María Puche-Jiménez

Before you read on, I’m Spanish, that’s where my name and I come from. I’ve loved Britain – and the English language – since I can remember. One of my ambitions in life when I was still tiny was to live in this amazing country and not sound Spanish when speaking English. And here I am, and I’ve been here since 1997. Love it. In all that time I’ve lived and worked in the stunning city of Chester, the vibrant centre of Manchester, and I’m now back in the beautiful Cheshire countryside at Parker Design. So how did I end up here?

After completing my English Philology degree (that’s everything related to the English language – Linguistics and Literature) in Spain, with a year out in Liverpool and lots of time spent around the University of York, I packed my bags and found a job as a Project Manager at Welocalize, a translation agency in Cheshire. It was the ideal job just straight out of university for me, as it demanded creativity, organisational skills and a flair for people and languages. I really enjoyed dealing with clients and suppliers all over the world, and the pace was relentless. Some of my clients were Alstom, Rolls-Royce, Motorola… I learnt a lot. Perfect.

After 6 years, I made the move to the big corporate world and joined MBNA (later acquired by Bank of America), in Chester. My 7 years at the company, first in the Advertising department managing Direct Mail campaigns and credit card designs, and later as Acquisition Channel Manager in the Digital Marketing team gave me invaluable experience. Liaising closely with Client Relationship Managers I managed several portfolios: strategic partners Virgin Money, BT, Alliance & Leicester (remember them?), Abbey (and them?), and Affinity groups such as National Trust and British Heart Foundation. Oh, and I feel I need to say that people who work in Financial Services are very human, and very professional – just a great bunch!

Then came Manchester city centre: a brief stint as Interim Project Director at branding agency True North in the amazing Northern Quarter, followed by 3 years at live comms agency WRG, where as Marketing Manager I promoted the agency’s stories and supported Client Services and Business Development teams. Working with digital developers, designers, producers, video editors, photographers, account executives. Strategy, creative, sales, procurement and employee engagement directors. PR & social media consultants, journalists. Scriptwriters. Art directors and C-Level executives. And more, worldwide. All to support growth and expansion targets. A very similar role to what I do at Parker Design.

As a human being, I thrive on people (meeting them, keeping them, motivating them, to do better or to buy my product!), learning (sharing or expanding my own). I find improvisation thrilling, particularly because it’s always done with control and risk in mind. I enjoy having fun at work as much as being professional.

A natural presenter, comfortable communicating at all levels, if it’s my place to do so. Sometimes you need to be on stage, others you need to sit back, absorb and wait, right? I speak Spanish (obviously) as well as I speak English (that’s native proficiency level) and I also enjoy Italian and French. And any language to be honest, I’m fascinated by them.

I grew up on the radio (RNE, Spain’s BBC), where I had my own show thanks to Mamá, who was a presenter. Passionate about history, current affairs, politics, reading, writing and of course the Arts, in particular architecture (I’m at my happiest walking around the Barbican), painting, cinema (please don’t just focus on American films), music and theatre. I’ve been in amateur dramatics, although I left after finding that quite a few people were drama queens… relax! I’ve also been an extra for the BBC and in a professional play at Manchester’s Lowry Theatre – the excitement of being backstage waiting to come on is heart-pumping. I love the sea as much as huge cities – I’ve travelled quite a lot – and I’ve had a passion for photography, thanks to Papá, since I was tiny and (of course, goes without saying) beautiful, gorgeous design that changes people’s minds and creates an ever-lasting memory.