Bossing It: Leading with a Focus on Calmness, Care and Communication with Erin Moy
Erin Moy is an Australian writer, producer, and documentary filmmaker, and one of the founders of Entropico and WOOM. After starting her career in print journalism, Erin founded Australian production company Entropico in 2013 and has grown it into a world-class creative company with offices in Sydney and Los Angeles. As CCO and executive producer at Entropico, Erin is dedicated to finding and fostering exciting new voices in Australian filmmaking.
Entropico moves effortlessly between advertising and entertainment. The company has produced world-class advertising campaigns for clients including Google, Beats, Samsung, Square and Adidas, has Webbys, Spikes, AWARD pencils and a Cannes Lion on the office mantel, has made short films that have screened at institutions and festivals including MONA, ACMI, Serpentine Gallery, Phoenix and Sydney Film Festival.
In 2023, Entropico made its feature film debut on global streaming platform Netflix with 'ONEFOUR: Against All Odds' – a film that Erin co-wrote and produced – and now has several new longform creative projects in development and production.
Erin is a problem-solver and a storyteller, and in 2023 used those skills to co-found WOOM, a startup that fights period shame, empowers workforces and elevates workplaces with accessible and beautiful period care. WOOM was built around a desire to create positive change in workplaces. In both her businesses and in her filmmaking practice, Erin is focused on shifting culture for the better.
LBB> What was your first experience of leadership?
Erin> When I was starting high school, my mum thought it would be a good idea to do a trial run of the public transport route before my first day (I went to school in the inner city of Sydney so it was quite busy and confusing for a 12-year-old). Then, on the first day of school, I found a few confused school girls on the train platform in the same uniform and said, 'Come on girls, this way!’
Leadership is about helping others get to where they want to go.
I suppose it was also my first location recce – a staple of production life – and taught me that being prepared can be very reassuring on a stressful day.
LBB> How did you figure out what kind of leader you wanted to be – or what kind of leader you didn’t want to be?
Erin> The leaders I struggled the most with were often people that withheld things, reinforced hierarchy for the sake of hierarchy, or had lost their passion for the subject or profession, so I think of those things as a guide for what not to do. In contrast, my favourite teachers and bosses always came to the work with infectious energy, so that is something I really focus on.
I’ve adapted leadership moves from many people in my life, from family and teachers to colleagues, mentors and friends. Most recently it’s been the amazing mums and midwives in my life. I recently had a baby and the ways that these women have been able to help me through the wild ride of breastfeeding, newborn sleep routines and just, you know, keeping a whole new human alive every day, has taught me a lot about what I appreciate in good leadership: calmness, care and communication.
LBB> What experience or moment gave you your biggest lesson in leadership?
Erin> The pandemic. It taught me to back myself, my team, and the business I had co-created. Against lots of advice, when the practical and economic forces were against us and the Australian government was slow to announce the Jobkeeper package, my partners and I took out a loan and kept the whole company on payroll. We backed ourselves, and we ended up coming out of that time a bigger and better company, and opened our first international office straight out of lockdown.
LBB> Did you know you always wanted to take on a leadership role? If so how did you work towards it and if not, when did you start realising that you had it in you?
Erin> When I was younger I thought I’d have a more solitary creative life. I wanted to be a playwright or a journalist and spent the first five years of my career as a writer. But over the years I realised that people give me energy. I am very social and very collaborative, so doing the team thing ended up being more rewarding for me.
My best skill is still storytelling, so I lean on that when leading. As the saying goes, unclear is unkind, so I always try and clarify roles, responsibilities, business values, structures and expectations. I believe effectively communicating all of those things is the only way to sustainably grow a business. And if I see someone struggling to communicate what they think will be best for themselves or the business, I try and help them voice those things.
LBB> When it comes to 'leadership' as a skill, how much do you think is a natural part of personality, how much can be taught and learned?
Erin> It can definitely be taught, and it is a skill you need to keep developing, but you have to want to do it and not everyone does. There are many ways to be a good leader, it’s about finding your way in and honing that.
LBB> What are the aspects of leadership that you find most personally challenging? And how do you work through them?
Erin> Time. There is always too much to do, and never enough time. It’s taken me a while to learn this but I now understand that I (and other leaders) need time to myself and deserve boundaries and permission to lead a calm and happy life.
LBB> Have you ever felt like you've failed whilst in charge? How did you address the issue and what did you learn from it?
Erin> Many times. But I always try to be open and honest about what happened, think deeply about how I would do things differently, and then actually do them differently the next time.
LBB> In terms of leadership and openness, what’s your approach there? Do you think it’s important to be as transparent as possible in the service of being authentic? Or is there a value in being careful and considered?
Erin> I’m quite an open book, and if a team member wants to know something about the business, including the P&L, business modelling, long term strategy or resourcing decisions, I will always try and take the time to take them through it. But I am also very careful not to overload people with information they may not need – or want.
LBB> As you developed your leadership skills did you have a mentor, if so who were/are they and what have you learned? And on the flip side, do you mentor any aspiring leaders and how do you approach that relationship?
Erin> Most recently, as Entropico moved into new terrain and developed and produced our first feature film, a Netflix original called 'ONEFOUR: Against All Odds', I had two amazing mentors in my co-producers Sarah Noonan and Jennifer Peedom from 'Stranger Than Fiction', who taught me how to keep the fire burning over a multi-year project and pivot my skills form short-form commercials to long-form originals. They were very generous with their knowledge, and I have been trying to be as generous with others.
Last year I co-founded a new company called WOOM – a period care subscription service for businesses – with one of my Entropico colleagues, Tessa Westerhof. Tessa is a brilliant art director and passionate cultural change-maker, but until last year, was new to business leadership. In this new partnership I offer my learnings from the last decade at Entropico as insights but not necessarily the way I think we should do things, because I believe effective leaders need to feel empowered to forge their own paths.
LBB> In continually changing market circumstances, how do you cope with the responsibility of leading a team through difficult waters?
Erin> I plan for the bad times when things are good. At Entropico, the leadership team works hard on risk strategies so that we have room to move when the market does.
I also believe you have to communicate well to be agile, so that’s a big focus for me. Your team needs context and an understanding of the plan in order to move with you. And clients need to know your offering and edge – even when it’s shifting.
LBB> As a leader, what are some of the ways in which you’ve prioritised diversity and inclusion within your workforce?
Erin> My favourite thing about being a business owner is trying to design a workplace that I can be proud of, and evolving the status quo so that more people feel like they belong. Whether that be empowering our team to nominate alternative dates in place of public holidays they may not want to observe (like Christian religious holidays or Jan 26 in Australia), pushing hard to tell diverse stories on screen, or implementing an Entropico menstrual and menopausal leave policy, to name a few examples.
I felt so strongly about changing the narrative and stigma around workplace menstruation that we ended up with the aforementioned startup side business, WOOM. If you provide toilet paper at the office, you should provide period care!
I’ve also always been focused on finding and fostering diverse talent on Entropico’s creative roster – particularly women, who didn’t seem to be getting many opportunities in the commercial market 10 years ago when we set up the business. Come on girls, this way!
LBB> How important is your company culture to the success of your business? And how have you managed to keep it alive with increases in remote and hybrid working patterns?
Erin> Company culture is the main thing I care about. Entropico’s mission is to create great work in a great workplace, and our workplace is both physical and virtual. Our weekly all-in meetings are always online and generally cover at least four cities at a time, and about half our projects straddle both US and AU time zones.
As leaders we are always asking the team what they want out of their workplace, and then trying to bring those insights and ideas to life in a way that is sustainable for the business, whether they are remote working options or flexible hours, tickets to conferences or festivals, group exercise classes, regular team lunches, new project structures, or whole new business verticals.
LBB> What are the most useful resources you’ve found to help you along your leadership journey?
Erin> I do like to read leadership memoirs on occasion, but firmly believe those need to be ingested with caution. I think if you took too much of 'Shoedog' or 'No Rules Rules' on board, you’d probably swirl your business straight into the ground.
Honestly, I’ve always found the most useful resource for leadership to be the people I’m leading. It’s so important to seek feedback from your team and create a safe space for them to actually give it.
