Day in the Life – Emma Mullins

Vital Stats

• Job title: Retail & Partner Quality Assurance Specialist
• Function: Commercial – Sales
• Tenure: 9 years

Tell us a little about yourself?

Hey there! So, I am a fully-fledged “Brummy” currently living in Sutton Coldfield with my 2 cats who have the most complex names of Big and Little.

My interests include going for nice long walks as well as getting a view of the latest movie releases! Whether it be going to the cinema or curling up in front of the TV, I am a sucker for a good film.

I started my journey at Three in the Solihull store as an advisor and have been so grateful for the numerous opportunities Three has provided which has led me to this role!

In a nutshell, describe your role and how you support our business objectives?

I am the Retail & Partner Quality Assurance specialist, leading a brand-new team in monitoring compliance for our Retail & Partner channels. We are lucky enough to be able to bring our own spin to the role and that is where targeted support comes in.

From working in Retail myself, I know how daunting change can be when you need to be fully compliant in your role every day. My team are here to help and so to elevate the visibility of my team, we have started “QA Your Way”, which allows us to align the Retail estate and keep on top of all things compliance.

To me, it is imperative for our channels to know that compliance should never impact commercial success, so as a team, we pledge to provide as much support needed and give channels the confidence to be their brilliant best!

As a team, we also ensure that the channels are supported, can use their voice and feedback into the business what we are seeing from both reporting and store visits.

What has been your career highlight?

A definite highlight for me is being in the team I am currently part of, working with such passionate individuals all with the same drive, it’s incredible.

On a more personal note, I was over the moon to win an Annual Star in 2022 as an individual, as well as winning the overall Team Annual Star for the European Electronic Communications Code (EECC) work on the pre contract information (PCI) and pre contract summary (PCS) rollout that came into channels last year. The project itself was a major task for all involved, so to see that come to fruition and be part of that journey was amazing!

How have you supported your personal wellbeing during the past couple of years?

Wellbeing is something I have really focused on in the past 12 months. The mentality I live by when it comes to wellbeing is that it certainly is a marathon, and not a sprint! Your wellness is not something that can be rushed (or fixed with a facemask).

A key learning for me is that in order for you to bring your absolute best to your role, you need to look inwards first and foremost. So with that, I changed my whole lifestyle and approach to my home/work life balance.

As I mentioned before, walking is something I genuinely enjoy, so I expanded from that. Whether I’m using that like an incentive to get all my work done for the day so I can get out in the fresh air, or using it as a release for the times where I have read that same email 3 times and it still isn’t going in…

Focusing on the things you truly enjoy and making time to enjoy them is key. So, week after week, if you are finding that you have to ask yourself “what have I done to enjoy myself this week?” and you’re coming up blank, then my best advice is to give that the same level of attention as you would give to anything else that’s equally as important. Giving yourself plenty of positive memories will really spur you on when you are facing one of those long days and feeling like you are getting nowhere.

When you were a child, what job did you see yourself doing?

Anything to do with Hollywood! Now, while being on the silver screen would have been a dream and was certainly an aspiration in my early years, as I got slightly older I started to appreciate the magic of bringing an idea to the screen being a movie editor! Watching all the fantastical scenes and camera angles, special effects and so on is just fab!

Give us a fun fact

During my aspirational days of chasing that Hollywood dream, I was lucky enough to be selected to appear in a host of theatre productions and musicals in Birmingham, Stratford-Upon-Avon and London, as well as a small appearance on a children’s TV show on ITV. This was either in the form of acting, singing or playing the violin! Who knew eh?