Meet Alexandra
Alexandra moved to Shetland in 2020 “for four weeks” and is still here to this day. Joining NB in 2022 as Digital Marketing Executive, Alexandra was one of several new hires within a team expansion.
Since graduating with a master’s in Digital Marketing and Social Media from the University of Dundee she worked freelance as a digital marketer for various clients, from small businesses based in Shetland to tech start-ups in Silicon Valley, California.
Tell us a surprising fact about yourself…
I won a national Scottish singing competition when I was 11, even more surprising if you hear my singing now…
What are your top three life highlights…
I am certainly not as well travelled as many in the team but I went to Rome in 2017 for my first “adult” holiday abroad with my partner and it was pretty dreamy.
Finishing my Master's degree was obviously a big deal but even more so as in my last year of high school, I was unwell and didn’t pass my higher exams. So five years later being able to say I have a master's degree, knowing how hard I worked to get there, was an incredible feeling.
I moved to Shetland mid-pandemic, which was wonderful in itself, but the highlight really happened about a year later, when I realised Shetland really felt like home. I never thought I could live so far away from where I grew up and feel part of a community like this.
Have you ever been told you look like a celebrity?
I get told I look like various Muppet characters by my parents a lot, but I am hoping they’re not (totally) serious.
What did you want to be when you were a child?
I was always a pretty impressionable kid, so I remember seeing Pixar’s Ratatouille in the cinema and wanting to be a chef, even though I had zero interest in cooking. It’s more likely I just wanted to live in Paris.
What are your most overused words or phrases?
These days, it’s probably, “I read this article…” when I really mean, “I watched this TikTok…”
What is the favourite aspect of your job?
It’s a bit overused, but the variety. No day is the same. Last week I spent the morning working out a solution to a product tags issue on Shopify and in the afternoon I was in my wellies in a field grabbing content for Promote Shetland.
What is the most important personal attribute that you bring to your job?
I like to think I am a natural communicator; this helps with creating copy for websites and campaigns, but also talking with clients and really getting to the heart of what they want and need.
What tech innovation has made the most impact on your life?
I am a type 1 diabetic, diagnosed when I was five, so the leaps and bounds in medical tech are pretty life-changing. I used to have to prick my finger around five times a day, now I use my phone to scan a device on my arm to check my blood sugars. I don’t think I could have even imagined that twenty years ago.
How would you convince someone to visit the place you love the most?
I am always talking people into visiting my hometown of Dundee, a seriously underrated Scottish city. I can talk up the V&A now but you can’t beat a beer garden in Broughty Ferry on a sunny day.
If a friend came to visit Shetland, what would you take them to see?
I realise I am skipping over so many incredible views, vistas and historic points of interest but I pretty much always take friends to The Dowry for food before we do anything else. But then we do the more cultured bits.