Glasgow-based GRA started out as Guy Robertson Advertising in 1986. Jemma Robertson took over as managing director in 2020 following the death of her father, aged 59, from head injuries sustained in a fall.

What does your company do?

We are a digital marketing agency passionate about great creative ideas, sound strategic thinking and thorough, professional service. We are a full-service agency working across a wide range of different marketing services such as strategy, design, social, advertising and digital with clients throughout the UK.

Who does GRA work with?

Our client base spans just about every sector you can think of and we are unique in the sense that we won’t work with any two clients competing in the same sector.

What is your annual turnover?

Six figures.

How many employees do you have?

We have grown significantly in the last eight months and are now a team of five.

Why did you take the plunge?

I always knew I wanted to work in marketing right from the very moment I left school. My dad, Guy Robertson, ran a successful agency in Glasgow for most of his adult life so I knew it was the path I wanted to follow. I love people and the idea of being able to shape the way consumers think about goods and services while delivering real, tangible results for clients excites me.

During university, I worked with my dad at the same time as he was developing a leaner, consultancy model, and in 2019 I graduated from the University of Aberdeen with a business and marketing degree. By that time, I was ready to start driving results for the small number of accounts that I managed. Funnily enough, I had never set out to work with him but instead found myself becoming more and more immersed in the role so that it was difficult to say no and even more difficult to leave.

Shortly after that, he had an accident and passed away unexpectedly, so I had two options. Number one was to find a new job at a different agency and persuade my clients to follow. It was the safe option, but instead I went for option two: take the reins myself to offer continuity of service to my clients and grow GRA into the agency we had always dreamed of it becoming.

What were you doing before?

I have quite happily known nothing else but advertising and marketing my whole life. I had a short stint in hospitality when I was at school which surprisingly teaches you a lot of transferable skills that I still use today!

What do you least enjoy?

I can honestly say nothing, though dealing with banks and the time it takes to get anything done tends to sap my energy - having an in-person meeting with a bank manager would be a joy rather than over the phone with a call centre.

What are your ambitions for the firm?

In the short term, increasing efficiency and quality of client work. In the long term, I want to make GRA recognised as the go-to agency in Scotland.

What single thing would most help?

More hours in the day!

What is the most valuable lesson you have learned?

That you cannot do it all yourself and in fact you get a better outcome with diversity of thought, opinion and ideas. I’ve tried to surround myself with colleagues who don’t think the way I do to give us, collectively, the most rounded approach we can to client issues.

Where do you find yourself most at ease?

Sitting at my desk with my two screens and a Nescafe Dulce Gusto Mocha - I feel like I can conquer the world from there.

If you weren’t in your current role, what job would you most fancy?

I would love to be some sort of celebrity manager or agent, negotiating on their behalf, managing different projects and helping to grow their brand, but staying out the spotlight.

What phrase or quotation has inspired you the most?

I have two. The first one can be applied to anything: "Don’t take success for granted, the minute you do, it jumps up and bites you!"

The second is a simple but brilliant quotation from one of the all-time advertising greats, David Ogilvy.

In his early working life, Ogilvy worked in Scotland selling AGA cooking stoves door-to-door. He was so successful at this that his employer asked him to write a guide for the other salesman. The result, The Theory and Practice of Selling the AGA Cooker, was acclaimed thirty years later by Fortune magazine as “the finest sales instruction manual ever written".

What spiked my interest in him was when I read his note: “The consumer isn't a moron; she is your wife. You insult her intelligence if you assume that a mere slogan and a few vapid adjectives will persuade her to buy anything. She wants all the information you can give her.”

He wrote those words more than 50 years ago and they are more pertinent than ever. The increasingly media savvy and cynical audiences of today aren’t fooled by slogans either. They demand evidence of why they should buy your product and they don’t take lightly to having the wool pulled over their eyes.

What is the best book you have ever read? Why is it the best?

ReWork: Change the Way You Work by Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson (the founders of Basecamp). It was suggested to me by a colleague I did a course, and it’s one of the best books I’ve ever read.

With its straightforward language and easy-is-better approach, ReWork is a wonderful guide to running your own business, your way. The authors recommend simplifying processes, eliminating unnecessary tasks, and embracing constraints as opportunities for innovation. They make even the most difficult scenarios appear simple and clear which is so refreshing if you’re feeling anything but.

What has been your most challenging moment in life or business?

Pitching alone (to what became our biggest client) two weeks after my dad had passed away to a board of directors twice my age and experience.

What do you now know that you wish you had known when starting out in your career?

People work with people, not robots. Always be yourself.