Name: Aleksandra Pimenides
Position: Director of Marketing and Business Development at Beck Redden LLP
Education: Bachelor’s degree in French and political science from Rice University and a Masters in Communications from Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (France)
What was your very first job, how old were you and what was the biggest takeaway from the experience?
My very first unpaid “job” was as a summer hospital volunteer while in middle school, first in physical therapy and then in medical records (at the time, I thought I was headed toward becoming a doctor). My first paid role was part-time in college, working as a lab tech in a biochemistry lab.
My first full-time paid position was during the summer break from college teaching English at a language school in Paris. My students were unemployed adults upskilling to become more competitive in the job market, and some questioned why I was qualified to teach them given my age. I answered that I was qualified because I was multilingual, fluent in English, and understood language mechanics early on, grasping what it takes to learn and teach a language successfully. That experience forced me to develop confidence quickly, articulate my value, and taught me how to hold my own with strong personalities.
What areas do you focus on in your role as a legal marketer? Why are you passionate about your profession?
My role in legal marketing has evolved and fluctuated over time. Across my roles, what has remained constant is my interest in coordinating across geographical and departmental borders, building systems and processes, and turning data into something actionable that can inform decisions and drive outcomes.
I entered legal marketing at its beginnings, somewhat by chance, and stayed because it fits how I work and think and suits my strengths. The field was still developing when I started, so there was always something to build, which kept me engaged. Over time, I realized that my attention to detail, planning mindset, ability to make order out of chaos, and preference for structured, well-prepared work aligned closely with the expectations of lawyers. It is an environment where precision matters and where that level of rigor is both necessary and valued. I also find it intellectually stimulating to work with attorneys.
What time do you typically get up on a workday, and what’s your ideal morning routine to get it off to a great start?
I am not naturally a morning person, and I tend to work quite late when I am in the flow or up against a deadline. On a typical workday, I am up by 6:45 a.m., prepare my breakfast and tea to go, and stow those in my bag along with my pre-prepped lunch. After letting the dog out and then feeding her and the cats, I let my mare and donkey out from their paddock to the pasture before heading out for my 50-mile drive to the office. I use the rush-hour commute to listen to global, national, and local news and podcasts and webinars. My ideal routine would be a bit different, with more sleep, an earlier start, and time for a quick workout, but for now it’s a work in progress.
What’s something about your job that might surprise people?
What tends to surprise people is the sheer breadth of what I handle in my current role as a solo marketer at a boutique litigation firm. I started my career at a mid-sized firm that later transitioned into BigLaw, so I have worked in various environments and have taken on both tactical and strategic responsibilities over time. Currently, on any given day, I might be coordinating details for a gala event, analyzing collections data and building heat maps by industry or practice area, updating records in the CRM, selecting imagery and preparing content for sensitive social media posts, and using legal analytics tools to assess case outcomes and support reporting, all while managing vendor invoices, directory submissions, and RFP responses. I enjoy that variety, but it does require constantly shifting between detailed execution and big-picture strategy, and between creative and analytical work. In larger firms, many of these responsibilities sit within other teams, but in my current role they come together in one place, which has the advantage of providing me with a more integrated view of the firm.
What’s the greatest personal or professional obstacle you’ve had to overcome, and how did you do it?
One of my biggest professional challenges was leading the European marketing and communications work for the launch of Dentons, shortly after the CMO of the European firm left a month before the combination was ratified and six weeks before it was set to go live. The firm thankfully decided to delay launch by three months. The challenge was to pull together in a short timeframe a global launch across three already-large firms spanning the Atlantic, including a new global brand, website, and intranet, as well as new marketing collateral, stationery/business cards in multiple languages, and press and internal communications.
As the Paris-based deputy CMO of the European firm, I coordinated everything across its offices on the continent while serving as the bridge to our soon-to-be new colleagues in North America. On most days, my mornings were spent handling the day-to-day in Europe, then starting at 3 pm local time (9 am EST), I was in back-to-back project calls with the global team, often until 7 or 8 pm, followed by several more hours of work coming out of those calls. I also had to manage cultural and operational differences, conveying to North American colleagues that due to strong labor protections in Europe, our team members could not be expected to work on nights and/or weekends, though many were already going above and beyond the call of duty and were experiencing burnout and health issues as a result. Each office was in a country with its own language and couldn’t afford to have separate marketers for comms, BD, digital, CRM, etc. Most had just one or two local legal marketers keeping the marketing/BD lights on while working on the combination launch process, converting all their materials and content in the new brand style and tone and in their language (alas, there was no AI to help make the process so much quicker and easier!). I had to protect my team’s well-being while still keeping the project moving and ensuring Europe would be ready for the launch. Thanks to meticulous organization, planning, sheer grit, and supportive team work, we succeeded. It was a very stressful period, but it gave me deep experience in global change management, cross border collaboration, and crisis-paced project execution.
What are your best productivity hacks?
I use Evernote as a kind of second brain. Since webinars fall during peak work hours, I record them directly into my notes, add screenshots of key moments or demos, and store any materials provided alongside an AI-generated transcript and summary from my recording. That way, I can ask questions during the live session which isn’t possible if just viewing the recording. And if I’m having to multitask in the moment, I can go back and review the content to ensure I caught the main points.
Another great hack is the use of Google’s NotebookLM. One of the marketing communities I belong to uses it to turn the discussions in various threads in Discord into an engaging 10-15 minute AI-generated podcast each week that I listen to while doing chores. It allows me to catch up and stay current on trends in marketing and AI on those weeks when I don’t have time to log into the platform to take part in the discussion.
What is your favorite phone app for work/professional use? What about for fun/personal use?
Evernote is hands down my favorite app, used to capture everything from coursework, to webinars, to reminders, to paperwork and other documents. Blinkist is great for getting books distilled down to key points in both audio/written format. Audible is great for listening to books while doing chores or driving. Duolingo is great for language learning. And SmartNews is a great free app for getting the latest news for free from a large amount of global news outlets without hitting a paywall.
What’s a leadership skill you’ve learned the hard way?
“Trust, but verify.” Early in my career, I would review only the specific edits I had requested from external vendors or team members and assume the rest of a file remained unchanged. I quickly learned that even small revisions can unintentionally introduce formatting issues or errors elsewhere. After getting burned a few times, I realized that since I am ultimately responsible for the final deliverable, I need to review the entire revised work product, not just the sections that were meant to be edited. It also shaped how I think about accountability. Leadership is about delegating to and empowering competent people, while still owning the final result and not shifting blame when something goes wrong.
What are some of your hobbies or favorite things to do in your free time?
I am a big animal lover and am particularly interested in ethology, the study of animal behavior, with a focus on equines. I have a horse and a rescue donkey at home, and I spend much of my free time applying my learnings, managing their care, maintaining the pasture, and making sure everything from nutrition to parasite control is handled properly. I also have three cats and a dog, so there is always something to take care of. I enjoy sharing that knowledge and passion with my nieces and teaching them how to safely and confidently interact with large and small animals. Outside of that, I enjoy wakeboarding when I get the chance. It’s not as often as I would like, but it’s a great way to stay active and cool off during the long Texas summers.
What’s one of the smartest purchases you’ve ever made? What’s one of the dumbest?
One of the smartest purchases I have made is a couple of plant-based Onyx cooling vests. Summer heat and humidity is intense in Southeast Texas, and they allow me to safely work outside for many hours in 95 to 100 degree heat when I have long projects that can’t be done after the sun goes down and the heat abates.
As for the “dumbest,” I would say more unnecessary and an impulse buy than truly dumb. I bought an oversized Lamb Chop plush toy, essentially a giant version of my dog’s beloved Lamb Chop squeaky toy (dogs seem to love it!). My reasoning at the time was that one day I would want something clean and intact to remember my dog by, since her actual toy is very well loved and not exactly preservable. The 2-foot long Lamb Chop takes up more space than it should, but it makes me smile, so I suppose it serves its purpose.
What is something you are absolutely determined to do in life?
There are several: 1) Worry less, 2) Replicate a ground-breaking study and teach my horse to communicate its preferences via symbols, 3) Write the book I have been wanting to write for the past few years, 4) Tackle the hundreds of hard copy and digital books I have collected but not yet read.