Kylie Green is the Founder & Director of The Lime Agency, a Sydney-based talent management and brand partnership agency.
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1) To kick things off, could you tell us a little about your career background and current role?
I have recently founded The Lime Agency, a talent management and brand partnership agency with a book of 12 well-known Australian talent.
I have over 25 years of extensive experience in marketing, activations, events, advertising, media, direct and digital marketing. I founded Kaleidoscope Marketing, an award-winning brand activation agency when I was 29 years old which I subsequently sold to an ASX listed company several years later.
I have also held Managing Director roles with global communications groups as well as independent agencies.
In my career to date, I have created and developed hundreds of brand partnerships, worked with an incredible line up of talent including Olympians, television personalities, models, actors, celebrities, reality stars and created award-winning memorable campaigns for many of my clients.
I have been fortunate to have worked with an impressive line up of brands which have included Christian Dior, Estee Lauder, Panasonic, Philips, GlaxoSmithKline, Kimberley Clark, Sanitarium, Parmalat, Carlton & United Breweries, Asahi, Comm Bank, Nestle, Meat & Livestock Australia, Pepsi, Emirates, ICC T20 World Cup 2020 Australia, Arnott’s and many more.
My teams and I have won over 50 industry awards including APMA Star Awards, MAAW Globes Awards, Telstra Women’s Business Award Finalist, Creative Summit Awards, Cannes Gold Lion Award, Spikes Award, POPAI Awards and I was also awarded the B&T Women in Media Mentor of the Year award and was a finalist in the NSW Telstra Business Women’s Awards.
I am currently a Non-Executive Director of the charity Youth Insearch and prior to this was a Board Director for Layne Beachley’s Aim for the Stars Foundation for several years.
My passion throughout my career has been to help brands build meaningful and memorable brand partnerships through ideation, alignment, and values.
2) What does a day in the life look like for you? Can you take us through a recent workday?
What I love is that no one day is ever the same! My day starts around 6am with a walk with my daughter Addison and dog Leo, albeit it is very dark and quite chilly in the mornings currently!
From 7am till 9am it’s getting my daughter organised for her school day with breakfast, a packed lunch, homework and dressed whilst juggling any emails that have come in overnight.
After school drop-off, I am in work mode. I am working from my home office at present which I am enjoying as I have my pets by my feet and can juggle a few home duties in between phonecalls, Zoom meetings and emails.
Now that we are allowed to move about more freely, I try and organise meetings face to face with my Sydney based clients over coffee or a walk and talk in the park.
The past 3 months have been spent on setting up the business, securing talent clients and keeping my network and connections up to date. We have also been setting up all of the legal documents, processes and systems and developing our brand, content and building the website.
As mentioned, every day is different. Here’s what my Monday looked like this week:
- 6-7am – Walk with daughter and dog
- 7-8.30am – Breakfast, getting ready for the day, organising my daughter for school and school drop off
- 8.30-10am – Emails, setting up my week, check in with my business partner via phone
- 10-11am – Phone briefing with a client who is interested in working with one of our talent
- 11am – 12.30pm – Sending out contracts, working on a Scope of Work for a project, website review and copy changes, emails and filing.
- 12.30-1pm – Lunch and changing for a meeting in person
- 1pm – 3.30pm – Travel into the city and meeting with a new talent we are signing on to represent
- 3.30-5pm – Client calls, emails, check-in with my business partner via phone and prepping for the next day
- 5-6pm – School pick up, getting groceries and travel home
- 6-7pm – School homework with my daughter whilst getting dinner prepared and served
- 7-8pm – Reading with my daughter and getting her ready for bed
- 8pm – 10.30pm – Watching Masterchef finals with my partner and winding down for the day
- 10.30pm onwards – Sleep!
3) Does your current role allow for flexible or remote working? If so, how does that fit into your life and routine?
Absolutely – it’s the way of work as we know it now and it’s great. I am so much more productive and less stressed not having to deal with peak-hour traffic and wasted time in the car getting to work.
Working for yourself is also so much more gratifying than working for someone else too. You are in control and can pick and choose the hours you invest. And you don’t mind working at odd hours of the day, night or weekends.
4) What does work-life balance mean to you and how do you work to achieve that goal?
Happiness and less stress! Work-life balance to me means having ‘me time’, family time, work time, friends time and time-out for breaks and recharging.
I am more content when things are in order and my to-do list gets ticks on it! I have a diary which is my bible and contains everything about my week, my month and my year.
I like to set annual goals every year to achieve including planning ahead for holidays, breaks and time-out (which bugs my partner but he understands its something I like to lock-in and look forward to) and also set up a new vision board every year which helps keep me focussed and on-track.
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5) In the past 12 months, have you started or stopped any routines or habits to change your life?
I have started yoga again adhoc however am looking to ensure I do this at least 3 times a week. I am cooking more at home versus dining out. I have always loved cooking but am more conscious now of ensuring we all eat well.
I am also more conscious of my time and how valuable it is for me, my family, my partner and my friends. Therefore with regards to work, I am more careful to ensure my time is spent wisely and as productive as possible.
6) Do you have any favourite books, podcasts or newsletters that you’d like to recommend?
I love soaking up content as much as possible however I don’t have enough time everyday to indulge in everything that I love so I try and stick with the following routine:
Check daily industry newsletters and scan for stories relevant to what I do, industry changes, updates and people moves.
I think it’s important that you subscribe carefully to newsletters and content that is relevant to your industry – you don’t want to fill up your inbox with too many newsletters and not get across them.
I love LinkedIn for work and use it daily to check for connections, read posts and content from my connections, scan for new connections and reply to messages.
I have a few books on my bedside table however usually read on weekends. I love business-related books mostly and read novels mainly on holidays.
Some of my favourite business books include Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson and Fish by Stephen Lundin – oldies but goodies!
I also really love reading books by people in my network, whom I have worked with or met through my networking groups such as Lisa Messenger’s range of business books including her latest Work From Wherever, Women Kind by Dr Kirstin Ferguson, Beneath The Waves by Layne Beachley and No Ceiling by Heath Swan – all inspiring women with incredibly powerful stories which you can apply to your own life and career.
Podcasts – On holidays I listen to True Crime podcasts and when I am working I try and listen to 1-2 podcasts each week featuring business leaders.
At the moment I am listening to Lisa Messenger’s ‘Hear Me Raw’ podcast, Samantha Gash’s podcast and Maritza Barone’s podcast ‘Things You Can’t Unhear’.
7) Are there any products, gadgets or apps that you can’t live without?
I’m an Apple advocate so my Apple laptop, iPhone and headset are with me all the time. I use Trello for work which is great for our team who work remotely and can always find files, see our Work in Progress and track campaigns.
In terms of Apps, I really love using Microsoft To-Do where I can have all of my to-do lists in one place and share to-dos with my partner and know when they get ticked off the list!
Working in marketing, I love reward cards but have way too many to store in my purse so love Stocard where I have all of my memberships and loyalty cards digitally stored in one place.
8) If you could read an interview about work-life balance by anyone, who would that be?
Michelle Obama – I can’t wait to get stuck into her book and loved the recent documentary about her life and time in the White House. She has some great insights into work-life balance and I am sure her life was crazy and chaotic at times!
9) Do you have any last thoughts on work, life or balance that you’d like to share with our readers?
It’s different for everyone and you need to find the balance that suits you best. Don’t compare yourself and feel guilty of it’s off the rails every now and then.
Make a list of what’s important to you to achieve on a daily basis like exercise, water intake, and realistic work to-dos for the day so you can have a little win each day and then look at what’s required for the week.
I personally find setting up my week on a Sunday really helps. I write out our family meal menu so I know exactly what we’re eating for the week, prep as much as I can on a Sunday, and always make easy to cook meals on the days I know I get tired from working.
So Monday evening is usually a slow-cooked meal which you pop on in the morning and ta-da it’s ready at 7pm for dinner! Fridays are usually the kids making pizzas and having a family night together with a movie.
I then write out my personal to-do list, work to-do list including 2 family and 2 business connections I need to check-in with via phone or email.
Being a mother, a partner, a daughter, a friend, an entrepreneur, a Board Director, and a business connector, it’s important to me that I use my 24 hours in the day that best suits me and what I need to get done. I juggle a lot of different balls and every now and then one drops but hey that’s ok.
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