Amy McIlwaine

Amy grew up in a small town in northern Alberta. After graduating high school with a bilingual diploma (fancy!) she took a stereotypical gap year to travel. Following this, she headed to Big City #1 (Edmonton) and got her diploma in Radio & Television from NAIT, and then on to Big City #2 (Calgary) and got her Bachelor of Communication Studies from the University of Calgary.

Amy got her first real adult job working in communications for Alberta Wildfire. However, she secured this job before actually completing her degree, so she decided to do the two things concurrently. Then she decided to throw in a second job teaching Highland dance, just to spice things up. What a fun introduction to time and priority management!

Once she had her fill of working in the emergency management field, she spent the next eight or so years working on internal communications and marketing teams for educational institutions. During this time, she developed a knack for translating concepts into clear, engaging content, and adapting that content to suit different platforms, and discovered her love for making information accessible.

As it often happens with internal teams, Amy was conditioned to ‘wear many hats’. When she joined Full Stacks in 2022, she figured she may as well continue the tradition, but with a more purposeful approach. Amy has her fingers in the following pies: content writing, SEO, PPC, social media, and internal marketing and communications.

Having expertise across all these marketing areas isn’t just about keeping things interesting (though it is a perk). What Amy likes about this approach is it helps bring the big picture into focus. She developed the skills to spot opportunities or pitfalls across different silos, and create strategies that work together instead of competing for attention. This bird’s-eye view means she can see, for example, how a piece of content can serve SEO and PPC goals while also working as social media fodder and support the overall brand narrative.

Amy works closely with clients in all of the aforementioned areas, and also loves to work on internal projects like the Full Stacks external and internal newsletters, processes and procedures, and social media. With both clients and the Full Stacks team, Amy likes to work closely in a collaborative and fun way. She wants clients to feel comfortable brainstorming and offering feedback, with no need to open emails with “Sorry to bother you”. It’s not a bother, because she genuinely cares about what you care about.

Eerily similar to her work life, Amy’s outside of work life includes a wide variety of hobbies, including: sewing, gardening, cooking, baking, general crafting, writing, outdoorsing, and reading. Amy has never met a book, article, or cereal box that she hasn’t liked to read. Her only regret in life is reading The Shining as the lone guest in a lightly creepy hostel on a remote island. She spends her remaining time biking around with her family, making lists of restaurants to eat at, and trying not to be mad when her cats act like cats.