Meet the team: The Boss

Posted by VickGuthrie on September 6, 2011 · 1 Comment 

We thought you might enjoy to find out a little more about what goes on at Sew Hip, who works on the magazines and a little more about all this ‘behind the scenes’ business.

Today, we’ve been speaking to our Managing Director, Kerrie Allman. Well, actually, we’ve been interviewing her!

Hey boss, let’s start off with the most important question – how much do you love your Sew Hip team?
I love you all very much indeed, because you make a beautiful magazine every month and because you’re all so good at what you do you don’t need me to hold your hands.  You are organised and get on with it and I know if you come to me with a question its because you really need my help and not just because you haven’t tried to sort it out yourself so I love you lots!

What’s your fav part of your job?
Going into Smiths and seeing our lovely magazines on the shelves and thinking, we made those!

What’s the worst bit?
Going home at the end of the day feeling like I still have another 40 million things to do and knowing that they won’t all get done quickly enough.

What’s your typical day like?
One big juggle.  With 5 magazines plus all the business side of things to deal with I get pulled in lots of different directions.  For instance today I’ve spent a fair amount of the day on photoshoots for Knit, Sew Hip and Inside Crochet; had a meeting with our accountants, signed off some pdfs for KNIT as they are on deadline week, worked out some deals with the ad sales team, chased some overdue invoices and just about found time to have a sandwich!

How do you find juggling work and four lovely children?
I think I should write a book called hiring a nanny saved my sanity, I honestly couldn’t do it without her support I don’t think!  I know that someone who I trust totally and who loves my children is there for them between the hours of 9 – 5 and then when I get home I can just hang out with them until they go to bed at 8 before getting back on with work.  Its so much easier than it used to be when I tried to pick them up from school at 3 and cook dinner, help with homework at the same time as trying to work.

How organised is your laptop desktop?
Um, pretty organised for me but that’s because its 1st September.  I have 2 folders, one called current and one called old stuff.  Inside the folder called old stuff are various other folders called June’s stuff etc. I save tonnes of stuff to my desktop and then on the first day of the month I archive it all to a folder within the old stuff folder.  Works for me!

What’s something surprising about your job that you think readers would be interested to know?
How much time I spend stuffing magazines into envelopes I think!

*whispers* Who is your favourite member of the SH team?
Noooo, you can’t ask me that!  That’s like asking me to choose a child.  I love all of you best in different ways (top mum answer!) but if you forced me to choose it would be Wendy for her professionalism and her ability to balance the commercial side of the magazine with the actual sewing content side.  That’s priceless to me!

What are you doing right this minute (apart from answering these questions).
Waiting for a file to upload to the ftp so that I can go home.

Do you have anything exciting planned for the rest of the day (work and personal-wise)?
I have my monthly Tesco food shopping being delivered tonight between 8 and 10 (once the kids are in bed) and then I plan to curl up on the sofa with the last stages of our website that I’m signing off and a glass of gin and tonic to watch some more of Dexter series 3 on box set with my hubby.

What’s your favourite wine?
I’m a wine lightweight!  Either Lambrini or a not too dry Rose.

If Sew Hip was a chocolate bar, what would it be and why?
That is THE most bizarre question ever.  Um, I don’t know.  A Reese’s peanut butter cup because I like them and I like Sew Hip.  How’s that for a rubbish answer!

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