cover interview
FRONT COVER PROFILE
LY N D S AY M C L A R E N
It’s taken us 107 issues of Source Magazine to finally put a female on the front cover. Taking the hot seat is Lyndsay McLaren, a Scottish skater and marketing expert. Having honed her skating skills in the US, Lyndsay has worked successfully for a number of brands here in the UK and now heads up marketing for UK-based Out Of Step LTD, working on brands including HUF, The Hundreds, Poler, Brixton and Afends. We speak with Lyndsay about her career, her inspirational local skate coaching programme and what we need to do to encourage diversity in our industry. Interview by Source Editor Harry MT. Lyndsay, tell us what led you to boardsports and then a career working in the industry. I grew up in Scotland and became interested in snowboarding when I was a teenager, but my first taste of skating was when I moved to the USA when I was 20. I’d just finished my BA in Marketing from Aberdeen and was setting out on my second degree at Art School in Miami. Skating was just a mode of transport for me in Miami but quickly became more when I graduated and moved to NYC four years later. I learned how to bomb hills in Central Park and started travelling around the USA on skate trips chasing big hills. I was fortunate to have a few brands supporting my downhill skate dream, which prompted my first industry job with Bern in Cape Cod, Massachusetts, as a Marketing Intern. When I moved back to the UK a short time later I began working with their UK distro who also managed Arbor, Nitro and Smith, amongst others.
which was my first taste of working for a brand centred around climbing and the outdoors. Living and working in the Peak District was incredible. When I finally moved to London, I worked at a PR agency managing a mix of fashion, lifestyle and action sports brands including Puma, Burton Snowboards and Patagonia. For the past 2 years I’ve worked as Marketing Director at Out Of Step LTD looking after HUF, The Hundreds, Poler, Brixton and Afends. Outside of work, Arbor continue to support me when it comes to getting me new planks of wood to ride. Big love to the Arbor family. What have been the biggest lessons learnt so far, working in the action sports industry? Representation matters.
It’s taken us 106 issues to finally feature a After a few years I moved on to work at Rab, woman on our cover. Please can you talk about 70
