Sylvia Vaquer, Co-founder and Chief Creative Officer, SocioFabrica
Sylvia is the co-founder of SocioFabrica in San Francisco, and has previously worked for the firms Wolff Olins, Interbrand, and Remezcla. Her work has won multiple awards including CommArts, w3 & Rebrand 100.
What has been your proudest career accomplishment to date?
Founding my own digital agency — SocioFabrica — to fill a gap in the agency model, as many lack in-house capabilities or expertise to turn great ideas into scalable digital experiences. In less than 18 months, we built a team and secured Ross, StubHub and Yamaha as clients. Five years later, I have grown the agency significantly and have helped clients achieve a variety of successes, including developing a game-changing overlay UI which made a product developed for technical audiences accessible to non-technical audiences, like marketers — a UI that was later patented and integrated into IBM’s suite of products.
What’s the best piece of advice you can give to future 40 under 40 honorees?
Strive to always have a macro view of what you are doing and why you are doing it. Look beyond your day to day and your profession and use your talents to understand and start solving the the world’s real, systemic problems. Stay hungry, stay foolish.
What do you hope to accomplish in the next 5 years?
To make a contribution towards addressing one of the world’s real, systemic issues.
What is one interesting fact about you that few people know?
When I was living in Italy in my late teens and early twenties, I traveled a lot by myself and I hitchhiked my way through Sicily; in retrospect, not the wisest decision but it did teach me a ton about self-reliance and self-confidence.
