Meet The Reconsidered Team: Elena Ferrara, Strategist & Project Manager

Meet our Strategist & Project Manager, Elena Ferrara.

Find out what Elena loves nerding out over, the moment she knew she just had to work in sustainability and why mushrooms blow her mind.

😉 Describe what you do in a couple of sentences

I keep client and internal projects running smoothly, joyfully and on-time, and support Jess with developing awesome sustainability and social impact strategies and communications for our clients. I love nerding out over organization and attention to detail, and completing an exciting and impactful project with happy clients brings me so much joy and purpose.

⚡️ “Aha!” moment that sparked your interest in sustainability

I was working for a brand in London as they started to develop their first sustainable collection back in 2016, and was doing a lot of research into materials, manufacturing and the negative impacts of the fashion industry on the planet and its people. Once I started digging into these issues, I just couldn’t stop thinking about them, and I knew that I wanted to steer my career in the direction of sustainability to try and make a positive difference.

 🎉 Favorite part of your job

Oooh, either the sense of achievement when I manage to keep complex and constantly shifting projects beautifully organized in Asana or in spreadsheets — told you I’m an organization nerd! — or just the overall amazing feeling of getting to contribute to a more sustainable future by working with a team of incredibly driven and inspirational women 💪.

📚 Last movie you watched

I might be a little late to the party but I just watched the Fantastic Fungi (pronounced “fun-jee”, who knew?!) documentary film on Netflix and it blew. my. mind! Turns out mushrooms are actual superheroes and could save us all and the planet, if we let/help them of course. Highly recommend a watch.

😍 Current brain-crush

I was fortunate enough to meet Blair Imani at a business festival I attended recently (Ideas Fest for anyone interested), and had to reaaaaally try not to fan-girl too hard. Blair is an incredibly inspiring author, historian, educator and intersectional activist, whom I really admire for her tenacity, intellect and her ability to educate people on important and progressive topics in such an approachable, engaging and snappy way. I am constantly learning from her content and it turns out she’s just as lovely as she seems online (if not even more).  Follow her on instagram @blairimani if you don’t already, or check out her Youtube channel.

🌳 Words of wisdom for anyone starting a career in impact

First of all, thank you and yay! We need all the people we can get! Secondly, remember that you can’t do it all and fix all the world’s problems all on your own. Find what really interests you, what you feel most passionate about within impact work and what you feel most equipped to help with, and start there. Hone in on your niche, own it and get really good at it, rather than stretching yourself too thin and trying to be good at everything (feel like I'm talking to myself here really!). Also, join networks and communities to share knowledge and advice, and form partnerships and collaborations with others. Sustainability and impact work can be really overwhelming so having a community to discuss things with is a great way not to feel alone. Reconsidered has a pretty great LinkedIn Group if you want to come and join us! Sorry not sorry for the shameless plug 😏.

To learn more about what it's like to work with us, read more about Reconsidered’s approach and check out our other “Meet The Team” profiles.