The Honeydew Hustle: Laci Johnson

She’s the fast-moving Director of Marketing at Axis Insurance . When she’s not at the office she does marketing consulting on the side, add in some scary movies for fun. In the remaining slivers of her free time, she wedding plans.

• career: Director of marketing + owner of a marketing consultant firm
• free time: scary movies! “When I was younger I loved Halloween. I went to little haunted houses with my friends, read creepy suspenseful books. For those of you who can’t handle scary movies — read about the plot first. It’s manageable, and so worth it!”
• wedding planning tidbit: “I’m excited to find vendors that match our style, but[…] I don’t want to get consumed. My personality is to go really deep into something and not stop until I figure it out…but I don’t want that to happen with my wedding planning.”

What do you do, and why?

I’m the Director of Marketing for an insurance brokerage firm. I actually just recently started this position three months ago, but have been in the marketing field for 5+ years now. I orchestrate all the moving parts of online offline materials, blogs, sales staff, social media, website, trade shows, ETC.

When I’m not at my day job and before I landed my current job, I ran a small business named LJ Communications as a marketing consultant. My responsibilities for that include assisting women and minority owned businesses in the Upstate New York region with a variety of marketing services to help expand their business presence.

What’s unique about leading marketing in the insurance world?

My career has taken me through super diverse industries. I learned quick that it’s critical to think about which marketing channels perform best and worst, unique to each industry. As a result, I’m constantly learning how each industry works when I join it and figuring out the best campaigns. It keeps me on my toes!

In the insurance world, we have a retail side and wholesale side- essentially like having two different companies in the same company.

What do you do in your free time?

Scary movies. When I was younger I loved Halloween. I went to little haunted houses with my friends, read creepy suspenseful books. For those of you who can’t handle scary movies — read about the plot first. It’s manageable, and so worth it!

And of course, I spend time with my family and fiance.

Your impression of wedding planning?

We started planning about 3 months after getting engaged in January, so it’s just been a few weeks! I like planning but I do feel like it’s stressful. I’m excited to do it, but I know that it’s a lot of work. It’s something that i’m happy about…but i’m also anal about .

It’ s actually important for me to decrease the amount of time I spent planning. I don’t want to get consumed. My personality is to go really deep into something and not stop until I figure it out…but I don’t want that to happen with my wedding planning.

Do you have specific styles you’re gravitating toward already?

A little! We want the ballroom look with formal black tie. Gorgeous overhead floral chandeliers.

You can reach out to Laci on LinkedIn or her website — she’s a pleasure to chat with, so don’t hesitate!

We’re featuring stories of amazing women in business, education, medicine, and tech for whom wedding planning is just one of many priorities in their life. Why? We don’t see enough stories highlighting the fact that women have lives and goals before they get engaged and continue to pursue these goals in parallel to wedding planning.

Check out Honeydew if this sounds like you!