What is your Name?
Lindsey Axten
What do you do?
Managing Director and Co-Founder of Buzz Interactive
Can you tell us a bit more about yourself?
I have been working in the creative sector for 25 years, firstly for design agencies in account manager roles and then as co-founder of Buzz Interactive, a digital agency that I set up with my husband Paul back in 2006. At Buzz we create websites, bespoke portals and mobile apps for people in health & wellbeing, finance, education, compliance, tourism and everything in between.
What was your favourite subject at school?
I've always been creative and loved art was my favourite subject at school. I was lucky at just 16 to get into Falmouth School of Art and Design (as it was then, now Falmouth Uni) where I studied Graphic Design for 4 years. Whilst this didn't lead to my first job (or even the second!) it proved a very useful grounding and I leaned on it a few years later when I came back to live in Cornwall (having spent a few years living around Bath and Glastonbury) and joined Chris Neal Design in Truro.
What do you do in your role at the moment? What does your day-to-day work look like?
As Co-Founder, my role has pretty much-covered everything to do with running a business since we started 17 years ago - from staff/HR, to finance, business development, client liaison and project management to making the tea! Now that our team has grown, I have been able to have other people help with some aspects and share the responsibility and it's great to work together in this way.
What is your favourite thing about your job?
I really enjoy sharing 'the journey' with our clients on the new web or app projects we create with them. It's very much a collaboration and it's really satisfying to see an initial idea through development to completion and launch. Watching people use our work (like a game app or a VR piece) is really rewarding. I also really enjoy working with the team at Buzz, we have a positive culture and shared values and it makes going to work feel good.
How did you get into the job your are doing now? What did you do to get started?
When working for other companies that were focused on design and traditional media, I felt that we could turn it on it's head and set up a company that focused on the technical development/programming side of things and bring in design as needed. All of our team at Buzz are creative developers, with a real mix of backgrounds, which makes what we create all the more interesting.
What advice would you give to young girls?
Assume everything is a level playing field with the same opportunities for everyone and if you'd like to work in the tech or creative industry, just go for it! There are so many different roles within digital companies (from design, programming, and client liaison) and they can be taken up by anyone - follow your interests and passion and you can make a success of anything.