Today we’d like to introduce you to Natalia Mcdonald
Hi Natalia, it’s an honor to have you on the platform. Thanks for taking the time to share your story with us – to start maybe you can share some of your backstory with our readers?
Studying Fashion Management at, the prestigious, London of College Fashion, I supplemented my education by interning for various fashion companies in the capital.
After graduating, I began working at the renowned modelling agency, Premier Model Management. My journey at Premier took me across the various different departments of a modelling agency; Men, Women, Celebrity Talent and PR. Having such an intimate knowledge of how a modelling agency operates gave me incredible insight and a wide variety of skills that I then brought over to the USA when I joined Freedom’s first office in Los Angeles.
Over the last 8 years at Freedom, I have grown from an Agent at the LA office; to opening our Miami office and now being the Director of North America where I currently focus on top tier brand partnerships, advertising campaigns and managing our teams across the LA and Miami offices.
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
Personally, I believe that anything easy is not worth having. The fashion industry has always been notoriously hard to break into, with many barriers to entry. It has taken years of hard work, determination, and learning from mistakes to reach my current position. This is a journey mirrored across the industry; from design to marketing to creative direction. Nonetheless, it is fantastic to see the success and achievements from the hard work that my teams and I continually do for the talent we represent and for the agency.
As an agency, we continually face unforeseen different challenges every day from plane delays, weather, last minute requests, as we are working with talents and clients across the world and across many time zones. COVID was also huge challenge as our business and industry is focused primarily on in-person activity. We had to quickly learn to adapt and pivot. As clients were unable to shoot talent, we learned to guide them, as well as our models, on how to shoot remotely or educate them on creating different types of content that could still satisfy their marketing and branding needs.
I believe that these challenges make my team and I stronger, more adaptable, and better adept at foreseeing new sets of obstacles that we will inevitably later face.
As you know, we’re big fans of Freedom Models Miami. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
Freedom Miami is a boutique model agency that strives to bring something new, fresh, and unexpected to the Miami market. Unlike many of the other talent management agencies in Miami, we look to represent a more varied and creative range of talent. As Miami grows more importance and relevance within the global fashion, art and luxury spaces, Freedom Miami aims to bring a higher calibre of talent to the market to satisfy the needs of our clients entering this incredibly interesting and bustling market.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.freedommodels.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedommodelsmia
Image Credits
Yamil Rivera
