“As exciting as it looks to make lots of money, it’s not really what drives me,” Sophie says. “I want to have an element of curiosity, discovering new things and trying new things.” She still wonders occasionally what might have been — Bitcoin, early investments, early retirement — but she stands by the decision she made. Passion, she’ll tell you, has to come first.
So instead of the trading floor, Sophie went to Oracle Maxymiser, building data insights and web personalization models. She was good at it. Really good at it. But something was missing.
“I was getting frustrated that I was providing all this data and insights but actually didn’t get to do the fun stuff,” says Sophie.
The execution and strategy. Trying things and learning whether any of it actually worked. So she made the switch from analyst to CRM, learning on the fly and figuring it out as she went.
It turned out the analytical background was less of a drawback and more of a superpower.
“Just having that analytical mindset and being able to see a number and know what it means, and the hidden stuff within it,” Sophie states. “That’s really helped me.”
Where others saw a metric, Sophie saw a question. Reactivated customers are up? Probe it. Why are they up? Because of cohort size, not win-back rate. Dig deeper. It’s a habit that has never left her.
When a metric moves, how often does your team dig into the 'why' behind it?
From Oracle Maxymiser, she moved to Harrods, then Missoma, then to Monica Vinader — a luxury jewelry brand with a fiercely loyal customer base.
When Sophie arrived, she found a CRM function focused mostly on email marketing. She began working on adding new channels, grew the team, and kept going by implementing Loomi.
At Monica Vinader, Sophie led a small but highly capable team of four that covered CRM, loyalty, and lifecycle marketing across the entire business. The team launched a loyalty program a year ago, runs omnichannel strategies across web and retail, and works closely with the data, insights, creative, and web teams. And maybe most importantly, the team moves fast.
That scrappiness, she thinks, comes from the combination of a small team and a powerful platform. There are no gatekeepers or formal processes slowing things down. Just curiosity, data, and the freedom to act on it.
How much red tape sits between a good idea and launching a marketing campaign? A lot — Some — None at all
“I think if we didn't have a tool like Loomi, we probably wouldn't be as scrappy as we are,” Sophie says.
How scrappy can your team be with the tools you have today?
AI, she says, is just the next wave to ride.
“Marketing is going to become agentic, there’s no doubt about it,” Sophie adds. “You’ve just got to be open-minded enough and willing to ride that wave.”
Up next for Sophie: a new role as Senior CRM Manager at TFG London. Another stop where the data is rich, the profiles are diverse, and there are always more questions worth asking. Long term, she has her sights set on a Chief Customer Officer seat somewhere in luxury retail, a role that would keep her close to the data and the customer, which is exactly the point.
Sophie turned down a rich career once to follow her curiosity. Turns out, "rich" can come in many forms.
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Senior Director of Digital Experience, Skechers
