‘Statistically I shouldn’t be a success: that’s why TTG 30 Under 30 makes me proud’

Travel wasn’t the original plan for Ashleigh St Hill, who initially flirted with the idea of a career in law. “I did an internship with a law firm in Temple, probably inspired by watching Suits,” she laughs. “The atmosphere was not what I expected and I realised I wanted to do something more creative.”

Spending two months in Japan as part of a post-school gap year fuelled this desire, after she blogged about her experiences. 

On her return, she looked at apprenticeships as a way to combine learning with practical experience, and ended up with nine offers on the table. She picked Cranberry Panda, a recruitment agency working with luxury fashion e-commerce brands.

“Even though I was an apprentice, they promoted me quickly and I was running the social media desk independently,” she says. “I was thrown in at the deep end, with exposure to some cool brands such as Hunter Boots and Fenwick. I billed in excess of £90,000 for the company in my first year.”

Ashleigh moved to Silverdoor marketing agency, before taking what she describes as a “leap of faith” to use her network and start freelancing to source her own clients. 

“I was very transparent in the early days, charging minimal fees, but my clients knew I was building my business, ALS/LDN.”

She taught herself the basics of setting up a company from scratch and the client management side of things. “I had to fill in the gaps as I went,” she recalls. “If I didn’t know how to do something, I found out how to do it.”

One of Ashleigh’s first clients was Nobody’s Child, which opened her eyes to the power of influencer marketing for the first time.

Other clients including the Pharmacist Beauty and Kalmar Lifestyle followed, but it was securing professional hair stylist Lee Stafford that propelled her into a different league. “He’s a big household name, and I was doing all his social. I was so naïve at the beginning of setting up ALS/LDN, if I’d known how challenging freelancing was going to be, I’d have never chucked myself in. But I’m so proud of what I achieved.”