Kira Castle: in Kirkland, WA

at the end of my articles to take up a position at Primi World (Pty) Ltd as an Executive Assistant to Peter Castle (my father). I wanted to put my studies to use (both business and law) in a more 'business'-orientated environment than a law firm. I also thought that this would be a good opportunity to experiment with working in different fields, other than law. As an Executive Assistant, I had many roles, including: • general administrative support to all teams, including marketing, sales, Retail & PR; • keeping track of monthly sales, using excel spreadsheets; • scheduling and arranging meetings; • proofreading and editing lease agreements and negotiating with various landlords; • negotiating and dealing with franchisees; • editing and drafting contracts; • creating the social media content, website content and managing the accounts; and • assisting with business development for a stand-alone store. I then naturally moved into a marketing coordinator role, where I: • negotiated with suppliers and with various brand ambassadors; • secured sponsorship for products that aligned with our brand; • was also involved in the opening of a new concept store and became the go-to person for negotiating with suppliers and securing sponsorship; • set up and created all social media content and content for the website; • grew our consumer awareness and following; • worked with the social media team and the marketing director to develop the brand identity and helped to create our marketing plan; • provided sales support and worked with sales operations and the product development team to identify certain products that we needed to push for sales; • helped set-up and facilitate various marketing events; and • assisted in monitoring and evaluation of sales data and customer engagement, to ensure that we were serving our customers as best as we could and see where we could improve. Online Coaching- Inbound Marketing Experience: April 2019 - Present But it was recently where I have truly gotten a flare for digital marketing. In setting- up my coaching business, I quickly realised that the coaching itself is only a fraction of what the business entails. Marketing plays a greater role since I had to first find my ideal client and then learn how to sell to them. During this process of trial and error, as well as many courses in online marketing, I have learned a great deal. In particular, how to: • set up and run a website and email marketing campaigns; • identify an ideal client avatar and create content that describes their problem and their desired outcome, using their language; • craft buyer persons based on the ideal client; • attract the ideal client; • nurture relationships with clients once they have entered your world, mostly using email marketing and providing great content upfront; and • sell to them once they know, like and trust you. INN, BM-EAT and Coaching: March 2018 - Present (February 2020) I earned a certificate in Health Coaching from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition in 2018, whilst working full time. Since then, I have specialised in coaching women who struggle with food and their weight. Lastly, I am busy completing my MB-EAT training (Mindful Based Eating Awareness Training) which is not only teaching me how to coach people using mindfulness, but how to deal with the daily stresses of life.

Legal Articles at Baker McKenzie: February 2015 – February 2017 I relocated to Johannesburg after I completed my legal degree at UCT to serve my articles at Baker McKenzie (“BM”), a prestigious placement as BM is the largest legal firm in the world. I worked in the ‘Litigation’, ‘Mergers & Acquisition’ and ‘Banking & Finance’ departments and gained the following experience: Litigation: • drafting various application papers for court; • briefing and consulting with counsel (advocates); • pro bono work involving child welfare and unemployment in South Africa and creating content for the London office’s publication regarding the same; and • researching legal issues and drafting opinions spanning various industries including mining and construction and banking and finance. Mergers & Acquisitions: • strategic drafting and client service; • communication and people skills; • time-management and how to prioritize multiple projects; • how to negotiate effectively; • ability to problem solve and take responsibility for my own matters; and • editing and reviewing content for marketing/business development presentations. Banking & Finance: • how to be detail-oriented whilst taking a macro view of a project in order to understand how all the pieces of the puzzle fit together; • debate and collaboration; and • negotiation sit-ins and contributions. Throughout my articles, I had great experience proof-reading, editing and writing. I learned quickly how to shift from academic writing (taught at University) to writing in a business context. This taught me how to: • get to the point quickly and ensure that the text and headlines are eye-catching and punchy; • create and maintain a natural flow; and • use language that directly speaks to the target audience. Furthermore, it taught me how to focus and manage my time; how to prioritize multiple projects; work and collaborate with many team members (in house and external); and how-to problem solve. Upon completion of my articles I was offered the sought-after position of ‘Associate’ at BM; however, I turned it down, reason being that I felt that I needed to explore other fields in business, in particular marketing.