Meet Nanette Matys, Director, Client Development at Osler, Hoskin & Harcourt LLP and first President of the LMA Toronto Chapter.
1. As a child, what did you want to be when you grew up and how has your career path developed from there?
When I was very young, I wanted to be an insect collector, until I found out about what entomologists really do. I have always followed my passion for music. I studied that at university as well as computer science and business. After graduating, I held a number of business development and marketing jobs and then focussed on strategic marketing within the financial services field.
Transitioning a marketing career from a global corporation with numerous business lines to Osler, a top-tier North American law firm, seems like a huge transition but there are lots of similarities between the two. The biggest difference was in understanding the business of a law firm and learning how to execute well against strategy in a partnership environment.
2. What do you love about your work?
What I love the most is our team. I love the feeling of trust and respect we have for one another compared to many other environments I’ve been in. It’s part of the culture at Osler. My second love is interacting with our lawyers. I get to work with some of the sharpest legal minds in the business.
3. When did you join the LMA and how did the launch of a Toronto chapter of the organization come about?
I joined the LMA as soon as I started at Osler in January of 2003. We won a Your Honour Award for a technology-based product that we’d launched that year and that got me connected to the LMA right away. Soon, I realized that if I wanted to be a productive member of the LMA, I couldn’t sit and wish that the LMA would do more for me.
It wasn’t my idea to start the Toronto chapter. Heather Gray-Grant, a Past President of the LMA Vancouver Chapter, reached out to many of us in a mass email and I guess I was the first to write back and say yes, we should start a Toronto chapter. I called a group of people – fellow directors at other law firms –and virtually everyone I contacted agreed to put time into getting the Toronto Chapter started. It was a real team effort.
4. Why is membership in the LMA vital for legal marketers?
As legal marketers, we can become isolated if we don’t connect to a community of people who face the same challenges. People in marketing tend to be very mobile. They need to keep their skills fresh and stay current with the broader marketing community. No other association brings together the sheer numbers and provides the resources and networking opportunities in North America that the LMA does.
The LMA Toronto Chapter provides a bridge to the broader world of legal marketing. There are lots of ways for members to contribute through attending events and participating on committees to make the offering even better. We are continuing to grow and hope to create a legacy for the Toronto legal marketing community and beyond. We are attracting people from outside the GTA and Ontario. These people see the potential for their own needs being met through greater connectivity with the LMA Toronto Chapter.
We have doubled the number of members in our Toronto Chapter, which is a reflection of the contributions that our members are making. I want to unabashedly make a plug for committee interest. Membership in any of our committees –event, programming, etc. – will form the basis for future board membership. We are looking for people who want to build their skills and advance to the board level.