As M&M Global kicks off its annual search for the brightest talent in international media and marketing, we take the chance to catch up with one of the ‘Class of 2015’, Asha Cowell.

When we last spoke to Asha, she was based in the UK as an associate planning director at Carat. Twelve months on, she has embraced an exciting move to California, and is now operating as a global digital communications supervisor for Carat’s client Adidas.

We caught up with Asha to find out about her career journey, and what advice she has for this year’s entrants.

How has your career progressed over the past 12 months?

“I’ve recently transferred within Carat to their LA office to work on Adidas Global. An ambition I’ve had since first moving to London from Australia four-and-a-half years ago.”

What have been the highlights since you entered ‘Meet the Millennials’?

“I’ve been able to network with a range of people outside of the Dentsu Aegis network.”

What impact has participating in ‘Meet the Millennials’ had on your career?

“Internal praise and visibility to more senior contacts within the organisation, which provided credibility and helped increase my opportunity to transfer internally. Externally, I saw a strong increase in career opportunity proposals.”

“Culturally-driven content that’s consumer inclusive is going to become more and more important”

What advice do you have for those looking to start a career in media and marketing?

“Ask as many questions as you can, to expose yourself to all angles within the industry. Knowledge is power so learning wide and actively involving yourself in all angles of the business will only do you well.”

What do you believe are the most important industry trends going into 2017?

“Culturally-driven content that’s consumer inclusive is going to become more and more important in engaging with a younger more influential visual first audience. An example of this, recently MTV named A$AP Rocky as creative director for MTV Labs, a Harlem-born rapper and cultural trendsetter to try rejuvenate and create original content, whilst experimenting with existing formats of the platform.

“Along with this, as personalised, cross-channel marketing grows, it is becoming important for advertisers to engage with their target across multiple channels as individual people, not as collections of interests or user devices.”