they, they actually moved to we all moved to a farm in the kind of remote part of Derbyshire on the Cheshire border. So I..I spent my, my formative years there on the on the outskirts of Manchester.

 

Robert Berkeley  3:16  

So then, tell us about the world of marketing and advertising and how that encroached on you then do you do you have any recollection of kind of how advertising happened and how it affected you even even back then.

 

Harriet Tolputt  3:28  

So when I look back, I...I am in the I didn't when I was at university, or before I went to university, advertising was something that I absolutely wanted to get into there was a bit of a kind of struggle. My parents wanted me to be a lawyer, I wanted to be an artist. I just I decided to do a degree in I wanted to do something in communication, but also something in psychology. So, I chose a course at the University of Liverpool, which was a combination of the both of the both both of those topics. They were there weren't many courses like that at the time. In fact, there was only two universities to choose from, and I actually went went for Liverpool. But then having graduated, I then didn't go into that industry at all. I went into journalism in a and took a completely different tangent.

 

Robert Berkeley  4:18  

You did a master's in criminology, though I say in between.

 

Harriet Tolputt  4:23  

I did. And that's fine. So I was working as a journalist, first for Sky News. And I got chatting with a professor of criminology David Wilson, and we were talking about my psychology undergraduate and he was running a psychology. He was running a criminology master's program. And this was whilst I was working, and he sort of said, Well, why don't I think you'd be you know, I think you'd be be good to do this. You You, you know, we were working on he was he was what we call a presenter friend. So there was a big murder case happening of which this, the the news channel was covering? And he said, Why don't you Why don't give it a go. And I said I can't possibly do that I've got a full time job. And he said, Well, you know, see if you can see if they'll release you it's only one day a week for term time, which didn't really amount to that much. So I did the Masters in my, in my spare time.

 

Robert Berkeley  5:20  

So that was. I thought you were a mature student then and but that led on, right, you didn't stop studying.

 

Harriet Tolputt  5:26  

I didn't because then I graduated with a distinction. And he said, Well, the university will pay if you fancy continuing your studies. As a Ph.D, it's not many people who are doing what you're doing. So then I continued on as a as a Ph.D as a as a part time course, and your Ph.D was in again, criminology, then? is criminology and, and media. So it's a it's it's..how it's basically a combination of the things that I had got to be interested in, which really is about people's behavior. And what makes people act in the way that they do. 

 

Robert Berkeley  6:00  

Do you have been with a Press Association? Is that where you cut your teeth? in journalism,

 

Harriet Tolputt  6:04  

I actually started in journalism on the local paper. After I'd left university, I got the first job that I possibly could which was I spent two soul destroying weeks selling stationery and thought this is definitely This is paying the bills that on my student loan I needed to pay off. But this is definitely not the life for me. So I was flicking through the the high peak reporter at my parents house one, one weekend, and there was an advert for a reporter of which I had absolutely no qualifications for whatsoever. But I thought it sounded like a fun thing to do. So for some reason, the editor decided that he was going to give me a shot and have an interview. And I promised him that I would do my best I'd worked for free for two weeks. And he thought I could do it, he would give me the job. And he he he not only gave me the job, but he then had me go on a kind of a what they call then a block release course and go for eight weeks to study at the College of media studies and and go and learn how to be a journalist. So I off I went in and and did that. And then from there, I moved to another local paper and then I and then I got myself a gig at the Press Association.

 

Robert Berkeley  7:14  

So fascinating. Were you a regional reporter then or was it national?

 

Harriet Tolputt  7:19  

So I started off a...as a regional reporter in the in the northwest, patch just at a time when a then little known doctor called Harold Shipman started to one by one murder his patients. And it became the biggest that you know, the biggest news story for a long, long time. So I can write in your patch, write in my patch in in a small town called Hyde in Cheshire. And that really sort of propelled my career, I would say because the entire world's news media came into town and the Press Association had a very front side seat to all of that.

 

Robert Berkeley  8:01  

That career at the Press Association, which was written media really wasn't it led you to Sky.

 

Harriet Tolputt  8:07  

It was I moved from, from the Manchester patch down to the press associations London head office as a news editor. And then from there, I moved to Sky News as a as a as a Field Producer. So I was one of the people when a story broke, I would go out with a with a reporter and a news crew and, and set out the reporting from from the ground where the story was happening.

 

Robert Berkeley  8:30  

Clearly enjoying that I imagined.

 

Harriet Tolputt  8:32  

I loved it. Yeah, I look back and I just feel so privileged at the things that I had, that I got to experience. I traveled to Afghanistan with the British Army, I was embedded with the British Army there we that was one of the most rewarding things I think that I'd done.

 

Robert Berkeley  8:47  

So this is absolutely riveting. And it must have been extraordinary professional journalists, these are your getting involved in amazing stories and, and really at the center of things, but something must have happened towards the end of 2012 then because you you finished at Sky and and moved on to working for a charity, a major charity.

 

Harriet Tolputt  9:08  

I did, I think well a couple of things happened. One was the fact that I'd done many of the, I guess I'd covered a lot of the big stories and felt like I on a personal level, I needed a bit of a change. And it was it was kind of clear to me that there was something that happened I'd got the call. And rather than than the normal Wow, this is exciting. I'm going to who knows when I'm going to be home, I'm going to pack my bag and see what you know, see where this story takes me it was off. I have dinner plans for Thursday, and maybe I'm maybe I've spent too long chasing around the world. And I need a bit of a bit of a change but also, I learnt so many different skills. And I wanted to although I have always felt that mean journalism is just so important is it's even more important now. It's absolutely crucial that we have freedom of speech and a free press But I felt that I could put those skills that I'd learned to good use. And it was actually just I was approached, there was a job going up head of media at the, the INGO Oxfam. And I just thought, Well, why not I'll go meet them and see what I think of them, they can see what they think of me. And that that turned out then that I ended up making the decision to to leave, it was a really hard decision, because I absolutely loved my life as a journalist. But I thought that I'd be able to put my skills that I've learned into into good use in terms of Oxfam's mission, I got to experience things that I would just feel so so privileged and lucky to have done such as well. Well, I went to one of the places I went to was, the West Africa during the height of the Ebola crisis, I went to South Sudan was this Civil War was on and I, I think the most rewarding was when I went to Damascus and travelled into Syria to go into sort of cover sort of take pictures and to handle the Communications of the chief executive meeting the government to work out how Oxfam could best help the people who were who were under and still are living in such dreadful conditions.

 

Robert Berkeley  11:12  

Both. Again, there was another sort of shift, I suppose it seems after Oxfam about five years ago, what happened then.

 

Harriet Tolputt  11:21  

So I'd actually made the decision to move to Washington for personal reasons. My my partner got a job here. And it was a, it was a really tough decision to make. Because, you know, again, I was really enjoying what I was doing at Oxfam, but it was, you know, something that we decided to do. And then I got a telephone call from an old colleague who said, I hope you don't mind, but I've given your name to a headhunter they were looking for, for people who could be recommended. And I was like, I didn't really pay much attention to that. And we'll all go, that's fine

 

Robert Berkeley  11:49  

Yea really being job hunting at this point.

 

Harriet Tolputt  11:51  

I...I hadn't, because because at that point, I was, I was in my final stages of completing my PhD. And I was really looking forward to just finishing it, it was something that had been hanging over me for six years, I'd written that, you know, I'd kind of written the thesis and thought, I've done that, in my my experience as a 24 hour news journalist to then have to have to write 10s of 1000s of words. It was quite the turnaround for me. So I sort of like thought this was done. I handed it in. And then my, my professors were like, well, I'm sorry, but you haven't included this, you need to change this. I was like, oh, my goodness, I thought I was over this. So I was looking forward to a bit of a bit of a break. But then the phone rang. And I was told that there was this great opportunity, but there was one problem with it. And that would be that it was in Washington, DC, and had I considered living in Washington. So I just thought, well, that's complete fate theory.

 

Robert Berkeley  12:46  

Are you serious. So that was that was that that was that of all the places in all the world your partner was going up? And then a job offer comes exactly who completely coincidentally,

 

Harriet Tolputt  12:54  

completely coincidentally, so I thought, well, there's got to be something I'm not actually a believer in fate or coincidence. But I think there was something there was something going on. So I was like, Well, you know, I'll see. I'll see how it, I'll see how that pans out. And again, not really giving it much thought. So that was the headhunter for the for the IMF, the International Monetary Fund. The IMF was very forward thinking into kind of reimagining its multimedia team. So, it was really about changing a multimedia team, who was it, which was a largely sort of a kind of a production house to really making the most of the value out of creative thinking. And over the last four and a half years, we've kind of transformed quite dramatically from the from the in house team that we were.

 

Robert Berkeley  13:40  

Okay, so let's describe that journey, then. Because you do call yourself an in house agency. So you clearly recognize yourself as something that is not just a document services entity or division within the business. So what what is it that makes you an agency?

 

Harriet Tolputt  13:54  

So we've transformed from way, way back. I mean, the IMF is over 75 years old, and way back, the team sort of came into being as a place where people could get their visa pictures taken. And then laterally, some that were We were very print orientated. So we'd have the design team would be doing kind of covers of kind of books and that sort of thing. And then over the years, the demand for those sort of typical agency services would increase and the team sort of grew up kind of organically adding different disciplines along the way. This is before your time? This was performed. Yeah, this was before my time, but really, what it what has happened, this shift from being the production shop of people coming in saying, Hey, we just need this. Can you make this specific video to actually helping the different departments of the IMF think through how best to communicate visually the messages that they want to, to do? So for example, a big part of our work has us is the annual and spring meetings where there's we, we do a whole suite of collateral from the environmental designs that go on the side of the buildings. And in the event spaces, the videos that start some of the seminars, the the choreography of the seminars, I mean, we've had a big shift this year, because everything has been virtual. So that was been a big learning curve for us. And we really guides the, the the internal clients, through through the steps really, to how to make their event a success, how to make that the publication of success.

 

Robert Berkeley  15:32  

Tell me a bit about who your clients are within the IMF and what what drives them and and how you interact with them.

 

Harriet Tolputt  15:41  

Ultimately, I mean, our our clients are the membership of the IMF, which is 190 countries. We've just gone up to 190. And Andorra is, is just joined us. Welcome...welcome Andorra. Yes, and we've late to the party. Well, the but we work with the different departments. So the the IMF is sort of structured in terms of this functional departments in this area department. So for example, you know, one thing is the, say the Africa department wants to hold a big kind of a high level meeting. And we would help think through all of the different bits of desire.

 

Robert Berkeley  16:16  

Because that interaction happened. Do you have account managers who go out and work with the with the Africa division at this point? Or do they come to you and you deal with them? Or what, how does that work, I don't know how many projects you have on the go at any one time, either.

 

Harriet Tolputt  16:28  

So we literally I mean, we have over the course of the year, we literally have 1000s of projects, we get through a lot of things, we have a tiering system, and because some of the work still is transactional. So if you, if a client perhaps wants a poster or an email template or something for an event, they would enter, they would go to our portal on the internet and make a request some things, they would be able to be given some tools for it to be self service, if it's something that's going to be a big thing and touch different parts of the of the creative team, then that would be something where we'd get a project manager involved, who would then who would then coordinate it. And we were just branching into the sort of more traditional account management. And that's one of the changes that we're kind of, we're looking into at the moment to make sure that those relationships that we find out as upstream as possible in terms of what the client's plans are, and how best we can we can serve them.

 

Robert Berkeley  17:23  

Okay. So when you're talking about clients, though, as you say, your your clients are the members, are these people who work for the IMF, but they're posted in all these different countries.

 

Harriet Tolputt  17:32  

No, so we're very, we're, we're very centralized. So the departments are all based in DC. So I'd say they are, I mean, the ultimate, we ultimately work for the members, but our immediate clients are our internal departments.

 

Robert Berkeley  17:47  

I see, so you're bringing, now you're introducing a sort of creative, branded, center, that they can come to, to not just have could you run me, five copies of this, but more question of, I need to, I need to have this event and I need to inform people and you can help them with all aspects of that now and with branding, with creative ideas, and so on.

 

Harriet Tolputt  18:11  

That's it. That's absolutely it. I mean, we, as part of the creative team, we have a we have a design team, we have, we look after the brand, we have video, we have photography. And we also have the the AV and broadcast setup. So we have a TV broadcast studio, in fact, we have two studios, because not only are we doing the sort of the create what you would think of traditionally creative work, but also we do the we make the online learning. So a lot a large part of the IMS work is also how to kind of help our member countries and the MOOC courses. So that's, that's all done as well. And we would then look after the branding and help with the marketing of those things.

 

Robert Berkeley  18:55  

I have, in fact, have some clients or agencies working within non commercial enterprises, shall we say, not rewarding, who don't report to marketers and work with marketers, and it's a very different kind of relationship, in my experience. And I'd be interested in your view on this because the marketers in a commercial organization are wanting to ensure that the in-house agency can raise their game sufficiently to the level of their expectation if not higher in terms of quality and you know, creativity and so on. But those working for professional associations and the like, are generally involved in actively helping their consultants or partners or whatever, raise their game so that the creative drive comes from the in-house agency rather than from externally. Is that how you see yourself?

 

Harriet Tolputt  19:41  

Yes, I...I believe that would be a good I guess that's a good definition in the sense that we're the way is different for us because we are the the main creative kind of agenda setters and perhaps sometimes our our drive for higher level creative sometimes maybe too high, wanting to do too many new new things.

 

Robert Berkeley  20:04  

It's not or to your customers kind of value sets were in a commercial company. It is. Right. That's the difference. So presumably you're having you are educating people along the way as well.

 

Harriet Tolputt  20:14  

Aha...yeah, absolutely. And we've actually started, I mean, one of the things that we were big delete, we're big believers in sort of design thinking methodology, as many other folks in this industry are. So one of the things that we found helpful is actually to run some courses within the IMF to help kind of educate people as to those different methodologies. So when it comes to wanting to look to see how best to solve, solve a problem, that they they have those design thinking skills to come to the come to the sessions with?

 

Robert Berkeley  20:45  

That sounds very challenging, you're doing these courses? Are the rewards there? Are you seeing the results?

 

Harriet Tolputt  20:52  

We are. And I think that I and I think the thing is that we all have the same objectives. So we we all want to further the mission of the fund. I think it's also different. When you're when you're sort of mission isn't about a dollar figure. Bottom line, it's about whether you're achieving what the organization is, is setting out to do. And it is hugely rewarding when you find that having you're influencing how how people are thinking differently, and also how different things can the outcome can be when you go about it in a different way.

 

Robert Berkeley  21:26  

You work with a with a chargeback internally, do people pay? Do they see? Do they? Do they kind of feel the value of what you do? Because they have to pay for it? Or are you a service that they can just dip into it? Well,

 

Harriet Tolputt  21:37  

so we are whereas whereas centrally funded service, so so we are essentially free to to the rest of the organization. I mean, that brings about that has benefits. And it also kind of brings about challenges, because if something's free, then you tend to use it as you like, and our resources aren't on infinite. So it brings about how do you how do you manage that resource allocation, and happy you manage that? Well, we have to stick to what the priorities of the I mean, it's very much about trying to prioritize what the core the overarching core mission is, and that and that shift. So it does lead to difficult conversations that we we perhaps can't support one project because we're having to put those resources into a into another project. And of course, with the pandemic, everything has shifted very,

 

Robert Berkeley  22:25  

very, you've managed to make behavior change, somewhat with this education. You're nudging people in the right direction, I guess, overall,

 

Harriet Tolputt  22:33  

yet and what I mean, one of the things that we're working on at the moment, in terms of nudging people in the right direction, we've been tasked with thinking about how people, you know, how people are going to behave when they when they get back to the office? And how do you get how do you keep people from, you know, we haven't seen each other near on nine months, and probably won't, for some more months to come? So how do you remind people when they're sort of fatigued by the social distancing, and washing your hands? And so one of the things that we've we've been helping the institution with is just thinking through how do you sort of use behavioral insights with your communic visual communications to, you know, to make people do what they're what we need them to do to, you need a psychologists for that show. Exactly,

 

Robert Berkeley  23:15  

you know, the effect of lockdown and working from home, and as you so beautifully put it working from home fatigue? I'm not sure that's a recognized condition, but everyone knows what it is. And at the end, there will be changes in people and reactions to the strangeness of working again with people. So I'm sure you have some insights into that.

 

Harriet Tolputt  23:33  

Yes, it's, it's, you know, just even it goes beyond the the How do people behave when they get back to the office? But how, how is that? How, you know, our lives have changed so, so dramatically, so quickly? In the last 9-10 months that, you know, there were things I think, particularly with my team and my team have just done such an amazing job of turning things around in this difficult environment, how I think if people had come to us and said, We need you to, to build a completely different way of doing virtual events, and you have three weeks to do it. We'd be like, Yeah, right. when

 

Robert Berkeley  24:08  

We'd like you to think about virtual events. How long do you need? And you'd probably say, Well, I could probably come up with something and about six. Exactly, yeah. Well, you obviously managed to do that. How many people have you got working for you, by the way in the team?

 

Harriet Tolputt  24:19  

The whole team is, is around 50 people, we scale up and down for the head of the annual in spring meetings. But that includes everybody from the from all of the different, the different disciplines,

 

Robert Berkeley  24:34  

when you scale up with freelancers or you have sort of stringers, as a mastering as

 

Harriet Tolputt  24:38  

Yeah, we have, we have a bit of both. We work with a staffing company who were able to provide different different resources, and we're also we work with individual freelance contributors. I mean, I think one thing that is positive that's going to come out of all of this is the is less reliance on the office environment. So, you know, previously when we were looking for talent, we'd be looking in the DC the dc area and now that's gone and and because we have now got all of our folks set up working from home and and we've had to develop different you know different workflows and things like that to accommodate that you know if we have somebody who's out in you know out in california or in europe or asia or wherever they might be we can now make the most of that.

 

Robert Berkeley  25:18  

So are you looking forward to getting back to the office in something a little more akin to normality or are you quite happy with the work from home situation.

 

Harriet Tolputt  25:26  

I missed I miss seeing the people in the office I missed the fact that you know people would kind of wander past the door and say hello and we could chat about something that's non work related,

 

Robert Berkeley  25:38  

and that value in that right professional value in that absolutely but you're missing out on.

 

Harriet Tolputt  25:42  

Especially with the with I think in our business to be able to have those conversations that may spark some inspiration about you know what somebody is doing people walk past each other's desk and they're like hey what's that and have you thought about this and so that interaction I think is something that we haven't we've tried we've we've very much tried to sort of recreate that with you know a different means of communication but we haven't that's the thing we haven't cracked to be able to do from from home.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:10  

Yes.

 

No absolutely and who knows whether that's ever going to be possible to be honest and maybe it's it will be a blend is that what you're anticipating a blend of working from home and office base from now on.

 

Harriet Tolputt  26:20  

I think a blend I think for me personally I think a blend would be good because there are times when actually to be able to just have the solitude of getting if I've got a bad report to write or something that I really need to kind of close the door and think about then I think that it will be beneficial that we were not back sort of five days at everybody back five days a week.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:40  

So, what have you been doing though harriet when you haven't been trying to run a 50 strong in-house agency from home during lockdown, do you have other interests and hobbies are you reading anything interesting you want to share?

 

Harriet Tolputt  26:53  

I have been this sounds terribly sad but i think during the lockdown I've actually been doing more work than than before. I feel like I feel like when we when we think about whether we're working from home or whether I'm actually living in the office. I have felt many many times that I've I've been that I've been living in the in the office. 

 

Robert Berkeley  27:16  

This is the problem, though, isn't it. The blurring that this has caused between real life and work life, surely. Yeah, it's interfered with people's private lives because that demarcation has suddenly gone, right.

 

Harriet Tolputt  27:28  

It has and there's an and I guess that in my life before lockdown when I wasn't in work I was I was out doing things I might I might be out partying well more likely I walking or try find some countryside somewhere but then they would invariably be no no no cell phone reception so I would actually get that get that get that break.

 

Robert Berkeley  27:52  

I think we're gonna have to stop it there Harriet but this has been a fascinating insight into an amazing life. You've done more things in your very few years that many have done in a lifetime, but it's yeah traveled all over the world and worked with these amazing organizations and help so many people along the way and obviously running a very tight ship there at the IMF too.

 

Harriet Tolputt  28:12  

Well thank you very much thank you for thank you for having me on.

 

Robert Berkeley  28:14  

If people want to contact you directly Harriet to find out more about the IMF, how can they get hold of you?

 

Harriet Tolputt  28:21  

So they can they're more than welcome to just drop me an email at htolputt@IMF.org  or they can find me on twitter as well @HarrietTolputt on twitter.

 

Robert Berkeley  28:34  

Wasn't that an amazing story. Harriet lived in South Korea and the Congo before settling in England prior to a career that took her to Afghanistan, Jordan, Syria and I'm sure many other places besides. Her work at the IMF means that she needs to work with an incredibly diverse range of people. All of whom, she needs to educate into the mysteries of marketing and brand. I want to thank her for her time and candor talking about her work and also to IHAF, specifically Emily Foster and my producer Prateek Shrivastava and Prerna Chhabra for the editing work. If you've not heard this podcast before, then a very warm welcome to Inside Jobs. Do take the chance to visit our website at insidejobspodcast.org to see the ever growing back catalogue of conversations with creative leaders. You can also sign up to my extremely intermittent IJ newsletter. I do try to reply to any email in person as well, so keep the feedback coming and of course feel free to link in with me on LinkedIn. Also, if you like what you hear why not recommend us to a friend or maybe even post a comment and a review to iTunes. Till the next time.