MaidSafe New Team Member: Ceilidh Gray

Hi, I’m Ceilidh and joined this week as Marketing Strategist. Born and bred in the Borders, I now live in Edinburgh.

I’ve a squiggly career path. I studied Textile Design after school which led to a stint in London and New York working for designers for both high street and the catwalk. After a couple of years, I became disengaged with the industry so I took on a placement at Dulux as a Colour Consultant in where I developed colour ranges for store as well as have the honour of being part of the team that names the new colours. Dulux were still early days in the world of social media so I carved out a role for myself, eventually building up a position where I owned all the content created by the Brand. I then moved back to Edinburgh were I became a Content Strategy Manager at Sainsbury’s Bank.

During this time I went back to University and I’m in the middle of my Masters now (I study part-time alongside full-time work — my Saturdays are now “library days”). ‘Digital Society’ was a perfect fit in order to allow me to explore the impact of digital in the everyday, from social norms to much more complex notions of algorithmic governance and platform capitalism (or the ‘sharing economy’ if you’re more positively inclined!) More importantly, it gives me the opportunity to study the digital ecosystem in relation to social conditions, and the “thrive or die” mentality it’s currently breeding. I’m fascinated by privacy in today’s digitally-mediated sousveillance society and the strategies employed by people to manage this. My dissertation topic is around decentralised social networks and the preservation of privacy, so I will be soon looking to the community for help on my research!

This study led me to rethink my place within a centralised financial institution and the need to evolve with the inevitable rise of decentralisation. This coincided with a vacancy at Maidsafe and now here I am.

This role at Maidsafe not only allows me to share my marketing experience and drive the business, but bring my academic learning in too. As I start my new adventure in this crusade for digital freedom, I look forward to learning not only from the team at Maidsafe but most importantly the forum community. My vision is to build the awareness and conversations of the work we’re doing around the world in the most meaningful way, sharing our journey as we grow and build the network. There’s already a huge amount of great work the team have done — now I want to amplify that further with a strong marketing strategy, a dynamic syndication programme and of course fantastic content.

I can’t wait to be part of a growing, enthusiastic community with a definitive vision for a better, fairer future.

After a four year hiatus I’m back on Twitter — you can follow me @cgray60.