Cathy Brekke

Why this persona fits the audience

Leads growth for a 22-person skincare ecommerce brand in Manchester. She coordinates one content writer and one paid media contractor, keeps community mentions in spreadsheets, and uses Reddit mainly as part of broader social listening across founder and beauty communities.

• Age: 31
• Location: Manchester, UK
• Occupation: Growth Marketing Lead, Ecommerce
• Income: £62k salary plus bonus
• Education: Bachelor's degree in Marketing
• Company size: 22 employees
• Years in role: 2 years

“I've spent so much time manually sorting through thousands of comments that I sometimes forget what the actual human behind the screen looks like.”

Cathy Brekke, 31, is the Growth Marketing Lead for a rapidly scaling skincare e-commerce brand headquartered in Manchester. With a Bachelor's degree in Marketing and nearly eight years of experience in the digital space, she recently stepped into her current leadership role two years ago. She operates in a lean environment with only 22 employees, meaning she is not just a strategist but also a hands-on executor. Her workflow is a unique blend of high-level strategy and gritty, manual labor; she personally manages a content writer and a paid media contractor while simultaneously acting as the company's primary social listener. Currently, Cathy's most significant challenge is the inefficiency of her community management stack. Despite having access to various SaaS tools, she finds herself reverting to spreadsheets to track Reddit mentions and beauty community feedback. This manual process, while time-consuming, provides her with a level of granularity and context she feels automated tools often miss. She uses Reddit primarily for broader social listening across founder and beauty communities, meticulously filtering conversations to identify potential leads or brand sentiment shifts. Her professional identity is deeply rooted in efficiency and experimentation. She is constantly evaluating new ways to automate parts of her workflow, particularly regarding lead generation, but remains wary of tools that promise too much without delivering transparent value. Financially, she is secure with a £62k salary plus performance bonuses, allowing her to invest in high-quality equipment and education, though she remains budget-conscious given the startup nature of her employer. Outside of work, she seeks solace in the outdoors, frequently hiking the nearby hills to disconnect from the digital noise. Cathy represents the archetype of the modern, pragmatic marketer who values authenticity and data over hype, navigating the complexities of DTC growth with a calm, methodical demeanor.

Background & daily life

A day in their life

Cathy wakes at 6:30 AM, starting her day with a quick coffee and a scan of overnight US market activity before heading out to the local coffee shop. By 9:00 AM, she's at her desk, diving into Slack messages and checking Google Analytics for the previous day's traffic spikes. Her morning is dominated by a sync with her content writer to finalize three blog posts, followed by a review of her paid media contractor's bid adjustments. Lunch is a hurried sandwich eaten while reading industry news on LinkedIn. Afternoons are spent in the trenches of Excel, manually copying Reddit comments and sentiment tags into her master tracker, a tedious task she dreads but cannot delegate yet. She wraps up around 6:00 PM, often taking a walk to reset before answering a few more emails if a campaign issue arises, ensuring her team isn't left hanging before logging off.

Lifestyle

Cathy lives in a slightly cramped but stylishly renovated Victorian terrace in Withington, sharing the upstairs with two creative flatmates who keep the energy high but the kitchen messy. Her weekends are a deliberate counterbalance to her weekday screen time; she prioritizes hiking in the Peak District or exploring lesser-known trails near Manchester, often using these trips to clear her head and photograph urban textures. Financially, she is cautious but comfortable, treating her £62k salary as a foundation for steady savings rather than rapid spending, though she splurges occasionally on high-end skincare products she tests for work. She maintains a tight-knit circle of friends from university and early career days, preferring deep dinners over loud clubbing, and values health enough to attend weekly yoga classes to manage the stress of her role.

Work life

Her day is a constant juggle between strategic planning and tactical execution within a lean 22-person team where everyone wears multiple hats. She spends mornings reviewing yesterday's ad spend and coordinating with her content writer on upcoming blog posts, then shifts to managing her paid media contractor's campaign adjustments. The bulk of her afternoon is spent in spreadsheets, manually tracking community mentions and sentiment across platforms, a process she knows is inefficient but trusts because it gives her granular control. She feels the pressure of being the bridge between the founders' vision and the operational reality, often staying late to ensure data accuracy before sending weekly reports that dictate the next month's budget allocation.

Relationships

Cathy's primary influence comes from her direct reports and the two co-founders she works alongside daily; their trust is paramount. She has a supportive network of former colleagues who now run other DTC brands, serving as a sounding board for ideas and frustrations. Her parents, living in Cheshire, offer occasional emotional support but are less involved in her professional life. She relies heavily on her flatmates for domestic stability, creating a shared household dynamic that helps her decompress after high-pressure workdays.

How they decide

Cathy adopts a research-heavy, evidence-based approach to decisions, preferring to gather data points and consult with her small team before committing resources. She is naturally cautious about adopting new tools, favoring solutions that demonstrate clear ROI and ease of integration over flashy features. While she values peer recommendations, she ultimately makes final calls based on how well an option aligns with her existing workflows and whether it solves a specific friction point without introducing new complexity.

How they sound

She speaks with a clear, crisp Mancunian accent, avoiding overly technical jargon unless explaining complex analytics to non-marketing stakeholders. Her tone is professional yet approachable, often using phrases like 'let's test that' or 'the data suggests' rather than absolute statements. She avoids hyperbole and rarely uses corporate buzzwords, preferring direct, actionable language. In casual conversation, she slips into a warmer, more relaxed cadence, often laughing at the absurdity of marketing trends.