Dynamic Duos: ‘We were both young when I first saw you’
This week in Dynamic Duos, Vonnimedia's managing director, Veronica Cremen, and director for strategy, finance and growth, Sam Boardman, look back on their meeting at a university bar; the other's traits they find awe-inspiring; and what helps them balance life and work.
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.
Veronica Cremen:
Back in 2014, when I first met Sam, I had this gut feeling that he would always be a part of my life. We met as organically as it comes, in a bar during university days. But, from initial conversations, it was clear that we could see a wonderful future together. We both share common interests in helping others, travel, business, solving problems, morning coffee, the list goes on.
In those days, we were both university students at the University of Wollongong; Sam in Civil Engineering and myself in Commerce. Upon graduating, we both delved into professional work, with Sam taking a management consulting role at Accenture, and I went into a fashion marketing role for an e-commerce business.
Throughout this time, travel was always an important factor each year, but also saving well, and being sponges in our field to learn as much as we could. For us relationship wise, having a high respect for one another, listening to concerns and actively helping that person, made us strong and has enabled us to withstand a lot of challenges. We’re also actively quite in awe of each other each day; Sam’s ability to be able to unlock solutions to challenges, and ways of working with people is nothing short of top class.
Working together, we apply those same principles. And in the agency world, every day is different – which is a blessing, and also a continual challenge as well that we show up too.
A lot of people ask how we balance it all, and I’ll be honest that we don’t always do. We have areas of life that balance our life such as our golden retriever puppy Yuna, going for walks, going out to coffee or spending time with friends and family. These things definitely help us to be able to reset and prioritise other things outside of work.
We are constantly in build mode together, which is a great spot physically and mentally to be in. We both recognise the opportunity that is in front of us, and continue to strive to see the long-term in what we do, and what is possible. Consistency for a long time can be hard, but when you’re doing it with those you love, and create value for those around you in such an impactful way, it is so easy to do at the same time. If you dream big and work hard, great things will happen.
Sam Boardman:
Von and I met as young, budding uni students enjoying all the things Uni has to offer. Who would have thought an engineering spreadsheet enthusiast would hit it off with a journalism and marketing creative. In the early days, there definitely were a lot more questions than understanding, learning about life from two different perspectives. Now, 10 years later I can safely say that I’ve learnt more from Von and her worldview than everyone else combined. Her curiosity, ambition, consideration and passion for telling stories to connect with people has opened my eyes to a world of opportunity and possibility.
Von has always been the one who pushes past the boundaries of what you think is possible. Particularly when it comes to business, you’ll often hear her saying “we’ll be able to figure it out”. This blind faith with a lot of grit and determination has been inspiring and consistently keeps things interesting in our professional and personal lives.
Since then, we’ve travelled the world, gone through the different stages of building our careers side by side and now building a life that shares similar goals (through our business and relationship). Professionally, it’s felt like we’ve been able to learn at twice the pace by sharing experiences, observing scenarios from two different lenses and always having someone to stress test your ideas with. Having 100% openness and transparency in a partnership has felt like a superpower, a competitive edge and hopefully will allow us to continue to fail quickly, pick ourselves up and go again.
Veronica on Sam:
Most memorable moment with Sam: Getting married, and also building a home with our beautiful Golden retrievers.
Best word to describe him: Intelligent.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour he has: Solving problems (can go either way :P)
Sam on Veronica:
Most memorable moment with Veronica: Getting married!
Best word to describe her: Curious.
Most annoying habit or endearing behaviour she has: Likes to get a lot of things done in a day.
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Lauren McNamara is the associate editor at Mumbrella, covering the agency beat. She joined in November 2022 as editorial assistant, after completing a Bachelor of Communications (Journalism) at UTS.
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