Introducing Nikki Hellyer, VP Marketing at ToursByLocals

In honour of International Women's Day, we asked Nikki Hellyer, our VP of Marketing since 2020, three leadership focused questions. Here are her responses.

What advice would you give your 25 year old self, just getting started in your professional life?

I started my career agency side. Everyone around me was creative, incredibly smart, fun and driven. And I felt like I didn’t belong (aka imposter syndrome). I compensated by working long hours and by never saying no. It wasn’t until I decided to take some time to recharge that I was able to see that long hours and lots of output does not always equal success or personal fulfillment.

So my advice would be to find the work within your work that matters the most. That adds the most value. Say no to the things that are done just because they always have been. Challenge processes and why you’re being asked to do things. Offer up alternatives and new approaches. And ruthlessly focus on what will bring joy and success to your whole life, not just your work life. 

My second bit of advice would be to ask the “dumb” question. It’s OK not to know something. Nobody has all the answers. Curiosity is a super power, not a weakness, so lean into it and sit in the discomfort of showing you don’t know everything. Vulnerability wins every time.

And lastly, culture and values alignment matters. When interviewing for a job, it’s as important to look at those aspects of a company as much as what the work itself will provide for you. Doing your best work is so much easier when you know you’re working for and with people who are aligned with your values. You still won’t agree on everything, but you’ll be able to navigate the hard moments much easier.

What skills/strengths have served you best in your leadership role at ToursByLocals?

Grit, determination, creativity and a good sense of humor. I joined ToursByLocals, a global travel company, three months into the pandemic. With international travel pretty much at a standstill, those early days were rough! But, we focused on what we could control, we kept relentlessly looking for the opportunities in the market, and we took the time to do the foundational work that you never seem to get to when things are going well. And when the world opened back up, we were stronger, faster and ready to capture all that pent up demand.

Which of ToursByLocals guiding principles do you lean into most as a leader and how?

I love all of our guiding principles, but one that is always on my mind is Learn & Grow, which is all about creating a culture of continuous learning and improvement. Business is changing fast, and marketing even faster so in order to stay relevant and to deliver the growth we have our sights set on, we need to be trying new things. We have a model where we create a hypothesis, we shape the test structure, manage the risk by keeping the test small to start, and monitor over a few weeks to determine if we should scale up, change paths, or shelve it. The losses are as interesting as the wins, and they tend to lead you down an entirely different path that you wouldn’t have gotten to otherwise. It’s great to be working in a culture that embraces this whole heartedly, and to see team members feeling they have the freedom to fail on their path to success.