Rachael Higgins

Founder of Because of Marketing & Co-Founder of Cupsly 🤎 Sharing my journey and advice on building two startups from a business & marketing perspective

I started Because of Marketing from my bedroom in July 2020 because I was obsessed with understanding how marketing captures our attention.

Five years later, that curiosity has grown into a global marketing media publication with a community and following of over 750,000 and 60 million organic impressions annually across the US, UK and Australia.

As I build Because of Marketing, I share my story, break down the marketing campaigns that catch my attention, and discuss the latest marketing news and trends. 

Outside of business, I'm a proud advocate for the Lewy Body Society and Alzheimer Scotland, having raised over £17,000 in the past 10 years to support their vital work. 

Follow along for marketing breakdowns, campaign analysis and the journey of how I'm building Because of Marketing into the go-to media brand within the marketing industry. 

Business brand partnerships: partnerships@becauseofmarketing.com

General enquiries: rachael@becauseofmarketing.com

CEO & Founder

Succeed With Fulfilment

At Succeed With Fulfilment we offer a holistic blend of coaching, mentoring and training designed to ensure you succeed, being fulfilled and content throughout the process.

I specialise in creating time and improving people's overall wellbeing, which in turn reduces stress, overwhelm, anxiety and prevents burnout.

The coaching is offered 121, in groups or via targeted workshops.

If you, or someone you know, is looking to do more with your life but are unsure of the next steps, reach out!

Remember, to Succeed With Fulfilment, let business fuel, not rule, your life!

Success Coach

Titananos Technology

At Titananos Technology, we specialise in Cloud Hosting and Automation projects in an Agile manner.
For more specific details, see the projects section below, but the highlights are:

Key projects:
• Multiple digital transformations
• Real-time data pipelines
• Global cloud infrastructure projects
• Website hosting and development

Key technologies used:
• AWS (IAM / EC2 / S3 / RDS / S3 / Route53 / DynamoDb / CloudFormation / ECS / Lambda / Aurora / CloudFront / CloudWatch / ElastiCache / Redis / GuardDuty / CloudTrail / Secrets Manager / Direct Connect / KMS / SES / WAF / VPN / FSX / Directory Service / SQS / SNS / CodeDeploy / ImageBuilder / Organisations)
• Python / Javascript / NodeJs / Bash / Groovy / Ruby / PHP / PowerShell
• Linux (Ubuntu / RedHat)
• Windows Server
• Hadoop / Cloudera / Apache Spark / Apache Kafka
• CI/CD (Jenkins / Drone.io / Octopus Deploy)
• Monitoring (Dynatrace / ELK / Splunk / Grafana / Prometheus)
• IaaC (Ansible / Puppet / Chef / Saltstack)
• Databases (MySQL / MSSQL / Postgres / NoSQL / SQLite)
• Containers (Docker / LXC / LXD)
• Hashicorp (Terraform / Vault / Consul / Packer)

Headline clients:
• Scottish Government
• Hogarth Worldwide
• Blended Socials
• Succeed With Fulfilment

DevOps & Platform Consultant

Titananos Developments

Property Developer

This was a role continuation when EE employees transitioned into BT Group and as part of this I assisted in helping with the structure of the Development and Operations department within EE and how it transformed as part of the wider BT family, extending to include some existing BT teams. The transition caused my teams to expand and we also took on responsibility for a number of the BT Digital components.

By the end of my tenure at EE/BT, I had grown Platform Services from a team of three engineers to over fifty across five separate teams spread geographically across four locations around the globe. Latterly I became more involved in wider BT engagements, including porting some BT Digital applications to the new EE hosting platform.

I was also formally qualified as a SAFe 4 Agilist in November 2018 whilst in this role and used this to further enhance how my teams operated.

Throughout this role, I was also regularly engaged in cost saving discussions as cost optimisation was a cornerstone of the new platform tooling my teams were providing but there were also efficiencies that could be made prior to that delivery.

Head of Platform Services

I was asked to take this role within EE to help them transform the hosting technology in the Development and Operations department. The focus was on a huge optimisation of automation, speed and consistency in deployment of non-production infrastructure during development and test, as well as an improved delivery system to enable simple, efficient and more consistent day-to-day deployment of new application functionality.

I approached this by getting my initial team to learn more modern DevOps tools, such as Terraform and Packer, and existing tools such as Jenkins, with  automation and secured self-serve access being the focus. To aid understanding, I created a foundation toolset for the team to build from as they learnt the new approach and then continued to guide and educate them as they progressed. This was hugely successful and teams throughout the wider department were very interested to see what we were producing and the benefits it would provide them in all aspects, as our tooling touched all areas, including development, operations, testing and release.

As I moved further away from engineering, I spent time defining the technical architecture for the platform as the department lacked this capability at that time before proceeding to focus on strategy and team building.

Six months into the role I became responsible for the existing Infrastructure teams and acted as a lead for the third-party provided Atlassian team, followed by the Environment & Governance, Performance Testing and Test Automation teams three months later. As my area grew, I worked with the Finance and HR departments to progress staffing in my area, as the bias of staff was towards using third parties which was both risky and costly. I put forward a proposal which would result in a yearly cost saving of almost £1m whilst reducing the number of third party staff from 86% to 18%.

Eyles IT Consultancy Ltd

Through Eyles IT I worked with a number of clients, providing a range of DevOps-based services.
For more specific details, see the projects section below, but the highlights are:

Key projects:
• Multiple digital transformations
• Real-time data pipelines
• Cost reduction projects

Key technologies used:
• AWS (IAM / EC2 / S3 / RDS / S3 / Route53 / DynamoDb / CloudFormation / ECS / Lambda / Aurora / CloudFront / CloudWatch / ElastiCache / Redis / AD / GuardDuty / CloudTrail / Secrets Manager / Direct Connect / KMS / SES / WAF / VPN)
• Python / Javascript / NodeJs / Bash / Groovy / Ruby / PHP
• Linux (Ubuntu / RedHat)
• Hadoop / Cloudera / Apache Spark / Apache Kafka
• CI/CD (Jenkins / Drone.io / Octopus Deploy)
• Monitoring (Dynatrace / ELK / Splunk / Grafana / Prometheus)
• IaaC (Ansible / Puppet / Chef / Saltstack)
• Databases (MySQL / MSSQL / Postgres / NoSQL / SQLite)
• Containers (Docker / LXC / LXD)
• Hashicorp (Terraform / Vault / Consul / Packer)

Key clients:
• Ebuyer
• Wren Kitchens
• Orange Digital
• EE
• Sky & Betting Gaming
• BT

Director

icelolly.com

On being promoted to IT Manager, I took on full responsibility for the Development team and oversaw a variety of projects whilst still being hands on with engineering. I was also responsible for server expansion to support the company growth.

Technologies: Red Hat Linux, Bash, PHP, C++, XML, MySQL, Apache, Android, Codeigniter, PerconaDB
Skills: Agile, Kanban, Management, PCI compliance, Hiring

IT Manager

On being promoted to Senior Developer, I took on a larger responsibility for the technology used within the team and was involved in decision making for progression. In this role I also became the primary support operative due to the extensive systems knowledge I had gained. It was at this time that the company arranged for Agile training for the team which was my first exposure to the methodology.

Technologies: Red Hat Linux, Bash, PHP, C++, XML, MySQL, Apache, Android, Codeigniter, Yii
Skills: Agile, Scrum, Kanban

Senior Developer

As a PHP Developer with Icelolly I was primarily responsible for updates and improvements to the main website as well as the sister site. This also involved various changes to the underlying servers and databases.

Technologies: Red Hat Linux, Bash, PHP, C++, XML, MySQL, Apache, Java

Junior Developer

Rejuvenate Productions Ltd

Rejuvenate was my first job in IT and my first following a relocation. In my role I assisted in maintaining and improving a number of LAMP-based customer websites, including a customisation of a Magento-based ecommerce site. Aside from these I also solely delivered six brand new sites, styled according to wireframes provided by the design team.

Technologies: Ubuntu Linux, Bash, PHP, MySQL, Apache, Dreamweaver, Magento

PHP Developer

HSBC Commercial Banking

Prior to entering IT, I was employed at HSBC as a Commercial Associate. The Business Banking team I was part of was placed to provide exceptional customer service to customers whilst ensuring they also had the appropriate products the bank could offer to them.

As I proved my competence, I regularly covered for Team Leaders when on leave and was often called upon to resolve disputes for customers who had found themselves in unfortunate circumstances. Due to this I was twice singularly awarded for providing exceptional customer service.

Commercial Associate

Do you want to live a life with more success and more fulfilment?
I know I do!

That’s why after a fruitful tenure in the tech industry, I spent a few years honing my own personal development skills whilst working on myself along the way.

This led to the creation of my headline product, the 𝐒𝐮𝐜𝐜𝐞𝐬𝐬 & 𝐅𝐮𝐥𝐟𝐢𝐥𝐦𝐞𝐧𝐭 𝐏𝐫𝐨𝐠𝐫𝐚𝐦𝐦𝐞, which is geared for business owners who want more or are stuck in a rut.

Through the Programme they learn how to uncover their purpose in life, understand the benefits of overall health in their ability to reap what they sow, reframe their relationship with wealth and what it means to them, and level up their businesses to fuel, not rule, their life.

- - - - -

𝘚𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘚𝘶𝘤𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴 & 𝘍𝘶𝘭𝘧𝘪𝘭𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘗𝘳𝘰𝘨𝘳𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘦?
“No man will make a great leader who wants to do it all by himself or get all the credit for doing it.”
Andrew Carnegie

The Success & Fulfilment Programme is a holistic coaching, mentoring and training programme.

It helps business owners create a fully balanced life so they can grow both themselves and their businesses to the next level.

During the Programme, you will:
● Uncover your true purpose in life
● Create more time to do more of what you love
● Live more healthily to enjoy your new-found time both now and forever
● Learn how to systemise your businesses and maximise their potential
● Improve your money flow and relationship to wealth

- - - - -

𝘞𝘩𝘺 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘬 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘮𝘦?
“I’m lazy. But it’s the lazy people who invented the wheel and bicycle because they didn’t like walking.”
Lech Wałęsa
(This is by far the best quote I’ve ever found… it also pretty much sums me up!)

I’ve always had a desire to help and develop people which I’ve fortunately been able to do over the years through my different roles and stints of employment. That is my purpose, to ensure that people make the most of their lives.

Beyond that, I’ve always had a passion for business and am now a fully established, multi-business owner so I know full well the demands of business on your time! However, with a varied background spanning law, banking, government and telecoms, and after many years working on optimising technology processes, I’ve developed a keen mind for building efficiencies into everything I do, ranging from business systems to financial management to time planning and even my own health and fitness!

- - - - -

𝐖𝐚𝐧𝐭 𝐭𝐨 𝐤𝐧𝐨𝐰 𝐦𝐨𝐫𝐞? Send me a message! 🙂

taplio

The Battle

Rachael Higgins

Leigh E.

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