And she understands that sometimes talent is not the only thing standing between a person and the career they want.

People also need access, encouragement, useful information, and someone willing to open a door and that understanding is what has shaped Mercy’s work.

Mercy graduated from the University of Strathclyde in 2020 with a degree in International Business with Marketing and entered the world of work at a time when almost every plan she had made suddenly became uncertain. She had imagined travelling and possibly beginning her career abroad, but the pandemic changed those plans and left her facing a difficult job market with no clear route forward. While searching for support available to graduates, she found a mentorship programme and was connected to Hugh Thomas, her first mentor, who helped her secure an internship with equity, diversity and inclusion consultancy The Unmistakables. It was not the beginning she had planned, but it gave her the support, knowledge, and connection she needed at a time when finding a way into the industry felt especially difficult. That experience showed Mercy what can happen when someone with potential is given access to the right person and the right opportunity.

Mercy progressed from intern to inclusion consultant and spent more than two years working with organisations including Coca Cola, Penguin Random House, Macmillan, Shelter, and government departments. The role allowed her to explore how organisations speak about identity, inclusion, and communities, but moving into marketing and advertising later gave her a closer view of how stories are actually developed and brought into the world. At marketing agency, John Doe, she helped establish Elsewhere, its cultural insights division, and worked with underestimated communities to help brands move beyond observing people from a distance and begin listening to the realities behind their experiences. For Mercy, good marketing has never been about speaking at people and her work reflects the belief that the strongest ideas often begin when organisations stop assuming and start having honest conversations.

There is something natural about the way Mercy connects with people and she has jokingly described herself as the CEO of having a chat because conversations sit at the centre of so much of what she does. She listens to people, notices the parts of their stories that deserve more attention, and finds creative ways to share them through marketing, podcasts, community platforms, and live events. Through Into A Black Mind, she created space to positively highlight Black talent and stories, while Strong Black Woman began as a personal video and grew into a platform challenging the narrow expectations often placed on Black women. She also created the Audacity of We podcast to help younger people understand the lives and journeys behind different job titles, giving them the kind of career insight she had once searched for herself.

Mercy’s own experience of mentorship stayed with her and eventually became part of something much bigger. After recognising how difficult it could be for emerging creatives in Scotland to gain paid experience and build meaningful industry connections, she co-founded Futures UNLOCKED, a marketing and creative internship programme designed to make that first step more accessible. The programme has since provided more than 45 paid internships and free learning workshops, while building a network of over 600 emerging creatives across Scotland. It has also helped some participants move into permanent employment, showing that when organisations invest properly in early talent, an internship can become more than a temporary opportunity and instead become the beginning of a sustainable career.

For Mercy, creating an opportunity is only part of the work because the experience surrounding it matters too. Emerging talent needs meaningful learning, fair pay, clear guidance, supportive employers, and the confidence to understand that they belong in the room. This belief led her to establish Who You Know, a future workforce consultancy that helps organisations build stronger employer brands while creating better learning experiences for people beginning or changing their careers. The name takes a phrase that has often represented exclusion and gives it a different meaning, because Mercy is working towards a future where who you know is not a private advantage held by a select few, but a community of knowledge, support, and connection that more people can access.

Mercy’s work has been recognised across the media and marketing industries, including being named among The Media Leader’s 50 Black Women Gamechangers in Media, Campaign’s IPA iList, Media Week’s 30 Under 30, The Media Leader Future 100 Club, and the Advertising Association’s BRiM Changemakers. These recognitions reflect a career built not only on strong marketing, but on challenging the structures that determine who enters the industry, whose ideas are valued, and who is given the opportunity to progress. Yet what makes Mercy’s journey compelling is not the number of lists her name has appeared on, but the number of other names she continues to bring into spaces where they may not previously have been seen.

At the heart of Mercy Abel’s work is the understanding that people should not have to navigate the most important stages of their careers alone. She knows the difference that one mentor, one conversation, or one opportunity can make because she has experienced it herself and has chosen to multiply that experience for others. Through storytelling, marketing, mentorship, internships, and community building, she continues to connect talent with the people and knowledge that can help it grow.

Mercy Abel is changing what it means to succeed because she is not only moving forward in her own career, she is creating pathways wide enough for other people to move forward too and perhaps the true measure of who you know is not how many doors those connections can open for you, but how many doors you choose to hold open for others.