Salamandra CEO Christine Mackay Shares Her Passion for B2B Animation Solutions

Christine MacKay, owner and founder of the award-winning Salamandra Animation Studios, recently sat down with Paul Powers, host of the Cybernaut Club Podcast, an ongoing podcast and YouTube series focusing on tech, skill enhancement, and improving one’s knowledge. 

Christine openly talks about embarking on her own business journey, and how focusing on staying agile and flexible throughout can be considered one of the secrets to her success. Now in their 7th year, her award-winning animation studios, salamandra.uk, are not just surviving these turbulent times, but having hired 5 new staff this financial year, they are continuing to thrive and visually delight on all platforms.

Christine started the first agency iteration of salamandra after having driven from London to South Africa in an 18-year-old Kombi, and settling in Johannesburg. Having identified a gap in the industry, Christine wanted to offer a combined PR and Advertising agency to ensure synchronised and unified communicators to save her clients’ money. At the time, salamandra was one of the first to do this. When Christine came back to the UK, she had fallen in love with animation, whilst working in New Zealand, as an impressive medium for B2B visual communications, and so started the second iteration of her company as salamandra.uk, focusing on this medium and offering her team as visual problem solvers.

This was no easy feat. On return to the UK, Christine had the challenge of both finding the talent she needed, building her network and finding affordable office space. At the start of the company, Christine and her first employees worked from her dining room table, in Windsor. Fast forward seven years, and Christine now owns two thriving animations studios in Eton and Dundee. Despite working remotely, Christine ensured that the company systems of communications, project management and collaborative working not only continued but improved and have become more productive now more than ever before and has recently grown the staff numbers by 66%. Sensing a dip in morale during lockdown, Christine took a risk and announced that she was ‘paying it forward’ and awarded everyone in the company a 15% wage increase last October supported by her motto that “If the company does well, you do well”.

Hear all about Christine’s turbulent yet greatly rewarding journey by tuning into the Cybernaut Club Podcast episode below.