Prime Global | An interview with Sarah, Senior Account Executive

Sarah Baker, Senior Account Executive at Prime Global chats to us about her role, progression and flexible working!

Hi Sarah! What is your role and how long have you been with us at Prime Global?

I’m a Senior Account Executive with Prime, one of Prime Global’s agencies. I started as an Account Executive back in April 2021, so have been with the company for a year and a half. I am based in the Knutsford office, but I choose to work from home primarily.

What does your role entail on a day-to-day basis?

I wouldn’t say that there is a standard day when it comes to my role. I currently work on a publications account, so most days I spend my time tracking projects and supporting medical writers, ensuring we meet our deadlines. My client services colleagues and I liaise with external stakeholders such as congress organisers and HCPs, so that the writers can focus on the writing. A large proportion of my day is spent on finance-related activities, whether that’s building budgets, invoicing, or tracking how well current projects are recovering. I have also worked in medical affairs during my time at Prime, which is quite creative and means that you could be doing a whole range of activities from developing promotional items to coordinating flights and travel arrangements for speakers.

What has led you to this point in your career? We’d love to hear about your time studying at university and postgraduate work, and how you heard about and applied to Prime Global!

I think like a lot of people in the industry, I actually stumbled into MedComms accidentally. My undergraduate degree is in Human Biology, but during my studies I decided that I wanted to make a direct difference in people’s lives. As a result, I trained as a therapeutic radiographer and now have a postgraduate degree in Radiotherapy. Being on placement during COVID was extremely challenging and I realised that life in the NHS wasn’t for me. At this point I felt lost and wasn’t sure which direction to go into. A good friend who worked for Prime Global told me to look into medical communications and I realised that this career was the perfect mixture of medical science and finance/project management, which are my key interests. He kindly sent over my CV to the recruitment team using Prime Global’s employee referral scheme and the rest is history. It worked out pretty well for both of us!

What do you enjoy most about your job?

I enjoy how rewarding it is to see projects that you have worked so hard on come to fruition. All the work we do improves understanding of disease and therapy development, and therefore ultimately benefits real patients.

How do you see your career progressing?

I was pleased to be promoted from Account Executive to Senior Account Executive quite quickly, and I am trying to really settle into my current role and build confidence in any weaker areas. At Prime Global, we discuss our objectives regularly and focus on development, so I am aiming for the transition to Account Manager, hopefully in the next year or so. I would personally like to build experience in more therapy areas.

We offer a flexible working scheme as part of our My Prime Time initiative, do you take advantage of this?

Like many colleagues, I am extremely appreciative that we have this scheme in place. I live around 40 minutes from the office and being given the option to work from home works for me and saves me both time and money. The office is now used as a collaborative space for teams to come together, which I think works really well. We also have some flexibility around what time we start and finish work. I find that comes in handy when it comes to fitting things like personal appointments into your day and helps us to maintain work-life balance.

Enough about work! Tell us about your life outside of the role. What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Back in July I moved into my first home, so for the past few months most of my spare time has been taken up by settling in! Other than that, I am a huge foodie and love nothing more than experimenting in the kitchen with some music and a glass of wine.