From Broadway Dreams to Content Management With Elsa McLaughlin

Elsa McLaughlin, a Project Manager at Brafton, has an eye for excellent creative work. Not only has she been managing a complex array of projects from start to finish since joining Brafton, she also has a long history working in theater management at some of the top regional theater companies.

It’s her time management, eye for detail and creative vision that really sets Elsa apart and helps her go above and beyond for her clients. All of this has turned her into a hard-hitting marketing professional who delivers value on a daily basis.

A New Challenge Every Day

As a Project Manager, Elsa serves as the main day-to-day contact between her clients and the Brafton team. That means whenever one of her clients needs to reach out for any reason, Elsa’s the one they call (or email). It’s also her job to communicate timelines, make sure all projects are moving along smoothly, and serve as the client’s ultimate internal advocate.

That said, there’s a lot about Elsa’s day that isn’t exactly routine. Projects sometimes change on the fly, and clients might come from industries that just don’t quite fit into a neat little box. “Every day is different,” she said. “When you work here, there’s always an interesting project that requires outside-the-box thinking.”

At the end of the day, Elsa knows she has an entire team of creatives, account managers and SEO specialists behind her. In fact, that collaboration is her favorite part of working at Brafton. “At Brafton, everyone is always happy to answer a question over Google Chat or hop on a call to brainstorm an idea,” she said. “That was especially helpful when I first started at Brafton and was fully remote.”

That level of collaboration is rooted in a strong sense of teamwork and shared goals, and that means people are quick to recognize wins and good work. “Brafton does a great job of showing appreciation,” she said. “If someone on your team goes above and beyond on a project … Brafton makes sure every win gets noticed and appreciated.”

A Creative At Heart

Even before coming to Brafton, Elsa has always had a creative eye. She received a Bachelor in Fine Arts from Castleton University, where she majored in theater and minored in vocal performance. Her dream was to make it on Broadway and become a star, but life had other plans. “Being a starving artist wasn’t as glamorous as I thought it would be,” she said, “so I pivoted to something that offered a little more stability.”

Instead, Elsa took on a variety of roles in theater management, gaining experience at such leading companies as the Gloucester Stage Company, Actors’ Shakespeare Project and the Boston Center for Fine Arts. It was really this experience that set her up for her future success at Brafton.

“Turns out, a lot of the skills I learned in theater translate to project management,” she said. “You need to be creative, able to think on your feet and work collaboratively. And time management is key!”

She eventually decided to strike out on her own, becoming a full-time marketing freelancer. She focused mostly on content creation, including writing blogs and developing social media content, and she eventually cultivated an impressive portfolio of clients.

Elsa wasn’t necessarily looking for a change when she discovered Brafton, but that’s right where one of her freelance gigs led her. “I was doing some research on content creation for one of my clients,” she said, “and I came across a Brafton blog which was really helpful. I snooped around the Brafton site, found the job listings and applied.” The rest, as they say, is history.

Knee-deep in Movies and Language Learning

When she isn’t managing delivery timelines down to the minute at Brafton, Elsa is a movie junkie through and through. She spends much of her time watching SciFi films, and she combines her love of SciFi with her theater management skills by volunteering at the Boston SciFi Film Festival every year.

The local event showcases independent SciFi filmmakers from around the world, and she hasn’t gone without her fair share of celebrity run-ins. “My first year volunteering we showed a documentary called Life After Flash about the making of Flash Gordon,” she said. “Sam Jones came to the premiere and I got to meet him!”

If that wasn’t enough, Elsa’s also trying to gain citizenship in the culture capital of the world: France. Her husband was born and raised in Paris, and because France requires applicants for citizenship to pass a language test to obtain citizenship, she spends a good chunk of her free time dialed into Duolingo learning the language.

Fair to say, Elsa knows how to expand her horizons, and it’s exactly that mindset that helps drive success for each one of her clients at Brafton.