Maisie Goss, VP Marketing for Employment Hero, 60 Second Q&A

1. Who are you and what do you do?
I'm Maisie Goss, VP of Marketing for Employment Hero in the UK. I own the full marketing function here - brand, demand gen, paid media, content, SEO, events, and partnerships. My job is to make Employment Hero mean something in the UK market, not just translate what works elsewhere, but build genuine presence with the right people in the right places.

2. What does your company actually do, in one sentence?
Employment Hero is an AI-powered employment platform that helps UK SMEs hire, manage, pay, and retain their people - without the admin overhead. We also have a unique two sided talent marketplace, so we have the companies posting jobs straight to our platform, and over 2.3M job seekers globally who are matched to jobs as and when they're posted. 

3. What are your customers asking you about most right now?
The Employment Rights Act. It's creating a lot of noise and a lot of anxiety for small and medium sized businesses. They want to understand what it means for them practically — not in legal jargon, but in plain terms. That's where we try to show up.

4. What's changing fastest in your part of technology?
AI in Employment is moving at a pace that's genuinely hard to keep up with and I mean that from both sides of the table. The technology is moving fast, but so is customer expectation. People expect AI to do more, faster. The gap between what's possible and what's actually being deployed well is still significant though.

5. What's one thing businesses are getting wrong?
Treating brand and demand gen as separate conversations. One funds the other. The businesses I see winning long-term are the ones investing in brand even when the pressure is all on short-term pipeline.

6. What's the best piece of advice you've been given?
"Get comfortable being uncomfortable." The best moves I've made professionally have all felt slightly too big at the time. That discomfort is usually a sign you're going in the right direction.

7. Who or what are you watching at the moment? (Not sure if this is what you meant by this!?)
How sports partnerships are evolving as a brand channel for high growth B2B businesses. We partner with Leeds United, Leeds Rhinos, Bristol Bears, and Yorkshire Cricket - and the way sports clubs are opening up genuinely meaningful commercial partnerships for brands beyond just logo placement is fascinating. It's early days but I think it's one of the most under leveraged channels in B2B marketing.

8. What's the best thing happening in the North right now?
I grew up in Leeds, so I've got a long memory of how the North used to see itself. The shift in confidence is real - Northern businesses aren't just competing nationally anymore, they're setting the agenda in some sectors. Communities like Silicon North and the Yorkshire Mafia are a big part of that. There's something genuinely different about a network that's built on backing each other rather than just networking for the sake of it.

9. Who should we know?
Kevin Fitzgerald, our UK MD. Commercially sharp, genuinely supportive of local ecosystem building, and one of the more thoughtful leaders I've worked with on what it actually means for a global brand to show up well in a local market.

10. What are you looking for right now?
Partners who want to do something genuinely useful together - not just co-brand for the sake of it. Whether that's supporting talent pipelines, putting on events with real content value, or building something that actually helps Northern SMEs navigate what's coming.

11. Where are we most likely to find you when you're not working?
In the gym, walking my cocker spaniel, or on the terraces supporting Leeds United - a habit I've recently and enthusiastically reacquired.

12. 60 seconds. One final question: what should we have asked you? What don't we know that we should?
You should have asked: What does it actually take to build a brand in a market that isn't your HQ?

Because that's the challenge most people don't talk about openly. We're a global business headquartered in Australia. The UK is a growth market and I'm accountable for making Employment Hero mean something here - not just translating global campaigns but building genuine market presence from the ground up, in the right communities, with the right partners. That's what gets me out of bed. And it's why partnerships like this one actually matter to me, not just as a marketing channel, but as a signal of who we're building with.