"My team is very driven; what I like to do is set goals and objectives, then have something bigger to aim for, which inspires and excites them," she says. "I want every individual to have something that goes beyond the day job; we set out to set the industry standards."
I want every individual to have something bigger to aim for… that goes beyond the day job; we set out to set the industry standards
Setting industry benchmarks is all in a day’s work for Fisher; challenging the status quo and shifting the brand’s focus to digital platforms has been key to her success as a Digital Maverick. More impressive still, she has achieved this while increasing employee engagement and satisfaction rates.
So what is the secret of this success? It is all too easy to slip into the lazy clichés of how women achieve balance, as if it is somehow their sole preserve, yet it is important not to evade the issue of how to better create and foster a culture of flexibility that promotes balance for all.
"Women need to better communicate the story of how they get it right," says Fisher. "RSA is very good when it comes to promoting and getting that balance right."
A prodigious networker, Fisher maintains her own balance by prioritising time with her husband and trips to the gym.
Her team works between RSA’s offices in Horsham and London, which in itself demands and encourages the flexibility that is so crucial to success. Yet promoting this culture across the business comes down to Fisher’s individual leadership style.
Looking beyond the trends
"We give our team freedom; we take a real test-and-learn approach to drive innovation in our team," she explains. At the heart of this is giving team members the confidence to fail, and then refining their marketing strategies in response to what they learn from the failure.
This includes developing a laser-like focus on data and not being sidetracked by the latest industry trends. "It’s about relevancy and engagement. You see a lot of content just being made to fill social channels, but success lies in articulating what it is really for and how it helps your customers."
Keeping ahead of market developments is key to Fisher, who opines that having a very open, "non-hierarchical", structure breeds a culture in which everyone can speak their mind about any new plan, platform or strategy.
With her eyes firmly on nurturing the next generation of Digital Mavericks, Fisher believes that, rather than running from data, marketers should embrace it. "Be as data-literate as you possibly can," she advises. "Ten years ago, you could do marketing without the laser-targeting. Now we can target individual households and use third-party data-sharing."
By empowering her team to take risks, Fisher has created the internal innovation economy so many brands struggle to achieve. Taking as much pride in building her team as building her brand, she is in equal parts impressive and generous; a truly Maverick combination.