Aggie Meroni is a mum of two and founder of White Bee Digital – a boutique agency specialising in helping independent online retailers scale their businesses through paid social media.
Five years ago, Aggie was working in the city on the platinum sales team of a bank selling investments to blue chip clients. Despite being successful in her role, just six weeks after giving birth to her son she was made redundant. Unsure of how to balance being a mum and a demanding career, she decided to rebuild her life on her own terms – successfully securing a Post Graduate Diploma in Digital Marketing. Now aged 40, she runs her agency employing an all-female team, with in-built flexibility so they can be there for their families and still create amazing results for their clients. As an introvert, Aggie has built the agency from a small desk wedged into the spare bedroom of her home to turning over multi-six-figures proving anything is possible when you take a leap of faith. Her book Crack The Code has just been published and is already an Amazon number one bestseller.
Six weeks after giving birth, I was made redundant from my decade-long career in sales and client relationship management in the investment management industry.
Today, I run a six-figure Meta Ads agency from my home office. The path between those two moments taught me everything about pivoting into tech, and why traditional career advice gets it wrong.
When Everything Falls Apart, Everything Becomes Possible
In 2019, I received THE call during my maternity leave. After more than ten years in the City, my safety net vanished overnight. I sat in my living room, six-week-old baby sleeping nearby, staring at a redundancy package that felt both like an ending and an uncomfortable question: what now?
I was exhausted and unsure what came next, but, if I’m honest, I’d been unhappy for a while. The long hours, the pressure, the sense that I was no longer growing had all been bubbling under the surface.
I knew I wanted something different, though until that redundancy notice, I’d never been forced to find it.
The irony? Ten years of stakeholder management in finance had taught me exactly the skills I needed to manage my own clients and business well: someone who could translate complex data into clear strategy, manage multiple moving parts, and present to demanding audiences. I just didn’t know it yet.
Choosing the Right Retraining (And Why Most People Get It Wrong)
I’d been listening to The Unofficial Shopify Podcast during my commute to and from London every day, hearing founders build creative, independent online businesses. Their energy was infectious and I knew I wanted to be part of their world.
I chose the Digital Marketing Institute’s postgraduate diploma in digital marketing for three specific reasons: industry recognition that would open doors, practical projects I could add to a portfolio immediately, and remote learning that worked around childcare. The course was intense, with each discipline in digital marketing covered, giving me a great foundation in how all marketing channels work best together.
One requirement to graduate was to gain practical experience working with a business and devise their digital marketing strategy based on their business goals and resources. I approached an eco-detergent start-up and absolutely loved working with them remotely while I was training.
Here’s what nobody tells you about retraining: the most valuable part isn’t the certificate. It’s the portfolio you build along the way. I was often advised never to work for free in the early days. I didn’t listen and offered three more businesses a free digital marketing strategy, so I could build my portfolio, and my network. I quickly learnt that it’s not just who you know (I knew nobody outside of the investment management industry) but also who knows you.
Building Confidence From Zero (The Kitchen Table Days)
When I graduated in early 2020, the pandemic hit. Agencies were cutting teams, no one was hiring. So I started where everyone said not to: freelancing with zero experience, a baby on my hip, and my old desk that I’d studied on for my GCSEs and A Levels, in the corner of our guest bedroom. I was literally wedged between the window and the bed.
I didn’t win my first client for five months and that taught me a priceless lesson: confidence doesn’t come before action. It comes from winning your first client, running your first successful campaign, managing your first client complaint or having your first profitable quarter.
During covid I worked as a contractor for several digital agencies, managing paid-media projects for eCommerce brands in London, the US, South Africa and even New Zealand. All operated entirely remotely. Their businesses didn’t just survive without offices; they flourished. That experience completely shifted how I viewed “professional” work.
From Freelancer to Founder: Building White Bee Digital
In 2020, I officially launched White Bee Digital from my spare room. Five years later, we’re a six-figure Meta Ads agency supporting independent e-commerce brands across the UK and beyond.
The evolution wasn’t smooth. From the boom time of lockdowns to the market corrections since, the eCommerce sector has been volatile to navigate at times. From data security updates impacting data quality, to political turmoil impacting consumer buying. Each challenge taught me more than any course module.
Creating Real Flexibility (Not the LinkedIn Version)
The media portrays flexibility as working in pyjamas. The reality is more nuanced. My team operates around clear deliverables rather than rigid hours. We have agreed core hours for collaboration, communicate schedule changes in advance, and trust each other to deliver.
If someone wants to start at 6am and finish by mid-afternoon to do school pickup, that works. If another team member produces their best work in the evening after their kids are asleep, we accommodate that. Productivity has actually improved, as people work when they’re most focused, not when a clock says they should.
The Truth About Transferable Skills
Every rejected job application taught me something: stop apologising for your background and start translating it. My sales and relationship management experience wasn’t irrelevant; it was my differentiator. Stakeholder presentations became client strategy sessions. Analytical skills helped me spot opportunities others missed and being an ‘outsider’ meant my ad creative ideas were fresh.
Understanding how corporate businesses operate internally has also been invaluable for when we now partner with corporate clients. We understand what realistic timeframes are for ad creatives to be signed off or how many lines of management may need to review a campaign before it goes live.
Why Now Is the Perfect Time
The tech industry needs diverse perspectives more than ever. Your unconventional background isn’t a weakness; it’s exactly what will set you apart. You have to start before you feel ready, though. Apply before you tick every box. Launch before the website is perfect. Feel the fear and do it anyway!
Sometimes, the end of one chapter is simply the beginning of something even better.
