Blog

A Day in the Life: Ella Hislop, Head of Product Specialists

18 February 2022 | Ella Hislop

I joined Luminance in 2019 after making the decision to move away from a ‘traditional’ career path in law and instead pursue my passion for legal innovation. Over the last three years, I’ve watched Luminance grow from a small yet passionate team in a shared office to a world-leading AI company with more than 400 customers in 60 countries worldwide. I’ve been lucky enough to work with some of the best law firms and organisations around the globe to automate their legal processes with Luminance’s next-generation technology, and I’ve met some amazing colleagues in the process.

Today, I lead Luminance’s Product Specialists team, where I am responsible for overseeing the successful implementation of Luminance’s technology, onboarding new customers and ensuring we maintain our high standards of customer success. This is what a typical day looks like for me:

8am

Three days a week I head into our central London office, but before I do, I quickly check my emails. Luminance has a global customer base spanning more than 60 countries, so I often wake up to exciting updates from our customers in the APAC region enquiring about our latest product developments, or from colleagues in the United States updating me on an ongoing Proof of Value (POV) – this is the free trial of Luminance’s technology that we offer to all our prospective customers!

9:30am

First things first, I kick off every morning with a much-needed cup of coffee before holding a daily meeting with my team of Product Specialists. We discuss any customer projects that require the team’s assistance and I advise on how best to approach specific use cases – this could be anything from a due diligence exercise to a real estate lease review or a high-stakes negotiation. I also check in on how our current Proof of Values are running. It’s important for me to have a good lay of the land of how all of our free trials are going, as it’s not uncommon for me to be required to jump on a call with them at a moment’s notice to discuss their plans for implementing Luminance.

10am

A key part of my role is providing strategic counsel to Luminance’s customers, and it’s this face-to-face interaction with different people every day that I love most about my job. We have recently signed one of the world’s largest HR providers, so today I’m joining a call to discuss how they can use our brand new Corporate product to coordinate contract negotiation and management across their global offices.

Today, I’m showing them Corporate’s Workflow Editor – one of my favourite product features! I start by demonstrating how the Workflow Editor functions like an interactive and customisable flowchart, giving a complete overview of the flow of contracts around the organisation. I then show the customer how they can put conditions in place to assign the flow of their contracts. This means that the organisation can now ensure all contracts pertaining to Italian governing laws are automatically directed to the Milan office, whilst all contracts in German instantly go to the team in Hamburg. I love seeing their eyes light up when they realise how much Luminance is going to change their day-to-day work.

11:30am

I spend the rest of my morning reviewing incoming CVs for our fast-growing Product Specialist team. We’re expanding across all areas of the company, so it’s a really exciting time to be at Luminance - it feels like I’m receiving a new stack of CVs on my desk every day! In fact, we have plans to double our headcount by this time next year. Since Luminance has offices in London, Cambridge, New York and Singapore, I have the privilege of reviewing the CVs of bright and enthusiastic graduates from all around the world. I actually have a few interviews coming up later in the week, so I’m hoping to welcome some new faces to the team soon.

1pm

Time for lunch – I head out with some of my colleagues to grab a bite to eat from one of the many cafes and restaurants in St James’s. The nature of ‘flexi-working’ at Luminance allows us to rotate with different teams in the office, giving everyone a nice opportunity to socialise with different teams each week, whether that’s Marketing, the Account Executives or Technology Specialists.

2pm

I have a meeting with the senior management team and today we’re discussing plans for the company’s global direction. We had a hugely successful year in 2021, with Luminance experiencing 40% year-on-year growth! With this incredible momentum behind us, we’re looking to build on our strong foundations in Europe and the APAC region, where we are market-leaders, and replicate this high level of success in the United States. We settle on target figures for increasing our headcount in the US and confirm the opening of our brand-new New York office. We also discuss our launch of Corporate and discuss the major renovation and upcoming updates for the platform (keep your eyes peeled for news on this!)

3:30pm

The rest of my day is spent in a variety of meetings. First, I meet with the Technology Specialists to discuss a bespoke integration that they are developing for a major, new customer. This integration will allow Luminance to work seamlessly alongside the firm’s bespoke, internal systems. Thanks to the incredible flexibility of Luminance’s AI, which already integrates with several platforms like Microsoft Word, Outlook and Docusign, the progress on this new development is going well. Afterwards, I catch up with our Graphic Designers to discuss my idea of filming new, instructional videos for our customers who are being onboarded. Innovation and responsiveness to our customers’ needs lie at the heart of Luminance, so I’m excited to see where we can take this new idea.

6:15pm

The best thing about being in the office again after the pandemic is seeing your colleagues outside of a Zoom screen. So just after 6pm, we clock off and the whole team heads out for a drink!