Dynamic Duos: Two Type A personalities walk into a room
This week in Dynamic Duos, we hear from The World Of and Unend's founder Katerina Grant and circular strategist Kirby Clark.
In Dynamic Duos, Mumbrella each week asks two colleagues with a professional and personal affiliation to share with readers the importance of workplace relationships in an increasingly hybridised world of work.
Kirby Clark:
I first met Kat after reaching out to her about working with The World Of, I was/am a huge fan of their high standard of creativity and event production and especially wanted to work within a strong women-led organisation. I explained that I specialise in designing for the circular economy and would love to learn more about what The World Of was doing in that space.
At our first coffee catch-up I thought we were going to discuss the potential of me joining the team, but Kat looked at me with a big excited smile and said ‘there’s a special project I’ve been wanting to create for a long time, I want to give back to an industry that has given me so much’. She went on to explain that The World Of has been working on reducing waste by donating post-event items to charitable organisations and wanted to take that one step further by creating a service that helps to facilitate end of life solutions for every project.
So of course I was incredibly chuffed, a lot of folks in our industry talk about sustainability but Kat really puts her money where her mouth is, and this was a very welcome and refreshing situation to be in.
Before I knew it, I was working on my dream project of eliminating waste in the experiential sector. We started out researching the common pain-points and behaviours in our industry that were preventing it from making strides in waste reduction, and came to realise that we needed more than an end-of-life solution to this problem.
I boldly proposed that on top of facilitating end of life services, we also support brands, agencies, suppliers and event organisers in turning off the tap to begin with by working with them to implement circular design strategies and undertake carbon calculations so we can support the most sustainable and circular way of producing brand activations and events. Kat didn’t even take a breath before saying, let’s do it!
Working on a start-up together, our relationship has evolved very quickly and is super dynamic, our weekly WIP’s are usually a combination of intense strategising and tough conversations sprinkled with catching up on the latest MAF’s goss.
Our relationship has grown strong in a short amount of time because it is built on open communication. We’re both classic Type A personality types with a shared drive for doing the best we can and high ambitions for what we put out into the world.
Katerina Grant:
Kirby is a true champion of sustainability and when we first connected through our mutual network, what stood out about her perspective is the rare combination of deep knowledge of circularity and practical understanding of the experiential realm and its ways.
In an industry that works at a rapid rate, is ephemeral by design, and is often operating within crazy timelines, the time, and development of knowledge and solutions needed to support sustainable practices can be limiting. Hence when Kirby and I connected, I knew I had met a unicorn!
On reflection, the instant simpatico we shared was drawn from our intense desire to drive change, our commitment to brand experiences and their ability to move people and influence culture and above all, we are both very passionate and motivated women.
Since founding experiential agency The World Of, over 13 years ago, I became much more aware of the impact we were having through our work, both the positive and negative mainly via the waste we were generating, and I became focused on leading our team towards a more sustainable path. Over time, I became compelled to do even more, and I had the idea to develop a service to facilitate end-of-life solutions for the waste generated by our industry.
I knew it was needed and possible, but it wasn’t until I met Kirby that I could see a way for my vision to come to life. Kirby instantly got it, and her unrestrained enthusiasm and specialised knowledge, allowed us to build on this initial idea and take it to a whole other level. No idea was too big and Kirby’s holistic approach throughout all stages of a project and material life cycle unlocked even greater potential for Unend.
Now that we are over a year and a half on from our collaboration on Unend I can honestly say that Kirby has not only helped shaped its purpose and services, but she has also inspired me to want to do even more. What I have enjoyed most about our collaboration is that through our different life experiences and perspectives we continually challenge each other in the best possible way.
I admire her compassion and her willingness to seek out common ground to ultimately support the work of Unend and I am genuinely excited to see how far we can take it.
Kirby on Katerina:
Most memorable moment with Katerina: One memory that comes to mind is the first Easter we had in the office, Kat has a tradition of getting us all to play Tsougrisma — a Greek easter egg game where you compete to crack each other’s eggs until there’s one winner left. It was one of the first examples I saw of how dynamic Kat is and heartwarming to see how she brings her whole self to work, shares her heritage and prioritises a culture of connection in the workplace.
Best word to describe her: Indomitable.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour she has: Kat is an utter perfectionist and aims high, which I can admit is sometimes annoying but ultimately, it’s endearing and is something I value so much because it has pushed me to think bigger and aim higher in everything I do.
Katerina on Kirby:
Most memorable moment with Kirby: It was so important to us both that the launch of Unend embodied the positive impact we wanted to enact without inhibiting creativity. Kirby’s commitment to discovering the right creative collaborators and partners through a zero-waste menu by Radish to an algae-based installation by artist Jessie French and many more, culminated into what has been our most memorable milestone together thus far.
Best word to describe her: Empathic.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour she has: Kirby is instinctively one of the most empathetic people I know. I admire this greatly and it encourages me to consider different perspectives that I perhaps may not have considered otherwise.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the creative and PR beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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