Dynamic Duos: Compass Studio’s Natalie and Luke Dean-Weymark
In this week's Dynamic Duos Compass Studio's co-founder and director Natalie Dean-Weymark and co-founder Luke Dean-Weymark tell Mumbrella about how a somewhat contested meeting fifteen years ago has brought them together as colleagues, partners, parents and co-founders of their very own marketing and PR agency.
In Dynamic Duos, Mumbrella each week asks two members of the same organisation with a professional and personal affiliation to share with readers the importance of workplace relationships in an increasingly hybridised world of work.
Luke Dean-Weymark (credit – Rachael Tagg)
Luke Dean-Weymark:
Fifteen odd years ago, I met Nat when she was editorial coordinator & PA to the editor at Shop Til You Drop magazine, which was being published by APC Magazines (pre-Bauer and Are Media). I was an account manager at UMM Communications and was conducting a media roadshow. Nat and I met in the foyer of ACP and she escorted me up to the meeting room. If you ask Nat about this, there is no recollection of our extremely short rendezvous all those many years ago, but to me, this memory is still pretty sharp!
Some months down the track I received an email bounce-back from Nat saying that she’d moved on from STYD. As any good PR person would do, I quickly reached out to find out her next move, to which Nat responded that she planned on going back to uni to complete her Honors.
We had an AM role going at UMM so I asked Nat if she’d consider coming to work for the darkside (PR) and thankfully after a bit of back and forth, I managed to convince her to give it a shot.
After about a year, we started dating, which then led to living and traveling overseas together. Eventually after many different jobs across media, marketing and publishing, we decided to take the plunge into working side-by-side again. Only this time, we had a baby on the way… so there was a little more on the line.
Within the space of a year, we created two of our most treasured loves – our first son, Darcy, and our company, Compass Studio.
After many years of travel and experiences together, seeing each other at our best and worse, we realised that there was no one else we’d rather go into business and parenthood with.
Natalie Dean-Weymark (credit – Rachael Tagg)
Natalie Dean-Weymark:
According to Luke, we met when I was in editorial and I swiped him in to what-was-then the ACP building, in a fluster and with what I’m sure was not the warmest of welcomes (editorial coordinators at the time could have been considered professional elevator-riders due to having to go down to let in a small army of PR’s in each day) – but the story as According To Me, is that the founder of UMM communications, Nikki Stevens, gave Luke far too much authority as an account manager and allowed him to interview me for a PR role, that I had very little actual experience for. I remember my mum was very concerned about me having an interview with a random guy off the back of a bounce-back email at The Clock in Surry Hills…
But I ended the interview hopeful for the role and googling what PR actually was – with an almost certainty that I could probably do it.
In short, Nikki took a chance on me and I worked alongside Luke in the PR team at UMM, discovering that I absolutely could do PR and I loved it. About a year later, I was presented with the opportunity to move to London with a friend, which was around the same time that Luke and I had just started dating, so we decided to do the long-distance thing. We lasted three mere months at that before Luke sold his prized-possession, his black Ducati, to move over for love and travel and career and all the stuff that people in their early 20’s say.
In hindsight as an employer now, Nikki was an angel for enduring the above with such encouragement and support – we’re still friends now and I feel like Luke and I owe a lot to Nikki for the way we operate as directors; it’s never just about business, if you work with people, it will always be personal. And you don’t own the lives of the people who work for you, you just get to share it with them in the time you work together. For anyone who works for Compass, we’re always hopeful that we get their dedication and skills while they are with us but a friend for life.
Fast forward to many jobs between us in PR, digital marketing and publishing in both Australia and in the UK, throw in two beautiful boys, a sausage dog, and Compass Studio, the PR & digital and marketing agency that we founded in 2016, which is now 12 strong, proudly independent, BCorp certified and carbon neutral.
The equation that converts your life partner to your business partner has many pluses and also some minuses, but at the end of the day we share the same passion for amplifying the efforts of exceptional brands and playing our part in the world of tomorrow. This is a thread that continues to unite us on both a professional and personal level and I’m forever thankful for that.
Natalie and Luke (credit – Rachael Tagg)
Luke on Natalie:
Most memorable moment with Natalie: As partners, birthing and raising our beautiful boys, getting hitched and starting Compass are some of our most memorable moments – but work-wise, it would have to be partnering with Patagonia Australia back in our second year of business. Patagonia had always been a dream client for me as I had felt a connection to their business from a sustainability perspective, but also because I consider myself an outdoorsy, dirtbag type.
This project funnily enough coincided with the birth of our first son. It was an extremely memorable project where we were involved in raising global attention and supporting the protection of a prehistoric sub-tropical section of rainforest in Tasmania called Takayna. I’m also very happy to say that we’ve worked with them many times since on their large environmental campaigns.
Describe Natalie in one word: Inspirational. Nat is one of those annoying people that can do everything and is extremely knowledgeable in all aspects of marketing and impact-led business. There’s almost no job within our business that Nat can’t do. Except for that of our paid social advertising specialists (your job is safe for now mate). She’s an incredible leader and the reason Compass was able to get off the ground and somehow manage to stay in the air throughout the last 2 years – all credit to Nat being in the pilot seat. She inspires me (and many others) daily.
Natalie’s most annoying habit or endearing behaviour: Nat has an annoying or endearing (whichever way you choose to look at it) way of somehow predicting how things are going to unfold. It’s like she has a crystal ball locked away in her office or something. But it’s not something that she’s decided to let me have a turn of…yet. Maybe one day!
Natalie on Luke:
Most memorable moment with Luke: We landed our dream partner, Patagonia, about 4 weeks before we had our first son. The campaign involved an East Coast tour and lots of events, so we weren’t sure where we’d “put the baby” but we just nodded along. The Sydney launch of the Tarkinya film ended up falling when our son Darcy was about 2 weeks old and I was so passionate about this film and the cause that it stood for that I was hellbent on attending the screening. The brand team at Patagonia were incredibly excited for us, endlessly supportive and encouraged me to stay home like a normal non-crazy person – but we strapped him on, managing to complete some full-sentences and breastfeed him at screening intervals. Thankfully he slept like an angel the entire time. It was a pivotal moment for us in which we felt like we’d created something bigger than us – both personally in this tiny little baby and professionally with a campaign that would impact the deforestation emergency happening in Tasmania. It felt good.
Would we do it again with our second baby? Not in a million years. Are you CRAZY? Get that baby to bed in a darkened room with white noise on, STAT. But am I glad I did it on that stormy Sydney night? Absolutely.
Describe Lukein one word: Unwavering. Luke operates with a level of un-organisation that makes my head hurt; his asana boards always have red due-dates and his inbox has an inexplicable amount of unread emails – but somehow he is unfailing in his ability to just get it done, without complexity or fuss. He can switch-gears at the speed of knots; from co-director, to leader, to dad, to client manager to husband without the same friction that most minds experience when splitting themselves in a thousand directions. He manages to deliver every single time and can handle with unshakable calmness anything the day throws at him – even if that means a kid being thrown at him mid-meeting. He is also unwavering in his belief in Compass, its team and also me personally and professionally. It’s a great quality in a co-founder as you can accomplish big things from a space of unconditional support and equality.
Luke’s most annoying habit or endearing behaviour: I mentioned the 1000+ unread emails above, right? It’s to the point where gmail doesn’t even give a number and it doesn’t bother him at all. Zen master or psychopath? You tell me Google.
If you and a colleague would like to submit your story to Dynamic duos, please email kwelch@mumbrella.com.au.
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