Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to To step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: I am delighted today to welcome Natalie Truong to my podcast. Welcome. Thank you, Lucy. Thanks for having me. Yeah, you're very welcome. I'm very excited about having you on this particular podcast. So I feel like there's going to be a lot here that you're going to be able to share. And I'm quite excited to hear what you've got to say, so no pressure, um, fingers crossed.

Lucy Bolan: So, Natalie, should we start, do you want to introduce yourself? 

Natalie Truong: Uh, yeah. Thanks. Thanks again, Lacey. And hi, everyone. Um. Uh, introduce myself. Okay. After graduating from uni, I guess I worked, um, in the travel industry for a while, you know, like many young people, I'm, I'm so passionate about seeing the world, you know, but then I quickly realized, uh, travel doesn't pay very much, so I made my move into corporate life.

Natalie Truong: Uh, and I guess since then I've worked in B2B, B2C. I've worked across a variety of different industries, Lucy, uh, you know, cross services, fin services. Super telco. Uh, and I also have loved given my travel bug, I've loved working across Australia, New Zealand, Asia, and then recently, uh, you know, the Middle East and Africa, which fascinating markets once again.

Natalie Truong: Um, so I guess I've, you know, held senior roles across, uh, two of the big four banks, uh, you know, INZ and then Westpac, uh, um, with Bank of Melbourne and then works for CPA Australia. So a membership partner. Professional association, which I, I loved as well. And then Mercer and then now I'm at ey. So yeah, enjoying it.

Lucy Bolan: Excellent. So CMO at EY currently. Um, okay. Now, am I right in thinking you've been at that sort of CMO remit now for what is it? About four years? Four 

Natalie Truong: years? 

Lucy Bolan: Okay. Okay. I'm curious to understand the one thing that I have various conversations with at certainly senior management level is how do I get to that top spot?

Lucy Bolan: You know, what have other people done? How do I then navigate my career and, you know, get to that CMO? you know, remit. Was that hard for you to, to make that step? 

Natalie Truong: Um, not hard as such, uh, Lucy, but I, I guess I've got A couple of suggestions for people trying to make that, that transition. And I guess I'm sharing this from experience of what I've got friends who are going through, you know, that similar, trying to work out how do they make that transition?

Natalie Truong: Uh, I guess for me, I've never like, like people, I've just started tap dancing. So I relate everything to, you know, tap dance. It's something I've always wanted to do. I did it before COVID, but then I moved overseas and then. I've come back and you know, I, I'm trying to get back into the tap dancing, but I don't think it has to be a linear climb.

Natalie Truong: I think that's the mistake people make is I start off as a, you know, a marketing coordinator, then move to executive senior executive, et cetera. Uh, my career hasn't been like that. It's been more of a dance. Like it's never been a straight line. I just have never seen myself. Um, just working my way up in one company or doing one type of job in marketing when I was a lot younger, I just did everything.

Natalie Truong: Um, Lucy, whatever people said, Oh, can you run the print team? I'd be like, yep, no problem. I'll run the, or can you do events? And I'm like, yep, no, I have no idea half the time what I was supposed to be doing by the way. Um, but just gave it a go because I really wanted to just. You know, understand, I knew where I wanted to get to.

Natalie Truong: I knew I wanted to be in marketing my, you know, for, um, uh, for, for a career or for a profession. But I wanted, by the time I got to that level, Lucy, I wanted to make sure that I'd done everything that I would expect my teams to do. And then I got great advice from a, a CMO once to say, Hey, you've just got to learn to do everything because you don't want to get there.

Natalie Truong: And then someone tries to pull the wool over you because you didn't do digital, you didn't do advanced. So I was like, Oh, that's great advice. I'm going to go and do that. That's my first thing is to try and do as much as you can. I guess the second piece of advice for senior managers, um, is not to rush.

Natalie Truong: Uh, and I guess I'll, I'll go back to my first point. I've got some friends, you know, we started out together in great marketing roles as junior kids and they all rushed off into these great big CMO roles really early on their career and they went into smaller companies. Not that there's anything wrong with the smaller companies, but I think they rushed too quickly to get that CMO title and they didn't have the experience.

Natalie Truong: You know, a couple of them are saying to me, Oh, you know, I really want to go and work overseas, but they're not in big companies. Is that our CMOs and in big companies, as you know, there's one CMO and a whole bunch of roles underneath it that you really need the experience of before they will appoint you a CMO.

Natalie Truong: Uh, so I think for senior marketers, um, don't rush. You're going to get, if you're good, you're going to get there. So, it out in a big firm, stick it out in a small, you know, there's no bad roles, but just don't go after the CMO role. If you're only like, you know, eight or 10 years into your career, I just think it's too soon to move.

Natalie Truong: Um, and then I guess my final piece of advice or suggestion is to. Think outside of marketing, like I can't tell you the number of leaders that I've met who are brilliant at marketing, but don't understand the business and don't understand what's happening in the business world. Uh, and I think that's absolutely critical.

Natalie Truong: I mean, I'm, I'm mentoring some, some junior marketers now and they don't understand the financials. They're like, why do I have to learn marketing operations? Someone else would do that. I'm like, wow. Marketing operations is how you work, you know, how you build your team, how you get them running efficiently.

Natalie Truong: So I think all of those roles are really critical. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. Thank you. I think you summarized that really well. I think, you know, one common theme that I definitely get is that at the end of the day, whether you're GM, CMO, you know, executive director of, you know, you're not now necessarily just looking after marketing, you know, it's the whole gamut.

Lucy Bolan: It's the functions. You've got to be across your finances, your data, you know, as I said, budgets, um, you know, operations, it's massive. Um, and it can be a massive learning curve, you know, to be thrown in that. Ocean at the beginning, you know, it's kind of sink or swim when we talk about, um, I guess trends and we're all talking about, as we know, AI at the moment, it's the big thing.

Lucy Bolan: But for any of those sort of mid managers or anyone, as I said, that's looking to, to one day get in your seat, what advice would you give them in terms of, you know, what insights or trends do you see coming through that you probably say, look, you need to really get engaged across this or, you know, At any sort of courses, even, or resources that you'd recommend.

Natalie Truong: Yeah. Uh, I got asked this very question yesterday, one of your people planting that seed. But I got asked, Hey, you know, is AI going to take all of our jobs? And I guess my response, and I heard it, and, um, I can't remember who I heard it from, but I thought it was fascinating, uh, fascinating advice and really sage advice in that, you If you don't use AI, you will lose your job to someone who is using AI, in my opinion.

Natalie Truong: So regardless of whether you're in the, you know, we call it BMC here at EY. So it's a brand marketing and com scene. It doesn't matter which part of that function you're in. I think you all need to use AI in some way, shape or form because it doesn't take away from what you're doing. It actually helps your creativity.

Natalie Truong: Helps in the idea, you know, um, Creation, et cetera. So absolutely learn AI, learn as much of it as you can use it as much as you can. Um, I think some of the other things or the skills or the experience that I would suggest for, for some of the senior managers is to get cross functional knowledge. It's the one thing I learned, you know, later in my career.

Natalie Truong: So as I was making that transition, a CEO said to me, I've put you on the leadership team not just to talk about marketing. I'll never forget it. I thought, you know, in those leadership teams, it was one of my first forays onto, and I thought, oh, well, if it's not to do with marketing, I'm not going to speak up.

Natalie Truong: And she said, no, I mean, I want you because you're in marketing, you have a different perspective on our problems, our business. So I want you to talk, even, you know, you're not going to sound silly. Because you're coming from a very different perspective than my CFO or my, you know, HR director or my business leader.

Natalie Truong: So I'll never forget that advice is please go out and get cross functional knowledge. Learn about the different parts of the business, take on projects. I put my hand up for all projects that have nothing to do with marketing only because I was interested in learning more about the business. And I guess.

Natalie Truong: The other thing is to try and work in global teams or take on global opportunities. It really helps you to understand the culture. Um, Lucy, I can't understand. I wish I did it. When I was younger, if I'm honest with you, I wish I'd taken on more of those global, um, opportunities when I was younger. I mean, the hours are brutal, but while you're young, you can still do it.

Natalie Truong: Now I need my sleep too much. So it's a bit more difficult.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. In what way? Like when we talk about the global opportunities, it's interesting because I, as a recruiter, have met a lot of individuals that have been in that world and sort of say, yeah, it's been amazing, but like, you know, we're, we're sort of at the mercy of the, you know, the, the head office in California or wherever it may be.

Lucy Bolan: We just get to localize whatever they do. You know, what benefits have you found when you've been in those sort of global environments 

Natalie Truong: So, so they're absolutely correct. Great benefits in that, um, uh, uh, brand halo is created at the global level, um, benefits from a synergistic perspective. So operationally things are set up for you, so it's not so hard.

Natalie Truong: And obviously there are some really, um, downsides of a global organization. So my, my, I guess my suggestion is to try and find the right global company, which I absolutely found in Mercer. Uh, great global support, and I'll never forget my global CMO there taught me so much about. Um, my global CMO there, Jed Quinn, who is a phenomenal CMO, he came in and I remember he, he just basically pulled resourcing out of global teams and put them into local teams and really taught me how to think globally about how a global, um, uh, marketing team should operate.

Natalie Truong: I guess I should clarify though, Lucy, my points about working in global teams or global opportunities. I actually think you should go and Go overseas or work for AIPAC roles because the experience, the cultural experience, the business experience you get from working in those different environments is so far better than anything that I think you could get here.

Natalie Truong: An example of what I'm talking about in Australia. And not discounting Australia. It's an amazing place to be because we're so part of the APAC, but you might only have one or two brands in Australia that are competing against each other, right? You go to Asia and that same category is 15 brands that are competing in that one category.

Natalie Truong: So just. Learning to navigate something like that, I just think that experience is invaluable down the track. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, huge. Absolutely. And I think early on in that career navigating for, you know, the layers of stakeholders, you know, it's, it's such a huge learning curve, I think, and, and, you know, you can be great at marketing, but I think.

Lucy Bolan: It's sometimes, you know, I almost, um, often call it like being in the corporate game of thrones. 

Natalie Truong: Winter is often coming, Lucy.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, perhaps not as scary as that, not always, but, um, I think it's, It's learning how to sort of, you know, be diplomatic very much at more of the, the earliest stages within your career, I think, and having that emotional intelligence, knowing how to read a room pretty quickly as well. Yeah, 

Natalie Truong: completely agree.

Natalie Truong: And learning how to navigate different business environments, I find as I've, you know, has been invaluable for me, Lucy. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: When, when you look back at your career, I mean, it's not, we've all had, you know, a little bit of a bumpy road here and we've kind of got, Oh, okay, that didn't feel right. I've made another move and I've gone here instead.

Lucy Bolan: Can you sort of share any, I guess, challenges that you face within your career and, and, and I guess how you've overcome them to be like a better leader? 

Natalie Truong: Oh my God, I've got so many. I made so many. I mean, honestly, my mistakes, I think are well documented. I was like a terrible first time manager, Lucy. Like I think I was the worst first time manager.

Natalie Truong: And I guess I was the worst because I came from being, I played sport basically my whole life, Lucy. So, and I paid, played individual sports. So being an individual contributor. To leading a team of God, I fumbled my way through that for years and the mistakes that I met, you know, I used to lead a team in a call center, made mistakes in there and then, you know, leading, you know, it's, you know, moving from there into leading a team of marketers, a couple of marketers made giant mistakes there with, you know, First time, you know, trying to do everything, right?

Lucy Bolan: Um, 

Natalie Truong: so yeah, my, the best advice I ever got Lucy was from a CEO who said to me, you know, as a, as an individual contributor, you'll do this much. You can, you know, let's say you can do five out of the 10 things that I give you, but if you want to do the 10 things that I'm, you know, going to give you to get you to achieve, you are going to have to learn to either love, Leading a team, or you're going to have to learn to find a new career and choice because, you know, moving through marketing and being, becoming a CMO, because I told him that's what I wanted to do, um, you're going to have to learn to lead team.

Natalie Truong: And so I've just spent so much of my time caring less, like I used to, as, as marketers, we are so passionate about the creativity should have been blue. Should have been purple. Yeah. I got to a point where I'm like, you know what team, if you're happy with blue, we'll go with blue, but if you want pink, let's go with fuchsia pink.

Natalie Truong: Not that fast anymore. Creatively, I've stopped trying to battle those things. I mean, there are. Big creative decisions you need to make. Um, and I got to make some of those when I was at Bank of Melbourne and then at Mercer, but you know, arguing over stock or paperweight or colors and things like that, I've just, yeah, you just learn to go, I can control the things I'll control, but the things I cannot control, I'm just going to smile my way through it.

Natalie Truong: And if my, my team's happy, I'm happy. 

Lucy Bolan: And you're right. I think it's an interesting point because I've heard that a few times, actually, when I've, I've had the, I've asked this question that it's when you're a first time manager, there's no instruction book that comes with that. And, you know, I remember it myself when, you know, I was leading a team and I remember just thinking, okay, I'm just going to try and, Do this.

Lucy Bolan: And I really was, you know, when you kind of like painting the smile on the underneath, you like paddling like crazy and just, you know, learning a, how to do your job, but also then manage your team and, you know, make sure they're in the right direction. Um, but yeah, you're right. I think it's really hard.

Lucy Bolan: Cause you, you still trying to sort of, I guess, um, develop yourself within that role at that time. Were you given any, any, did you have any mentors or, you know, Um, any decent like managers or directors at that time that you would say really helped you get to where you are as well. 

Natalie Truong: And I want to, do you mind if I just come back to that?

Natalie Truong: Cause you said something just then that, um, made me also remember it's not just a craft, like it's not just doing the job, Lucy. It's also then, like you said, working on yourself. So one of the things that I'm still working on and I still struggle with sometimes is the communication style. Um, and as your teams grow.

Natalie Truong: Obviously, people have different communication styles in that team, and so it's so important, like, I'm such a direct, I'm open, I'm transparent, you know, I, I've grown up in a family where if we disagree, it's, you know, it's like all out war, world war three for five minutes, you know, we just go at each other.

Natalie Truong: You know, giant Asian family. And so we go at each other and then my next thing, you know, we're sitting down to a bowl of rice and a six course banquet. So, so, you know, just learning that sort of style, Lucy, I think as your teams grow, learn to develop your communication skills and style and learn to flex, I think is really important.

Natalie Truong: And, um, and going back to your question just now, I've met some phenomenal leaders. I've, I've had the privilege of working with. Incredible leaders. And I guess for me, I say this all the time. I choose my leaders. I'm not fast. I didn't, if you look at my CV, I didn't rush into big titles. You know, I, I worked for an amazing leader in Jack Phillips, um, At Bank of Melbourne, um, and I was with her at ANZ as well.

Natalie Truong: I then worked for, you know, Jed Quinn, an amazing leader at Global CMO for Mercer. I, I had a, you know, and still do, uh, an incredible coach and mentor and sponsor in Renee McGowan, who's the CEO. Um, of, uh, Mercer in the Middle East, Asia, uh, and Africa. So yeah, just choosing leaders carefully is, is what I pride myself on, I guess, because if your leader is the right person, the role and the job and the company is going to be amazing.

Natalie Truong: You just got to choose the right leader. And 

Lucy Bolan: it sounds easier said than done though, doesn't it? Because, you know, as a recruiter now, I mean, I have many conversations with individuals who, you know, fortunately they did have the right leader and perhaps they don't anymore. You know, there's been a restructure or whatever.

Lucy Bolan: And it, you know, there is that saying that people don't leave jobs, they leave managers or shall we say leaders. I don't know, like, I mean, what advice do you have? It's hard. Cause I know when we talk about interviews, you know, I always say, well, you're interviewing them just as much as they're interviewing you, just knowing what questions to ask.

Natalie Truong: It's a good one. Cause I often remind candidates of that. I'm like, you have to like me. Like it's not just about me liking you, by the way, when

Natalie Truong: it comes to leaders, I guess for me, I, um, I try and get a sense of whether or not they, because of my direct style, um, and I love to just get stuff done. I try and get a sense of whether or not they're, They feel motivated or they feel energized by some of the tough questions I might ask them, as opposed to do they feel a bit intimidated, I guess, by the questions that I asked.

Natalie Truong: So I'm really upfront. So if, if the role is about. You know, the team's not working or the culture and the team's not working. I'm really out front about them. Uh, the questions I'll ask, I'll, do you have appetite for the change? Can you know, are you looking for a cultural change or are you looking for me to come in and just continue what I'm doing?

Natalie Truong: So I also try and make it clear, uh, to the people interviewing me that it's not. going to be, you know, BAU when I come in, it's just not me that there are some roles that you require a BAU leader and you require a leader that can help change things, um, incrementally. That's just not me. I am. Um, I guess I love the transformation work.

Natalie Truong: I love doing big pieces of work and I love, you know, creating cultures and teams that, uh, I guess high performing and in a short space of time, I don't feel like a lot of companies have time now to, to let you run a transformation program over two to three years. So you have to be able to move quickly.

Natalie Truong: So, yeah, I think it's really important as you interview and as you, that you're really clear about what. You want to do in the piece of work you want to do in the value, it drives the business as opposed to, I just want to come in and be a great marketer and do some pretty campaigns, right? Yeah. Your leader needs to have the same appetite because if they don't, there's a huge mismatch and you may as well just be open and honest in that interview process.

Natalie Truong: So that you do find the right leader, Lucy. Yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: absolutely. Absolutely. I think it's so important just to be, you know, fairly upfront about that. I think a hundred percent, when we look at the, the sort of traits, I mean, it might be as a bit of a book sort of question to ask, but what are the, when you look at successful CMOs or even CMOs around you that you, you know, you, you highly regard, what common characteristics do you think that they have that, that make them successful?

Natalie Truong: That's a great question. Um, they, uh, are relentlessly curious. Uh, we will speak, you know, one of the things I love doing is speaking to executive recruiters like yourself, because I want to understand what are you hearing and seeing in the market? What are you seeing in terms of the talent pipeline that's coming through?

Natalie Truong: Because one of the things is the same. I'll go back to my earlier point. You can't do everything. So you have to rely on teams and people to help you deliver on pieces of work. So relentlessly curious, always looking to speak to, um, great executive recruiters like yourself, going to conferences, speaking to as many people as possible, I think is, um, some of the traits, one of the traits I see, uh, great CMOs that I know.

Natalie Truong: They recruit diverse talent. Like they've got a really good knack at recruiting exceptional people. And I love this about some of the CMOs that I know that they recruit people smarter than them at the things that they're not so smart at. And it's one of the things that I love to do. People are like, Oh my God, that person you want to recruit.

Natalie Truong: They're so different to you. I'm like, that's exactly why we need them. We do not need another Natalie inside this team. Right? So, so Yeah, the great CMOs I know have just diverse teams of talent and I really admire that. Um, I guess the other thing is that great CMOs I know, know how to have difficult conversations, that they don't wait to give feedback at the end of the year and go, Oh, surprise.

Natalie Truong: Hey Lucy. Hey. Yeah. They, they really know how to have great difficult conversations. They know how to set the expectations so that those conversations aren't difficult and they know how to do. Everything they can to help the teams be successful and to help those leaders be successful. So, yeah, yeah.

Lucy Bolan: Brilliant. I think, uh, I think you're right. It's having that ability just to encourage, you know, and support. And as you said, like not be afraid to have those tough conversations and leave it right till the end of year, you know, um, exactly right. When we talk about personal brand, I mean, I look at you again, you know, been on panels and judges and, you know, I see percent.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, the first time you got into, you know, becoming that individual, I mean, a lot of people would look at somebody like yourself in that sort of like ivory tower and go, Oh my gosh, like, you know what, I really want to become a leader, but you know, it's so scary to sort of get to, you know, becoming that.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, how did that happen? Were you approached or did you just, you know, go, well, you know, I'm going to start to put my name forward for stuff, you know, I mean. 

Natalie Truong: It's a very funny story, actually. Uh, and the first one might deliver, and you can see, I think Emma still got it on our website, but Emma Roberg, who is a CEO and founder of the B2B Marketing Leaders Forum.

Natalie Truong: I don't even think Emma gave it to me. She was like left, I was like second choice, if I'm honest, but, um, so I just started at Mercer, Emma invited, um, Renee to come and speak at the conference. Renee wasn't available and said, Hey, you absolutely need to speak to Natalie. So then 20 minutes before trying to, like Understanding of what I was going to talk about that point.

Natalie Truong: I was a young person still excited about joining Mercer and this brand. And Emma's like, you know, she wanted to, and this is why I love Emma's conferences. She grills everyone. She wants to know what you're going to get on and talk about in terms of either a panel or whatever, because she wants to know that what you're saying is going to be relevant to her audience.

Natalie Truong: And so I remember going on for the first time, you know, my heel got stuck in the stage. I was reading off notes and I was like, Oh my God, this cannot be the last thing that people Google and say of me. So from that point on, you know, really practice, practice, practice, prepare. I, I doesn't, you know, it doesn't matter, you know, this podcast I've spent, you know, That, you know, days thinking about what conversation can we have together, Lucy, so that we can add value to your audience to make sure we're, we're giving your audience, you know, the things that will be of interest and of value to them.

Natalie Truong: So I certainly don't take anything lightly. And I think the minute. I get asked to do something and I'm not nervous or I don't prepare, I think that's when I'm going to stop Lucy because then I just don't really care about it anymore. But yeah, for all of those people out there, fumble your way through it and don't you know, ask, ask anyone.

Natalie Truong: I've had podcasts where I've been speaking for five minutes and there's no noise, there's no volume. I've been on webcasts where there's, you know, I've just, I've gone on webcasts and, you know, live webcasts. So brilliant. 

Lucy Bolan: I love it. I love it. Be yourself. Yes. 

Natalie Truong: Be yourself and practice. And if you have, you know, when I, when it happened on stage, um, I was in a pair of heels.

Natalie Truong: I just left my heel there, I just took my heels off and just kept talking. I just went, what's the worst that can happen, right? Either I'm stuck there and it looks awkward or actually I can just see what happens. And I've done presentations where I've stood there and read notes. It's been terrible, Lucy.

Natalie Truong: I've had, yeah, but you learn from it and you look back and you go, but if I'm still, you know, practicing off notes these days, I would be really upset with myself. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Is there any books or courses or, I don't know, people that you follow that you would recommend that our listeners? Get amongst that, you know, you have as real kind of influences or, you know, experts that, 

Natalie Truong: you know, you highly regard.

Natalie Truong: Yeah, look, I am a huge fan of Thomas Bader. Um, he runs the marketing masterclass. Uh, he, um, I, I went and saw him once at a conference and when he spoke at that conference, I just went, wow, you know, the way that he thinks about marketing leadership, um, and it's the first time I'd seen that sort of, um, perspective.

Natalie Truong: He talks to marketers. You have to understand the business and I, I saw him present a long time ago, which is why I started pivoting to understanding business. And so he said, he said, you, you're fine to be a marketing leader. That's great. Develop your marketing career, but you have to love the business. Um, you have to be the best, um, marketing leader in business because you have to understand that business.

Natalie Truong: Um, so I, I really enjoy Thomas's work. Um, I really enjoy, uh, Jim Stengel's work. He does some great into, he was the CMO for P and G. for seven years, the global CMO, and he interviews some of the most fascinating marketers. So I really enjoy, um, listening to Jim. And then in terms of books, uh, I am a sucker for, I don't know what it is, but I'm a sucker for rugby.

Natalie Truong: I'm reading. I really am. Like I read Legacy, um, and I really love that. And then, you know, I'm currently reading Dan Carter's book on the art of winning, but if, if you're looking for, I just think that discipline, yeah, the discipline is just amazing. But. I love, um, Kim Scott. Um, radical candor. I, I've loved.

Natalie Truong: Um, and I've also gifted, uh, you know, leaders Eat Lasts with Simons Sinek. Okay. Yeah. Uh, so some great books there. Thanks. Yeah. I'm always reading, listening or watching something. Lucy , 

Lucy Bolan: will you? Yeah, I'm kind of the same actually. . The tap dancing and rugby, what a combo. I 

Natalie Truong: don't know. I spent all my time talking, so I figured I'd try a dance where you don't need to speak, let your feet speak.

Lucy Bolan: Well, exactly. Why not? And I guess finally, um, for me, I mean, how do you define, I guess, success as a marketing leader beyond, I guess, looking at metrics and numbers. When we look at legacy and making, you know, that, that. You know, impacts, what would you 

Natalie Truong: say? Yeah, it's a good question. And it really made me sit back and think about, I think for me, maybe a couple of things, Lucy, I think for me, it's, um, did I help build a culture of a team where people had joy and pride coming to work?

Natalie Truong: Did, did we do work that people are still talking about, um, years later? I guess that's the first thing for me, uh, and I guess the second thing for me, which makes me really proud and people often go, Oh, you know, surely the campaigns, but it's, it's not for me. I'm so proud of the number of marketers that I've developed to become leaders.

Natalie Truong: So, so I always say to the team, I want you to leave me, but you better leave me for something better. Cause if you leave me for something less or equivalent, I'm going to be really annoyed. I want you to like, if you're a. Marketing coordinator, I want you to leave me because you've got a senior role or a senior executive role somewhere.

Natalie Truong: If you're a head of, I want you to leave me because you're now looking after APAC and not just Australia. So my, I think for me, the, the, uh, the satisfaction and the pride I feel is the number of leaders that we've developed because we need more great marketers to lean in and sit at that table. Business leadership table.

Natalie Truong: Um, yeah, yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: absolutely. Absolutely. Well, what a conversation I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to you. It's been, yeah, it's just been really, I think quite inspiring. And I think, you know, as I said, you know, we, someone, I did a recent episode actually on my podcast and, um. Nicola Clement actually mentioned it and she's so right.

Lucy Bolan: Don't believe everything you see on LinkedIn. And I think, you know, I'll say that again. I think people look at, you know, that, you know, CMO title and get, you know, you've been in that spot for a long time. It can be quite intimidating and daunting. And, um, I think, you know, what you've done is been very, um, Very much yourself.

Lucy Bolan: And yeah, I think very authentic and you've just, yeah, really been honest around, you know, your experience. So thank you so much for joining us. I really appreciate it. 

Natalie Truong: Thank you so much for having me, Lucy. 

Lucy Bolan: Remember the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation.

Lucy Bolan: Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests. for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries, and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve, and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: So I am absolutely delighted to welcome Tash Rallica to my, I think it's episode three now, my goodness, it's all flying by so quickly. I would love to welcome Tash. Uh, I feel like I've known Tash now for. I don't know, maybe five or six years, possibly longer. 

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah, thereabouts. 

Lucy Bolan: Time is flying by. It's crazy.

Tash Rahalkar: It has. 

Lucy Bolan: But welcome Tash. Tash, would you like to introduce yourself? 

Tash Rahalkar: Sure. Uh, thank you so much for getting me on the podcast and hi everybody. My name is Tasha Halker. I am the general manager of marketing performance and ops at NYOB. Um, I've known Lucy for a while now. Um, I think I've been in marketing for over 20 years, different facets of marketing.

Tash Rahalkar: So, uh, every marketer comes to marketing with an interesting background and I came in with an engineering background. So don't hold that against me, but I, uh, I'm an engineer who then went and loved marketing, fell in love with business and went into different facets of marketing. So I've done market research, I've learned product, uh, brand and now performance and operations.

Lucy Bolan: Amazing. Amazing. And so now at MYOB, leading the realm. 

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. It look, it has been a very fun experience. I've been for two and a half years or more, and at MYOB, um, and yeah, I've loved every minute of it. Mmm. 

Lucy Bolan: I guess I, I certainly have a few exciting juicy questions up my sleeve, but some that, one that I'm very particularly quite interested to, to learn and I guess also understand from, from your perspective.

Lucy Bolan: From what I understand, so you actually migrated over to Australia. It would have been in about 2005? 

Tash Rahalkar: I didn't, I did 2005, yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: So that would have been quite a significant time for you in terms of, you know, understanding a new culture, coming to a new country, developing yourself, having to, you know, really roll up your sleeves, dig deep, network.

Lucy Bolan: I guess at that particular time, when we sort of go back to 2005, how did you find that as, as somebody who was, It's, you know, obviously very new to the country and didn't have the connections and obviously you were very driven and ambitious, but how, almost how did you get to now where you are? 

Tash Rahalkar: I want to say it's all design, but it's not, it never is.

Tash Rahalkar: Um, look, I think when I started in, And when I came to Melbourne, I came for my MBA to Melbourne. So, it was a little easier path because I came through education. And so, it gave me a couple of years to settle in into the place, really understand the nuances of how things operate. I mean, they're not vastly different, but they are a little bit different.

Tash Rahalkar: Every place has their own little quirks, if you like. Oh, yeah. You know, someone said AVO, and I had no idea what that meant. the first time. So now I know, uh, but it's little things. So I think that the education, the two years in education really helped me settle in. And I was fortunate because I was, I suppose the, the benefit is you're young and so you don't know any better.

Tash Rahalkar: And so you hustle every way. You're looking for a job. Um, you're not fussing about which one you want a job in marketing. And I was fortunate enough to get a good gig with ADP when I started. So that sort of set me on the right path and I got to meet some great people along the way. And then leaning into opportunities as they came in, to be honest, I mean, it wasn't a program of work that I got used to Australia and working here, but it just happens while you're doing the work.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Excellent. And you, and you ride as well. I think, you know, when we're all a bit younger as well, we're almost a bit fearless and, you know, it's kind of like you just throw yourself into it. You know what I mean? I moved over here when I was, I think, what, 28 years old. And I remember not saying, I didn't say no to an invite for, I think, about a year.

Lucy Bolan: I was exhausted. 

Tash Rahalkar: Oh God. I mean, you know, the benefit of it is that you, you don't have too much on stake. You don't have that much at stake at all because you are young, you're starting your career in a new country and you kick off and you know, you've always got these questions around. Am I going to fit in?

Tash Rahalkar: I sound different. I look different. Is that going to be held against me? I haven't found that. I mean, I know I've friends in the community who have had unfortunate experiences, but they're very far and few in between. Majority of people are extremely welcoming. And I think once you The talent is what matters.

Tash Rahalkar: The hard work is what matters. When somebody understands that you're ready to put in the hard work, you're committed and you're doing some good work, it almost doesn't matter if you sound different or you look different. And, and that's when you start to realize that it's sometimes in your mind more than anything else.

Tash Rahalkar: that you feel different. 

Lucy Bolan: I think that's a, uh, yeah, a very valid point. Indeed. Absolutely. I find, um, you know, it's almost ourselves that we're, we're the sort of like of one out, you know, and we're trying to sort of immerse ourselves. So I completely, completely understand. I want to understand a little bit more.

Lucy Bolan: So within your team at the moment, you know, you've got various individuals that are reporting into reports that then reporting to you as these kinds of structures tend to be, how do you innovate and I guess, you know, really sort of try and be that, that leader that's, you know, is going to be that, I guess, more so.

Lucy Bolan: You're trying to encourage them to grow and, and encourage development within that team. How do you do that? 

Tash Rahalkar: This, this is actually a passion topic for me, development, as my team will agree. Um, I am very focused on development, whether it's mine or whether it's anybody else's. And so this is a common sort of team that we talk about in our team meetings in our one on ones with my leaders and I, I'm, I'm encouraging people to talk to their leaders as well and their people about this and I agree that development doesn't occur.

Tash Rahalkar: Now that I've worked in so many roles, I've realized that development doesn't always have to be a vertical one. Not everyone wants to, or is in the place in their lives to be looking for their next role. Sometimes it's family commitment. Sometimes they just love what they do. And they don't want a people leadership role.

Tash Rahalkar: They just want to develop as a subject matter expert in what they do and be an absolute gun at it. And that's okay. On development goals can be different, but I think supporting and recognizing that is very important. So we make sure I have a conversation about what I am doing myself because I want to make sure my team and all my team understands that at every stage and at every phase you are developing.

Tash Rahalkar: Just because you get into a certain role, you don't stop growing, learning new things or taking on new opportunities. So it's important to show that as well. But we actually talk about and actively talk about development plans, uh, and goals. Development comes from various paths. Like, I think one thing that, uh, we love to talk about in the team is it's not always a course.

Tash Rahalkar: It's not always a certification. Sometimes it's shadowing someone. Sometimes it's a podcast, amazing podcasts, great books, great networks that you can tap into. And I think growth can come from every place. So whether you're shadowing, whether you have a mentor, whether you are just taking a new project. So I've got somebody who wants to learn more about the commercial aspect of marketing.

Tash Rahalkar: Um, and again, that's probably my area of, uh, strength and work. This becomes an easy thing because I was almost asked her to shadow me around and help me on a project and learn by just observing what things are done so that the next time this person is able to do it for themselves. So yeah, development is a very important thing.

Tash Rahalkar: I think recognizing individual goals is even more important. And once you know them and you've had that chat, then structure something. It doesn't have to be too formal. It almost gets intimidating sometimes when 

Lucy Bolan: it's too formal. Yeah, just be, I think, yeah, there's a common theme from many of my guests that I've spoken to.

Lucy Bolan: It's about, um, really, I think being very authentic in yourself. Yeah. Um, you know, we're not all experts at what we do. And I think, you know, one of my, my previous guests, it's mentioned, it's hard. Sometimes we all look at LinkedIn and you see these people on, you know, significant titles and, you know, working for top tier businesses and you kind of almost go, how did they get that?

Lucy Bolan: That's incredible. But, you know, there's a lot of. Battle scars and, you know, lots of, uh, graph behind the scenes on that one. Was there ever a time for you that you remember when you look back at your career, like a sort of significant moments where, yeah, I look at you now and, you know, you, you have a lot of confidence and, you know, I feel like you come from a place of strength and, you know, you're a safe pair of hands.

Lucy Bolan: You totally know what you're doing. You're very cool, calm, collected whenever I've met you. I'm glad I'm 

Tash Rahalkar: coming across like that. 

Lucy Bolan: Um, was there ever that moment in your career where you sort of really, you remember feeling like it was all starting to come together? 

Tash Rahalkar: Um, I think a couple of moments perhaps, uh, you know, when, when you start and you're working and you know, everybody has an imposter syndrome.

Tash Rahalkar: I think that's the one thing I've realized. with experience is that you're not alone when you think that you don't know what you're doing, but everybody else does. Uh, and I think it's okay to feel like that. I think that's the learning. Maybe it comes with experience. Maybe it comes with enough battle scars, as you say, where you've realized that you ultimately did land, you did do the job, you did do it well, but it's the anxiety that at the start makes you feel very nervous about doing that, about being judged.

Tash Rahalkar: And I think the, I'd like to tell myself if I look at five or ten years back to say it's no one's judging you. Like it's okay, just do what you can and even when you're doing that you'll be fine. A couple of moments where it, it's It almost strikes you after it has happened. Uh, and so it was, I was, um, I was actually doing a, uh, recording, a TV recording for, uh, one of my previous organizations I worked in and we were talking about a campaign we had launched.

Tash Rahalkar: Mm. And after that was done, and I didn't think about it, While I was doing it, but after that was done, I had a couple of people from my Organization reach out to me and said, oh my god, you look so confident One of them was a migrant herself and she sort of sent me this lovely message that I don't know how you get there I don't know how this confidence that you have and it almost made me realize that she's seeing me like how I see other people Yeah, wow.

Tash Rahalkar: Gosh, I was there And I like, it's a, it's a journey and that moment you realize that it's never finished and you don't have to try too hard. You just have to be. And the confidence, like you say, I think it comes from the realization of letting that, letting the anxiety go or letting that feeling go of, am I doing it?

Tash Rahalkar: Am I coming across as like, am I contributing? Am I doing well in my role? Am I making an impact? I think these questions can make us feel very anxious, but just trust the process. Yeah, absolutely. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Was there any, um, throughout your career, any leaders or, you know, I've spoken to a few people around this, but in terms of, you know, we, we often have experiences throughout our career where we've had fantastic leaders that, you know, we've, we've known to, you know, almost look at and go, I'd love to get to where you are one day.

Lucy Bolan: And, you know, you've shown me the way and, you know, you've made me shine, which is brilliant. But then we've also had experiences where we don't get that and it's not been as brilliant. So, so yeah. Yeah. And then we start to learn, well, we definitely don't want that. And, you know, I know from a recruitment perspective, I have many individuals that say, well, when I go for interviews, you know, we're looking for the red flags, you know, cause we've had those experiences.

Lucy Bolan: Um, what about yourself? Was there any leaders that, you know, Almost sort of like helped or mentored you or shaped you to become the leader that you are 

Tash Rahalkar: today. Oh gosh, there are way too many leaders who have shaped me. Uh, I've, I've been fortunate for most part of my career to work with some amazing leaders, amazing bosses, to be honest.

Tash Rahalkar: Um, they've sort of helped me step into that next phase and learn if, you know, even if it's a short four months, like I had a, um, CMO I worked with. About four or five months and then he moved on to another role. But even in those four or five months Watching him present watching him talk. Uh, he was so charismatic It was just interesting as a marketer.

Tash Rahalkar: He was a natural storyteller So is my cmo now a natural storyteller with so much vision so much strategy i've worked with um, my previous bosses Who were so empathetic and who were so supportive? Like i'm friends with them today. I catch up and it tells me that we had a good relationship Yeah. Because they, they kind of recognized the, the space we needed as people to grow, but also were there to support and counsel and, you know, when you wanted to just go, ah, it's all too much.

Tash Rahalkar: I'm facing this challenge that I can't seem to get past. They were there to solve for it. So I think every leader tells you a little bit different like you almost take a little bit different from every person because they come with their own strengths. So I think there are way too many, um, to talk about, but most of my bosses, most of my leaders, um, uh, as a CEO who I worked for in the past, and she was an acting CEO for some time, But she came from a very different point of view and it was brilliant because it gave me the understanding of how to pitch to a CEO on marketing and how to demonstrate the value because I could see her questions.

Tash Rahalkar: I could see why, where she was coming from in terms of not fully understanding how marketing works. And I think sometimes those questions, and she wasn't coming from a disrespectful way, it was just. a need to understand value. Yeah. And it helped me rather than, I mean, I, I suppose there could have been two ways to take it, but you, if you take it as a, I need to help this stakeholder, it helps.

Tash Rahalkar: And, you know, conversely, you've worked with leaders who are not in the best phase of their lives sometimes. Um, I think I look for a leader who's confident in the fact that they don't know everything. I think that makes for amazing leaders. A leader who can say, Hey, I have no idea. I don't know. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I think just to be very, very vulnerable because yeah, I think, um, you know, honesty and none of us all know or have the perfect formula sometimes. Um, yeah, I think it's, it's important. I've got a bit of a, an interesting question actually on that. So as a recruiter, you know, I meet many individuals that have, you know, for various reasons, left positions and they've left positions because, you know, they've had quite a really toxic experience, perhaps with a manager or they've had a new manager or whatever it may be.

Lucy Bolan: And it's just not, you know, being the great alignment. I don't know. I mean, I always said people always talk about red flags and they sort of say, well, how do you identify them? You know, I'm curious to understand from your perspective when you're, or if you were sort of ever interviewing, like if you just always being very honest and really upfront in terms of asking the open questions with your potential leader about how they managed to sort of try and pull those little red flags out or, 

Tash Rahalkar: uh, 

Lucy Bolan: I think I.

Tash Rahalkar: I'm getting better at it. Yeah. I can't say I've always been that good because when you start, you ask your typical questions of what's your management style? And there are very standard replies to it, but there's a, there's a lot to unpack in there. Um, which I've now started, like, I actually had a boss who I sat in interviews, um, for some other positions with him and he asked some very interesting questions.

Tash Rahalkar: Uh, what makes you uncomfortable? Or, you know, um, what's your fondest aspiration? Well, like there were some really personal things sometimes, not, not uncomfortably personal, but just exploring and unpacking the person, uh, behind the role. And I think I've, I've almost adopted some of those questions now when I interview for candidates as well, or if I'm, you know, if I'm ever interviewing in the future, but.

Tash Rahalkar: I take those on because I feel like that helps me understand the, you can't get prepared for that. And when you speak, you kind of, when you answer those questions or when I've seen candidates, uh, who we've finally recruited answer those, there've been some amazing answers. There's been authenticity.

Tash Rahalkar: There's been, um, just humbleness sometimes and clarity in how they answer. And that tells you a lot about the person. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Yeah. I found the same. I guess in your view, when you've got. I want to sort of speak to, to more mark, I guess, marketers that are aspiring to one day be basically in your shoes or an executive or a CMO at some point, what ex, I guess, what skills or experience would you say that those individuals should really start to focus on developing?

Lucy Bolan: Is there anything particularly, like if we were talking to say that mid management layer, you might manage say small teams at the moment, or they're quite new into that role, what, what sort of advice would you give them? 

Tash Rahalkar: Um, I think a couple of things. So the first, if you're in mid management, I'm assuming you, you've honed your craft.

Tash Rahalkar: Cause I think that's the main thing. If you haven't honed marketing as a craft, and that's probably the fundamental, you have to understand how marketing strategy is developed from the segmentation and audience to delivery measurement and attribution. Like you have to understand that funnel. Um, but I'm assuming that when you are in mid management, I'd assume you've honed a craft in one area.

Tash Rahalkar: Not everything, but you found your next put in something and that's how you got into that leadership position. I think once you get into the leadership though, you want to start thinking more broadly about marketing because you might come from digital or you might come from brand or you might come from, uh, markups.

Tash Rahalkar: Your leadership, next leadership position might not be, In that silo or that pillar marketing or marketing, it's like, it's going to be much broader. And so understanding the different aspects of marketing is very important. You might not be an expert in them, but knowing what questions to ask and how it relates to other functions is important.

Tash Rahalkar: So I think that's probably one. Second one, which I hold very dearly, is the commerciality of marketing, and I can't stress that enough. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Tash Rahalkar: But marketers need to be, marketers need to understand the commerce of marketing. Because when you are in senior positions, ultimately, marketing as a function exists to help a company grow, to help get the message of that product or that service, and get people to believe in the brand.

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. And buy more for you, stay more with you and feel happy about that purchase, right? All of that is ultimately tried to growth. The company operates on revenue, expenses. Like those are the core fundamentals of any business. And I'm saying a commercial one not for profits or incumbents operate slightly differently, but not that differently.

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. So ultimately. Your marketing function has to understand how it links that value into driving revenue. Are you doing it at the optimal cost structure to drive that revenue? You know, if you're putting in a million dollars today, how is it going to return? How is it going to impact that growth? When is it going to impact that growth?

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. And how 

Tash Rahalkar: are you going to measure it? Because I think, you know, there's, there's a, the brand versus performance conversation is always interesting. You have to build a long term brand, but That investment is an awkward return in this year And I think there are important conversations to have but also as marketers We need to be get better and better at this data driven marketing muscle that helps you Tell the story of what you did Activities what campaigns what strategies you apply what value you secured for the company?

Tash Rahalkar: I think once you get that 

Lucy Bolan: you you are yeah, you're in the right direction It's really interesting because I know last time we We caught up, actually, we were, we had a really good conversation around how, you know, in your view, and you made such a valid point, and I know many have agreed with you since from my conversations, where the requirement now in the market is to really, you know, have more of a focus on getting these, you know, more data centric marketers, some may argue, well, actually, no, you don't need that, you just need more analysts.

Lucy Bolan: Well, I think it's more about having, what we're trying to say here is that, you know, instead of, you know, marketers right now in 2024, when we know that the economy is tough, especially as we know, you know, in consumer services, retail, et cetera, it's been hit hard. You know, there really is this requirement where, you know, we're not going to be spending hundreds of thousands of millions on fabulous brand, fluffy campaigns that I shouldn't You know, we're gonna all of a sudden cost a fortune, you know, it needs to be, we're looking at the bottom line a hundred percent and it's got to be, you know, everything that we're doing, there's got to be a return of investment.

Lucy Bolan: There's got to be sort of proof within that. 

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah, absolutely. And look, I think, you know, those brand campaigns, they work, they, they work when they're done Well, and they are the messaging is correct and aligned and but there's a narrative even behind that of how that aligns to the broader marketing strategy and you know, whether how you feel about a brand influences the choice you make ultimately is that for your brand?

Tash Rahalkar: Is that the sort of category you play in? Yeah. There are nuances to understand, but yeah, data driven marketers, um, are critical because we're doing so much automation, we're relying so much on platforms. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Yeah. Um, curious to understand, If you could tell me, is this sort of a secret sort of formula or, I don't know, specific ingredients that you would say that, you know, good CMOs or GMs such as yourself really need to, to possess to, you know, be successful in their role?

Lucy Bolan: Oh 

Tash Rahalkar: God. I wish there was, no. I don't think there's a secret formula, so to speak, I think it's, you know, again, it comes down to the, you've got to understand good CMOs can set good visions, but also it's the ability to develop a strategy and get the team to deliver on that strategy year after year, like, and different companies at different stages.

Tash Rahalkar: That's my personal belief. Require different CMOs. Every CMO comes with a strength. Every leader comes with a strength. I mean, don't, I, I keep saying to people, don't forget that every leader, even no matter how senior, even a CEO has a strength and a weakness. There are some blind spots that they have and some absolute strengths that they have, but they just know how to harness those strengths better.

Tash Rahalkar: And so at a company that requires, you know, is operationally excellent, but needs vision, we'll need that visionary CMO who comes in and gives a different direction. Versus a company that is right now that marketing function needs operational excellence, someone who drives pace, someone who, you know, delivers like there's understanding of strategy.

Tash Rahalkar: There's understanding of the market. Operational excellence is lacking or that marketing automation is lacking or the creative insight is lacking. It depends what CMO you need, what strengths that CMO brings in. So I don't think there's one thing that makes you brilliant, uh, or an ideal candidate. Uh, but I think there's, there's a.

Tash Rahalkar: You need to know what your strengths are. Yeah. What do you bring to marketing? So, uh, you know, if I go, um, I know what I will add, but I also know where I'll need help. And so my leaders are absolutely people who are experts in places where I might not be an expert. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, 

Tash Rahalkar: I rely on them heavily. My peers, I rely on them heavily to tell me, you know, what are my blind sides or something that I'm not an expert in because I, I purely haven't worked in that space.

Tash Rahalkar: So I don't profess to be an expert in everything, but I think good leaders know how to what is their strength, but how to get. The right people with them to form that winning combination. I think. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: I think you've nailed it there. Actually. I think, um, it's a common theme I'm hearing actually, where, you know, it's hiring people that are better at, you know, specific areas of expertise than what you are, you know, uh, getting, getting the, the, the awesome individuals on site.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. 

Tash Rahalkar: For sure. 

Lucy Bolan: I want to have a quick chat around, um, I guess more so personal branding. You know, I, I often get asked this question around, you know, I want to get more involved in perhaps being on panels or, but I don't know how to do it. I don't know where to start. I'd love to get more involved in, you know, I get shy when I go to networking events and, uh, like, you know, I've never really done that kind of thing before.

Lucy Bolan: Can you tell me, or at least give our listeners any advice around, you know, You know, how you started to, I guess, start to develop or even grow your personal brand. 

Tash Rahalkar: Um, so I, I don't think, I mean, marketers are sometimes the last person they market is themselves. Uh, and I think I'm a proof of that. Most marketers will agree that sometimes we get so busy marketing and doing the doing for our jobs that we forget ourselves.

Tash Rahalkar: LinkedIn. Is a common platform there are so many platforms now i mean i'm not as active on linkedin as i used to be my job's getting busier and busier so i don't want to preach something that i don't follow but if you are able to absolutely linkedin is your platform share your thoughts um show your expertise in there have a strategy behind you know a good brand strategy think about yourself as a brand and if someone was to say you know this person is good for you Or is great at, what would that be?

Tash Rahalkar: So that when some, when a third person goes, hey, there is a opening for a, you know, a brand strategist to come in or someone who completely drives commercial marketing and performance. They know they can think of you in that space, which is what we do from a brand perspective when we are marketing products and services as well.

Tash Rahalkar: So I think having that sort of understanding of where you play and what is your area of expertise and then showcasing that on different platforms is great. Speaking is I think a personal choice. Speaking on panels, some people I enjoy it, but I've always done public speaking even through school. Okay.

Tash Rahalkar: Came naturally. Right. so much. So I if it makes you uncomfortable don't do it like you're not gonna shine Start with smaller things. If that's still an aspiration, start with smaller things. I happened to come in because I was approached for a public speaking, uh, public panel. I was approached to be on a panel.

Tash Rahalkar: And I think the, the interesting part is once you're on one, the other event organizers start to tap into you as well. Sometimes, and then you get to know. Um, people, and so you get passionate. Sometimes you can approach an organizer to say, I'm very passionate about this topic. Uh, I've spoken or I write about on LinkedIn this, this is my job.

Tash Rahalkar: I'd love to be involved. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. So there are different 

Tash Rahalkar: strategies on a panel, but if it makes you uncomfortable to speak in front of, you know, 100, 200, 500 people. Start small somewhere, if that's still an aspiration, start small. But it's not that only the person who speaks on a panel or at an event is an amazing marketer.

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. There are brilliant marketers who never go on a panel. Yeah. And they do brilliant careers as well. So every, every person is, every person's journey is unique in that sense. But LinkedIn, These panels are an amazing, or podcast, I suppose, an amazing, um, opportunity. Start something if you, if you know, you don't know where to start, or there is nothing that you can contribute to and you have an opinion or you have some passion around pricing, for example, or different strategies, start something yourself.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Is, is there any emerging trends or, I know, I mean, I've spoken to a few people, obviously, of course, about AI, we will talk about that, but I guess for any, you know, marketers that, you know, one day wanting to become, you know, leaders or is there any Specific trends or, you know, insights in the market that you sort of get excited by.

Lucy Bolan: And, you know, you look for in the future and you say, you know what, I definitely start to really get ahead of the curve across this, this and this, what would they be? 

Tash Rahalkar: Look, I think the AI. Gen AI, AI has always been there. The Gen AI revolution is well and truly here. And I think it's, it's offering some amazing benefits and opportunities for us to sometimes do less grunt work.

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. And do some more creative work or do some more meaningful work if you like. So there's opportunities, but there's also the pitfalls of the shiny toy. Um, so I think as marketers, if we understand that in the function that you are, you know, you might be in content. I think content is probably an area where JNI has had the most impact.

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. But it's absolutely starting to come into marketing platforms, for example. Um, you know, with Salesforce and I think it's, I forget the name, but I saw that HubSpot has that as well. Like major marketing platforms, smarter systems have their predictive modeling tools. That's coming. That's already here.

Tash Rahalkar: It's not even coming. It's already here. And so how that applies to your function to what you do or to a broader marketing is, is probably where I'd say marketers and I'm leaning as well to understand how does that change what we do? How does that evolve what we do? So is this a, you know, if it's content automation, what can we rely on the platform for and what to look out for?

Tash Rahalkar: How can that help us get campaigns quicker and faster, but also better? Uh, To the market, 

Lucy Bolan: because what 

Tash Rahalkar: you don't want is 50 versions of the same thing. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. And there's a 

Tash Rahalkar: risk in automation, so you need to figure out how it automates, what is meaningful to automate, and what is, what is where you need a human.

Tash Rahalkar: Uh, insight or creativity can somebody we automate our analyst analytical platforms, right? And reports and data analysis a lot of that can be automated. Yeah, we've had excel. This just does it better So but you still need a person sometimes to Review those insights and make sure they're business relevant and sort of make meaning out of those and give it to the marketing team.

Tash Rahalkar: So there are lots of platforms. There are lots of, um, heaps of podcasts to get into, um, to really understand. But I think start with your world because otherwise you will go into this broad land of all marketing. Yeah, and it's mind boggling. So think about the problem to solve first and then start to see how Jenny I can help you or some automation or innovation or new platforms can help you solve it because When you start with that, why it makes an easier journey than to just go, Oh, I want Jasper.

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. Well, I want to bring in X. Why, what is it going to help solve? Is that even a problem for your company? Yeah. Um, so I think that's, that's probably a key hack. I'd wear. Um, yeah. When we're, and I'm walking through this now, but from a martech perspective, what, what are the problems to solve? And I think it starts with that.

Lucy Bolan: I think that's such a great answer because it's so easy to get lost in all this. You know, we can all of a sudden, you know, we can get distracted. You see, you know, so many workshops or, you know, new software coming through and, you know, we can go down these sort of almost like rabbit warrens. And 

Tash Rahalkar: who doesn't want to work with cool toys, right?

Tash Rahalkar: Of course, but does it make sense? Is it needed? And is it the most important investment needed? 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Um, I just want to ask, What are you most proud of now when you sort of look back, I mean, you've got, you know, a lot more years to come, you know, within your career, but what, what are you proud of, would you say so far in terms of, you know, your career and how far you've come when you look back?

Lucy Bolan: Is there any specific moment that, you know, really sort of stands out for you? 

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah, a few. So we had as a, as a storyteller or brand, um, marketing campaign. We, when I was at state trustees, we landed, we delivered a campaign called thank you. So state trustees provides wills and powers of attorney to people.

Tash Rahalkar: And it's all about protecting legacies of Victorians. And we had a thank you campaign for seniors week, which is a thank you for the legacy you've built. And, you know, you build the state, you build our lives. And so it's our thank you to you. And so we're offering sort of free bills during that week. But I think the, I was, I was really, really proud of the team and of all of us coming into that because it was a brilliant narrative.

Tash Rahalkar: It was one that we all personally connected with. We've all had our grandparents where we've looked at them and gone. Gosh, you created this for us. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Tash Rahalkar: Our parents who have created this for us. So I think if we personally connected and I think it was such a heartwarming and just, it put a smile on our face.

Tash Rahalkar: Yeah. It's a heartwarming campaign. So I think bringing that to life. And, um, making sure our stakeholders understood why we were doing it. Yeah. And an important part in sort of that in our, in our community was really good. I think the second one is perhaps now the one we are on, which is driving personalization, so.

Tash Rahalkar: Helping leverage marketing automation platforms, connecting your data warehouses to and managing your audiences, CDPs and creating that Martech, almost a data plumbing structure to help automate campaigns. I think I'm really proud of the team. We have a massive cross functional team that does it and I've had the privilege of working on it for a year.

Tash Rahalkar: It's a complex problem because there's a lot of data involved. Sometimes. Data was structured not knowing how we're going to use it in the future. But unpacking those problems and unlocking that value, uh, and making sure we are, we're seeing the changes, we're seeing actual impacts at the end. 

Lucy Bolan: That's brilliant.

Lucy Bolan: It's very 

Tash Rahalkar: satisfying. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Love it. Well, Tash, I have to say, I've really enjoyed listening to you. I think you've, you've just been so open and it's been really great to understand exactly, well, A, what you're currently up to at the moment, but also dig a bit deeper into suddenly, you know, what you've done in the past and how you've got to now where you are.

Lucy Bolan: Um, so thank you so much. I've really enjoyed. having you on as my guest. 

Tash Rahalkar: Thank you so much, Lucy, for the opportunity. It's been wonderful. 

Lucy Bolan: It's a good Friday.

Lucy Bolan: Remember, the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests is invaluable. Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries, and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve, and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

I would like to introduce, um, the wonderful Paul Murphy. Paul, welcome. 

Paul Murphy: Thank you very much, Lucy. It's an absolute pleasure to be with you.

Lucy Bolan: So Paul, would you like to, I guess, well, I'm going to get you to introduce yourself, but before we go on to that, I guess this podcast episode is going to be a little different one from what we normally sort of position. So Paul is actually a lecturer at Monash University, but I guess I wanted to speak to Paul because you really are at the forefront when it comes to teaching marketing.

Lucy Bolan: Marketing graduates. And I guess, you know, a lot of the reasons why we developed this podcast was to really, you know, educate and support the next generation of marketing leaders that are coming through. So I thought, right, let's speak to people like yourself who are very much at the forefront seeing this.

Lucy Bolan: So Paul, over to you, would you like to introduce yourself? 

Paul Murphy: Thanks, Lucy. Yes. As you said, I'm, I'm a lecturer with Monash University in the Department of Marketing. I've actually only been a, a full time academic for about four or five years, but I have worked as a sessional since, um, about 2006. So I was full time working in corporate, in sales and marketing, and.

Paul Murphy: Business management roles and I left corporate world to start my own business and, uh, and I started teaching then as a, as a way to supplement my income. What I found was that I actually really enjoyed it. So I kept doing it. 

Lucy Bolan: Right. 

Paul Murphy: So I started teaching because I needed the money, but I kept, I kept, I kept doing it because I enjoyed it.

Paul Murphy: Now I still take the money, but I've had the bit of a luxury, I guess, of, uh, of, uh, having my own in the middle part of my career. Um, where. I've been doing a lot of consulting and, and running my own small businesses, uh, but teaching on the side. And then Monash said to me, Hey, would you like to think about doing it full time?

Paul Murphy: Brilliant. 

Lucy Bolan: Brilliant. Yeah. And can I just confirm again? So can you share the courses? What are you teaching exactly? 

Paul Murphy: Yeah. At the moment I'm teaching a subject called marketing insights and that's about, um,

Paul Murphy: basically desktop analysis around consumers and, uh, competitors and channels and also macro, how the macro environment impacts on that. So, and, um, I've just taken that over in the last, uh, 12 or 18 months or so. And I've been teaching strategic marketing as well, which was the capstone unit for the bachelor of marketing.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: So I've been teaching that for about, uh, seven years. 

Lucy Bolan: Okay. Excellent. Okay. And so a lot of students, I mean, is it, how long roughly would you say that they're with you for approximately? 

Paul Murphy: In the, the, the marketing insight subject is a second year unit and, and so they spend one semester with me. Um, strategic marketing is the capstone.

Paul Murphy: So it comes at the end of their degrees. And again, it's another semester. So it's about. It's about, uh, three or four months. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I'm close. You've been 

Paul Murphy: spending three hours a week, um, putting up with me. 

Lucy Bolan: The pleasure of Paul Murphy, love it. And I'm curious to know, I mean, obviously, as I said at the beginning, when we first spoke, you know, you really are at the forefront, you're seeing lots of, You know, changes in, in behaviours, certainly within this pool of graduates that are coming through that are hopefully at some point wanting to then gain employment.

Lucy Bolan: Um, what emerging, is there any sort of emerging trends or areas that you're noticing that, you know, graduates are sort of wanting to just necessarily hone in more so than others or? 

Paul Murphy: I guess there's two things. Certainly over the last, you know, six or seven years, the graduates. Have a, um, a fascination around social media, it's, it's, it's a media and an environment that they know and understand, not necessarily from a, uh, a business's point of view.

Paul Murphy: Um, so they don't think of it as a, as an advertising or promotional channel so much, but, uh, a lot of students, you know, on open day, they, I said to them, you know, what do you want to do? And I want to work in social media. And I say to them, social media might be a great place to start your career, but you don't necessarily want to be 55 and, and sitting in your office and punching out another Facebook post on a Friday afternoon.

Paul Murphy: So. Um, unless of course you own the agency and then that could be rewarding. Otherwise it's going to be a fairly, um, you might find that eventually you might find social media quite boring. So what we, what I try and tell them and teach them is that we have to, we have to give them the underpinnings so that they can see where.

Paul Murphy: Effective social media fits in the arsenal that's available to, to, uh, to a marketer and to learn to, um, be, uh, develop a neutral perspective based on what it is they're, they're trying to achieve. So rather than, uh, and it's a, it's a, it's a mistake that so many. Practicing marketers make is they think my target market must will like this or have this preference because I have this preference.

Paul Murphy: And so we get this, this transference. So, so trying to teach students to step back and develop this, this neutrality around what, around their decision making and get rid of the unconscious bias biases is, is kind of a little more challenging. The second thing that's happened in the last few years, as everyone knows is the COVID thing.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: And that has impacted, uh, there's been a lasting impact on, uh, young people as they went through their early university degrees, but also secondary students. So we're now seeing university students who were in year 11 or 12 during those lockdown phases in Melbourne, and they are a little different.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: Um, through absolutely no fault of their own, we're all, as I said, we're all a little different as a result of what happened, but there's, there are a little bit. More used to being told exactly how to do things. So they struggle a little, of course I'm generalizing, but there's a little bit of a struggle with, with ambiguity and uncertainty and a little bit of, um, resilience is not quite the right word, but.

Paul Murphy: It's 

Lucy Bolan: almost like they're scared to fail. 

Paul Murphy: Yes. That's a really good way to. Put it a ticker phobia or a telephobia, I think is the fear of failure, fear of making mistakes. So they are very tentative, tentative. Um, that might be the word. And again, I'm generalizing some of these students are just as robust and as, um, and, and as tough as they ever were.

Paul Murphy: But, but I think just in general, there's a little bit more of a tentativeness around about them. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, it's really interesting you share that. Cause I mean, yeah, I know, I mean, it was such a bizarre time for all of us. It's an artificial time, you know, in so many ways. And, you know, I mean, yeah, individuals with kids, you know, teach, try to work and obviously, you know, teach at home and, you know, I really felt for, for.

Lucy Bolan: All parents, you know, and children, you know, it was just a crazy time, but absolutely. It's such a fair point. I think you've made because coming out of that, I mean, and I'm curious to get your thoughts on this. I know in the past when I've certainly interviewed, you know, for roles that say have been at coordinator level and we're looking.

Lucy Bolan: Really solid grads that have come through a lot of the time. What I'm very much looking at is it's almost those personalities and trying to, you know, dig out the, I guess the softer skills and, you know, individuals that can articulate themselves and communicate really well. And it's hard because you sort of, I guess, learn that as you go and get more confident, whether it's working in retail or McDonald's on a Saturday, whatever it might be.

Lucy Bolan: Um, and some either have that or they don't, and they're that used to sort of being behind forward walls or looking at a screen and they've not had the interaction. So would you agree? Is that something you 

Paul Murphy: Absolutely, yeah, absolutely. And, and, and those kind of, the soft skills and, and some of them are not very soft at all.

Paul Murphy: Some, some of them are hard to learn and they're really important. Now, I, I tend to think of them more as generic skills that are not. Sort of discipline based, but, um, yes, that you'd make a really good point in that they need interaction and repetition to develop those skills. And they didn't get that sitting at home in their bedroom alone.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Well, what advice would you give if there's. You know, say, I don't know, marketing coordinators out there or graduates, like, I know for a fact, it is very difficult for these guys to get just, uh, just to try and get a step up, like, especially in this market. I know it's tough, what, what sort of job search strategies or advice would you give to, to these individuals that are wanting to, to just try and develop and grow anything that you would suggest?

Paul Murphy: Yeah, absolutely. Um, first of all, I tell them a lot of them worry that they haven't got the right kind of experience. So, and I'll give you a direct example and he will not appreciate me doing this, but my son has recently graduated and he's been working part time since he was 14 at a local liquor store.

Paul Murphy: And he's been saying, you know, you know, it doesn't, it adds nothing to my CV and it's not experienced. And I said to him, you, you're underestimating the, the generic skills that people are looking for in terms of customer service and problem solving and being polite when you don't feel like it. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah.

Paul Murphy: Dealing with difficult customers, dealing with pressure. He's been robbed twice in that role at knife point. And I said to him, you want to talk about decision making under pressure and resilience and coping with the unexpected. They are skills that employers are looking for in front of any hiring manager and tell them the story about you being held up at knife point and you get the job.

Paul Murphy: Yeah. Because, because you're demonstrating something that 95 percent of the applicants can't demonstrate. 

Lucy Bolan: A hundred percent. I mean, it's an awful example that unfortunately it's gone through to actually have to share, but I mean, my goodness. I mean, yeah, you'd like to think that's true. It's probably not going to translate to being in a real life situation at work, 

Paul Murphy: but in terms of staying calm under pressure, resilience, bouncing back from that, you know, he's gone back to work in the, in the same liquor store the next day after it, you know, so, um, I'm not sure I would have been ready to go back to work so soon.

Paul Murphy: So students need to understand that they're more than the sum of their grades, or the sum of their, um, their experiences are wide and varied, and that is really good grounding for employment. And so looking for the lessons learned, whether it be on the sporting field or in clubs and associations and things like that, in friendship groups, in any sorts of part time roles.

Paul Murphy: These are really important, um, generic skills as well. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: And being, I guess, um, I was having this discussion actually with some, um, graduates in class, or soon to be graduates in class the other day about, Um, performance versus, uh, values. And when I worked at GE, we actually, it was part of the annual performance review.

Paul Murphy: The, the, the, the matrix was around the, your, your commercial value that you were adding and the brand value that you were adding in terms of how, what were you like to work with? Um, did you make people's, the people around you, did you make your, their job easier? Or were you making work for your work, for your coworkers, um, were you a pleasure to work with?

Paul Murphy: Did you make people smile in the workplace? These, these are important things. So the ability to, to fit for cultural fit and most employers will take, if they've got to make a choice between commercial and cultural, they'll choose cultural. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Oh, 

Paul Murphy: wait. You can't have big disparities between either, you know, you've still got to, if you're in a commercial role, then you've still got to meet your commercial contribution.

Paul Murphy: You can't do it at the expense of poisoning the culture in the business. And it's really interesting on my way into work this morning, I was reading that, uh, another business, one of the large businesses ordering their staff back all back into the office full time.

Paul Murphy: The discussion wasn't about productivity. It was about collegiality and we're missing out on developing internal relationships and that's where great ideas comes from. It's where problem solving comes from. Contribution by each other to each other's work has been absent. Whilst, so the discussion wasn't about individual productivity, it was about the synergistic effect that we get from working in a team.

Lucy Bolan: It's a really valid point because I feel like it's such a fine line because, you know, you've got so many that, you know, that they just, you know, they don't, they want the, the hybrid, you know, they want the balance between, you know, being at work and being at home, but also. You know, I think about graduates that are learning from other managers and their peers around them every day.

Lucy Bolan: They're just soaking up like a sponge. They're just so yes, information. And I know that's how I learned, you know, 101 recruitment back in the day. You know, you get thrown in the deep end and it's sink or swim. And, um, Yeah. I just think that that is a very strange and sort of different dynamic when you are a graduate and now you're in this hybrid sort of working from home sort of scenario, it's, it's a different.

Lucy Bolan: And 

Paul Murphy: if you want to be a leader at work, whether the, whether that carries a management title and salary or not, you, you need to be contributing to that learning process of those around you. And it's not on too many job descriptions. But it's a really important part of institutional growth and learning and institutional human capital.

Paul Murphy: So, um, as it's not, it's not formalized by too many organizations, I don't think. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: Um, but it's a really important part of doing business. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent. What advice would you give, and I'm really curious to, to get your thoughts on this, but, you know, I do speak to, to various companies throughout, you know, Melbourne, Sydney, et cetera.

Lucy Bolan: And, you know, they may say, you know, we're looking at hiring graduates, like what's, what's the, the standard rate nowadays. And if we were to do that, you know, what, what's the right channel we go, what we go down, 

Paul Murphy: you 

Lucy Bolan: know, that's fine. I can advise them around that, but I do think it's important around cementing expectations.

Lucy Bolan: You know, graduates that are coming in because I think occasionally businesses think, right, they're going to be this and they're going to be that and off they go. Well, actually they're not and it's like watering a plant. You've got to support and invest to watch it grow. What are your thoughts? 

Paul Murphy: My thoughts are, um, there's Uh, not a lot of variation between graduates in terms of their conceptual knowledge.

Paul Murphy: Some are better than others, obviously, but the, the degree of variance is, is quite slight compared to somebody who hasn't done a degree, um, what will vary is those generic skills. Okay. Yeah. And, um, my advice for. Employers is number one criteria should be a generic skills because the, the conceptual knowledge is a given.

Paul Murphy: There's a baseline there. That's a given cause they've got a degree. Don't expect them to be practitioners. So they'll have conceptual knowledge. They won't necessarily know where all the, how those, all those pieces of knowledge fit together yet. But that will happen rapidly for them once they're, once they're In a role, I think it varies a little bit too, depending on with as an employer for a marketing person.

Paul Murphy: If your client side or agency side, I think that, I think that's different. And I've, in my experience, both working with, I've never worked agency side, but I've worked with plenty of agencies when I was in industry and I talked to plenty now still. In my experience, agencies tend to have higher expectations about graduates being, uh, skill heavy and plug and play.

Lucy Bolan: Okay. Yeah.  

Paul Murphy: they, they tend to be a bit more, have expectations that students will be able to sit in the chair, and they'll be able to do this task the way we want it done, and they'll know exactly how that task should be done, and they'll be able to take it. And. I don't think that's the case. My advice for agencies is unless you are deliberately fostering a mentoring, learning, coaching kind of environment, then maybe don't hire the graduate, hire the person who's got a couple of years under their belt.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: Or the graduate who has done the additional skill development in the specialty that you're looking for because agencies by their nature specialize, 

Lucy Bolan: uh, 

Paul Murphy: PR agencies or their advertising agencies or their creative agencies or their media agencies or their, so they tend to specialize by their nature.

Lucy Bolan: Uh huh. 

Paul Murphy: Um, so. So if you need those specialist skills, make sure that your, your graduate has a grounding in those. So for example, when, when I talk to students and they're talking about, um, the course structure, uh, you know, they might have eight core marketing units to do, but then they've got this whole mess of electives they can choose from.

Paul Murphy: So if they're interested in social media or if they're interested in digital, I say to them, you go pick up. An IT elective on code writing. If you want to be a web designer, uh, if you want to work in, uh, digital advertising, you go to the arts faculty and you pick up an elective in copywriting. So they have this ability to pick and choose their menu as they get further into their, their degree and hopefully have a better idea of what they want to do.

Paul Murphy: If you, if you're a crew, if your client side and you're recruiting and you don't have a formal, um, graduate program, then what you're looking for is a generalist who's going to be able to, who understands the scope of that, uh, marketing, um, activities and won't necessarily be expert in any of them. But we'll understand where they fit.

Paul Murphy: And so then you're looking for somebody's appetite to learn. So you're hiring for aptitude, not for experience. Yeah. Um, so that would be my kind of advice. Recognize that these guys, um, they're at the beginning of the next stage of their learning. They're not the finished article. And, and they're going to need some support.

Paul Murphy: They'll have, there'll be a baseline of conceptual knowledge and there'll be varying degrees of skills and interest and that kind of stuff. And, but if you've got a good match between what the employer is passionate about and what the applicant is passionate about, then you're a much better chance of earning a good fee.

Paul Murphy: And that is actually no different at any level of experience or seniority. I would suggest 

Lucy Bolan: a hundred percent. Absolutely. I mean, I agree. I think, um, it's really interesting to hear what you've said about both client side and agency, because my advice. Would be, and I, and I've occasionally, if I'm asked this question within the agency side of things, you know, I've had, you know, certainly in the past marketing candidates that, you know, might start an agency and they do account exec account manager, they might get to see the account manager and then they get to that sort of point and, and, and go, you know, it's time to go client side.

Lucy Bolan: And I've often seen, you know, that sort of career pathway, those individuals really excel because. You know, the, the really learned the hard yards working at agency, the highly reactive, that tend to be really awesome when it comes to time management. Um, you know, their listening skills are exceptional because you're constantly taking briefs, you're back and forth, you've got to communicate.

Lucy Bolan: So they tend to then really build on the stakeholder expertise. And then they make that move into client side. I mean, some will say, Oh, but I get, I now get work life balance. I mean, I don't know how many would always get that. I'm not too sure. Um, I mean, is that a pathway you'd also 

Paul Murphy: recommend? Absolutely.

Paul Murphy: Uh, I tell students if they want to be well rounded marketers who end up in a decision making chair, so CMO or above, I tell them they, they should spend time client side and agency side. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: And I also tell them that they should spend time inside in a sales role, whether that sales role is core is about hunter hunting or gathering is kind of immaterial.

Paul Murphy: But in a sales role, it's the only time you get to speak to customers rather than looking at spreadsheets. And the other benefit that being in a sales role gives you as a marketer, even if business and your classic FM, large FMCG structure, you know, you'll have marketing as a different function to, to sales where you have your account managers and things like that.

Paul Murphy: But as a mark in the marketing role, if you're in product management or brand management, you are actually going to have to compete with, for brain space. In this with the sales team with the other product managers. So you're going to have to try and convince the sales team who are the implementers of your strategy that they, that their time and effort is worthwhile.

Paul Murphy: Now, if you spend time in the sales force. Then the two things happen. First of all, they know that you understand their job and you know them all by name. Yeah. So you go and do some ride alongs with those salespeople having been in their shoes and you'll get, you'll have a lot more empathy and you'll get their respect and brain space.

Paul Murphy: So therefore. The chances of your beautifully crafted strategy being implemented effectively go up enormously. So because the commitment and buy-in from the sales team will make or break your strategy. 

Lucy Bolan: A hundred percent. I agree. I think, um, it's actually a really valid point. You've mentioned around the sales.

Lucy Bolan: Component because it's often the case. And I've heard this many times when, you know, it's been really difficult for marketers to work alongside sales teams or they don't align, they've got different objectives, um, you know, they don't get us and we don't get them. And, you know, there ends up being friction and it's just, yeah, I think it's.

Lucy Bolan: It's really solid advice to actually, if you can, sort of step in the shoes and be on the other side of the fence to at least get that expertise and experience. 

Paul Murphy: They, they, they must work hand in glove to, to be really effective. It's a management. Structural issue is the reason that they've been separated.

Paul Murphy: Sales is a function of marketing and it's the hands on face to face part of the communication mix. And, um, the more they, the two are separated in decision making, the harder both of their job becomes. And they, they sometimes forget that they're all on the same side. 

Lucy Bolan: Exactly. Exactly. 

Paul Murphy: But your point about, again, about these generic skills where in that sales role or account management role or whatever you want to call it, um, you really develop your empathy and listening skills.

Lucy Bolan: Uh, 

Paul Murphy: so important, just so important in business, um, for, for effective decision making. And again, the second thing I tell students that, that they should do, or the third thing is they've got a, a lot of students, they think marketing and, and the external, uh, impression of marketing is that it's the coloring in department.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: This anathema that they have towards numbers, cause they think it's math. And I say, you don't have to like maths, but you have to love numbers because they tell you a story about the business that your, one of your key audiences understands. And marketers have two key audiences. One is. A target market, the other are shareholders and shareholders speak the language of numbers.

Paul Murphy: So if you, as a marketer, you can't talk to the shareholders or be it indirectly through senior management, then you are not going to be good at your job. It's just part and parcel. You're not going to make that CMO decision maker level. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. I agree. You've got to get to that, 

Paul Murphy: that point. And many of your other guests, I would imagine, would talk about the CMO level as being focused on communication parts still.

Paul Murphy: And a lot of them come up through that part of the business mix. And, um, it's difficult for them to get the same level as acceptance or, or gravitas at the C suite as the finance director or the operations director or the, those sorts of things. Um, because there's this stigma around it and the more we have to get more CMOs into CEO roles.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I love, I love a hundred. Yeah, I agree completely. And I really, I love what you just said that I've seen it happen. Absolutely. We're certainly some businesses and from a hiring perspective, especially when I've had roles in those businesses and I've been engaged to, to, you know, hire a marketer of some form.

Lucy Bolan: My candidates love it. Music to their ears, because it's like, gosh, you know, marketing will be, you know, really valid and, and I'll be heard and, you know, it'll be deemed as a really, you know, they'll understand exactly, you know, how important that part plays, um, the, the frustrations very much tend to be when it's say, I don't know, reporting into, uh, Some of these structures, you know, head of marketing reports into a CFO or a sales director.

Lucy Bolan: And there's nervousness around that and I totally get it because it's like, well, they just want to look at numbers. They're not going to understand why I want to do a brand campaign versus a, you know, performance marketing campaign of some kind. So, yeah. 

Paul Murphy: All right. And so there's this misunderstanding about what marketing is and does.

Paul Murphy: Students come in, often come into the program with the misunderstanding around that as well. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: And some of them don't like being told that they're going to have to embrace numbers and some of it, and it requires a mind shift. They don't need complex math skills, but they have to embrace numbers. The idea that numbers gives you an ability to interrogate your business, uh, in a, in a way that qualitative discussion doesn't and, and it gives you credibility.

Paul Murphy: It gives you a story credibility and it will give you confidence in decision making. If you can't, if as a marketer, if you can't. Tell that story with numbers and you actually surrender the decision making to those that can. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: Because you're always going to be going, can you, can you slide? I've got this idea.

Paul Murphy: Can you see if it works? 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: And that's a different conversation to going, I've got this idea. I think we're going to make a bucket load of money. Can you check my math? 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: That's, that's a different discussion. So, um, I was kind of fortunate in. Uh, most of my career as a, as a practitioner was in B2B and industrial marketing.

Paul Murphy: So I was surrounded by engineers as well as accountants. And so I had to get across the detail really quite quickly and, and I didn't go to university straight out of high school. I was a terrible student and so I went to work and I didn't start uni, I started night school at Monash 27 or 28. 

Lucy Bolan: I don't know.

Lucy Bolan: Okay. 

Paul Murphy: And. By that stage, I was kind of in senior account management roles and not long after I started university, I moved into a, into a sales management role. And so I started turning up to the, you know, monthly management meeting and I did not understand what was being discussed. So I would just, they'd say, what do you think, Paul?

Paul Murphy: And I would just be smiling and nodding, not, not knowing what the numbers were, you know, Meant I, when I went to university as a, as a sales and marketing person. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-Hmm. . 

Paul Murphy: I actually started an undergrad in accounting. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, okay. Mm-Hmm. , 

Paul Murphy: because I was desperate to know what language was being discussed in those meetings.

Lucy Bolan: It, it's so important. I mean, I agree. I think actually had this conversation with somebody recently where. We were, we were talking about the importance of marketers becoming a lot more data aware. Um, and especially right now, where let's be honest, you know, business owners, we're looking at the bottom line and you've got to, if you're going to spend X on a campaign, well, what's the return of investment?

Lucy Bolan: You need to understand the insights, your data, be across your Google analytics. Um, and it's. You know, we're saying in 2022, when, you know, maybe there might've been a bit more money to play around with, there was a lot more appetite to try and be creative and let's do some expensive brand campaigns and, you know, great as brand campaigns work, but nowadays.

Lucy Bolan: I think, you know, there is a little bit of frustration with, with certain leaders out there that are trying to really sort of, you know, support and, and I guess get that team to, to really have more of an emphasis just looking at data and have that as a backbone. And I know from a recruiting perspective for myself, if I've hired marketers and they can commercially, very simply tell a story for using analytics or data, that person will go very, very far.

Paul Murphy: And, and marketers sometimes underestimate the CFOs, CFOs understand brand equity. It's just that they call it goodwill. 

Lucy Bolan: And 

Paul Murphy: so it sits on the balance sheet as an intangible asset and they know exactly how to calculate it. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: So as a marketer, when you're talking about, and there's this great debate going on in the market.

Paul Murphy: Right. Amongst marketers at the moment about long versus short and active brand performance versus brand building and all this kind of stuff. And it's largely a moot, a moot discussion. It's being driven by this need, I think, to get more numerically savvy, but. The, and the short term ones, immediate return on sales, things like that are a little bit easier to measure than the longer term brand equity, but it can be done and, and, and finance people understand it.

Paul Murphy: They just don't call it brand equity. They call it goodwill. It's basically the same thing. It's so, so a market market is understanding how they impact the balance sheet as well as the P and L, which most senior marketers are pretty good with the P and L. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. 

Paul Murphy: But they're not great with the balance sheet, I think, understanding how they impact the balance sheet, inventory, um, cash at bank, goodwill, these are all marketing.

Paul Murphy: Impacts, uh, debtor days, if you, if you, if you're giving your retail customers 90 day trading terms, you need to understand how that's impacting your debtor days and you're on your, on your balance sheet and as well as your cashflow. And so it's, it's a really interesting. I, I think it's been a little bit easier for finance to develop that kind of maturity around there because of the third party external accreditation that goes along with being a CPA or something like that.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: Um, that, and, and because legislation encodes certain accounting practices, but legislation doesn't encode too many marketing practices and the, the marketing, um, Fraternity doesn't have that legal support for their accreditation system. Okay, so I think that's part of the reason why, again, the colouring in department kind of reputation, um, has evolved.

Paul Murphy: Uh, so it's a dilemma. My, and then, of course, there's the whole thing about, well, do, do marketers need a university qualification? 

Lucy Bolan: What's your thoughts on experience versus education? 

Paul Murphy: Education should be lifelong. Formal education gives you a foundation. Formal education, we make students look at all facets of marketing, not just the social media.

Paul Murphy: Kind of whether they like it or not. And by the time they've done three years, and it doesn't matter if they do it at Monash Swinburne or wherever they do it, or Melbourne or whatever, they've got a foundation. Now they might, if they decide at the end of the three or four years that they didn't like that part of the foundation or they don't like that, that's a good thing because now they have an indication of what they do want to focus on.

Paul Murphy: And so if they, if they go through that process and go, you know what, I really, I'm still in love with this idea of social and digital, then great go work at a social digital agency. And, and really hone those skills, but do some, but if you want to stand out amongst the couple of thousand graduates that are going to be applying for those roles, then you better have gone and done some Google certification or Facebook meta courses in your own time to really.

Paul Murphy: Stand out because you're not going to have a story to tell about how you cope under pressure because you got held up with a knife or something. So you're going to have to stand out somehow. Experience is invaluable. Don't expect them all to have it. It's the old dichotomy of experience versus qualification.

Paul Murphy: We want them to get good grades, but we want them to get experience. 

So sometimes somebody with a lot of experience might only have a. A great point at, you know, a wham of 65, somebody who's got one of 85, but doesn't have as much experience to talk about 

Lucy Bolan: sometimes. 

Paul Murphy: And sometimes you get the shooting star 5 percent of them will, will have done it all and all that sort of stuff.

Paul Murphy: And they're perfect. But guess what? The average employer is not going to attract the, the exceptional graduate. So most average businesses are average and they will recruit average people. 

Lucy Bolan: Uh, 

Paul Murphy: that's just kind of the, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah, 

Paul Murphy: the way it goes. Um, there's a lot of businesses out there that are not exceptional.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I mean, it's really, I've had this conversation with quite a few. Marketers over the years. And I think brand perceptions are really interesting one because I've, you know, even myself, I mean, I'm not going to mention names, but I've, you know, I might be a shopper at a specific brand or I'm a con well, I'm a consumer at that brand or, you know, it aligns to me and who I am.

Lucy Bolan: And I have this perception that there'll be amazing to work for like it. it's shiny and glossy and it's amazing. And then you dig deep and you get in there and it's like, oh gosh, like, you know, right. Okay. So the culture's like that. And, oh, there's, you know, loads of people leave after a year and there's no progress.

Lucy Bolan: And then, you know, it's a small world, like, you know, I often believe, from my perspective, it is very much about who you report into, especially, I mean, broadly speaking, I'll always say that, no matter if a brand doesn't have a great reputation or it doesn't, and I think especially these bigger businesses, it's hard just to sort of wash away and say, oh, it's an awful place to work there, because at the end of the day, it depends what team you're in and who you report into, and if that manager is going to back you, they're going to support you, and they are collaborative, In the way that they manage, that's really important and I think take feedback and vice versa.

Lucy Bolan: It's super, super crucial. Um, so, so yeah, it's, it's an interesting one cause I've, I for one have just recently actually filled some more, the junior sort of coordinator and I can say the managers that those guys are going to be reporting into have got the time to develop them. Have, you know, they're delightful people to work with.

Lucy Bolan: And from a recruiter's perspective, you walk away and you go, great. I know that they're going to be looked after and they're going to be. 

Paul Murphy: And so important because again, recruitment is an agency business. So recruiters have. Skills and resources that are not commonly found within a business. So the business outsources that part of their function, but they don't abdicate responsibility to the recruiter.

Paul Murphy: So having the best recruiters I've ever dealt with, whether From a placement or, or as an employer, um, they've taken time to get to know how the business works, how it thinks, what the values that underpin it are. And then they look for that cultural fit with their, with employees and the, the, the, there are recruitment agents out there who are very much transactional.

Paul Murphy: It's, and, and it's a, it's hit and miss the hiring process as a, as a candidate, you risk being ending up saying yes to something that's not going to be a good fit for you. And as a recruiter, as a management, uh, you risk hiring people who are not a good cultural fit for your organization. And that's just never going to work well.

Paul Murphy: It always, again, it's, it's this culture. More important than the skills or experience is my opinion. 

Lucy Bolan: A hundred percent. I agree. I think, um, I had another conversation with a CMI recently, and she was made such a valid point around learning to identify what the right flags are in interview and I say to anyone, you know, when you are interviewing, yes.

Lucy Bolan: You're being interviewed, but you're always also interviewing that person. Do you want to work for them? Do you want to work for that company? And I've personally always followed that methodology that, that, you know, way of thinking, um, and I'll share that with anyone, but I think it is, it's hard because I think when you're a graduate, you know, you, you, you've not had some of those lessons and battle scars, unfortunately.

Lucy Bolan: And so sometimes, you know, you're going in there and you kind of going, well, they seem really nice and. Guess what? We get Fridays where we get to work from home and they have a pub lunch. So yeah, I think I'll go with them. So, . 

Paul Murphy: Yeah. . We, um, I, I, again, I tell grad graduates and firms, can you articulate your values?

Paul Murphy: Yeah. Are they written down somewhere? Yeah. Can you sit down and have a discussion about, about, and again, we'll call 'em soft skills, generic skills, values, attitudes. Here's how we treat each other in this workplace. And is this candidate going to be a good fit with those, those values and behaviors and as a, as somebody who's looking for a job, particularly if you're one of those more exceptional students, uh, I have students who are, who I say, you take whatever you can get.

Paul Murphy: And I have other students who say you pick and choose. And every year I, I. Talk to students who, who come to me and say, I've been offered a job here, here and here, which one should I take? Gosh. Wow. Now they're the exceptions to the rule, but, um, these are people who leave school or leave uni with multiple offers sitting on the table for them.

Paul Murphy: And the first thing I talk to them about is not about how much does it pay or what the title is or any of that stuff. It's the values. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Love that. Yeah. Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: And, and so to have them to go through, are they going to. Be in an environment where they're learning, where they're coached, where they're, where they're, that encourages, um, responsible risk and, and growth, not just bottom line growth.

Paul Murphy: I'm talking about, um, growing the way people that were the way organizer, how they opened to new ideas and, and trying new things. Do they regularly throw everything up in the air and see where it lands and reshuffle? Um, So these types of environments are far more dynamic and interesting to work with.

Paul Murphy: And if the, if the people are driving that process that you're going to work with, that suits you, that's what you're looking for. Then you're going to have a great time. The, the industry will become secondary. Yeah. All that kind of stuff. You're so right. The people that you work with, um, I'm sure there's research around this.

Paul Murphy: I'd have to ask my management department colleagues, but, um, the people that you work with, in my experience, determine how happy you're. We'll continue on with your job. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Couldn't agree more. Just finally, before we wrap up, I just wanted to ask, um, is there any, I guess, resources or individuals that you would recommend say, you know, whether it be, I don't know, marketing managers even, or marketing general or graduates should perhaps start to follow or any podcasts that you were across or books that you recommend.

Paul Murphy: Not really. I actually tell students to keep the textbooks of the subjects they hated. 

Lucy Bolan: That's interesting. 

Paul Murphy: Because they're not going to retain that knowledge and they probably didn't absorb enough of it to begin with. So, but if the book is on the shelf, It'll always be there. All right. So they'll, they'll always you, and you may not remember the specific discipline knowledge, but you remember where the book is because you walked past it every day.

Paul Murphy: So I've still got my, for example, I've still got my maths and statistics. Textbooks and my corporate finance textbooks from my, uh, accounting and MBA studies, they're sitting at home on the shelf. Now, I wouldn't be able to off the top of my head, calculate the weighted average cost of capital, but I know where to find that textbook.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. It's winking. 

Paul Murphy: I could, I could torture myself for a couple of hours with that textbook and then sit down and calculate a weighted average cost of capital again. Not that I'm in any hurry to do that. But, um, so keep your textbooks, um, I know that they're boring, but keep them anyway. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: Um, truth is old, beware, beware of, you can't, to quote Jim Rohn, you can't manufacture antiques.

Paul Murphy: So the old stuff, fundamentals of what we do as marketers change really slowly. How we do them changes really fast. At university, you've got to change, you, you've got to learn what to do in the workplace. You've got to constantly educate yourself about how to do it. So, and, and that you, we've got another, another new bright, shiny thing now with generative AI.

Lucy Bolan: And that's 

Paul Murphy: going to change. That's going to change how we work. Academia is really. Struggling with this at the moment because, and for an applied discipline like marketing, we actually kind of have to work out how practitioners are going to use this product productively in order to be able to teach it.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: But we can't, we can't teach AI for the sake of AI because it's a, how we do things. It's not a, I don't know yet if it's going to change what we do. I suspect it probably will in the long run, but it's. Certainly going to have a massive impact on how we do things. So as a marketer, whether you, whether you're a student or I would suggest that people are students at any stage of their career, of course, 

Lucy Bolan: we're always learning.

Paul Murphy: Yeah. So, um, continual professional development is your own. Responsibility and how we do things changes all the time. So you've got to stay up to date and relevant the what we do, understanding the fundamentals don't change very much or change really slowly. Um, so having a good grounding in those is important.

Paul Murphy: And so that mix of, of new information with credibility versus the old fundamentals that you're always going to need that mix. I think, um, whatever source works for you. The other thing I teach students is, is a model around, um, called scrape. And it's about, it's about reliability of the sources of information you use.

Paul Murphy: And it doesn't, it doesn't matter if it's, um, Whatever knowledge you are trying to develop, your, your ability to use the right source for that knowledge is really important. So you've gotta do, develop these, these judicious mm-hmm, discriminating skills between what I read on Wikipedia versus what I read in somebody's blog versus making a, you've gotta call, you've gotta make a call on, on the quality of the information because if you use it.

Paul Murphy: You're going to be held responsible for the quality of the decision making that follows. Um, so, so accountability and responsibility for your actions and decisions. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Paul Murphy: You've got to have good information going into your system to, um, to get good outputs. So 

Lucy Bolan: I think, I think Pete's right. The law says, you know.

Paul Murphy: Yeah. So a variety of information, both traditional and emerging, but be judicious. In your choice of who you listen to, there's, there's an awful lot of gurus out there.

Lucy Bolan: I'm seeing it myself. Absolutely. I agree. I think, I mean, look, Paul, I, um, I've got like a wealth of knowledge now, and I think also, I'm sure my listeners would agree, complete respect for a lot of these graduates that are coming through. You know, it's, it's hard out there. It's tough. I mean, I've been 

Paul Murphy: to employers, give them a go.

Paul Murphy: There's some really good people coming through. They're not the finished product, but, uh, there's a lot of quality people coming through. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Love it. Well, thank you so much for your time, Paul. I've really enjoyed the conversation. Been a 

Paul Murphy: real pleasure. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, excellent, excellent. Thank you.

Lucy Bolan: Remember, the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests is invaluable. Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: I am delighted to welcome. Uh, Karl Winther. I've known Karl now for seven years, maybe longer, eight years approximately. 

Karl Winther: Maybe, maybe, maybe that long. I can't remember. It's been that long. We can't remember. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, maybe. I think that's it. Um, so yeah, I wanted to welcome Karl to the podcast. So, Karl, welcome.

Karl Winther: Thank you for having me, Lucy. 

Lucy Bolan: You're very, very welcome. So I thought we'd kick things off. Do you want to introduce yourself? 

Karl Winther: I'm Karl Winther. Uh, I'm currently the CMO at Kogan. com. I've been here for about two and a half years. I'll go in reverse chronological order. Prior to Kogan. com, I was at a big company that no one's ever heard of, but they, I know the brands, um, Bapcore, um, which has brands like Autobahn, Midas, Opposite Lock, um, Autopro.

Karl Winther: Prior to that, I was actually doing, uh, working on my own as a part time consultant or as a consultant. Um, I can talk about that a little bit more. Brief stint as CMO at, um, Australia Post. Um, and then eight years at, as GM of marketing. Um, and digital at office works, which is where I think we first ran into each other.

Karl Winther: Um, and then, um, prior to that was actually at Meyer, um, at Meyer I had the last role I had was marketing operations manager. And, but I've had a 13 year career at Meyer actually started out in the buying team, in the toy buying team, starting out doing toy catalogs of all things. So there you go. 

Lucy Bolan: You got to start from the 

Karl Winther: career in, um, in marketing and all things retail.

Karl Winther: The last, I guess, 15, 16 years, also including e commerce. 

Lucy Bolan: How long would you say you've been at sort of, you know, GM, CMO level now? I mean, is that been, am I right? Thinking it's almost like eight years? No, so 2012 

Karl Winther: at Officeworks. So over 12 years, I was the, yeah, I started out as the, heading up the marketing department.

Karl Winther: Um, at Officeworks in 2012. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Wow. So I'm curious to know, and I'm just going to sort of tap into this. So you strike me as someone who, for my interactions with you, you know, you've always been, I think, you know, a real sort of like solid head on the shoulder, nowhere to get to cut through. Have you always been very ambitious and driven to get to that top spot?

Karl Winther: Um, uh, I don't think so. No. Um, I've been. Determined to actually move ahead, but it wasn't, you know, and get the next role, the next thing, but there wasn't, I need to be a CMO. Otherwise my, my life is unfulfilled. So it was all about, I think for me, it was always what was more fulfilling was progression. Like it needed to be some form of progression, otherwise I was unsatisfied and that could be progression within a role or, you know, I've been, uh, there was a long 10 years within roles.

Karl Winther: So I was at Maya for 13 years and I had two or really three careers within Maya at, at Officeworks. I was there for eight years. Um, very unusual for me to have then have these shorter stints, had a very short stint in Australia Post, but then I was at Bat Corps. Um, and then for 18 months, and then the reason I moved is because this opportunity came forward and at kogan.

Karl Winther: com to be their first CMO. And I think when it came down to it, that idea of progression and new challenges, I would have regretted not taking up this opportunity because of the size and the type of challenge, but also the learning opportunities that were available at kogan. com. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.

Lucy Bolan: That's awesome. Very early on, I guess, when, when maybe we go back to our Maya days or even, you know, past that as you've developed and gained experience, what challenges sort of did you face perhaps early on in your career that you'd say have put you in a good position? Um, 

Karl Winther: I've come throughout my career and, uh, I know that you might have listeners who aren't CMOS yet.

Karl Winther: You might have people that are CMOS. I've come to realize that everything happens for a reason and you don't realize it or appreciate it at the time, but it's become, even when times are tough, it's a bit of a mantra that I have that everything is happening for a reason. So to answer it. More specifically, I remember at Meijer, so a little, little anecdote from when I was at Meijer, I started out doing toy catalogs because I was doing a post grad in marketing.

Karl Winther: And, uh, I then moved into, I was doing toy catalogs, but I was actually in the buying area. So I was, it was fun role. I got to play with Tickle Me Elmo's and, you know, get all the samples in for the catalogs. And then. Go to the pre shoot, pre production shoots, and then make sure, but there was much more of an inventory management, like make sure we had to stop for when that catalog went out and then doing the post analysis on sales.

Karl Winther: And actually through some of those at that analysis, um, uh, I got identified as someone who could actually, I don't know, they, they, they knew how to use Excel. I think that was the only requirement. Um, and I actually got promoted to becoming a planner. Um, now I'm not an advertising planner, but a planner in terms of someone who oversaw inventory management, pricing management, stock control, stock turn, it was not something I was looking for.

Karl Winther: It was not something I was interested in, but I enjoy, I enjoy retail and I saw it as a great challenge. Again, further progression. Um, I was doing my post grad marketing and that's what I loved and that's what I was passionate about it. But I thought this is good business knowledge and business. Learning and I, and I then started planning and I did that for two years.

Karl Winther: I'm not ashamed to say I hated it. I hated it with a passion. Two good things came from planning one. I met my wife, she was a fellow planner in, um, another division. And, um, we actually met at the, uh, at the races, uh, you know, through my connection with the races. So that's, that's a story for another day, but the other part that.

Karl Winther: Like I really hate, I'd go home and I'd be really sad and depressed about what I was doing and why aren't I doing marketing? But the challenge, to answer your question specifically, the challenge was to keep the positive mindset and understand that like that experience as a planner still sticks with me today in this current role as a CMO, um, of one of Australia's top.

Karl Winther: Australia's top e commerce retailer. Because it's that, that, that, that understanding around how the P and L works about how inventory management works, how pricing works, working with buying teams, just about, you know, knowledge around retail. Um, but it was a, you know, You know, a challenge and I found it hard to, you know, break through and want to get into the marketing, um, area.

Karl Winther: So I guess the other part of that was when I was feeling down and depressed about what I was doing and I wasn't doing in my passions, uh, again, the, the, the part of that story that got me into marketing was I actually just decided something needed to change. I wasn't going to be a victim. I was going to do something.

Karl Winther: I was just, you know, going to make a change and the universe would reward me. And I was actually, this sounds crazy. I hated planning. But I was, I took on a role to become the head of planning at a retailer that doesn't exist called Borders Bookstores. 

Lucy Bolan: I remember those guys. Yep. 

Karl Winther: And what happened is I was going to leave and someone who backed me at Meyer actually said, I heard you're leaving.

Karl Winther: No, you're not. And I said, no, no, no, I am. I need to get, I'm not happy. I need to make a change. He goes, you're not leaving. And I said, yes, I am. And he goes, what are you passionate about? I'm like, well, I just need to make a change. I want to get closer to marketing. He said, give me 24 hours. And he came back to me 24 hours later and said, here's a role.

Karl Winther: I think you'd be really good at. And it was actually at getting in on the ground floor of something called my one loyalty program before it even existed. So, um, I had to make the phone call back to the people who I said yes to, and that was my phone call to make. I'm sure as a recruiter, you've had that before. Um, and that was for me a real sliding doors moment. But. You know, I'd sort of look back on that time with fondness because A, all the skills and experience I got as a, as a planner, but also B, that, you know, if you're not happy about something, be it in your role or be it something you're doing, take action and, and the universe will reward you, um, because the worst thing is to sit there and be a victim, um, around what's going on around you.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I think, I think you've made a really valid point there because I was chatting to a marketing lecturer actually at Monash University last week. And, you know, he was saying how, you know, some of his students quite early on, you know, they, they, you know, really stay away from numbers because they're not comfortable with mathematics, um, with maths, et cetera.

Lucy Bolan: And he actually said to them, when you actually get into the employment world, keep those textbooks and keep the ones, especially on the modules that you're not good at, because you're going to need them. Thank you. And they're just that, put them on the shelf, just to remind you, you know, what you're not good at, cause it's probably going to be the element you're going to need more support in.

Lucy Bolan: Um, but I think, you know, what a valid story because it set you in early on in your career, understanding things like P and L's and budgets, which. 

Karl Winther: And profitability and where you make money and getting sales versus just getting, you know, sales at no profit versus getting sales that actually make profit.

Karl Winther: And. You know, I was clearing stock. I was, I was ahead of planning for an area of, um, uh, my actually Manchester. And I remembered, um, do you know what a valance is? 

Lucy Bolan: Yes, I do. It's like 

Karl Winther: a bed skirt. Yeah. I learned it to just be a stock issue because I remember I spent like a year and a half trying to clear all our valances, but, you know, I got to understand, you know, in terms of pricing power and, and, you know, it's great to do a great ad.

Karl Winther: But what about if you've got no stock? It doesn't matter how good the ad is. 

You've got to have stock to sell. So yeah, although, although, although, although understanding and knowledge, and also it made it by under the back to this lecturer's point. You can have a much more informed and intelligent conversation with your peers if you've got a deeper understanding of the numbers. So even if you're not, it's not a comfort zone, you have to lean in as a marketer because at the end of the day, we're here to change behavior. And then get some form of outcome, be it behavior outcome, be it through users, be it through profitability, be it through sales. But, and that's, you've got to understand that, you know, that you understand what you're here to do in terms of what measurements and be able to then look at those numbers and identify where you're doing well and where you could do better.

Karl Winther: I think another, I just thought of another point that, um, I feel would also be quite valid. So I mean, that time in Maya was obviously a really important part in your career to get you obviously to where you are now, because not only are you getting quite early on in your career expertise around P&O profit, sorry, profit and loss, not P&O, profit and loss, but also the stakeholder engagement piece.

Lucy Bolan: Because, you know, and, and it's interesting, you know, my experience when I've met, say marketing, you know, executives or whatever it may be, and they're in these smaller businesses, you know, it's a whole new kettle of fish when you put in a big ocean and all of a sudden you're managing and layering through departments.

Lucy Bolan: So. I guess my question for you is, have you developed yourself throughout that time? Would you say Maya was a great sort of foundation to sort of dive right in and learn the dynamics of that? 

Karl Winther: Yeah. So in terms of stakeholder relationships and engagement, um, I've learned by doing and I've learned by doing things wrong.

Karl Winther: Um, like I think that, yeah, I answered the specific part around Maya. You got to understand retail and how retail, you know, I've worked it. 20 plus years in retail. And there's always that holy trinity of like marketing, buying and operations because the three that have to work within, you know, in sync with each other, you know, you can have great marketing, but you've got bad product where you can have good product, but if you've got nowhere to sell it or you're selling it inefficiently through operations and operations can be both in store or online.

Karl Winther: So you've learned very quickly that, you know, that it's the sum of the parts that. That make up the whole, um, and the whole will be greater than the sum of the parts, um, from a retailing point of view, but then more specifically around stakeholder engagement and management, I probably look back at my time when I first started at Officeworks and, um, I remember I was leaving Meijer and the CEO at the time of Meijer was kind enough to have a coffee meeting with me before I left and, um, his name was Bernie Brooks and there's one thing that he said to me, um, in that coffee, um, catch up, cause I was going from being like the second in charge of marketing to now the head person in marketing at Officeworks and he said, work on your relationships with your people.

Karl Winther: And I'm like, yes, Bernie. Yep. No, I've got that covered. No problem. And okay. Yes. So I'll make sure I was like, Oh, I'll just sit down and have a coffee with them. But you know, it probably wasn't until three to four years in at the role at office works that I really understood what he meant by that, because they can really make you or break you.

Karl Winther: They, they can become your advocates. And I think sometimes you used to try to avoid their criticism or their critiques. I've learned after three to four years into leaning to their critiques and criticism and really and not all of it was valid But some of it was valid and i'd much rather now know it Than not know it.

Karl Winther: So I think, you know, we, we all working into department, you know, type situation. So if there is critiques or criticisms of your function or of the marketing function, I will lean into that and understand it. And then we can have an informed conversation about, well, I think your perception is wrong or no, that's actually a really valid point.

Karl Winther: Let me go and work on that. And I'll come back to you and I might not deliver exactly what you want, but I'm at least going to listen. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, 

Karl Winther: yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: that's really awesome. And I think it comes down to, you know, the way leaders actually take on board feedback and how they listen to that. You know, it can be quite easy, I think for us all to be, you know, so headstrong that it's my way or the highway, but like you just said, you know, leaning into that, um, is going to be super important.

Karl Winther: I had a manager of mine used to say feedback is a gift. Um, but it just like any gift you get at Christmas, it could be that smelly pair or the, the, the bright pair of socks that you might want to return on boxing day, or you might appreciate the gift for what it is. And so, um, but yeah, feedback is a gift.

Lucy Bolan: What habits, I'm curious to know on this, what habits do you, I guess cultivate to, to try and remain, you know, to stay informed and be consistently, I guess, help you improve as a leader. Is there anything that you, you really sort of tend to any CMOs that you, you know, really sort of like followed over the years, or is it just honestly from experience and knowing the market?

Karl Winther: Um, well, there's both as there's, there's as a marketing leader and, and, and a subject matter expert in the area of marketing, and then there's the area of leadership. And Some marketers will go down the path of being really great at understanding their specialty without understanding or going and investing as much time in leadership.

Karl Winther: And I was probably one of those marketers early on that you realize as you get, you know, your, your role grows and you, you, you, you oversee more people that you really need to probably invest more in the area of leadership than you're doing. Subject matter expertise and marketing. So in terms of Ivan, uh, you know, someone described me as a lifelong learner.

Karl Winther: I actually had someone describe me if you always been that academic, I'm not that academic, but I do like to read and listen to podcasts and recommendations, but that's around understanding the craft of marketing 

Lucy Bolan: and 

Karl Winther: big M marketing in terms of, you know, the four P's of product place, price promotion, not just advertising.

Karl Winther: And, you know, really being a lifelong learner of what's going, what the trends are in, in the areas of marketing. But I think in terms of leadership, you know, there's, there's some resources that have been wonderful, um, you know, partners in terms of, you know, big books, like I've got a book here, like I can say it right here, like mindset, which is about being a growth mindset, which has become, you know, well known, but just that idea of I'm not good at it.

Karl Winther: Just putting the word yet on it. Um, understanding the gift of feedback and how to give and receive feedback. Um, um, there's another great book or a resource, which is called creativity. It's actually by the authors of, um, or the founders of Pixar. And they talk about how to foster a culture of creativity while having really string, you know, like, you know, stringent conversations about feedback.

Karl Winther: Um, but I think, you know, observing leaders. Around me and I'd like to be, you know, marketers get blamed for being magpies, but I've been a magpie in terms of cherry picking bits of leaders, behaviors, and, and, and demeanor and their tactics that I've found authentic to me. Like I can't be, you know, I've worked with some great leaders, like a Mark Ward, who was the MD of office works for, I can't remember how long, but almost probably four years.

Karl Winther: 15 years and I could never be Mark Ward, but there's the, you know, what I found inspiring about him was his discipline, you know, in terms of speaking to a strategy and he's, um, you know, being core to who we are and billing, be willing to say no to good ideas to say yes to the right ideas. That's something I picked up from him.

Karl Winther: And, you know, someone like Bernie Brooks who really, you know, took a really deep understanding of the market and of retail. And, you know, he used to have a memory, like an elephant. I learned, learn your numbers. Be across your numbers. So, um, uh, there was another leader I worked with by the name of David Hayden.

Karl Winther: He just had fantastic empathy. He has had a great style of walking around management by walking, and he would just walk around the office and just make connections and talk to people. And he'd come, I'd have a one on one with him and I'm like, I'm going to tell you this and tell you, and he goes, yeah, I know that.

Karl Winther: Yeah, I know that. I go, I just walked around the office floor and just found out a whole heap of stuff. So again, there's. Liz, I've cherry picked bits along the way of, you know, leaders that, you know, have habits and behaviors that I've aspired to and really, really enjoyed, um, getting inspiration from.

Lucy Bolan: Excellent. Excellent. I wanted to ask, and I've personally gone through this myself when I was managing a team. One day, you know, you get promoted and it's right, we're going to give you a team now. So here's your reports. Off you go. Yeah. And there's no, you know, there's no book that comes with that. It's so much.

Lucy Bolan: I, I've personally felt, okay, I'm just going to find my feet here and find my rhythm and off I go. So I wanted to ask you, what was your first, I guess, management or leadership role where you were managing direct reports and, and were there leaders there that you've learned? How, I mean, obviously we all find our own, what works for us, I guess, but I guess, how did you find, you know, the best way and, and, and get to that point where you are now, where, you know, you can really confidently, you know, manage people, you know, you feel like you've got it maybe.

Lucy Bolan: You know, nailed even. 

Karl Winther: Yeah. I, for anyone looking for a shortcut, I'm afraid to say there isn't a shortcut. Like it's learning it's to be honest, like I, I picked up tips along the way. And as I said, multiple resources, you know, um, uh, there's a, there's another podcast Uh, podcast that looks, uh, around, you know, behavior in organizations called Adam Grant.

Karl Winther: Um, people have pros and cons of someone like Simon Sinek as well, but there's people like that where you can pick up bits and pieces, but I think. What I found in terms of, you know, my particular style was, you know, almost like cultivating frameworks that, that allowed people to then shine, but then like there's tight guardrails and by tight guardrails or frameworks, I don't mean they become so restrictive that you can't do anything, but they become core to who you are or what you're trying to be in terms of your brand positioning.

Karl Winther: So. You know, it could be. I'll use a practical example. You're working with a team of graphic designers. Now I'm not a graphic designer and I don't study graphic designer and graphic design, but I understand and appreciate the elements of graphic design. And I always saw my role in leading a team of graphic designers is to ask those tough questions about who we are and how do we want to show up 

Lucy Bolan: and 

Karl Winther: not, I'm not going to get the Adobe Acrobat and start designing or get my, my.

Karl Winther: Uh, coloring in pencils and start designing, but you know what, I'm going to challenge them, go help me define who we are as a brand and how we could show up and show me that there's flexibility within that framework that allows you to do your job, but allows us to be a brand that's got consistency in some way, shape or form.

Karl Winther: So I've found developing those frameworks or guardrails beating any area and allowing that subject matter expert. To shine and actually bring the best and define those frameworks with me has been my leadership style. Cause then they've empowered and they've actually helped define the framework.

Karl Winther: They're going to work with you. They, they own it. Um, but within developing frameworks and guidelines like that, that style guide or, or. Example, or it could be, you know, something in terms of our CRM approach or any example need to have the flexibility to go that framework or guideline is not working for us now we need to resolve it, but you can't be so, I'd like to say it's, it's set in clay, not set in stone, allow you the fact to actually change, because you could just, you know, you could.

Karl Winther: You know, put your head in the sand and go, Oh, that's the way we do it. And we only operate within that guideline. I have an example from office works where we set some guidelines around how we went to market from a promotional point of view. Now we got to the point where we saw our brand metrics were plateauing and we saw our sales numbers were plateauing.

Lucy Bolan: And 

Karl Winther: so I challenged and I shine, I put those, those metrics up on the board and said, are we happy with this? Do we think we can get better or what do we think is going on? And it was quite pathetic because I heard from everyone in the team. Yeah. In terms of where we potentially could go and I was able then to, you know, establish from those ideas that the evolution of the work and where it needed to go and they need to be more investment in brands and activations, um, to actually demonstrate who we are as a brand, not just from a promotional point of view, are able to recalibrate.

Karl Winther: Define those frameworks presented to the rest of the organization had got their go ahead and then working within those guidelines. 

Lucy Bolan: Okay. Okay. I think when, when you're in that position and you know, I think one thing you've just shared there is that, and it's a really simple one, but, and it's so important, but the ability to listen.

Lucy Bolan: And actually, you know, have it, as you said, you know, have everyone in a room, share ideas, get everyone together. Cause I think it can be so easy for everyone to just be, you know, head down, bum up, and there's a lack of communication really. I 

Karl Winther: love a good saying, but you know, we have one mouth and two ears, so use them in proportion.

Lucy Bolan: I like 

Karl Winther: it. I've always found then, you know, the fun trick is when you get to be the leader of a team, you can go last. Um, and, and, and it's sometimes you have to force yourself to go last. Cause I, as soon as you say something, I don't like it, or actually I don't allow the words. I don't like it. It doesn't work because, or it's not working because even better if it's better language.

Karl Winther: So language is important. But as soon as you say something as the leader, like you've, um, everyone else is then influenced by. Your opinion. So the trick is to actually hear from everyone else. Encourage the debate, like actually get why, why won't this work or why the people who have expressed that this is a good idea.

Karl Winther: Tell me why it won't work or why it's bad idea and actually, you know, get that debate. And, and that's not for everyone. Like in terms of sometimes that can be a little bit confronting. But I've always found that, you know, from those, those good, healthy debates can come better out. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. I've got a bit of an interesting question and, and yeah.

Lucy Bolan: They've all 

Karl Winther: been interesting. Good. 

Lucy Bolan: Good. I'm glad. Um, so a lot of CMOs. Okay, well have often shared with me that when you're a CMO, it's actually, it can sometimes be a lonely job. Is that, is that true? Is that something that you've ever felt in the past? 

Karl Winther: I have felt it, but, but at the same time, it goes back to being a victim.

Karl Winther: Like it's only, it's only a lonely place if you allow it to be. Um, but it, it's sometimes I, I, I'm not sure if there was a followup, but I've, I've sort of looked into this and I've heard that before and yeah, I felt like that way, but I think it's sometimes that, you know, you're accountable for some numbers, like, yeah, your direct reports, uh, they're engaged and they're in the trenches with you, but at the end of the day, you're ultimately.

Karl Winther: Accountable for the outcome. So yes, it's a, it's a shared, but it's only shared to a certain extent. Like you're in the hot seat and I suppose that's any, any form of leadership. I'm sure the CEOs feel the same way. It is a mindset because they ultimately, ultimately accountable for everything. 

Lucy Bolan: Of course, of course.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Well, of course they are. Um, even more potentially, you know, it's, it's, yeah, it's that it's that vision, exactly. Right. Um, I wanted to ask in, in terms of, I guess, broadly speaking, if you'll say a marketing manager, you know, you've got maybe, I don't know, six, seven years under your belt, you know, you're driven, you're ambitious, you know, one day you really want to get to that CMO or GM sort of top spot.

Lucy Bolan: Is there any career advice that you'd say, you know, this would be, My initial thoughts, this is what, you know, you would share with these individuals to sort of support them and help them get that 

Karl Winther: if I, if, if you allow me, I'd probably give like my, what the mindset that I've had, my particular approach, but the first thing to identify, and I actually do this through learning and development conversations is I always talk about, it's a little trick, but, you know, in terms of, I'm doing a learning development conversation with my team and I'll say, what are your aspirations?

Karl Winther: Where do you want to get to? And I hear, and it could be, I want to be a CMO and I, okay, so let's just say that's like I leave and the CMO role would, would the CEO actually give you the CMO role 

Lucy Bolan: today? 

Karl Winther: More often than not, if they've got some level of self awareness. Um, they'll say, well, no, and then that opens up, please tell me why, what, what do you think?

Karl Winther: And more, more often than not, people know why I'm answering the question in terms of helping an individual, but for some, it could be, I'm not great at leading people, or it could be for some, I need to get more commercial or for some, it needs to be, um, I need to do, I need to work, I need to work better from a cross functional and integration, like it's going to be unique to each individual is what I'm saying.

Karl Winther: But if you do have those aspirations, just look in your heart of hearts. And if not ask someone who's close or around you in terms of if that role was available today, what are the areas? And even if you, you think you should get the role and you think you're ready for the role, why would the CEO or the person hiring say, no, you're not right.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Karl Winther: What is the perception that you know, that, you know, you know, around you that you need to then help alleviate. So when that role does come up, 

Lucy Bolan: well, 

Karl Winther: the first choice that everyone thinks of in terms of my personal mindset, in terms of the way I've gone about it in, in the, to position myself for those roles, there's probably three things that I pride myself on.

Karl Winther: Almost like my ways of working or, or, or bad use, but, um, uh, curiosity. Basically, always being curious, always being curious that, um, um, around the, uh, marketing and marketing science, it could be around how the business functions, being curious where we're making profit, be curious about what we're doing and the results that it's actually leaning into.

Karl Winther: It's just, it's, I can say, be more commercial, or I can say, learn more about marketing. I just think the common, the commonality is be curious and like constantly curious, uh, and never rest. Um, as a retailer, this one's probably more pertinent to, to, you know, I've only worked in retail, but yeah. Getting that, I'm not sure if I'm allowed to use my potty mouth, but I'd say get shit done.

Karl Winther: Um, like you can, I, I witnessed that my, uh, you know, people with the size, some people at my, with the, you know, you know, brains, the size of watermelons that, you know, could come in with great ideas, but it means nothing unless you're actually getting, you know, the rubber is hitting the road. And, you know, sometimes you can have these big hairy audacious goals or these big ambitions.

Karl Winther: Just get one thing done and you know what? Then get another thing done and then get another thing done and get another thing. And by the time you look, it looks three months or six months down the track and you're sort of like, Oh my goodness, look how much we've achieved. So done is better than perfect sometimes.

Karl Winther: Um, and that's something that I really enjoy in koga. com because we're much more, you know, um, entrepreneurial and just look to get stuff done constantly, test and refine. And then the fir, the third one is around investing relationships. So, um, that advice that Bernie gave me and we talked about, which is be it with your direct reports, your team, your peers, um, be it with your suppliers, oh, you know, be it your partners, your agencies, um, be it with your media partners.

Karl Winther: So investing those, those relationships. Um, and getting, not just making it transactional and, you know, that could mean as simply as having a coffee or, you know, asking people about their lives and just being, so it doesn't become so transactional. It just, trust me, it does help in terms of building rapport and making you more memorable in terms of, um, them.

Karl Winther: And, you know, I think every interaction matters and helps build you and your personal brand and when those roles do come up. That people will be, you know, more, more likely to think of you than not think of you. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. I think there's a fine line, isn't there? I think, you know, one thing I found from my interactions when I'm dealing with leaders, like, you know, yes, these people are, you know, in senior positions and they've got, you know, some powerful decision making capabilities there, but they're also just human, you know, asking them how the holiday was last month.

Lucy Bolan: Like, you know, it's just getting to know people sometimes. 

Karl Winther: Well, the thing is, it's, I mean, It's not, I say it's because it's a nice thing to do and a common thing to do, but to be honest, there's an ulterior motive that it's, it makes you a better leader and it makes you create connections and empathy. And when you're actually trying to inspire someone or ask them to go that extra mile, they're more likely to do it with someone that there is a bit of a bond.

Karl Winther: Then just the transactional relationship. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. So just finally, before we wrap things up, I wanted to ask a little bit more about legacy and impact. So when you look back at your career and I mean, you've done so much with some, you know, top tier brands. What is it that, you know, you'd like people to, to remember you by, or that you'd say, you know what, I'm really proud of what the work we did here, or, you know, I work with some exceptional people and I've got to see them grow.

Lucy Bolan: What does that look like? 

Karl Winther: It's an interesting question. Um, I'll pause for a thought because what I mean, I'll, I'll put, I suppose I'll go with my gut instinct, which is, uh, uh, maybe when you're early on in your career and it probably evolved that. You want to make that great bit of advertising or that style guide or that great piece of work that delivered like effective results and help transform a business.

Karl Winther: And I've come to realize that that's nice, but that's not what's really important. Um, I, I can't help. Like everyone's got an ego of some sort, you know, it's great to see. You know, how like a brand like Officeworks continues to evolve and they've changed a lot of things since I've been there. And so they should, but there's like the core of the brand is still there around the positioning around, you know, helping and empowering, you know, um, small businesses, people in education and, and people working from home.

Karl Winther: So that cause still there and brands we've developed, like developing taglines and creative for Autobahn Midas. It's, it's nice to leave that legacy. Not because it's about. The work, but about the impact that the work has on the business and creating prosperity and commercial returns. But I mean, ultimately it's got to be about the people and leaving a legacy.

Karl Winther: With the people that you've um, metaphorically touched um, and and and help grow um and become better marketers and bigger better leaders and and saying, you know, It was actually a bit of serendipity There's someone by the name of simon davenport who was he reported into me at office works And then I was leaving bapcor and we had a conversation.

Karl Winther: I said i'm leaving. Do you want to like Potentially, you might want to go for my role and, you know, to see him now as a, as a GM of marketing, um, as well, and seeing other people I've worked with and, and their growth and development, that's the ultimate legacy, I think, in terms of, you know, then not copying you, but, you know, picking up some of the things that they want to pick up from you and then becoming their own authentic leaders and leaving their own, um, commercial legacy is probably more satisfying than, than anything else.

Lucy Bolan: Love it. It's almost like that domino effect, isn't it? Yeah. Well, I have thoroughly enjoyed listening to, to your, yeah, to everything that you've shared. It's been really, really interesting. So thank you so much for your time and yeah, for joining us on the show. It's been, it's been fascinating. It's been great.

Karl Winther: Thanks Lucy. I think it's a great thing that you're doing to try and help young marketers grow, um, and make the industry better overall. So all kudos to you. 

Lucy Bolan: Brilliant. Thank you. Thank you.

Lucy Bolan: Remember the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests is invaluable. Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: Okay. So I am absolutely delighted to have Una Flanagan on my show today. Super excited. Una has returned fresh and after having, I think, three, four weeks of fabulous holiday in Europe. Um, so I'm delighted to have you on. Una, welcome. Do you want to start by introducing yourself? 

Oonagh Flanagan: Sure. Thanks, Lucy. Um, thanks very much for giving me the opportunity to, to be a part of this very exciting project.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, so as you said, I'm Una Flanagan. I'm currently the CMO at FunLab, uh, which is the parent company of Holy Moly, Strike Bowling, Hijinx Hotel, and a whole range of other exciting, um, consumer brands. Um, I have been a marketer. I worked out last night for almost 23 years, which is terrifying. Um, made me feel every, uh, one of my 45 years, that is for sure.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, I'm also, um, I'm also recently a non executive director for a really great, uh, Um, library corporation, um, not for profit called Miley and really enjoying, um, sort of the breadth of becoming a board director as well. But like I said, I've been doing this for a really, really long time. Um, I've done it across many different countries.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, as you're, um, Um, listeners will hear from my accent. Um, I'm not an Aussie, um, but, um, I started my career in Ireland. So I've worked in Ireland. I've worked in the UK, uh, I've worked in Gibraltar, which is just at the very Southern tip of Spain. And then I made a very good decision a decade ago, uh, to come to Australia.

Oonagh Flanagan: And I've been a marketer here for the last 10 years and I've. I've worked across a whole host of different industries from consumer finance to online casino, to prop tech, and now I'm in out of home entertainment. So it's been a really varied 23 years, which is probably why I'm still doing it and still enjoying it.

Lucy Bolan: Amazing. Amazing. I think you summarized that really, really well. I mean, yeah. What a, what a background, global experience. You've, you've kind of ticked all sorts of boxes. So going back 10 years ago, that was when you first moved to Melbourne. Is that right? 

Oonagh Flanagan: That's right. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Right. Okay. So, okay. So when you first moved over, I mean, I've had a few conversations with individuals that have been new to Australia.

Lucy Bolan: Did you find that quite a difficult time in terms of trying to sort of find it in and then build out the network? 

Oonagh Flanagan: I was incredibly lucky. I was given the opportunity to come to Australia with a role already in place, and that happened because of previous people that I'd worked with in the past and built relationships with who essentially became my sponsors and, you know, they knew what I could do, they knew my work ethic, they knew what I was capable of, and they wanted me to come and be part of a new role that they were taking on, so we actually were able to come as a couple to Australia with a ready mate.

Oonagh Flanagan: Sort of amazing friends and, and really it made that transition a whole lot more comfortable. I know that many other people don't have it that easy. And I know myself even a decade before that, when I left Ireland and moved to London on my own, um, obviously a much shorter journey, but you know, I grew up in a small town and then I moved to this 9 million person city and no job, no connections and didn't even know what I wanted to do.

Oonagh Flanagan: And you know, that is terrifying. And when you have to navigate that completely on your own. It is a lot. Um, but I was, I was super lucky 10 years old. I had a ready made network and that same network I now rely on every single day for advice and, and, um, and guidance as well. So yeah, getting a good sponsor in your career early, um, and proven to them what you can do can be incredibly valuable as I've been improved.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely, absolutely. A hundred percent. And so, um, Officially, I was the CMO at Funlap and then CMO, I think it was Nimble and then local agent finder as well. Um, so that's what, it's about four years, five years as CMO sort of? Probably 

Oonagh Flanagan: maybe three and a half, four and a half, maybe six years, seven years more actually.

Oonagh Flanagan: Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: So have you always had that ambition to actually one day get to the top spot or? 

Oonagh Flanagan: I absolutely not. And. I would urge caution, um, you know, for anyone who, you know, at the very start of their career, who's already made that decision, because it is a really lonely position, uh, you know, being the most senior marketer in any organization is really, really difficult.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, I, I never foresaw that I would get to that point. What I. Tended to do throughout my career was really focused on the things that I enjoyed, um, that I was interested in. Ultimately that I was good at. I'm not really a big believer in trying to go outside of your core strengths and do things that really pull you apart as a human just because you want to get to a certain job at a certain level.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, but I think, um, I think because I've enjoyed breadth and because I've never really wanted to stay in something very specialized that the pathway to get to CMO, which is really quite a broad of a role. I think it was an inevitability when I look back now, because I tried lots of different things and enjoy different things, but it certainly wasn't my, And goal, I feel incredibly privileged, um, to be in this position.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, probably less so from the actual market and skill side of things, but because of the position that it puts you in as a leader of people, it is an intense privilege to be, to be a leader. In a place where you're actually leading and creating and setting the pace for other marketers, and that's probably something that no one should take on lightly because it's a huge responsibility, just the cut and thrust of the job itself.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting because I think now we're on, I think, is it episode five or six? Not too sure, but I've certainly had some really interesting conversations with various CMOs recently, and there's a bit of a theme that, you know, when you get to that top spot, that CMO remit, You know, you're not just focusing on marketing as we know, you're across, you know, your P and L, your profit and loss, your cross operations, like it's a whole absolute catalog of exposure.

Lucy Bolan: Like, I mean, how do you, is it just from sort of like going from step to step to step to getting to the point where you become good at that stuff or, you know, can you sort of give me a bit more insight into kind of like how you learn within that area? 

Oonagh Flanagan: Yeah, look, I think the, the key thing You know, you get a lot of people who go into marketing, at least, you know, in my experience of the last 20 odd years, who, who, who loves a creative aspect of it to believe that just being really good at the creative and brand aspect of it can get you all the way to the top.

Oonagh Flanagan: And it just simply can't, you know, Like you said, you know, you know, I now have P& L responsibility. I have to clear commercial deliverables that I have to bring to a business. And, you know, beyond that, you know, every CMO role is different. So my role also has incorporated digital transformation. So there's a huge MarTech aspect to what I'm doing and things that, um, you know, I, I probably had never envisaged in a CMO role in the past.

Oonagh Flanagan: So you have to, I think in order to get to the CMO role, you have to have breadth. It doesn't mean you have to be a full expert in every single aspect of marketing, but you have to at least understand the whole ecosystem of marketing and you have to go beyond that. And one of the things that I learned super, super early was get to know the numbers and be comfortable with the commercial.

Oonagh Flanagan: I haven't seen a successful CMO who isn't commercial, who doesn't understand how the business actually works commercially. If you don't understand that, you're going to be laughed at around the executive table. You just simply have to be able to engage in the conversation around how the business works and how it makes money and you can't operate as if marketing exists in a vacuum over here.

Oonagh Flanagan: And so, I think there's, there's a breadth to the marketing skill set that you need to essentially get to, to, to make it, um, to CMO and be successful, but you also then have to become an executive, right? The, this is the word chief in there. You're an executive. It's much more than just marketing. Then you layer in the leadership aspect of it as well.

Oonagh Flanagan: And so, you know, the time that you actually spend on marketing when you're a CMO is really important. Probably much smaller than most people will anticipate. So, you know, my big call out to anyone who who's seeing themselves as a future CMO, you actually really need to love being a people leader. And if you don't, if you don't actually get something from that, choose a different way to get to a senior role, because this role will not be for you.

Oonagh Flanagan: Because, you know, you don't, you're not doing the work anymore. You're facilitating and driving a team and you actually have to sit back and let the team do the work unless you want to be a micromanager, which is everyone's work. So yeah, it's, it is a, it's a very, very varied role and it varies really differently from company to company as well.

Oonagh Flanagan: There's no really one size fits all or the role anymore either, which is also 

Lucy Bolan: challenging. And when we talk about leadership, I think that's a really valid point because I think I've mentioned previously, I've managed a small team in the past, but nowhere near probably to the size where you've had, I mean, again, like, I feel like when you're starting to develop yourself in regards to managing people, it's almost a kind of like sink or swim.

Lucy Bolan: I've personally felt it was like off you go and you're learning as you go. I mean, did you ever learn from other leaders or. You know, have you ever had mentors that have kind of helped develop you? I mean, I guess the more you're doing it, the more, you know, well, I know that works and I know how I want to be treated.

Lucy Bolan: And so, you know, 

Oonagh Flanagan: You do learn a lot of it from what you see and observe. And I think. You also, I think, intuit a lot of it from who you are as a person. And I think sometimes that means that you're a great leader and sometimes it means that you aren't because some people are built for it and some people have to really work hard at it.

Oonagh Flanagan: I've also been really blessed because I started my career at GE Consumer Finance in London and You know, it was consumer finance and some people think, oh, finance, bit boring. What GE did, they had the most incredible training platform for every person that worked in that organization, whether it was finance for non financial managers, whether it was how to lead a team, whether it was how to influence and negotiate all those core things that if you learn them and are conscious of them early in your career, you're It sticks with you and it puts you at a huge advantage.

Oonagh Flanagan: And then I went to potty power much later on, which is, um, for, for those who don't know, it's this, it's the mother or sister company of sports bet here in Australia. And again, it was a company that had scaled incredibly during my time there and the, and the training program. That they offered in terms of being able to learn about people leadership and how to, how to manage teams was incredible.

Oonagh Flanagan: So it's theory and practice and it's, it's hard, right? You have to have real conversations, personal conversations with human beings, and some people take feedback really well, and some people do not. And you have to learn how to flex and have those real conversations in a way that's fair and kind to the human, but also has the, Better interest of the business as well.

Oonagh Flanagan: And it's not easy. You have to really, um, have an appetite for it. Because otherwise you can just ignore things and you end up with, you know, poorly performing teams or, you know, general unhappiness in a team. And, and that doesn't work for anyone. So yeah, it's hard. It's really 

Lucy Bolan: hard. I agree. I think, um, yeah, and I find there's a fine line becoming, you know, it's all well and good to say we've got a great team because we all get on really well and we all have a pub lunch on a Friday afternoon and we're all friends.

Lucy Bolan: But then at the end of the day, when you are, you know, a GM of marketing or head up or whatever it may be, a CMO, there's always going to be a little bit of that boundary. Yeah. That's the hardest thing, you know, to try and sort of implement. 

Oonagh Flanagan: I think as long as your team know that you. You care about their development conversation that you have is around helping them be better, helping them progress and helping them be successful in their role in your business.

Oonagh Flanagan: And you take the personal out of it, then I think it's easier, but it's, that's a skill that you have to really learn. There are very few people that I've encountered who just naturally know how to do that. Yeah. Yeah, you don't, I don't think you think about that when you're younger and you're just starting out because you think if I can just be the best marketer that I can be, well, it's going to be enough and it just isn't, and it's not even just about leading other people, it's how you show up and be, you know, a leader in a business, even if you don't have a team, right?

Oonagh Flanagan: It's all the same thing. Read a room, you have to be able to understand people's styles and different people's motivations, you know, just to get a business case signed off, you know, even if you're on your own team, like the, the, the politics, you know, soft politics of, of work and life is as real in a, in a marketing team as it is anywhere else.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. And I want to talk about, I mean, you know, we all sort of learn or you'd like to think most of us learn from our, you know, challenges perhaps that we've overcome. Um, are there any sort of specific challenges that you remember back in your career that you were able to sort of navigate around that, you know, real learning?

Lucy Bolan: Like that really sort of helped to sort of almost, you know, navigate and get to where you are now. Anything that sticks out? 

Oonagh Flanagan: There's probably two aspects, um, one of them I've mentioned already, which is around that commerciality. I started out and realized that actually you can't just. Do the thing you need to measure the impact of the thing.

Oonagh Flanagan: I, you know, I, I'd never done marketing training at that point. I didn't know where to begin. And I was terrified of that. And you just have to bite the bullet and you have to just go deep and say that you don't know the answer and get someone to help you. And I was, I've been lucky throughout my career to be surrounded by incredible analysts who can explain numbers and maps and statistics in a way that a lay person can understand, but I've worked really, really hard at that.

Oonagh Flanagan: I've worked really, really hard at that. And. That that sort of commitment to numbers and commerciality has really been a game changer for me And as soon as I recognized that need it was it was transformational And then I think that I think that the softer side of that is that you know, not knowing things Um and not having a a marketing sort of foundation, you know from a degree perspective um I had, I just really struggled with self confidence and I ended up working harder than anyone else because I felt like I couldn't make mistakes and be seen to be weak or not able to achieve.

Oonagh Flanagan: And actually. When I look back now, the, you know, the best learning that I've ever had is when I've made a mistake and actually when you get really comfortable really early with making mistakes and mistakes being okay, again, also transformational, but you know, you need to be in a business and you need to be in a team.

Oonagh Flanagan: You need to have a leader who actually is comfortable with you making mistakes. And that isn't always the case either. Right? So, Yeah. I, I really like to create an environment where it's okay to make mistakes. Everyone learns from them, including myself. Yeah. Um, and so, yeah, for me, it's, it's, it's confidence and commerciality.

Oonagh Flanagan: Those were the two major challenges for me individually. I've had, I've, I've, you know, I still have imposter syndrome, you know, I still had that sinking feeling just before we switched on the camera, like, Oh my God, I'm putting myself out there. And I think, you know, I think most people do that. And I think most women do that.

Oonagh Flanagan: And again, I think, you know, confidence is something that you have to keep working out throughout your career. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. 100 percent agree. Um, yeah. And you weren't the only one. I was like off we go and we're going live. I want to talk about, um, I guess more so I think emerging trends when we look at, you know, in, in the markets, I think, um, you know, there's a lot.

Lucy Bolan: Obviously we talk around, you know, AI, that's, you know, something that everyone's across at the moment, but, you know, if we were really speaking to say, you know, marketing, I don't know, coordinators or specialists that are really wanting to develop their skills in leadership. And as I said, one day, hopefully maybe even get to your spot.

Lucy Bolan: Is there any sort of advice that you'd say, you know, what really start focusing on X, Y, and Z, um, or, you know, start to really up the ante across this, this, and this, because in the next five, 10 years, it's going to be everywhere. 

Oonagh Flanagan: Look, you've talked about AI, you know, automations always seems to have always been a conversation as long as I can remember.

Oonagh Flanagan: I think there are critical things and I think they're going to fundamentally shift and change. Not what we do, but how we do it. And I think they're going to create amazing efficiency for us as marketers and across businesses. What I would say though, and I see it all the time, don't forget to go back to the basics of how marketing works, trend or trends, channels or channels, you know, that the tactics that you can use, the tools that you can use, but if you don't understand the core principles of how marketing works, you have a strategy, you know, your audience, you position your product, you use the tactics to go to market.

Oonagh Flanagan: Forget about it. You're not going to be successful. It's really easy to get sidetracked. And this is why I get, you know, really upset when people say, no, I'm just going to be a digital marketer. I'm just going to do that thing. I'm only ever going to concentrate on paid search. I'm only ever going to do TV advertising.

Oonagh Flanagan: You need to, you need to understand how the whole ecosystem works and the role that each of those things plays. And there will always be new and exciting aspects in each of those channels or. Or areas of marketing, but you have to understand strategically how marketing works because that, that sort of almost psychological lens on things is how you're successful.

Oonagh Flanagan: And I, I get super frustrated when people just go straight to the tactic or the solution at the end without having thought about or done the work up front. I've done a, I've, you know, I've done a decent amount of work with my team over the last few years to get people trained in that sort of thing.

Oonagh Flanagan: Basic understanding the core principles of marketing and we start there and it's painful, right? Because hard work, you have to take the time out and you have to think and you have to plan. And, you know, you know, the business I'm in at the moment, it's a really fast paced business. We have scaled incredibly quickly over the last few years.

Oonagh Flanagan: And so there isn't always a lot of time. We want action. We want movement. We're opening new locations every. three weeks, you know, to take the time feels like a luxury, but if you don't take the time, the results aren't going to be as strong. And I'm constantly trying to pull myself on the team back to, okay, have we, have we thought about, have we written a proper brief, actually understand the challenge that we're trying to solve?

Oonagh Flanagan: And do we know who we're solving it for? And do we know? What it is that we're going to offer them as the solution to the problem that we're trying to get over and then we go Yeah, build it back and build it back and that it's frustrating. I know often my team Are like oh my god, here she goes again but I think um It it makes for better marketers and it also I think Shifts the perception of marketers in a business as well.

Oonagh Flanagan: I would say I have changed the perceptions of a number of CFOs on how marketing can actually influence and impact the business way beyond their expectation, because I do believe in that strategic planning aspect, and I do believe in, you know, targeting and positioning into campaign, and it's, it's allowed me to be able to prove the impact of marketing and then get support for things that CFOs might not necessarily want to do.

Oonagh Flanagan: Want to support a market or on or historically have done. So yeah, that's, that's the thing, you know, of course stay up to date with, you know, what's new and interesting, but, you know, I rely really heavily on key partners and, and agencies to help me keep up to date with things as well, because they've got more resources and they've often got more time and, um, We, we kind of use that, those resources really as much as we can to make sure that our finger is still on the pulse, but I always keep bringing it back to basics every single time and um, I think I hope that, you know, i've got a team of of 25 marketers here who You know who understand the core principles and and I don't know how to operate out from that 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, brilliant.

Lucy Bolan: Brilliant. And I think you really hit the nail on the head there because you know nowadays You And I've had a few conversations with leaders around this that it's really easy. We all kind of call it the Magpie syndrome, where it's like a new shiny tool over here. Great. You know, oh, we've gotta spend, well, oh, that's fine.

Lucy Bolan: It'll be really worth it. And I see this so happen so often where businesses spent hundreds of thousands of dollars with say, new CRM technology or, I don't know, AI tools. And then it's kind of like we've got the keys to the Ferrari, but we don't quite know how to drive it. . 

Oonagh Flanagan: I'm always happy to be a follower rather than a leader in these.

Oonagh Flanagan: things, let someone else go and make the mistakes. First of all, usually, you know, in businesses that have much deeper pockets, you know, we, you know, we're, we're very agile and we're very frugal. And, um, you know, we have a pretty startup mentality, even though we have scaled so significantly. And so we'll, we'll hold back and wait.

Oonagh Flanagan: For a minute and just say, you know, what, what else, you know, who else is, and then, and then our partners can generally come to us and say, Hey, this has been in the market for a little while now, X, Y, and Z have done this. It worked in this way. It didn't work in that way. We think it could work this way for you.

Oonagh Flanagan: And that gives me a sense of comfort. And, and maybe that's a little bit boring. Maybe that's not incredibly innovative, um, from my perspective, but yeah. And maybe it would be different if I worked in a, in a much bigger, um, you know, scale organization. And I had the, I had the, the, the resources, but right now that's, I think, a safer way for us to operate.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. I think I'm curious to get your opinion on this. Cause I get, you know, a multitude of different answers when I ask this question, but in your view and your humble opinion, is there any sort of, you know, real common traits or characteristics that you say that you would say shape and make a really solid Awesome CMO.

Oonagh Flanagan: I think the best CMOs, and I've probably banged on about it too much in the course of this conversation are great leaders. You know, your role as CMO is to do an epic job of delivering, you know, against the marketing functions goals for your business, but it's also to deliver the next generation of great marketers in your business going forward.

Oonagh Flanagan: So I think they have to be passionate and committed leaders. I think. Successful CMOs, commercial, commercially minded, pragmatic. Um, I think you have to, uh, accept that you're going to spend most of your life being an educator of people who aren't marketers about how marketing works. Um, because everyone is an armchair marketer and, um, Uh, has an opinion.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, so the role constantly having to explain what your role is and how you do it and how it works. Um, so patience is a virtue that I think most markers will say is critical. Um, and I think, um, Having a deep sense of comfort with failure and, and making mistakes because, you know, you can have a strategy that works for you to the same group of consumers in business a, and you bring it across to business B and it fails miserably and you can't figure out why the hell that didn't work and you start again.

Oonagh Flanagan: So I think you have to be really comfortable with failure and, um, been really to, you know, just get up again. And, and I think, you know, just, uh, I think there are lots of misconceptions about. What marketing it is, what a CEO's role should be. And so I think you just have to be quite thick skinned as well.

Oonagh Flanagan: But I think that, to be honest, I think when you get into any executive or senior position, all of those traits are probably the same and true. But I think in order to sustain as a really successful Senior marketer, you just have to know how marketing works and, you know, I've definitely seen a few examples where that hasn't been the case and you just don't last.

Oonagh Flanagan: And, you know, we all know the stats about how long seeing those last in row, whether it's successful or not. I'm just at the tip over into sort of three and a half years, so I think I've done okay so far. You're doing all right, you're doing all right. But yeah, I think, I think patience and resilience and, um, A passion, a passion for leadership are probably the most critical things, at least the people that have inspired me.

Oonagh Flanagan: and who I still look to for advice in my own sort of day to day work. Um, those are the, these are, those are the 

Lucy Bolan: key things that they exhibit. Love that, brilliant. I want to talk a little bit more about personal branding because it's interesting like when I have these sort of Conversations, I guess, with when a marketing directors, you know, they sometimes say, Oh, you know, the thing is, you know, yeah, okay.

Lucy Bolan: I work for a really great brand, but I'm just not that networker. Like I go into a room and I don't know where to start. And, you know, you know, I never really get, you know, asked to become a judge or a panelist or present, but then you've got some that naturally just find that stuff really easy. They're quite happy to, you know, do all that kind of stuff.

Lucy Bolan: Is that something that you've had to work at yourself? As you've, you know, progressed through your career? 

Oonagh Flanagan: Yeah, I, I, I'm, I'm naturally pretty introverted. I don't love walking into a room full of people that I don't know. So I, I, I've, I used to find networking really, really difficult. But the reality of the situation is it doesn't matter how good you are at your job, and I, I I talk about this internally or externally to an organization, unless you're raising your own profile and sort of blowing your own trumpet, it, it, it can, it can just exist in a vacuum and, mm-hmm.

Oonagh Flanagan: Lots of people, marketers, non marketers are really uncomfortable with that. And I have a team of wonderfully empathetic, gorgeous humans who are absolutely diabolical at raising their own profile. And it is the constant message for me. And it's because I had that message drummed into me. You know, no one is going to create your career for you.

Oonagh Flanagan: If you're super lucky, you might just breeze through and it all just happens for you naturally. But most people need to. Understand what the next step is for them and they need to work out what their gaps are and then they need to think about the different people in their network or the different courses or the different things that they can do to get them to the next level and networking is super important.

Oonagh Flanagan: I mentioned right at the start, you know, when you build deep relationships with people and they can become people who will sponsor or recommend you in the future. That, that is how the world works. It, what everyone wants to hear, it doesn't seem fair and equitable. But what I would say more than anything else is just work hard.

Oonagh Flanagan: You know, you're not going to get anywhere by just being average. You're not going to get anywhere by sitting back and waiting for things to happen to you. Work hard, be the best that you can be and tell people how good you are. You know, it doesn't have to sound conceded. It doesn't have to sound over the top, but it's just the reminder of I've done this.

Oonagh Flanagan: The other thing that I said that the, you know, the, the younger people in my team as well as, you know, 25 years is a long time. You forget some of the things that you've done, write it down. Keep a, keep a list is you forget. And people tend not to do that until they go to write their next resume. And by then it's too late.

Oonagh Flanagan: Everything's sort of disappeared. Write it down. When you've had a really successful campaign or you've. You know, being given a really great piece of feedback, just have a document somewhere that you just keep firing all of that stuff into. So it makes it easier. And then, look, I think if you have the time and the inclination, I do think LinkedIn can be really useful as a tool.

Oonagh Flanagan: I am definitely not as consistent with that as I should be. And, um, It's, it's on my list for, you know, for this, for this year to, to try it better and to be more consistent and think about the kind of messages that I want to share. And actually, in, you know, just thinking about this conversation today, it kind of, you know, twigged a few things that might be useful for me to, to talk about and share, but, um, you, you have to work on it and you can do it, even if you're shy, just be yourself, you know, when you walk into those rooms, there's, you know, most people in there are going to feel uncomfortable.

Oonagh Flanagan: And you just got to. Take a breath, find someone who looks approachable and just start a conversation. Give them a compliment, that always works. Love your dress, great bonuses, you know, just start there. And, you know, inevitably it all becomes more comfortable. But I think just go into those events in any case, whether it's conferences or networking events, even if you don't really have a lot of conversations, just to be in the room and get yourself noticed.

Oonagh Flanagan: But more than anything. You know, start internally in your own job because the frustration for most young marketers is that they don't move within their own company. You have to start raising your profile and networking even in the job that you're in, in order to get to the next step in your own, in your own business.

Oonagh Flanagan: So yeah, just keep writing a diet and keep telling people the great successes that you've had. And if you're not comfortable talking about yourself, you know, most, most marketers have a small team. Talk about your team. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I love it. So yeah, that's for me. Step number one, because no one else is going to do that for you.

Lucy Bolan: Amazing. Love it. Love it. What advice, and just kind of on that, it kind of dovetails quite nicely to my next question. When you sort of look back at, I guess, your career and, and, you know, you've, you've come a long way, but what advice would you perhaps give your 28 year old self? Like, you know, when you think about, you know, 28 year old Una and knowing what you now know, is there anything that really sort of stands out?

Oonagh Flanagan: I think, um, just make the courageous decisions when I, when I reflect back on how I've gotten here, it's because even though I was terrified, most of the time I made the hard decision anyway, and I made that decision to move around different industries. People told me I was crazy, you know, once you're in financial services, stay there, once you're in telco, stay there, once you're in this, and, you know, I get bored really easily, you know, I don't get bored of marketing.

Oonagh Flanagan: I love. The, I love marketing, how it works, but I get really bored in the industry. And so don't, don't listen to, to shallow advice that there's no proof point for if, if you think that's the next best step for you, do it. And, and, you know, the courage then to not just try different industries, but to, to do the international thing, it, it actually fundamentally shifts your self confidence because as, as we talked about, you know, you launch somewhere, you don't really know that many people.

Oonagh Flanagan: You really. It's sink or swim. And that does something to you. Um, once you've gotten over the fear, once you've started to do it, it does something to you. I just feel like it transformed my trajectory and it transformed my self confidence. And I would highly, highly recommend that to any young marketer because, you know, I'm now lucky in the situation.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, In my current role where when I joined the business, we were in Australia and New Zealand, and we just started to own and operate out of the USA. So even, you know, it just, it just opens, you're already prepared for the fact that in different countries, people behave, think, act differently. And it's, you know, prepares you for that as well.

Oonagh Flanagan: But the confidence for me is the core thing. You've got to be confident. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, and I agree. I mean, you know, obviously being from the UK originally, I remember, you know, promising the world to a global business and then at 28 getting to Melbourne going, okay, I promise I'm going to launch a business now off I go.

Lucy Bolan: And, you know, on my own again, it's, you know, bridge you get with that though. It's, uh, makes a huge difference. 

Oonagh Flanagan: And I think the last part of it then is just follow your heart too. When you, when you've made, when you've made a mistake and you know it's not the right place for you, it's okay to say what was a mistake and leave.

Oonagh Flanagan: I've seen so many people live under that premise that, you know, you have to give it at least two years. If it's not right for you and you know that it's not aligning to your personal values, get the hell out because you will not be happy and you will not succeed. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I think that's really wise advice.

Lucy Bolan: Is there any, I want to understand, like, is there any resources or books or, you know, other, I guess, thought leaders or CMOs that you've personally, you know, aspired to be or, you know, been inspired by, I should say, that you would recommend others to follow or books to read or? 

Oonagh Flanagan: Yeah, look, probably not individuals.

Oonagh Flanagan: I think there's, there's lots of great CMOs globally, and I think LinkedIn is a really great way to tap into, you know, their minds and how they do things. The one thing for me, and I know, um, he's, he's not always everyone's cup of tea, but I am an absolute rit tonight, and I think it's been transformational for me and my team to do his mini MBA courses.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. And 

Oonagh Flanagan: I, and I think, you know, regardless of whether you enjoy his humor, I think he makes learning really, really easy and straightforward for people who don't find learning that many potentially that easy, but actually more importantly, it's all the resources in the reading that he provides and recommends throughout those two courses that.

Oonagh Flanagan: Are the kinds of things that you can keep going back to, you know, the field and the net and, you know, the brand, the distinctiveness and distinctive asset stuff from any wrong New York. So I think there's, there's, there's lots of resources and aspects of those two courses. And, you know, I think they're really reasonably priced as well.

Oonagh Flanagan: So, and I just think, and I actually just think they gave a team a solid foundation. In the basic principles and tools of marketing that then we'll go forth and build on. So that's, that's, that's what I've been doing with, with, with my team and, um, we've seen really great results and, you know, it's, it's, it's just a really strong grounding in the basic 

Lucy Bolan: rules to start.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, brilliant. I've heard really good things as well. Um, and just finally, before we wrap up, I just want to ask, let's talk about legacy and impact. So I want to just sort of touch on that. I mean, I know you you've got many more years ahead, certainly to go, but What would you like, I guess, how would you want to be remembered as a CMO?

Lucy Bolan: Is there anything that, you know, is really important to you where you think I just really want my team to, you know, always remember me as this or anything that 

Oonagh Flanagan: you value? Yeah, look, I think, I think, I think really early on when I, when I started to hear on marketing, you know, it's just the coloring department, it doesn't really matter.

Oonagh Flanagan: It felt like a really. It was really personal contemptuous thing for me to hear, and I, I, I wanna, I wanna be known as a marketer who was able to, without doubt, prove the commercial impact of marketing on a business. And that's really, really important to me. Um, and I know that that's not the be all and end all of marketing, but I think it's fundamental to be able to prove the impact of the work commercially, to be able to be given the keys to the kingdom of all the things that you want to do beyond that.

Oonagh Flanagan: So I think, um, being commercial, and I think that more than the marketing, I, I want to be able to walk away knowing that I've, Left behind other young marketers who actually understand marketing and can do a really good job and that they don't get caught up in fads and trends unnecessarily. They operate under common core principles and they, and they do an excellent job.

Oonagh Flanagan: If I don't do anything else. Then I'm happy to do that. And look, you know, I'm, you know, I'm deep down a good girl who likes to do good hard work and, you know, just knowing, you know, so far, I think if you asked anyone who I've worked for in the past, they'll say, I gave it everything and I did my best. And hopefully that continues throughout, because that's really all you can ask of anyone at the end of the day is to give it their best shot and do all that they can.

Oonagh Flanagan: Um, And I think that I've done that. And I think if you can walk away from most roles and most careers saying that you've done that, then I think that's pretty good. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And I mean, look, I think no career ever, you're never going to, you know, go for every role and go, that was perfect.

Lucy Bolan: There's always going to be learnings, but at the end of the day, you know, as you said, you walk away from that, you look back and go, yep, team are happy. We grew. Brilliant. 

Oonagh Flanagan: Yeah. That's all it needs. 

Lucy Bolan: Exactly. Well, Una, it's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you so much. Thank you. Enjoying 

Oonagh Flanagan: your 

Lucy Bolan: day. I've really, really enjoyed it.

Lucy Bolan: It's, I feel like the time's just absolutely flown by, so thank you so much. I really enjoyed it. 

Oonagh Flanagan: Loved it. Thanks so much for the opportunity, 

Lucy Bolan: Remember, the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests is invaluable.

Lucy Bolan: Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries, and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way. Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve, and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: So I am absolutely delighted to welcome the wonderful James McIntyre. So welcome to, I think it's a episode. Fine. I think we're on now, episode six. I 

James McIntyre: think it is. Or it's because I've been listening to all of them. So, and they've been wonderful. So, um, thank you for the opportunity to come and share some insights about my career, um, and some, some learnings along the journey.

Lucy Bolan: You're very welcome. You're very welcome. So James, should we start by, would you like to introduce yourself? 

James McIntyre: Right. Um, so yeah, I'm James, James McIntyre and Lucy, you and I have known each other for a while. I've always enjoyed our discussions over the, over the years. Um, and I'm a consultant working in the marketing and customer experience space.

James McIntyre: And the area that I tend to work in is that intersection of Um, data and insights, technology and customer engagement. And I typically work with CMOs, CEOs, sometimes embedded within a marketing team, um, looking at different growth and acquisition opportunities for. for a brand and also opportunities to, to improve, um, general, um, customer experience leading to, to better, to better NPS.

James McIntyre: And I've been lucky enough to work with some great organizations, including West Farmers One Digital, Hash Rewards, Flybuys recently, but also, um, Medibank and realestate. com. au. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I was having a look actually at your background earlier and I was like, you've really worked for some top tier brands, you know, along the way.

Lucy Bolan: And I was, it was interesting to see right at the beginning of your career, you were almost in these sort of like strategic roles before you then entered into more of a marketing CX. Yeah. Um, so can you tell me how you sort of made that leap from more of the sort of data strategic sort of roles into this?

James McIntyre: A really big, um, pivotal moment in my career, probably between, um, quite a long time in, in strategy roles was starting my own online business. And I had, um, two online businesses that I started, um, in our marketplaces, connecting buyers and sellers. One was. Personal trainers. And the other one was with beauty professionals.

James McIntyre: And that was a really great experience in terms of, um, I started the business myself. I was bootstrapping it, meaning that I was paying for everything. There wasn't investors. Um, and as you know, Lucy having your own business, you've got to get on the tools, do everything yourself. So, um, that was a real sort of a bridge for me and a really amazing environment.

James McIntyre: And. When I came out of those two businesses, I was then asked to Go agency side. Um, really, and I've worked for a company loud and clear. That was acquired by Accenture song. Um, and, um, because of the, the experience and the skills that I developed through running my own online business, I'm in the business and help the agency with a big retail client.

James McIntyre: That they'd come on board. And, um, that was really sort of the start of a, a new part of my career, um, into, into CX and into and into really into marketing. So, um, and from there, um, I've had my own consultancy business and I've worked with different organizations around solving various problems, um, around, uh, acquiring customers and also a lot on the retention, particularly with.

James McIntyre: Um, all the big membership and loyalty programs. Um, it's really all about how do you activate those members, um, and get them to the next level of engagement, um, and make sure that they're, um, staying and having a great, um, great. 

Lucy Bolan: Thank you for sharing that. I think it's quite interesting because I think when you've had your own business, as you've said, you're very much on the tools.

Lucy Bolan: And so when you're on the tools, you're really sort of navigating through, okay, you know, I can make a difference here. I can make an impact there. And especially when you're consulting, obviously, you know, as an agency as well, you get so exposed to so many different projects. Is it been that CX has just always been a real sort of driver for you?

Lucy Bolan: I mean, what is it about CX that you go, you know, well, I know that this is my 

James McIntyre: sweet spot. I've always been hugely interested in a couple of things. One is technology and two is people. And for me, CX and the work that I do sits really nicely, uh, in, in the middle. So I started my career in, in tech, in digital, actually, as we were saying before, Lucy, I started my career in sales after, um, after graduating with a marketing degree.

James McIntyre: So, um, I guess for people earlier in their journey, one of the learnings is there's many, there's many paths into marketing and, uh, to CX and data driven marketing and. Um, working in sales is definitely one of them as with customer service. And I think one of your guests last week talked about that and how that's a really great entry point.

James McIntyre: So, um, yeah, bringing those two things together, as you know, as a strategist for many years, which was really all about understanding people, research, et cetera. Um, and then I've also worked. In the lifecycle marketing space, um, which, you know, brings that sort of technology. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-Hmm, . 

James McIntyre: Um, but I've always been interested in people and why they, why people do things and it's often not, not what you think.

James McIntyre: So that's what the ability now to, um, to test different things. You know, we can. On a daily basis, see how people are interacting with communications, touch points, we can seek real time interaction and we can change things. So that's been a really, um, exciting development over, you know, the last little while.

Lucy Bolan: Oh, absolutely. I think. You know, your world right now, I mean, it's incredible. Like, you know, I mean, we're all talking about AI and it's, yeah, it's going to be really interesting. I think what the next couple of years takes us when we're talking about, you know, CX, I mean, that whole chapter is just completely evolved.

Lucy Bolan: Like it's, it's pretty incredible. I want to talk a little bit more around, um, going back to how you've emerged as a leader, because, you know, a lot of my guests have shared with me, there's never a rule book. You don't get given, Hey, this is how, you know, best to lead a team. You can throw it into it and you learn as you go.

Lucy Bolan: So as you've become more senior and, you know, you've. Now, obviously leading a team, what's been, have you just sort of, have you learned from other leaders or mentors or what's been the sort of, I guess, common kind of thought path that you're on? It's a 

James McIntyre: perfect combination. Of different things. And, um, my journey into leadership, I was reflecting this morning before the podcast is an interesting one as well.

James McIntyre: Uh, I worked for a company that had different development paths and I'd identified that I wanted to be a people leader. And I actually applied for people leader positions at this particular company three times. And each time I was told no. And, um, I became even more determined. I got on the radar of, um, you know, people that were able to help me and I was able to go into, um, leadership training programs.

James McIntyre: And eventually I took on a small leadership position adjacent to the current role that I was doing, which was more of an administration team, not doing hugely, you know, interesting work, but it was, um, you know, it was a start and I learned, I learned a lot, um, in that, in that organization. And then I think it's a combination of, um, look, learning from others.

James McIntyre: So one of my pieces of pieces of advice is it's not only looking at the organization that you want to work with. Look at the leader because you can have very different experiences in the same company with a different leader. So. Are you going to have a leader that's going to, that you can learn from that's going to put you forward for opportunities?

James McIntyre: That's going to be that voice in the room when you're not there. Um, and I think, yeah, look, I'm all about lifelong learning as well. So I think. You've got to put your hand up for, for, for what you want and you've got to identify different opportunities. And I'll make a point of trying to learn something at least formally, at least every, every year.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

James McIntyre: So I've recently completed a, I'm a certified customer experience professional, um, which is a global sort of quality. Um, also just thinking about the tools I've recently, um, Become a praise practitioner, which is what we use in my, in my current organization that I'm consulting with. Um, and that's as much for, for me to be able to help my team who are using that kind of on a, on a daily basis to have a greater understanding of, of how they're using the, um, the product.

James McIntyre: Using the platform. Um, so I think it's a combination of different things. And I think the other thing that we were talking about earlier, Lucy, is that there's opportunities for learning outside of the corporate environment as well. So for people starting off their career, um, there's things to be learned from having a side hustle, getting on the tools yourself and building an e com business.

James McIntyre: Um, It's probably easier than, than ever to do that with, um, the different tools and platforms that are 

Lucy Bolan: out there. 

James McIntyre: You'll learn a lot if you're not getting that in your current role. And then volunteering. So, I've been involved in, um, life saving for probably the last eight to ten years. Um, largely through my kids, but, uh, I, you know, became a volunteer on my patrol.

James McIntyre: And subsequently, um, just, it just happened. I took on running the, um, life saving program for, uh, kids at my local club, which was about 150 kids, 100 families.

James McIntyre: 30 coaches and volunteers.

James McIntyre: You learn a lot in that environment where look, no one's being paid. It's all volunteers. Everyone's giving up their time. There's not a lot of hierarchy and normality and you have to. Uh, you, you interact and wonderful experience to interact with a lot of different people from a lot of different walks of life.

James McIntyre: Um, and also really to see how other people lead as well and how they do that and with empathy. Um, you know, some of our, our coaches are wonderful on how they, Um, bring in different skills from their professional life. So there's a lot, look, there's lots of different, if you're open and you're sort of a lifelong learner, there's lots of opportunities, uh, um, to, to learn those leadership skills.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, brilliant. And there's so much there that I completely resonate with. I think, um, you know, going back to, I think, you know, if you can, at an earlier age, I mean, I remember my first jobs, I think I was working in call centers and I used to hate it, but then I think, well, It really got me, it made me be a lot more confident around communication.

Lucy Bolan: And obviously now as a recruiter, communicating's a number one key, important part. Um, and so you look back at Ikra and you think all those little smaller roles that I was doing, you know, when I was like, you know, 19, 20, whatever they really were, you know, they just helped build those building blocks. Um, yeah, you're completely bang on.

Lucy Bolan: And I think how refreshing as well, like, you know, where you are currently, you know, you're in this corporate world, but then at the weekends you're in lifesaving and yeah, coaching. So it must be quite a refreshing change sometimes. It 

James McIntyre: is, it is. I'm fine, I enjoy it. 

Lucy Bolan: Good, good. Um, what advice would you give, I guess, individuals that, you know, perhaps, I don't know, they might be digital marketing specialists or even coordinator level, but, you know, they've identified, you know, CX is definitely perhaps something in the future I really want to start to get more involved in.

Lucy Bolan: Um, you know, I feel like that's my sweet spot. Is there anything that you'd recommend or, you know, Is there any even thought leaders that you'd say that are real the go tos to start to follow around the world of CX that you'd sort of, you know, recommend that they start to be aware of? 

James McIntyre: I think there's a few, um, there's definitely a few paths into Into cx, whether you are looking at it from a marketing perspective and a communication perspective and a MarTech perspective.

James McIntyre: Um, which is sort of the area that, um, that I tend to, to lean into. Mm-Hmm. . So I think looking at opportunities to get involved in projects. Around that, and particularly, you know, it could be the implementation of a new technology platform. Um, it could be looking at, um, a review of some of the journeys that your organization has to communicate.

James McIntyre: With customers, um, and it's often, uh, an area that, um, you know, is hugely important and needs a lot of attention. I guess the other way in is from a customer service perspective as well. Um, so typically, you know, those in customer service, even call centers, they're very, very aligned with the needs of. The customer, 

Lucy Bolan: and that's 

James McIntyre: really helpful.

James McIntyre: And then, you know, research and insights and that side isn't sort of another way as an option. So, when I think about CX, there's sort of different flavours to it and different entry points as well. So, People that are interested in there, um, it just depends on kind of where you're where you want to be.

Lucy Bolan: It's interesting because over the years that I've been recruiting, I've recruited obviously, you know, all sorts of different CX roles throughout that time. And I've noticed as well, I mean, it's getting so much diet, it's getting so diverse. So when we talk about, Oh, you know, I need a CX manager, I mean, gosh, that could be anything from operations to customer service to, you know, digital CX, like customer roadmapping, like design.

Lucy Bolan: It's so, so broad. Um, I wanted to understand, I guess, from you, what are the. Is there any sort of trends that, as again, we'll talk about AI, but is there any trends that you kind of think, well, you know, in the next sort of three years or, you know, four years or even longer, how do you CX evolving? I know that's quite a meaty question, but what are your thoughts?

James McIntyre: I think it's been able to quickly understand and react to different signals that your customers giving you and how you That quickly in in real time. Um, definitely having that, um, strategic view off the customer, the customer journey, the pain points where the opportunities are having, you know, dashboards to set up to look at where people are dropping off, but also understanding and having some sort of a listening program where those key kind of experiences and understanding problem customers are having at that point in time.

James McIntyre: Um, and then how you react to that as well, because it's, it's, it's, it's great maybe through a tracking program that you can understand, you know, after month four that a customer's been welcomed or onboarding, but you really want to know a lot quicker so you can surface that right. Um, That right opportunity.

James McIntyre: So I think being able to do that quicker, um, is really important. I mean, customer expectations are, you know, if they're at an all time high, just because you're in X category, it doesn't mean that a customer won't to an experience that they've had, um, with something else as well. So customers do experience a lot.

James McIntyre: And I think brands that can meet. Those expectations are the ones that are going to move, um, move forward. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. And I'm curious to know, like in an age of, I guess, um, you know, AI, as I've mentioned, and machine learning, how do you, I guess, what can businesses be doing to sort of, you know, what do you think maintain.

Lucy Bolan: I guess to still maintain that human touch, you know, what, what's, because I think that's where I sort of feel as a consumer, I think, okay, well sometimes, you know, yeah. Do I want to chat to a chat box? Like, I mean, how, you know, it's that fine line, isn't it? It's still remaining that human connection. 

James McIntyre: Yeah. I think it's understanding.

James McIntyre: I mean, there are some experiences where people are quite happy to have. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

James McIntyre: Some sort of automatic automated response and search content. And then there's others where they actually want to talk to, um, talk to a real person. Um, I think AI is hugely useful as a tool and It requires that human thought and empathy to understand where and how to best use 

Lucy Bolan: it.

James McIntyre: Because without that, um, you know, it's, it's not going to make sense for, it's not going to make sense for customers. So, um, we use AI that's built, I'm seeing more and more tools that. That I use, um, in marketing automation, building in AI, but they're more to, um, assist something that you would want to do around whether that be experimentation.

James McIntyre: So, um, you know, tools that will understand your customers and work out what the best path, um, To send them down in terms of an experience to run an experiment. That's usually useful, but you have to think about what's our hypothesis? What do we want to prove? How do we determine success or or failure as well?

James McIntyre: Um, and then, um, you know, AI for even for sort of for copywriting for emails for content. Um, that's, Super useful. Um, even AI to, um, look at how you're using your different creative assets to, um, reformat them for a particular audience as well. So anything you've done to save marketeers time is amazing, but it needs that human overlay and an understanding of what's, what's the problem that we're going to solve and what are the tools that we have.

James McIntyre: AI, that's great, but it could equally be, be something else. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I guess I'm curious to know, I mean, you've done a lot throughout your career, as we touched on earlier, you've worked for some real top tier brands, um, you know, some of those, um, you know, opportunities have been, you know, almost project based as well.

Lucy Bolan: Is there a real, when you look back at your career, is there a real sort of pivotal moment where, you know, you're particularly proud of what you achieved? 

James McIntyre: Uh, I think there's a few Lucy. Um, I really enjoyed my time at realestate. com. au when they were in an early stage of growth and there was some really interesting thoughts around, around leadership, um, and ways of working.

James McIntyre: So there was a real theme that you hear a lot around. Don't let perfection get the way of progress in. And that's something that I really sort of held onto. And if you can put something live, if you can put something in front of a customer quickly and get feedback, that's a lot better than spending months and months and months planning.

James McIntyre: You know what may or may not happen. Um, and some really interesting thoughts around leadership and people leadership as well. So, um, and there were sort of three facets around, you know, managing teams and people, um, which I took in that experience, which was, um, you know, you need people to. To, to understand what their, what their role is and what the organization is doing and their mission.

James McIntyre: So start with that, um, understanding then that's acceptance of your role. So understanding what your role and then doing that really well. But if you don't get those three things aligned. You know, it's, it's not going to work. So, um, some of the work I did around, um, starting their advertising business, um, we would be probably known now as a retail media business.

James McIntyre: Wasn't at the time, um, that was a really great experience. Um, I worked at an in house agency at News Corp as well, which was a great experience because you're not only dealing with one client, you're dealing with multiple clients. So every day. putting together, you know, different strategies for clients, seeing how all major brands advertise, right.

James McIntyre: Um, working agency side as well, and being very on the tools. Culturally, I love my time at, at Medibank. Um, that was really great with that mission around genuinely helping people with their health. And, um, more recently in the loyalty space with cash rewards, um, flybys and Westfarmers One Digital. Has been.

James McIntyre: Amazing. And some of the work that I've done around helping understand customers, their behavior, but also acting on that and then technology solutions, um, to surface, you know, the right opportunity, the right offer, the right time to members and seeing that impact on acquisition and growth. So I think.

James McIntyre: Through, through your career, um, you know, take out those learnings of, um, different places that you've worked with, people you've worked with as well. Yeah. Worked with some really amazing leaders and also to take the learnings of when things haven't gone well, because That's when you learn the most, right?

James McIntyre: When everything's going well, you're celebrating, you're maybe not learning as much, but when something doesn't go right, that's when the massive, the massive learning occurs, and it's how you can deal with that, take that as a learning and apply that to the project. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, a hundred percent, a hundred percent.

Lucy Bolan: You're so right. And I think it's, it's being comfortable asking for feedback. I find, you know, like, I mean, I know throughout my career, I've always, you know, if I haven't, if there's been, I've always wanted to know why, and I'm not scared to get the feedback and I think, you know, it's something that I'll, I'll also advocate more, you know, it's like, we're going to learn at the end of the day, you'd rather know what that is, it's important.

James McIntyre: Absolutely. You've got something to learn from everyone as well. That's, that's always the approach that. I 

Lucy Bolan: wanted to get your opinion on something. So, um, recently I've been having a lot of conversations, obviously with various, you know, heads of CMOs, et cetera. And there is this sort of, I guess, sort of sense of feeling at the moment where, you know, the, the CMO role is just getting so stretched and it's evolving and now we're seeing, you know, um, CXOs, et cetera.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, what's your thoughts on that? Do you feel that, you know, the role of CMO is going to be over and that, you know, we're now going to be looking at, I don't know, chief growth officers or chief customer officers or CXOs more so, or can you see that there's always going to be a place for that typical core sort of CMO remit?

Lucy Bolan: I 

James McIntyre: think all our roles are. evolving. Um, and certainly I think, well, you know, what we've been doing in previous years won't be what we're doing in the future. So I think that people that can evolve with, um, With customers, with customer expectations and technology, but you're right, the CMO role is very broad and it can cover, you know, customer support, which is changing hugely with AI, um, and all the different, um, benefits of technology that, um, you know, Martech analytics.

James McIntyre: Your traditional marketing, brand building, creative, your life cycle, marketing growth. So there's, there's a lot there. And the people that can do that really well and bring it all together, I think are people that can build great teams and have great people around them with strong subject matter expertise, but to be able to understand what they're, what they're doing and bring that together around essential.

James McIntyre: A central mission. So, um, one of the podcasts I listened to diary to CEO, Stephen Bartlett, I heard the other day that he spent 70, 60 or 70 percent of his time recruiting people. I thought, how can this be possible? You know, he's running all these, you know, multiple businesses, but that's how I'm getting the right people into his organization is to him.

James McIntyre: So. The role of the CMO, chief customer officer, um, will continue to evolve. And I think that people that will thrive. Uh, ones that can, um, uh, really evolve with the, with the market. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I think you're bang on. Absolutely. I think it's, um, yeah, I've, I've seen it certainly happen and it's evolving and it's happening more and more.

Lucy Bolan: Um, so yeah, I think in the next couple of years, it'll be interesting to see where, where that all lands. That's for sure. In terms of, I guess. Reflecting a little bit, when you look at any sort of key challenges that you've had in your career, what would you say have been the biggest learnings for you? And I know that's quite a broad question, but I mean, we, we sort of, I think, I feel like with somebody like yourself, when you're that real sort of senior CX expert, you're very much the glue in between somebody like you.

Lucy Bolan: So many different departments. And that can be a really tough gig because you're trying to get so many stakeholders aligned, get them on the same page, sort of almost bang the CX drum and advocate for the customer. So it's bringing in everyone. It's that been, it's that been something that's pretty quite tough over the years to sort of like handle and navigate.

James McIntyre: It can be, and I think, um, yeah, you've got to have, um, not only strong technical skills, but you've also got to have those soft skills as well, which I think, um, um, Even, even more important with the growth of technology. So, um, those people that can, you know, evolve their, their people skills, the soft skills, you know, empathy with other people, empathy with customers, the ability to collaborate.

James McIntyre: And that's not necessarily something that's taught. at university. Um, I did some work a few years ago with a really great app called Hody. Um, so that's a good one to check out because that is all around, um, those people skills, um, that, or soft skills or human skills. Um, but that's super important to be able to bring people together.

James McIntyre: Um, what I find though, bringing people together around a problem. Or a customer is a great way to align people. So it's not necessarily a department thing. It's a, um, it's not this department's trying to drive some, um, it's, we have a problem to solve for, for customers, or we have an opportunity or we're seeing people, um, dropping out of our joint program and, you know, spent time and effort in.

James McIntyre: Um, and money acquiring them. So it's bringing together data customers. Um, for some of the work I do is around journey mapping. So what the end to end customer journey is, um, visualizing where people drop out, um, where the pain points are for basins, et cetera, pulling that all together. A lot of sort of video assets, things like that.

James McIntyre: And that can be a great way to, to bring people together, um, uh, and have them on the same page. So I think, um, Lucy, you've been into the Flybuys office. So you've seen some of the work that I've done up on their wall, um, which is a great reminder, um, of like what the customer journey is and how that's, um, How that's changing and, you know, real time monitoring that you can add to that.

James McIntyre: Um, likewise with another client cash rewards that, um, visualization of the customer journey sits outside their boardroom. What a great, 

Lucy Bolan: um, 

James McIntyre: of who the customer is and where those, um, in, in their context where those moments of opportunity moments of, of yay, uh, that they want to dial up. Um, 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. And, and I think that's really important.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, I remember, um, working with one of the big major tier, uh, one banks back in 18, it was very much we're all about the customer and I've heard it happen, you know, since. And I think, you know, there's a real difference. I feel like when businesses are willing to sort of really sort of. You know, showcase their sort of, you know, customer journey map in a receptionist area or a foyer really shows how, you know, I think that says a lot about, you know, 

James McIntyre: It is interesting because you hear some people say, well, let's, we'll put it in the back room.

James McIntyre: We don't want people to see it. Well, we do, because like every organization has, you know, challenges and things that they want to focus on. So let's, let's not shy away from that. Front and center. Let's get people around that and build things. Um, and then let's monitor that as well. So, um, So that it's not a static sort of asset and that you can see that movement into more valuable, um, you know, segments, if you want to use that sort of terminology or greater levels of engagement by, you know, getting different things in their hands that they need to be a successful member based on your, based on your research.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. I want to talk a little bit more about personal branding. So I think as we, you know, evolve and perhaps get a little bit more senior, I mean, you get, yeah, you get asked to be on podcasts and perhaps be on judges and panels and all that kind of jazz. Is that something that, have you actually worked to that yourself or is it something that is on the to do list to sort of work more on?

Lucy Bolan: Or, I mean, what, what would you say? Cause I know there's a lot of. I guess managers that perhaps are wanting to, you know, evolve more so around that and actually, you know, amp that up. But sometimes people just say they're not interested, it's not for them and that's fine. Then there's others that say, well, I don't really know where to start.

James McIntyre: Yeah, I think, um, look, having a personal brand is, um, I think is really important. Um, it gives you an opportunity to, to give back to your peers, um, and the community that you've worked with. It gives you an opportunity to share. Your voice and hear from, from other people. Um, and you know, I think, um, if that is an area of interest, it's just a matter of kind of, of starting somewhere.

James McIntyre: Um, a lot of us have a platform through LinkedIn, for example, um, and that's a really great way to share, share insights, share your learning and also, um, look at, um, You know what others are doing and add your voice to that as well. Um, and speaking on panels is a really great way to sort of enter into that world as well.

James McIntyre: It's a little bit less, um. Probably confronting then, you know, doing a keynote speech, which I've done before, but that requires a lot of effort and, and work to pull that all together, whereas being on a panel of half a dozen people who were contributing to a topic. Um, but it's, I suppose, like thinking about my career and particularly.

James McIntyre: In sales and as a strategist, something that's really important is being able to communicate effectively from a written perspective or from a verbal perspective as well. I'm 12 years, um, really clearly and communicate that to others. And I've worked. With, with many people, and I find that is a challenge that a lot of people face in that they might be absolutely brilliant at the job or technically brilliant, but having one, the confidence and the skills to know how to communicate what they're doing to others, we may not be in that space as well.

James McIntyre: So, how do you communicate that you have implemented a really amazing, um, experience for customers that's going to benefit from it? You know, deliver a multi touchpoint journey, you know, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's a challenge to be able to do that effectively and clearly, and also communicate to people either at different levels or with different styles.

James McIntyre: Yeah. So at senior levels of the organization, people do not want. A really, really lengthy download often, 

Lucy Bolan: not 

James McIntyre: to be able to do that, if that's necessary, but how do you succinctly, um, tell that, tell that story as well. So it's definitely a skill emerging marketeers should think about storytelling, communication, you know, and it's for a lot of people, the only way to do it is to practice.

Lucy Bolan: So 

James McIntyre: when people say, Oh, that person's a great presenter, you'd be like, okay, well, I've just seen them practicing, you know, I've seen them practicing their presentation in their room or online or, you know, so it's not something that comes naturally to a lot of people. 

Lucy Bolan: You're right. Absolutely. I think you hit the nail on the head.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, I think it even comes down to, I guess, from my perspective, like I meet some incredible, you know, individuals, but. They might not have interviewed in a long time and even how they communicate them, articulate their experience, you know, you have to, it's all about practice, practice makes perfect, right?

Lucy Bolan: So whether you're going to be a judge, a keynote speaker, interviewing, you know, I think the ability to articulate your individual story, your journey is just, yeah, a hundred percent. It's so important. 

James McIntyre: Well, I think you've got to be able to, to, um, To communicate the work you're doing as well, um, you know, growing in an organization, people need, you need to be visible and you need to have people be clear about the value that you're, that you're adding.

James McIntyre: So it's super important. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. And just finally, before we wrap up, I wanted to, I guess, understand in terms of sort of, is there any, when you, when you look back again, like at your career and, I want to sort of look at things like legacy and, and I guess impact. So within that sort of CX remit, you know, is there anything that, I guess, when you think about the people you've managed, um, you think about the projects you've worked on, you know, what, what's important to you, like, how would you, you want to be remembered within your big career?

James McIntyre: I think there's probably three ways to look at legacy. One is, you know, the work that you've delivered. And the assets, um, you know, whether that be interactive dashboards that are used on a weekly basis to track, you know, where your customers are at in terms of their engagement with a brand. Um, it could be some of the work I mentioned around, you know, high impact visual assets that live, um, in, in, in your organization.

James McIntyre: It could be some of the always on journeys that you. Delivered, you know, how people have been welcome to an organization based on what you've designed based on customer research and pain points. Um, so there's that aspect of it. The other part of, I think, a legacy is within the people that you work with and the people that you manage.

James McIntyre: So, I think the responsibility of a leader is to create other leaders as well, so it's how, how, how have you done that and what has your impact been on, on others? Um, and then the third aspect is on culture as well, where you hope that, um, that your impact is on the culture of the organization. How people are thinking about customer experience, how people are thinking about the use of the use of technology.

James McIntyre: So there's three ways to think about, about legacy, um, that people and culture are super important. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, a hundred percent, you know, a hundred percent. I think it's about thinking, and I, for me personally, I look back at people I've worked with and, you know, I'll always remember that, you know, the fun times and, you know, that hopefully the people I've worked with.

Lucy Bolan: May have managed or had interactions with, you know, you want to make sure, feel like you've made a difference at least. Well, like I've really enjoyed our conversation today, James, thank you so much for your time. It's been great to chat to the CX wizard himself. So thank you. 

James McIntyre: Thanks Lucy. Yeah, it's been amazing to chat.

James McIntyre: I'm loving your podcasts and, um. The other guests that have been on. So I will, uh, yeah, continue to listen and, and, and learn. Um,

Lucy Bolan: Remember the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests is invaluable. Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: I'm delighted today to be welcoming Katherine Toms, welcome. Thank you, Lucy, really excited to be here. Thank you for having me. You're very, very welcome. So I've known Catherine now for, I don't know, it feels like a lifetime. I know it's not. A couple of years, I think, um, over the years and Catherine is my go to when it comes down to everything to do with AI.

Lucy Bolan: Content, marketing in general. And I was really excited. I am excited to talk to Catherine today to really go through, understand really what AI is, what it means, what it does, and I think more importantly, I want to understand exactly how it's going to impact marketing and the roles and the functions within marketing.

Lucy Bolan: Um, so Catherine, I've. Would you like 

Catherine Toms: to introduce yourself? Absolutely, Lucy, and certainly very hot topic at the moment that everybody wants to talk about. Um, so yeah, my career, uh, started in marketing, gosh, 20 odd years ago. So I've gone through all the different inflection points from, um, shifting from traditional print media into digital for the first time.

Catherine Toms: Then navigating Google and navigating what all of that means to have the worldwide web and the internet. Um, and then obviously social media, MarTech, data, and AI really is just the next frontier. It's the next thing that us as marketers, it's a big one. Don't get me wrong. It's as big as when we moved from traditional to digital.

Catherine Toms: But it's kind of the next big frontier that we want to get through. Um, so my career, I started in marketing, so I'm a marketing practitioner, I worked in house, big global recruitment business Hayes, and then also digital agency side, um, as a strategist advising them on all of their digital strategies. Um, and then in more recent times, um, moved into training and upscaling marketing teams across all areas of marketing, digital data, and MarTech.

Catherine Toms: And as we said, most recently, a lot of businesses are wanting us to come in and upscale and help navigate this path of, well, how do we adopt AI in the most efficient, effective, safe ways? that we can drive growth, but, you know, still stay connected to our customers and still be really human first. I bet you're in demand.

Catherine Toms: I've got no doubt. It's definitely a hot topic, but the one thing I would reassure Everybody listening is just quietly. No one really knows what they're doing. I think there's a massive sense of FOMO everybody else, every marketer or every CMO is looking over the fence and thinking that everybody else has got it sorted and everybody else has got a plan and they've got a strategy and they know exactly what they're doing.

Catherine Toms: It's a huge time of change. It's a huge time of navigating, and everybody is just working out as they go. Um, and that really is, you know, the biggest sort of takeaway for me at the moment that yes, certainly some businesses are further ahead than others, often smaller ones because the enterprises have got so much more to think about when it comes to policy and risk and security.

Catherine Toms: But, you know, as long as you're jumping on the path and, and, and having a plan, that's the right thing at the moment. But yes, lots of demand. 

Lucy Bolan: Awesome. So I'm just going to ask the question that, I mean, it's a bit of a sort of, you know, simple one here, but what is, AI and how is it impacting marketing roles?

Lucy Bolan: And I guess I wanna understand, what are you seeing? How's it impacting the day-to-Day function of roles within marketing? 

Catherine Toms: Gosh, there's probably two questions there to unpack. Let's start with the, yeah. What is ai? Okay, so what is ai? AI actually encompasses a whole bunch of different technologies and different things.

Catherine Toms: Often people, when they think ai, they think. Chat GPT. Yeah. Chat GPT is one sort of branch of AI called generative AI. So park that up for a second. But from AI's perspective, we've been using AI as marketers for years. Okay. So probably the most common way that it shows up in, in, in our marketing roles is machine learning.

Catherine Toms: So machine learning is just quite simply algorithms. that spot patterns and start to recognize things and then understand and predict what might happen. So you would see machine learning showing up on, I don't know, email send times, for example, you would see it on automated ad bidding. So when you go into Meta and you want to run your ads and it gives you a price, you know, that budgeting and that bidding's all machine learning.

Catherine Toms: Even the social media, you know, the algorithms that are running what we see on our feed. It learns the kind of content you like, it learns the kind of format you watch videos versus. So machine learning is a huge branch and probably the biggest driver of, you know, AI. We've all got very, very excited about generative AI, but actually machine learning is the big bit.

Catherine Toms: Uh, you've then got, um, computer vision. A bit of a lesser known, lesser talked about, bit more of an emerging technology. But that's the ability for, um, a, a machine or a computer to have eyes. Okay. So computer vision, um, is brilliant for being able to, you know, look at documents or it's being able to analyze sentiment or, you know, all sorts of different use cases, um, virtual reality, augmented reality, they all sit under the branch of computer vision.

Catherine Toms: Um, and then you've got, uh, Natural Language Programming, so NLP, uh, and NLP is the ability for, um, computers to understand language. So, you might see that showing up in how you talk to Alexa, or how you ask your Google Google home, what the weather is, or it's the ability for it to understand language. Um, and that can also be things like sentiment analysis.

Catherine Toms: You know, if you were thinking, are our customers generally happy with us or not happy with us? And then the final one, which is obviously blown up AI and everybody's minds is generative AI. And the reason why generative AI is so enormous for us as marketers is They basically get smarter over time, the more we use generative AI, it learns from itself and it can also, it's, it's, it's prompt to create.

Catherine Toms: So rather than it just repeating a pattern or running an algorithm or learning something, you can go to AI now, as we all know, and put in a prompt. Um, and. Originally, those prompts were text based, but now we can put in audio prompts, we can upload images, we can upload documents. And we can say to ChatGPT or Google Gemini or Claude or Perplexity or any of these other large language models, we can go and say, Oh, hey, analyze this document for me, help me draft something, help me write an article, help me plan, help me ideate, help me brainstorm.

Catherine Toms: So, um, so you've got. The tech side, and then you've also got the image systems like mid journey, you know, that can, you can go in now and create an image based on a product. So if you think about AI, yeah, four technologies that we really think about. So machine learning, huge, that's what's driving personalization and prediction and all of that stuff.

Catherine Toms: Um, you've then got, as we said, computer vision, the ability of machines to see things and analyze imagery. Uh, and then you've got NLP, Natural Language Processing, that ability to understand language. And then finally, the big one we're all very excited about, Generative AI. 

Lucy Bolan: And how are you seeing, I mean, it's, yeah, it's so broad and it's so vast, but how are you seeing, I mean, what's your viewpoint on how this is going to impact roles within marketing and marketing teams in general?

Catherine Toms: Okay. So again, let me like, I'll talk about what AI is doing for marketing and then let's split out and talk, you know, how's that going to impact our roles. So step one, we've got a very simple sort of four Ps of how it's impacting marketing. So from. The very first basic point, it's all about productivity.

Catherine Toms: Okay, so AI is enabling us to do things better, faster, easier. And where it's exciting is AI can actually get rid of a lot of what we would have called, you know, the grunt work. If you think about, Marketing jobs in general, we've got high impact stuff and low impact stuff. And a lot of the stuff that we've had to do as marketers over the year, over the years, it's quite kind of admin y based, isn't it?

Catherine Toms: If we are talking about uploading 10 adverts, you know, and scheduling them. We're doing, um, you know, variations of 10 different adverts, and we want different copy to appeal to different target audiences, or we are running data reports, or we are, you know, all of those kind of, you know, very repetitive, quite admin y, manual, um, but time consuming tasks.

Catherine Toms: So from a productivity point of view, AI can help us do all of that stuff a lot, lot, lot faster. And what is exciting about the productivity element of it is it means that we can then also focus on higher impact work. So that's where Those softer skills of being a really good marketer, you know, think about, um, really understanding our customers in some empathy, thinking, um, brainstorming, strategizing, problem solving.

Catherine Toms: So the idea is that from a productivity perspective, AI can take a lot of that stuff. You have to get done and it has to be done. And it's part of running a marketing department. But it can free up our time to focus on some of that higher value. Quite frankly, more interesting stuff. The reason we all got in marketing and we love it.

Catherine Toms: You've then got personalization. So, gosh, we've talked about personalization for years, haven't we? The holy grail of all marketing team. You know, how do we get in front of the right person at the right time with the right message? And it's always Got stuck or us as marketing departments to be able to create that content at scale and distribute it to the right person at the right time.

Catherine Toms: There's been this barrier because we just could not physically, if we've got a hundred people on our database and we want to send out, you know, 50 different messages, it just You start to scale that, it's just not tenable, and there was never the ROI in trying to hyper personalize. Whereas with AI, we can start to really automatically learn and understand people's behaviors and triggers and what they're doing and what their intent is, so that we can then start to have all these messages that are already lined up with different positioning or different images or different, whatever we might want to, you know, change for you in that moment.

Catherine Toms: And then AI can distribute it without us having to sit there and please send Lucy this message because she did this thing. It's all automated. Just done. Yeah. So we've got the productivity, you've got personalization. Where it really gets quite interesting then is all of this predictive stuff. Wow. Um, so we are now able to really start to unpack and understand customer journeys a lot more effectively.

Catherine Toms: Mm-Hmm. . Mm-Hmm , we can start to serve the right content or the right message at the right time. So huge element around, um, predictive, which enables. better performance. If we can reduce wastage, um, and you know, that we're all under pressure, aren't we? With marketing budgets. Yeah. Delivering ROI. So if, um, there's a whole bunch of stuff within AI that can help us drive better performance.

Catherine Toms: So we can start to understand Which media channel, which ads, um, we can test a lot more quickly so that we can optimize where we're spending and real time shift spend away from one, you know, Google ad set to another one because it's forming better. So we've got the performance element and then the final bit that we're really hoping that it's going to drive is, is better profitability.

Catherine Toms: Cause if you take all those elements together, it's not about. Reducing headcount. It's not about, um, you know, chopping budgets, but it's about people in our marketing teams are freed up to do better, more strategic, more attention grabbing work. And we're optimizing it by getting it out to market quicker, faster, better in the right places.

Catherine Toms: And then we should get more bang for our buck out of marketing because we've got all these to do it better. So yeah, so to summarize, yes, you've got productivity is probably where we all are now. Most businesses in the productivity benefit. Once you start getting into personalization, performance and competitive, that's where we're going to really start to drive profits.

Catherine Toms: Cause you get these. Big numbers bandied around by, you know, like AI is going to drive revenue growth. And you're like, well, how's that happen? It's not going to happen through us doing some better spell checks in chat GPT. That's for sure. Yeah, absolutely. Big strategic, longer term play, but yeah. So to answer the second part of your question, you can then start to see what might the impact be on us as marketers.

Catherine Toms: Um, and I think this is where, you know, again, not to be afraid of marketing or not to kind of. You read these scaremongering things that, yeah, you know, half of marketing departments will be done by AI. Yeah. I didn't see it like that at all. But I do think that someone that knows how to use AI is certainly going to start becoming into demand.

Catherine Toms: And I don't know if you've started to see that showing up already in your job specs or your conversations with hiring managers, but certainly a skill. That people are going to wonder, where do you bring AI in and how do you use it? And what part of the process do you put it into that you're able to do your job better?

Catherine Toms: So, um, you know, it's going to have those skills. And at the moment we're using AI do marketing the way we've always done it a bit and a bit faster. But I actually think, you know, we can kind of throw away a bit of the rule book and really think differently about marketing with AI. I think it gives us, it opens up some huge possibilities of how we Marketing strategies connect with our customers, you know, the opportunities of endless release.

Catherine Toms: And that's 

Lucy Bolan: really exciting. I think it's going to be huge. Well, it is huge anyway, but I think from my perspective, I mean, I, I believe, I mean, this is just my humble opinion, but I believe, you know, you're going to get these, you know, CDP like CRM platforms that are just because I'm going to become so much more effective and efficient because they're going to have so much more optimization within them around AI.

Lucy Bolan: Bye. And I don't know. I mean, I feel people often ask me, you know, like, you know, are we going to be in demand still? Or, you know, is AI going to take our jobs? And I think from a CRM perspective, and I think content, SEO, you know, that performance marketing remit, I don't believe that because I'd like to think there's always going to be a human element there.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. But I think you hit the nail on the head. I think it's more about being more effective and allowing you to free up your time to make more impacts, um, you know, in, in the, in the correct direction. I think that's going to be key. 

Catherine Toms: Absolutely. And, and we're, I'm a complete advocate of, you know, human first strategy.

Catherine Toms: You know, you can feed all the systems information about your customers and insights and data points, and they can be incredibly effective in coming up with ideas for campaigns or even messaging, but nothing's unique or original. It's just, you know, churning back out the stuff that it's learned from what you've.

Catherine Toms: Put into it. So that element of originality, that element of creativity, that element of, um, you know, ideation, strategic thinking, problem solving is, is, is still incredibly human and incredibly important traits for brands that wants to connect with their customers. And the other thing that AI obviously lacks at the moment is that contextual understanding of what's going on for that person in that moment, you know, that pain point, what's happening in the world around the scene.

Catherine Toms: I. Dealing with whether it's, you know, household cost of livings, pretty tough at the minute or, you know, what's going on in the world of there's a world cup on or, you know, that real time insights that really enables us to connect with our customers differently. AI doesn't have that world around us view at the moment and, you know, that ability, that really human stuff, what creates really good marketing campaigns that actually cut through and connect with customers.

Catherine Toms: So no, I don't see it as, you know, replacing people's jobs, but I do see it taking away as we said, some of that real automated, um, simple stuff that has on those repetitive skills. And I think as with all things, and as I said, I saw this back at the advent of digital. When you know, a few people are like, Oh, do you think this goggle things going to really stick around this worldwide web?

Catherine Toms: Well, I'm not sure. It's all cut out. You have a choice, don't you? And change changes always a bit daunting and a bit scary because we get stuck in doing the way things that we've done them. And to be honest, you know, as marketers, we've had to constantly adapt and evolve. You know, we've, We just think we've got a head around everything and then TikTok emerges on the scene and we've got to work that channel out.

Catherine Toms: And there's always something, and this is just the next something. So it's not a case of, you know, put your head in the sand and hide away and hope it might go away. It's more about educating yourself and understanding, well, how are other businesses using it? What is going on? What's interesting? Um, and honestly, lose some of it is is hype at the moment.

Catherine Toms: There's a massive expectation gap between what people think I can do and what it can actually do, and it's closing very, very quickly, but we hear all the time, you know, we'll go in and see marketing teams or, you know, talk to marketers and they're like, Oh, yeah, I put this prompt and it was a bit rubbish.

Catherine Toms: It's some tool you're paying 20 bucks a month for, it's not going to come in and be able to pay. And if it did, wow, we have got a problem. So, um, you know, I, I, I think the most positive thing people can do at the moment, as I said, is just immerse yourself in it, learn about it, look at your particular area of marketing.

Catherine Toms: Where is it showing up? What are the use cases? Where are people finding benefits from it? What interesting things are people doing? Yeah. And they're using it, but then also, you know, while you're looking at this opportunity analysis, it's a bit of a risk analysis as well, isn't it? It's like, hang on, what could go wrong?

Catherine Toms: How might we upset our customers or put this on fire? And you've got, you've got to, you've got to have a balanced view at the moment. It's not a silver bullet. It's not a. It's going to fix everything. 

Lucy Bolan: I think, I mean, I think you made such a valid point. I mean, on that, I guess it sort of leads quite nicely into my next question because, you know, I know many CMOs and businesses in general at the moment, you know, data privacy is particularly another hot topic.

Lucy Bolan: And so I guess what I want to understand is how can marketers ensure that they're using AI, you know, responsibly, ethically, especially when it comes to things like customer trust, um, you know, data privacy, you know, how's that going to impact? So, yeah, I mean, what are your thoughts? Yeah, 

Catherine Toms: absolutely. Again, um, and I'm going to use a good old Aussie analogy here.

Catherine Toms: Uh, we always say, you know, when you go to the beach and you swim between the flags, that's the analogy we use. So don't stand on the beach and go, yeah, I'm not getting in the water. I'm not getting in the water because something could go wrong. There might be a shark in there or a jellyfish. You know, AI is exactly the same.

Catherine Toms: You've got to put a foot in the water. So you've got to find a way to experiment in a safe way. So, What we generally find businesses doing to get started is identify, um, and this is a really big point as well is do not start with technology. Okay. Doesn't start with the tech. It starts with a problem or an opportunity to do things better.

Catherine Toms: Okay, so the way that you find a I use cases is by looking at everything that you're doing and going right. Where am I? Biggest time sucks. Where am I? Friction points. Where am I? Customers giving us feedback that they're not that happy with the way the process works. So or where in my team is that masses of double handling?

Catherine Toms: Things take time. They take longer than they should. So step one, when you think about using AI is to do a bit of a, an analysis and find your sensible use cases somewhere obvious where you're going to see a benefit and a clear ROI, AI isn't always the solution. Sometimes it could be looking at. Your people structure, your processes, your ways of doing things, you might just do a simple automation to fix it, but if AI is the solution in terms of progressing safely, what we then do is identify a pilot case and, you know, what tool are we going to use?

Catherine Toms: And again, another great point here is it doesn't mean going out and grabbing a bunch of shiny new tools. Often it's the first place to start is have a look at your own MarTech stack. There's an awful lot in there and we know utilization. So many businesses have got three, four, ten. Absolutely. Plus tools that people don't actually know what the capabilities are.

Catherine Toms: All of these Martech tools and systems are scrambling to embed AI into their systems at the moment, because if they don't, they're going to be defunct and redundant in a few years time. So your step one is then going, right, I've found a use case, what do I have in my existing Martech stack that may fix it?

Catherine Toms: If I have something there, yep, I've got a match, I've found something that is a friction point or a time suck, and I've got technology that I could use. You then find a pilot area where you can just test it and run it without uploading a whole load of your real customer data because you don't want to risk doing something.

Catherine Toms: Test it. Does it work? You know, where am I going to use AI in the process versus where have I got human checkpoints? Because that's what it's all about. You know, we need the right input. We need the right oversight to just know that we are mitigating risk. Done that for a while, see your results and then once you know it works, that's when you start to sort of scale it and you might connect it back as you said to your CDP or your CRM and you go out on scale.

Catherine Toms: So you've always got to be mindful of data usage. Um, you know, I'm sure we're all aware, but we've got a lot of scrutiny on Australian data at the moment. There's a whole load of policies trickling down. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Catherine Toms: Don't really expect us as marketers at the moment because they've got. bigger fish to fry and things to worry about with cyber security and fraud.

Catherine Toms: But it's always a good rule of thumb, probably look to GDPR and look to the AI policies that have come out in Europe. They always tend to be quite robust and often we will follow suite, follow suite, follow suit. Um, so look to them as you, you, you kind of guard rail. And I always think as well, you know, are they talked about it actually in the AI policies?

Catherine Toms: I think they called it the barbecue test or the down the pub test. It was either called the barbecue or the down the pub test. And it was essentially, imagine you're sitting in the barbecue or the bar, your customer, and would you be happy to say to them face to face How you have used their data. Yeah.

Catherine Toms: And would they It's a good point, isn't it? Mm. And if they would be comfortable with it and happy with it, and it's been used in a, in a way to benefit and give them a better service and give them better, you know, more relevant content, none of us want back to go back to the. Spam days of everybody being hit with ridiculous.

Catherine Toms: I dunno why came into my head, but Viagra ads,

Catherine Toms: get Viagra ads in their inbox, , um, you know, no one wants to go back to those days. Definitely not , you know, it's then making sure that customers know, right. This is the data you've collected. Yeah. This is how it's gonna be used. Yeah. I'm, I'm, I'm good with that. And if you don't think they'd be good with it.

Catherine Toms: It's probably not a great use case. So, yeah, so just summarize. Sorry, that was quite a long answer that unpacked quite a lot. But, yeah, to summarize, in terms of moving forward without risk, swim between the flags. So, think about your use cases. Don't stand on the shore and do nothing. Yeah. Yeah. Look, where can I do it?

Catherine Toms: Where can I test? Where can I learn? Where can I know that it's just adding value? And adding value, Not just to us as the marketers, but to our customers as well. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Is that, and I think, I think you made a really valid point there around, you know, don't be afraid of it. I mean, dab your toe in the seat, give it a bit of a, you know, check it out, but also, you know, just be aware, you know, and I think that testing sort of relevancy is just super important.

Lucy Bolan: I think that's really important. 

Catherine Toms: Yeah. So ring fencing. So what we're saying is businesses, yeah, ring fencing a pilot. So you might go, Oh, I'm going to run this pilot for 30 days and I want to see X impact because that's the other big issue at the moment. Everybody's like, how do you get ROI from AI? And you know, we've got all these use cases and it's great that it can speed things up.

Catherine Toms: It's great that we can do more with laps. It's great that we can be more productive. But we want to start getting a bit more outward focusing as well and start thinking about our customers and how is this improving their experience? Are we seeing an increase in our effectiveness? Are we seeing more qualified leads coming through?

Catherine Toms: Are we converting more of those leads? So that we can then directly start to attribute AI back to revenue creation, rather than just productivity 

Lucy Bolan: gains. In your view, and I guess, look, curious to know this one, but I guess what skills, I guess in your view, what skills should marketers start to really, I guess, develop if they wanted to stay relevant when it comes to all things business?

Lucy Bolan: ai, is there any suggestions there that you would say to them that they'd need to look at? 

Catherine Toms: Yeah, so do you mean like in terms of what topics to learn about and what, yeah. Okay, so just understand what AI is. Okay. So as a foundation of knowledge, start to understand, well, what are some of these sort of technologies driving it?

Catherine Toms: And you don't need to be a techie expert at all. You do not need to be a data geek or a tech nerd. Whatsoever. Just start, as I said, to understand what, where, where is it showing up? It's not just chat GPT and the large language models, but where else AI showing up in your tech stack and then the skills that enables you to use it properly.

Catherine Toms: So if we are talking about the large language models, so the large language models, when we talk about that, we're talking about chat GPT, we're talking about, you know, Gemini, we're talking about, um, Claude perplexity. So with those tools, it's all about learning how to communicate with them. Okay. So it's getting easier and easier and they're getting better, but.

Catherine Toms: I always imagine, um, with the LLMs, with things like ChatGPT, it's a bit like you've hired an assistant. Right. And you wouldn't expect to just go to an assistant who's joined your team that day and go to that assistant and go, right, write me a draft email series for this particular customer. Yep. They wouldn't have a clue.

Catherine Toms: They haven't got the context. They don't understand your goal. They don't understand what the emails achieve. So instead of giving them those kinds of prompts, what you need to do to be able to work with them effectively is give them as much context as possible. So instead of write me an email, you would go in and you would say, Hey, um, I want you to help me draft some copy for this segment.

Catherine Toms: Um, the goal of the email is this, um, the pain point of the customer is. X, Y, Z, um, you know, I need a really good subject line. I want my body copy to be a hundred words. I want a call to action and, Oh, Hey, by the way. Let me upload for you four templates of really high performing emails I have used in the past.

Catherine Toms: So starting to learn how to actually work with these systems, exactly the same as if you'd become a manager of a team member. First time you've got to learn to communicate what team member to bring the best out in them. You've got to learn how to train them, how to support them, how to guide them. It's exactly the same generative AI.

Catherine Toms: Honestly, Lucy, the best way to train yourself is to start practicing and playing. So yeah, if you're allowed to do that business context, some companies just don't want you to, and you don't want to risk uploading anything that goes against company policy, risk any kind of confidential data, just start using it in your own life.

Catherine Toms: You know, start to get onto these tools, use them to Prep your food meal planner for the week, your holiday. There's a million different use cases you could go and play around with to understand its capabilities. And the capabilities in these platforms are changing on a daily basis. So the latest things that we've seen, um, in the last week or two, Google now has a notebook and the note you can use on Google is phenomenal.

Catherine Toms: So 

Lucy Bolan: I'll have to check it out. 

Catherine Toms: Go. Oh, you can take a document and upload an article and it will turn it into a podcast for you. Um, document strategize on how you might use it or respond to it. And then over on chat GPT, so chat GPT has always been like, just, you know, it's almost like SMSing a friend back and forth.

Catherine Toms: It's just a very, you know, Simple chat bot kind of functionality. They've now got canvas. So if you go in and you use, you've got to be on the paid chat GPT, but if anybody is, you go and look at canvas as a functionality and what they've done is they've sorted out kind of the whole user interface. So now I can write my little, Oh, Hey, chat GPT, help me rewrite this article for the website.

Catherine Toms: I've written this draft blog. I need help editing it. And it brings up a whole screen. So it's way more user friendly than it was. So the capabilities are constantly evolving. So the best way to learn is learn by doing. Um, and there's a lot out there. Um, and then you don't have to follow everybody, but find some good reputable people to follow and learn from as well.

Lucy Bolan: It's almost like learning to drive a car, isn't it? You know, I remember going back to those days and being slightly petrified. I mean, yeah, I think my parents would agree. They would definitely not want to go through that with me again. But, um, yeah, you've just got to throw yourself in it really to sort of, you know, try and test and I think also what the, what works for your organization, your industry and your customer.

Lucy Bolan: I think that's going to be, yeah, super key. Yeah, a hundred 

Catherine Toms: percent. So what we're seeing as well is, um, The terrifying amount of businesses actually don't have an AI policy at the moment or an AI app. So. What is trickling down with that though, is probably causing more confusion and more fear amongst teams because they don't know what they can and can't do and what the rules and guardrails are around it.

Catherine Toms: So in terms of, you know, any leaders or, or CMOs listening to the podcast, you know, it's about. Establishing what are those guardrails? Where do we swim between the flags so that people can do it confidently because, um, you want people to experiment. You want people to be creative, but you want them to do it in a safe way.

Catherine Toms: You know, no one wants to be that person that uploaded that confidential document. And we've, we've seen them haven't we come out in the news and no one wants to be that person. But the reality is, you know, we know, um, it came out from, there was a report earlier on in the year from Microsoft and LinkedIn about AI workplace.

Catherine Toms: And the problem that you've got is if you don't give people guardrails or clear policies, they're BYOing their own AI to work. So, you know, people are going to use it. It's a bit like starting work tomorrow and being told you can't use Google or the internet. Uh. Uh, what? What do you mean of course? You wouldn't even think about it.

Catherine Toms: Thank you. Yeah. No. So if people have been using AI AI in another job and then move to a point where it's like, no, no, no, no, no, we don't use AI here. You might have it blocked on your work laptop. People are just grabbing their mobile out and using it anyway. So it's much better to have this open, transparent conversation around what we can and can't do.

Catherine Toms: So everybody's clear. Everybody's got the same shared vision. Everybody's aligned. Everybody knows. Um, because if you don't, there's one of two things could happen. One, you could have brilliant use cases and, you know, shiny examples of excellence that people have created, but the rest of the team don't know about it.

Catherine Toms: Because that information sits in Lucy's head and Lucy hasn't told anyone else that she thinks she might get into trouble. Um, and then, At worst case, you're uploading stuff that you're not meant to and putting company data or customer information at risk. So one of the biggest things that we need now is, is, is, is conversations and actually mapping out a process and policies.

Catherine Toms: It's not very sexy, is it? You know, having some guidelines of where are our flags? What do we do? Where do we swim? Yeah. What are we comfortable at the moment? And yeah, we're saying, you know, this is very, very cautious. Are there's a little bit more adventurous depends on the industry, how regulated you are, how secure your data is.

Catherine Toms: There's lots of, Lots of things that are impacting the pace and scale that businesses are able to adopt this. One of the big ones is, is, you know, that, you know, what access to tech have we gone, how are we going to use an outright ban on everything is probably a little bit dangerous. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, exactly. And I think you made such a valid point there.

Lucy Bolan: It's just, you know, and I'll be honest, I'd be curious to know how many businesses actually do have Sort of, you know, policies in place, as you've said, around AI. I'd be really curious to know, I think, where the marketers are under the sun at the moment. It's getting better. 

Catherine Toms: So, 

Lucy Bolan: uh, 

Catherine Toms: we actually did a survey at a conference I was at recently.

Catherine Toms: Um, and that was about 25 percent of the marketers in the crowd. And that, that was Singapore, so that was a APAC, APAC marketing crowd. About 25 percent did, but that means three quarters of us have not known, like not knowing where the flags are. Um, and then, uh, another one that was done by, uh, the Marketing AI Institute over in the States.

Catherine Toms: Uh, they do an annual report on the state of AI in marketing. a really good place to go just to sort of benchmark yourself as well. Um, and I think theirs had gone up year on year. So it was about 25 percent last year and it had gone up to about 40 percent this year. So starting, the hilarious thing is Lucy, most businesses probably do have an AI policy.

Catherine Toms: So if businesses We go in and talk to them, you know, the, the CTO officer or the head of AI or whatever that role is. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, we've got a policy. Yeah, we've got a policy. Joe average markets are in the team. Do you have a policy? No. So it's not, it's not sorted down or it's living in a 40 page document that no one can get their head around.

Catherine Toms: You just need some really simple. If there was four things I was putting in a policy, it would be, yes, exactly. What, what's our use around data? What are we allowed to upload and not upload? What are our use cases? So where do we agree? We are using it and we're not using it. What's our transparency with our customers, i.

Catherine Toms: e. If we are going to use their data or we are going to do something with AI, are we telling people, um, and so that you've got that and then just those really clear guidelines, which tools do we. we do use and we don't use, what are you allowed to upload? And then finally, you know, where's the, where's the human in the process?

Catherine Toms: So, We would never, you know, I would never wholesale trust anything that AI spits out still has bias and it can still hallucinate, you know, I have instances every day while I'll ask it a question and it just makes stuff up. It's like having the ultimate problem. People pleaser on your team of assistant, it kind of won't tell you if it doesn't know it or just go, yeah, yeah, it's definitely the answer.

Catherine Toms: Honestly, it's right. You question it and you go, are you sure about that? Is that correct? And it goes, Oh, no, sorry. Sorry. Yes, you're right. So you've just got to watch out, you know, where's the human in the process? So really simple policy. As I said, what tools, what do we upload? How are we transparent about it and where do we put the humans in the process to check stuff?

Catherine Toms: But there's, again, there's some great simple AI policies on like, what's, what's lovely about this area is there's an awful lot of information out there that you can kind of get started with. So, um, brilliant, brilliant. Everybody's, everybody's navigating together as we said, so there's no place for imposter syndrome or 

Lucy Bolan: yourself into it.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. I guess, finally, before we wrap up, I wanted to ask, um, and I'm sure you can, well, certainly help with this one, but I guess for those out there, you know, marketers or non marketers, whoever, who are actually quite interested in learning more and wanting to understand more around AI, is there any specific sort of resources or, you know, podcasts or workshops or books that you'd say, you know, I'd advise start to follow these guys or attend this training prep session, you know, what does that look like?

Catherine Toms: Yeah. So upskilling and educating is, is, is, is huge. Um, and there is loads of stuff out there. One watch out is that because it's a very attractive industry at the moment, there's quite a lot of snake oil. Yeah. There's quite a lot. Overnight. AI experts, really? Um, so, you know, there's, there's a lot of talk and we see it, don't we?

Catherine Toms: You know, every day you're on LinkedIn and there's some new advice about something. So the first thing I would always do is establish trustworthy sources and establish that yes, this person does what they're on about. They've been doing it for a little while. They, they understand marketing as well, because there's a lot of generic AI information out there.

Catherine Toms: There's not a lot specific to marketers and how it shows in marketing. So step one is, you know, Sorting through some of the fluff and the noise and the bad, yeah, yeah, absolutely. One of the places that I follow faithfully, um, is the marketing AI Institute, uh, Paul over in, over in the, in the U S. They've been thought leaders in this space for quite a while.

Catherine Toms: They do a weekly podcast where they drop all the updates on what's been going on in AI generally, um, you know, all the latest tools, all the latest developments, if there's been policy changes, use cases. So that's where they're, they're really, really interesting. And they're probably my absolute faithful go to weekend podcast.

Catherine Toms: Yeah. So that's the Marketing AI Institute. Um, they also do run, you know, fairly regular, they've got two webinars that they run fairly regularly and a bunch of downloadable resources. So they're, they're a very trustworthy place. Obviously you've then also got your places like your Googles and your, you know, open AIs and there's, there's some really good stuff that comes out from them as well.

Catherine Toms: For example, Google did a brilliant prompt guide. Okay. Absolute gold dust. If you don't know how to prompt, it's a brilliant download. So trustworthy, credible sources. Um, and then, you know, that's obviously what we are really focusing on as well at the moment in terms of marketing training. So we've done marketing training for the last 10 years.

Catherine Toms: Um, we've also done digital leaders training for the last five years and that has encompassed AI. So we've been talking about AI, machine learning, computer vision, you know, how do you bring it into business? How do you. Have a vision and a strategy for the past five years. So any training that you look for, as I said, make sure it's with somebody that not only understands AI, understand marketing.

Catherine Toms: So we will be, um, launching, uh, our AI in marketing. co, uh, website very, very soon. Um, and we'll be running a series of free webinars as well. So, you know, mini masterclasses. Half an hour to learn something that you can take away and apply and start using. So, as I said, if you wanna start spin between those flags all about, um, so we'll have two focuses.

Catherine Toms: We'll have kind of like the, the strategic, what do you need to think about? Um, and then we're gonna intersperse that with regular tool tear downs where we'll go into a chat g PT or a Gemini and, you know, show people exactly how you use it. So, uh, they'll be coming. Brilliant. 

Lucy Bolan: And I was 

Catherine Toms: going 

Lucy Bolan: to say, I've attended one of your webinars and they're brilliant.

Lucy Bolan: So recommended, highly recommended. 

Catherine Toms: Um, and then one other person that I always follow as well on LinkedIn, um, not specific to marketing, um, but Allie Kay Miller, um, Allie Kay Miller on LinkedIn. She has really forged herself as a voice. Um, she, I always look for people that just keep it simple, don't get too technical, but really explain ways that you can use it and apply it, make it accessible, make it actionable.

Catherine Toms: You know, don't, you don't want a load of techie jargon waffle that's just going to blow your head off. Um, and, and she, she gives some really useful updates as well, but yeah, don't feel like you've got to follow everybody. You blow your head off. I 

Lucy Bolan: think so. Yeah. And I think it's on a small bites, isn't it?

Lucy Bolan: Because you know, you could really go down a rabbit warren with this stuff and I think it's going, okay, well, what's relevant for me and my market. And I think if even if you can take a bit of information and then bring that back to your team and start to educate internally, I think that's going to be really powerful.

Catherine Toms: Absolutely. And we, in our training as well, we show that there's kind of like a three step matrix, if you like. So when you're looking at AI and how to bring it into your teams, it's like, It's looking for those quick wins, isn't it? Same as everything. Where's the low hanging fruit? Where's the stuff I could test and try quite easily.

Catherine Toms: Gain confidence in, deliver some value, and then you get into some of your more complex strategic cases, which are going to involve a bit more customer journey mapping, data, you know, segmentation, that stuff. You can evolve to that. It's just getting started, isn't it? With some of those simple quick wins to really build up your confidence.

Catherine Toms: That's whether you're a marketing team of one or a marketing team of a hundred. It's, you know, it's all, it's a scalable sort of process that just start with the simple stuff and evolve from there. Yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: absolutely. Well, Catherine, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on the show. Thank you so much.

Lucy Bolan: You've been, I think, just, I feel like I've opened up Pandora's box of AI and it's just like knowledge, knowledge, knowledge. We should have fireworks in the background. Cause yeah, I feel that there's a lot to learn here. so much, Catherine. Um, yeah, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed listening to you.

Lucy Bolan: It's been brilliant. 

Catherine Toms: Oh, my pleasure. And you know, absolutely. I do jump on and follow me on LinkedIn as well, cause I do share lots of updates as you well know, anything new that I see coming through, uh, just trying to share some little bits of what we're seeing and what we're hearing and what we're learning about AI and marketing.

Catherine Toms: So yeah, jump on. And, uh, follow the ride. Amazing. 

Lucy Bolan: Love it. Well, thank you. Really appreciate it. Thanks so much for having me, Lucy. Hopefully lots of 

Catherine Toms: value and lots to think about.

Lucy Bolan: Remember the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests is invaluable. Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: Daniel McDermott, um, delighted to have you. Welcome. 

Daniel McDermott: Thank you. Great to be here. 

Lucy Bolan: So Daniel, I have obviously been connected with you, um, I think for a while and I know certainly looking at your career, I mean really quite a broad career, I think 25 years is it now in marketing? 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, it's getting there. It's a time passes more quickly than you think.

Daniel McDermott: It 

Lucy Bolan: does. It flies by. Absolutely. Absolutely. So Daniel, do you want to start by introducing yourself? Sure. 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, sure. Um, as you mentioned, sort of a long time B2B marketer in, in the technology industry. Um, so doing that for sort of 25 odd years now, um, through sort of, you know, starting in graduate sort of roles and, and then sort of working your way around and ending up in the last sort of.

Daniel McDermott: Um, I've been working for nearly 10 years of sort of working for SAS scale companies. So really looking at that sort of ability to, to tow from reasonably small to quite large and quite quickly, um, and how to actually sort of, I guess, go about doing that, um, within sort of the Australian market as well as abroad as well.

Lucy Bolan: Excellent. So curious to understand. So when I look back at your profile, LinkedIn. I saw, I think it was Erikson, is that right, where I saw you began your career? And I saw that you were doing a bit of BD, sort of sales and a bit of marketing, a bit of a blend there. Yep. Do you think that experience there is really, because I know the more senior we get, the biggest thing is very much being able to align with sales.

Lucy Bolan: So having been in those shoes, do you think that, that really sort of, put you in a good position. 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, it was interesting. I guess like I did a business degree, um, came out of that not really knowing what to do. Um, and sort of applied for, there was a graduate program roles at the time. And so there was a corporate graduate role at, uh, at Ericsson.

Daniel McDermott: And it was great because you sort of rotated through the business over a couple of years. So you got to do some pretty good projects, work with great people. Um, but it wasn't like a, Very narrow roles, if you like, they were quite broad and you sort of had to make the most of it yourself and sort of, sort of make it up a little bit as you go, which was great learning to work out like, well, what do I want to do?

Daniel McDermott: What am I good at? What's enjoyable? What's, you know, where do I think a career can be? And doing that, I think led me to saying, well, What I really did for the first four or five years was marketing as we know it, um, but without a marketing title. Um, so it was always, and I sort of thought, well, maybe I should do a job that actually has marketing in the title.

Daniel McDermott: Um, uh, and sort of bring those, that experience together. And that sort of was, uh, I guess, uh, one of those moments where it sort of crystallized in my mind that it was like, yeah, that's the path that I want to go down. Um, but it wasn't, Predetermined, you know, coming out of school or uni or anything like that.

Daniel McDermott: It's sort of evolved a little bit with experience and then sort of saying, well, what do you like and what are you good at and sort of making the most of it. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I think those early years in your career is so important because it's almost, I call it almost like the career buffet because you kind of, you know, you're working out what you do like, what you don't like, what you might go back for, what you're never going to touch ever again.

Lucy Bolan: So it's really sort of understanding what that looks like. So what about. So that an industry that, what, what drew you to it to really get into, into particularly that industry? 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, I guess it was always in technology. Um, and, uh, and really like the idea of SAS came about in probably the late sort of noughties, um, and I was working at a company called CA Technologies and.

Daniel McDermott: We were a very traditional software on premise software company, um, very large scale, big enterprise customers. Um, and then this idea of this sort of software as a service came along and sort of infrastructure as a service and the whole notion of cloud sort of took off. Um, and it's one of those things, and I guess that's a great thing about the tech industry, right?

Daniel McDermott: Is, is that it evolves. So you have to evolve. Um, you can't get stuck. You can't just go, well, this is how we've always done things because tomorrow there's a new disruption, a new evolution, something that has changed everything, um, fairly quickly, and you've got to be able to adapt to that. 

Lucy Bolan: Um, 

Daniel McDermott: and SAS was very much like that.

Daniel McDermott: It came like a freight train. And there was, you know, a lot of people that, you know, were like, Yeah, this won't last and it will never work and the infrastructure is not there and all the reasons why it couldn't be. Um, um, whereas I sort of just sort of thought, well, this is where it's heading. So sort of embrace that jumped on board and made the most of having that opportunity to learn, I guess, within a big business about what.

Daniel McDermott: The new evolution look like, um, and then to be able to take those skills and that foundation and take it into pure SAS businesses, um, I think meant that I had a grounding in, I guess that evolution and what it took and what it takes to then take something new to market, um, um, challenge the status quo and be a bit different.

Daniel McDermott: So it was, uh, Yeah. It was a pretty cool time. Um, it's funny at the time, you sort of, you know, it's an evolution, you know, it's a bit of a revolution, but it's an evolution at the time. You sort of, it's coming, it's coming and you're going through that. Um, but then all of a sudden it arrives fairly quickly.

Daniel McDermott: And, um, if you're not ready and you're not on top of it, um, it can pass by very quickly. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: It's a really interesting point now, because you're right. I think, you know, the evolution of SAS is just constant. It's every single day, you know, technology is emerging. So it's businesses. It's, it's, so is it, what would you do to stay so current and, you know, handle that, like, is there any magic ingredients or formula?

Daniel McDermott: Uh, I don't think so, honestly, is the simple answer. I don't, I think like the thing is, you've just got to, you've got to embrace. The industry that you're in and, and know about it and learn about it. And I think one of the things and some of the advice I'd always have is, is that like, you can't, if you're in technology, you can't be afraid of the technology.

Daniel McDermott: Um, and I think too often, particularly junior markets are like, Oh, that's, I'm not technical. That's not me. You know? And it's like, It's like, okay, but you sort of need to know the product that you're offering and its value and how it works and why customers care about it. Um, so you have to know enough. Um, so I think that that curiosity around, well, what is this?

Daniel McDermott: How does it work? Why do people care? Um, if you're asking yourself those questions, you'll find resources to learn about it. There's no way to keep up with everything, right? Like, I mean, like it is moving so quickly and there's so many categories and that. So I find that more for me, it is like when I'm in an area, no, as much as you can about that.

Daniel McDermott: And that might mean that you have blind spots to other things and then that sort of thing, but that's okay. And you can, then you can learn and evolve and move on as well. But, um, definitely know the category that you're in and the products that you have. 

Lucy Bolan: Um, 

Daniel McDermott: and don't be afraid of the tech. Um, it's not.

Daniel McDermott: It's not that scary. Most of the time, even really technical stuff is fine. And just, I always say, just make friends with a good sort of sales engineer. Um, hang out with them, spend time, help them with crafting the narrative for their demos. They're great at the demo, but what about the pieces around it and how do you help them?

Daniel McDermott: And then they'll, and you'll learn a ton from actually doing that and spending that time with them and having that connection. So yeah, don't be afraid of the tech. It's not that scary. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Good to know. Good to know. I'm personally not the most technical individual out there, but I'm having to, yeah, lean into it.

Lucy Bolan: As they say, I have got better. Um, I want to talk a little bit more about leadership. So in your, in your previous roles, can you tell me how big have some of these teams being that you've managed? 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah. In general, I'd say they're like sort of that sort of small midsize team overall, sort of, you know, three to.

Daniel McDermott: People in terms of marketers. And that, uh, at some stages it's probably got to close to 20, including sort of BDR teams and that sort of thing, um, depending on reporting lines and stuff. So. Um, most of the teams in tech, unless you're in a really big business, right, they have sort of, you know, there's a few in region, right?

Daniel McDermott: And whether that's in Australia or across APAC, um, and you're going to have sort of that, you know, 5 to 10 often, um, is sort of that, that sort of sweet spot for many organizations. And then just, it sort of fluctuates with, uh, the flows of the business and the time and where things are at. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. So with that, I guess I'm curious to understand, I mean, when you first started to, you know, develop and establish yourself as a leader and, you know, you get your first direct report and then you've got five and now you've got eight and then you might get 20.

Lucy Bolan: So how have you, if you had to really work on your leadership style in terms of, you know, being a lot more comfortable managing a team, or has that been something that organically, you know, came quite naturally to you? Absolutely. 

Daniel McDermott: Uh, no, I think you definitely have to work on it. Um, and I think what you learn very quickly is how different people are.

Daniel McDermott: Um, and so you've sort of got your way of doing things and you're used to that. And, and it's obviously worked cause you've sort of, you know, maybe you've been promoted and you've got somewhere and, and, you know, so you sort of think, ah, you have things under control and then that's like, and then the whole thing is, is sort of, uh, disrupted very quickly.

Daniel McDermott: And I think that's the thing is, is how to basically engage with lots of different types of people. personalities, people, opinions, um, and how to actually sort of take that on board and definitely not see it as threatening. I think some early leaders see that, like particularly if people are challenging or challenging ideas and wanting to do things differently.

Daniel McDermott: That's great. Like you've got to embrace those things. Um, but I think that sometimes it can be seen as, as confrontation, I guess, rather than sort of collaboration. So I think you've got to be able to take that on board, um, understand where people are coming from. So I think take. And I think that's the other thing is, is learn to take time with people.

Daniel McDermott: Um, you know, it's not, it can't just happen overnight. It's not just a, you know, like you say, a natural thing that just everything kicks from day one. You have to take time with people. You have to ask questions, you've got to learn about them. Their experience and where they're coming from that, the perspective that they have and then be able to help round that out and work together to make something better as a, as a group, rather than sort of a set of individuals.

Daniel McDermott: And, and yeah, and it doesn't always work, you know, you've got. Sometimes it's hard and sometimes it's, uh, you know, everyone's busy, you're short on time. Time is the enemy of everything, right? Like everybody is due yesterday and you know, needs to be the best and all of those sort of things. So how do you, how do you allow for the time to collaborate, to ideate together, to, to, to work on projects, um, when there is that time pressure and that, and so you've got to.

Daniel McDermott: Find that balance and allow P allow that time for people to connect and work together. Um, and the results. Probably come slightly slower than what you might think in the first instance, but I think they're much better and they're more sustainable when you get that right, but you've got to be able to also um, sort of learn to be able to navigate I guess the uh, the pressures of the business, um, and be able to sort of Articulate that time frame and what success looks like and when things are possible Um rather than just accepting that it's like well You know, next quarter, it's going to be double what it is this quarter.

Daniel McDermott: And we're going to go from there and then we'll do it a double again. It's like, okay, let's, let's have a think about that. Absolutely. 

Lucy Bolan: Do you think, um, I think you made a really valid point because, you know, I, obviously as a recruiter, I speak to many people that, you know, You know, they, they don't find the right leader or they struggle because they're just so under pressure.

Lucy Bolan: And, you know, they don't, they find they don't have time and that they don't have time to even warm up. It's like, bang, you know, we want results now. And I guess one thing I've tried to work with many people is. Trying to sort of become more aware of asking the right questions when you are interviewing as well.

Lucy Bolan: Um, you know, and that comes with obviously more experience, perhaps more war rooms, battle scars, knowing what you don't want and what you do want. Is there any advice that you could give marketers that, you know, perhaps are interviewing at the moment that, you know, what, what to look for, you know, anything that if you were interviewing for a role, you know, what do you look for when you're looking at your next leader?

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, I think, um, I think it is, uh, somebody who's willing to listen and be empathetic, um, and. And if you have that, then I think that that buys the time in some ways, because it's like, it's, they're allowing for the conversation to evolve. Um, no marketing is one of those things where there is no answer.

Daniel McDermott: There's no one answer to anything, right? Um, everything is nuanced. It's the, it's someone's opinion. It's what you think's best based on the information and the experience and everything that you have. Yeah. Nobody knows what the answer is, right? And so you have to be willing to engage in that conversation, listen to different opinions, try things, um, and, and be open to, to, to failure, be open to feedback, be open to learning.

Daniel McDermott: So if you, if you're able to have that sort of empathetic approach and ability to listen, I think that that helps in all aspects. Um, and really helps in terms of a leader and their teams, I think getting into that groove of. Of knowing that it's not perfect, but embracing that, embracing sort of the, the, the challenge and the chaos and all the things.

Daniel McDermott: And that's okay. Um, because you're actually in it together and you're going to have those conversations and you'll work through them together and you'll get supported along the way, both in terms of the, when things go well and the good times and the success that comes with that and the tough times when things don't work and that's okay.

Daniel McDermott: It's not about, you know, leaving people behind. It's about learning and evolving and going again. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I want to talk in terms of challenges. I mean, we all have bumps in the road as we're, you know, transforming for our careers, was there any sort of real learnings from, from your perspective that, you know, you've perhaps, I don't know, worked on campaigns and not gone to plan or there's, you've hired people and have.

Lucy Bolan: You know, said they were perfect and now they're not. And is it, what, what sort of, I guess, key learnings have you personally experienced? And, and maybe that's come from challenges as well that you've had. 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, uh, probably too many to mention. We might be here for a while. Um, probably a couple that come to mind.

Daniel McDermott: The first thing is, um, I think is that resilience, um, when things go wrong, um, and, and that, and I guess being in the tech business, like I said, sort of, Yeah. The first sort of four or five years was fantastic, sort of got these great opportunities, did these amazing things, everything was going swimmingly, um, and then the reality of the tech business sort of hit where I had sort of three roles made redundant in four years, um, and, you know, it was working for a telco who didn't get a funding round, bang, 

Lucy Bolan: two 

Daniel McDermott: weeks later, you're gone, um, you know, uh, It was working for a global business where it was a distributed global marketing team.

Daniel McDermott: And then they decided to pouring everybody into the UK. Um, it was like, so everybody in Australia and Germany and elsewhere were gone. Um, so it was things like that. And what I sort of thought was, you know, in marketing and in campaigns, you need to be creative. I think you need to be creative in the way you think about your career as well.

Daniel McDermott: Um, so one of those challenges of that global sort of consolidation was everything was going to the UK and there was no expat roles or anything like that. And I applied for one of the roles and they're like, you can't do that. You're Australian. I'm like, yeah, but my dad's English. So I have the right to work in the UK.

Daniel McDermott: And they're like. 

Lucy Bolan: So, 

Daniel McDermott: um, you know, and look lucky enough that at that time, you know, had the flexibility and my wife and I packed up and went to the UK and stuff. And, um, so I think it is, how do you think creatively about how to solve that problem? And just because it's said in one way, what can you do differently?

Daniel McDermott: How do you position yourself? How do you overcome that? Um, and how do you keep going when it's, you know, it doesn't always work and it's not perfect. Um, but it's like, how do you actually keep, keep at it? And I think that resiliency, you learn through those hard times and it's not, at the time it's not great and it's not easy.

Daniel McDermott: And you sort of, you know, it is definitely, you know, it's worrying on many fronts, right? And I think everyone goes through that, but I think you learn over time that if you can do that, Then apply that creativity and that, you know, problem solving mindset that you sort of have to your role, do it for your career as well.

Daniel McDermott: Um, and be open to, you know, if you've got the opportunity to, to change locations and that works for you, then great. Um, if that doesn't work, that's okay. Be creative about what works for you and how and how to do that. But I think that that's really important. And I think in this day and age, you've got to really, you've got to have that flexibility, um, in terms of how you go about things.

Daniel McDermott: Um, and if you can do that, um, be a bit creative, um, it will hold you in good stead over time, but it's. It's, it's not easy and it's a challenge at the time, right? Like you're facing, you know, you're facing that uncertainty. Um, it's definitely tough, but it's, uh, it's, you know, you keep going and you realize that it's, uh, you know, it's part of the journey, I guess.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Especially at the moment, you know, I think there's a lot there, a lot of our listeners that would absolutely agree, um, very much with what you've said. You mentioned that, and I just want to tap into that because it's, it's quite interesting, obviously you spent time in the UK as well. Um, I've spoken to quite a few CMOs who, Over the years as they've developed, they have also done the same where they've moved country or, you know, they've had that international change and they really sort of said, look, it was a real sort of pivotal moment in their career because it made them a lot more confident, more worldly.

Lucy Bolan: Um, you know, really got the big picture. Is that something that, again, I mean, you'd recommend to other marketers that are wanting to develop as leaders or even just evolve in their careers? I mean, how much of, how much would you say that time really impacted your career? 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, I think definitely like, I think being based in the UK and it was a very strong sort of European business, um, I think was really important because it is that notion of all of those different cultures.

Daniel McDermott: And we have that a bit, you know, we have that in APAC, if you can get an APAC type role and then work across the different countries here and that, um, but a lot of the time, like particularly in technology, it's a lot of US businesses, English speaking, It's different, but it's a lot the same, right? And it's sort of the U S Australia, the UK, um, there's more similarities than differences a lot of the time.

Daniel McDermott: Right. And so. Really, you know, completely different markets, um, going to Slovakia to run sales training, um, and turning up and seeing your slide deck, um, translated into, into Slovakia and, and, and saying, this is what we think it is. And, and then asking you interpretations and making sure that they're getting it right was just like.

Daniel McDermott: Wow, this is cool. Yeah. , it's like, like who would've ever thought that this is gonna, you know, how things would turn out, but you just, you just sort of see that bigger picture and that, and how different, you know, things are and how different markets are and how you, and, and how that gets, you know, I guess taken and adapted and put into market in the local markets gives you that sense of like.

Daniel McDermott: You, you have to know what the field I think is, um, is experiencing and the more that you see that directly, um, I think the better off you are and the more that you can incorporate that into your everyday and even into, into the Australian market because it is different here than the US and, and you've got to understand that and interpret those, those differences.

Daniel McDermott: Absolutely. 

Lucy Bolan: What advice would you give, I mean, I obviously speak to lots and lots and lots of different marketers and you get some that are in FMCG, some that want to work in retail educators, really broad. And there are some out there that very much want to work in SaaS. So what advice would you give, um, a marketer that is, you know, hopefully one day looking at people like you and thinking, gosh, I'd love to be, you know, one day a CMO, we'll get to that top spot, you know, particularly in that market.

Lucy Bolan: Is there any advice you would give them or any sort of, I guess. You know, podcasts or resources or, you know, um, books that you, you would say, actually get ahead of this? 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, I think, um, I think there's a few things. I think there's always, um, I always believe that everything's sort of built from strong foundations, right?

Daniel McDermott: So you've gotta get the foundations of your marketing programs and tech marketing, right? And then you add the new technologies and the better ways of doing things and the new advances on top of that. Right. But so I think in terms of getting the foundations right, there's still some classics that have been around for a long time now, um, that I think hold true.

Daniel McDermott: Um, one is definitely. The idea of if you want to bring new technology products to market, Jeffrey Moore's crossing the chasm is still the best way of thinking about how to do that and launch new businesses and products. Um, and what that growth looks like. Um, the there's more modern sort of ones around, like, how do you think about product led growth and how do you think about, you know, actually engaging an audience before getting revenue?

Daniel McDermott: Heaven forbid, right? In software sales. Um, so how do you go about doing that? Um, the Dr. Michael Wu has a book called the social, the science of social. Um, and it sounds very B2C, you know, or social marketing. And that's that really for us. It's fascinating and it's really interesting and it really applies.

Daniel McDermott: Um, and it is a different, very different way of thinking about how to engage the audience and what success looks like and how you, and how monetizing that is very different than a traditional sales model. So you learning that I think is very important in this day and age of product led growth and product, um, sort of go to market motions.

Daniel McDermott: And I guess the last one is, is a bit of an Australian classic. I think any Australian B2B marketer. Um, should read the leaky funnel, um, by Hugh McFarlane. Um, it is still, you know, it's the foundation in many ways of like how to think about campaign planning and actually do that really well. Um, and to be able to have that notion and that, that idea of, um, positioning to audiences so, so clearly.

Daniel McDermott: So there's sort of three foundational things that I think you have to sort of do, but I think it is. Also, just, you know, I think you mentioned as well, like being able to work with sales people, how do you build relationships with sales and understanding their world and that? So I always sort of encourage people to think about like, how do you do the things that are outside of your job description that you need to do?

Daniel McDermott: And one of them is building those sales relationships. Um, so I always advocate like, you know, become the voice of marketing to a sales team, whether that's the inside sales team or a segment or a regional sales team. But become the voice of marketing to them. And that means one as a junior marketer, you have to learn everything that's happening in marketing.

Daniel McDermott: So all of a sudden you have to have that purview across all aspects of your team and what's happening and what's going on. Cause you have to articulate that to the sales team. You also have to be open to that feedback and you've got to be able to listen. Doesn't, and you've got to be able to learn to negotiate and not, you know, Not say yes to everything and learn to how to say no, but still keep people happy and in that process So I think that learning those things are they take time.

Daniel McDermott: They're subtle You know, they are then there's not one way of doing that, but you've got to Sort of break out of your own comfort zone and learn those type of those sort of soft skills and that ability to integrate into the business and then have those business conversations that I think are critical.

Daniel McDermott: Um, and without that, um, you know, you can be a great marketer, but you'll be a great marketer in a. In a particular area, um, this gives you that ability to, to get broader, um, and to sort of have more of a business impact in, in the work that you do and the conversations that you have. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I was having a conversation with a lecturer recently and, um, You know, he made such a valid point.

Lucy Bolan: I think he'd started his career in, worked in sales and he said, actually, you know, now he's teaching marketing and he said it was the best thing I ever did because, you know, I was in the shoes I got where they were coming from. Um, so yeah, maybe, you know, having that ability, like yourself, you know, being in that BD sort of space initially right back in your career is obviously going to help as well.

Lucy Bolan: Um, I want to sort of talk a little bit more about. I guess emerging trends or technology that you're seeing, perhaps particularly a little bit more in the SAS space that you're getting excited about now. I mean, you know, is there anything out there? Of course, we'll talk about AI. We've done that. But is there anything that, um, you know, particularly you see in terms of the future of, you know, how the market, how marketing is going to be impacted within SAS?

Lucy Bolan: Anything there that particularly resonates? 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, I think that, um, You know, I think we've seen a real explosion in my tech and rev tech sort of technologies and probably the last sort of five or six years. Um, and, um, so I think it is one understanding that industry is in its totality. What's possible?

Daniel McDermott: What's out there? Um, knowing that not all of it's going to last. There is a bit of, you know, things that are Tried and they're not working and that so what are the ones that are going to be sort of sustainable and actually sort of drive towards the future and I think that that ability to to understand sort of signals and we've, you know, we've all been across intent data for a long time, but To be completely honest, a lot of it was a bit useless for a while, right?

Daniel McDermott: It's like, it's like, well, cool. And you get all excited and then it's like, well, now what? So that ability to be able to listen to what's happening across the world, across the web, be able to, but be able to synthesize and interpret that and where gen AI, I think then comes in is, is that the Holy grail of what we've always spoken about, which is getting the right content to the right person at the right time, by the right channel.

Daniel McDermott: We've spoken about it forever, but it's actually been near on impossible to deliver on. Right? Like you'll get it right occasionally. Um, but you can't do that at scale all the time. What the technology is allowing us to do is to do that. So how do you set up your systems, your processes, your content, and the way that you do things to deliver on that ultimate promise that we've all been waiting for?

Daniel McDermott: Spoken about forever, um, but have always then struggled to actually deliver upon. So I think that the opportunities now to actually, to embrace that and actually, you know, deliver what we've always said we were going to, um, as, as professional marketers and really make that come to life. So I think that's, uh, that's the exciting thing.

Daniel McDermott: So it is being able to interpret all the information and the intent and the signals that are out there and then deliver upon that in a really meaningful way quickly and at scale. It's, it's, it's really exciting. 

Lucy Bolan: I think it's very exciting. I think we're just at the beginning. Aren't we really in terms of what's, you know, when we look at personalization being so much more targeted, um, yeah, I think, I think again, it's not being scared of that and being able to, you know, focus on it, I've spoken to so many CMOs, GMs, et cetera, around this.

Lucy Bolan: And I think as long as you're, um, you know, open to it, you've not got your head in the sand, you know, it's going to be, yeah. I think that's the key, you know, really practice and develop your career more in that space. 

Daniel McDermott: And I don't think there's, I don't think a lot of people know what the answer is. So sort of carve out an area where you can experiment, where you can actually look to really trial something, um, learn from that, um, and really interpret like, you know, what, what is it doing?

Daniel McDermott: What's working? What can be better? How else can I apply that? But I think that ability to experiment now is a great time, right? Like there's so many things out there, but there isn't a distinct. Definitive way of doing it. So, you know, Be brave, um, take on some, some new tech, um, some new ways of doing things, um, and trial it, right?

Daniel McDermott: Like don't, don't go crazy and bet the business on it, maybe day one, um, trial something in an area and learn and then move quickly to scale that out. 

Lucy Bolan: Excellent. I wanted to understand, and this is really more, so I'm curious to get your opinion. When we look at, I've had again, lots of conversations around this, but when we look at the typical role of CMO, you know, people say, well, look, it can be a pretty lonely gig sometimes when you're up there.

Lucy Bolan: Um, and there's also now, I mean, we're getting all these you know, fancy new titles coming where it's like, you know, growth, you know, it's yeah, CXO and chief customer officer. And what are your thoughts on that? I'm curious to get a bit of an understanding like, do you see, cause I personally think, you know, the roles is always going to be there.

Lucy Bolan: It's always going to be a need, but you know, it's just evolving, but I'd love to get your thoughts on that. 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah. I think it's very much around, um, the business and the business that that business is in, if you know what I mean. So it's like, you know, like, like some of the growth roles are just a new way of saying sales.

Daniel McDermott: So it's exactly, it's a sales role and unless you want to do that, it's not for a marketer. Right. And so, um, and then there's growth roles that are truly like that notion of product that growth and being marketing led rather than sales led in terms of the growth motion. So I think you need to understand the business and what they're delivering, um, in terms of then being able to truly interpret what the role means, because growth is one example, customer experience is another one.

Daniel McDermott: Uh, customer officer is another one. They all actually mean different things in different businesses. Um, and so, um, so sometimes as a marketer, I think, you know, you can align to some of those, but not all. Um, and so I think you've got to make sure that you're realistic and understand like where you position your value.

Daniel McDermott: Um, I think. The role of marketing and CMO is always needed in a business, but it may not have the title. It may not have the, that role, that description to it, but it's how do you take your experience and your skills and apply that in the right way to achieve, you know, the way that they might be calling the role or interpreting it and that, but it's, it is a lot of, it's the same, but you've got to be really clear on what those things actually mean.

Daniel McDermott: Otherwise you set yourself up for failure as well, you know. It's like, Oh, I'm the head of growth. And then you've got a 50 person sales team that you've never run. Like, good luck, right? That's not, not great for you, not great for the business and just going to be stressful. So, um, you know, whereas you're ahead of growth and it's, uh, you know, launching a new product and taking that to market and, you know, and, and driving that through an actual sort of digital touch point and marketing motion.

Daniel McDermott: Awesome. That's what we want to do. So, so I think, yeah, you've got to be clear on the expectations. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. In your humble opinion, what are the, top traits that you would say make a successful CMO? 

Daniel McDermott: So I think I mentioned before, I think that idea of. Being a good listener and being empathetic, I think it's really important as a marketer, um, because, um, you've got to be able to listen to opinions and hear that, and you've got to be able to articulate back your thoughts in, into that.

Daniel McDermott: So I think that ability to, to be a really good listener. And I think that starts with being asked the right sort of questions and, and, you know, really explore for information and, and, and understand different perspectives is, is critical. Um, I think. Yeah. Again, one of those things where you can't be afraid of things, you just can't be afraid of the numbers.

Lucy Bolan: You can't 

Daniel McDermott: go, Oh, I was no good at maths or that, um, you know, that's not my thing. Numbers are the language of business. Um, and so you have to learn, learn, learn. The metrics that matter in your organization, how they come about, um, and how the role of marketing in, in contributing to those understanding what performance looks like, what good is, um, if you can't have a metrics conversation, you, there's going to be a ceiling on how far you can go, because that is the language that business talks about that management and executive and strategy looks at.

Daniel McDermott: Um, so you have to be able to interpret that and include that as part of your narrative. So I think that like that ability to embrace the numbers, embrace that, embrace, um, sort of different perspectives and listening to people and ultimately just a bit of old fashioned know your customer. Yeah. And then, you know, put yourself in their shoes as much as you can.

Daniel McDermott: Find ways to talk to. End users and customers and prospects and and hear their stories as much as you can and in marketing. I find too often people hide hiding behind the desk and you know, you know, certain roles. Oh, that's not my role. So we've got a great opportunity to do that. Go and interview somebody to create a case study may not be in your job description, but you want to do it or find a research project and go and listen to the market.

Daniel McDermott: Um, turn up, you know, you're a digital marketer. Transcribed But turn up at an event and have a conversation on a booth with people, right? We actually have great vehicles and mechanisms to, to go and engage with the end user community and with customers. And I find too often people don't take the, those opportunities.

Daniel McDermott: Um, and I think you've got to be able to do that because if you hear it from them, you can then interpret that internally. You can then drive that in terms of metrics and numbers and where it needs to go and really build that as a, as a really cohesive strategy. So. Yeah, I definitely say you've got to take them, take those opportunities all the time when they come up with 

Lucy Bolan: your career.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, your last role was CMO at Mimecast. So I think, was it six years? I think you were there approximately or coming up to six. So, and again, lots of conversations around this, but I'm definitely learning, you know, the path to CMO is not linear. We know that how did you get, like, were you always that person that, you know, really, you sort of, Were picked out and you know, you were doing well and you were recognized for the work you were doing, or did you feel that throughout your career as you've developed and you've got more senior, you had to really sort of put yourself forward for those opportunities?

Daniel McDermott: Um, yeah, well, I mean, only CMO for APAC, so not the whole business. Um, but, um, I think it is, uh, It's both. I think you've got to, I think you do good work and if you integrate into the business and you have those sales relationships, you sort of do stand out and you do have that opportunity to be recognized and that, um, but then you've got to seek how to continue to go forward.

Daniel McDermott: And how do you, Continue to evolve in that. Um, it isn't just, you know, nothing's given to you on a silver platter. Um, and, uh, and so you've got to find your way of being able to continue to navigate through, you know, those, those challenges, those difficult times of sort of economic headwinds or technology sort of not working or being in the, you know, and difficult people as all of those things.

Daniel McDermott: So there's always going to be something and a challenge along the way. Right. Um, and like I said, it's not going to just be handed to you. So you've got to keep working at it, working at the craft, um, and working at sort of those relationships to continue to, to, to be relevant, um, then, you know, in, as you go forward as well.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. And I guess finally, I wanted to, to understand, and I guess I'm curious, so you've had a bit of a break, you've left Mimecast now, what's next for you? Where have you got any professional goals or personal goals that you're really working towards, or? 

Daniel McDermott: Yeah, I actually have been enjoying a bit of a break, which has been nice.

Daniel McDermott: Um, playing a bit of golf, uh, quite badly, um, but that's okay. Uh, we just had a family European vacation, which was pretty awesome. So 

Lucy Bolan: that 

Daniel McDermott: was, uh, that was terrific. So, um, yeah, I think really what's next is, is Really finding, finding that team and that role that really gels for you. I think that's the thing like over time and as you look back, embracing the good times when you have good people in a good business that's supportive, that you're doing great things, they're the years that you look back on and go.

Daniel McDermott: These are great, such good fun. Um, you make great people and you just did really good work that you were proud of and that, you know, made a difference. Um, so it is, how do you find that? Um, that's, I think that the trick and knowing that, and if it doesn't feel right and it probably isn't, um, I think as well, yeah.

Daniel McDermott: And, you know, you can sort of say that as you get to this age and sort of know that a little bit more, but it definitely is the case because if you don't have that, then you don't get that environment and those people around you, um, not just in your team, but, you know, across the business, then, um, then it's all, you're always sort of, you know, pushing it up hill, whereas I think if you get that and get people embracing what the role can be and what your experience is, then you can do amazing things and have a great time doing it.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. I think there's a lot to be said there about gut feeling. Um, you know, I think, uh, yeah, I've given a lot of advice to many people recently around that. If it's too good to be true and also just go with your gut. I think that's a big one. But look, I have really enjoyed chatting to you. Thank you so much for your time.

Lucy Bolan: It's been, yeah, really insightful. I think there's a lot there that I think a lot of people are going to be able to be inspired by and certainly learn from. So thank you. 

Daniel McDermott: No, thank you. Thanks for the opportunity. I really appreciate it. 

Lucy Bolan: You're very welcome.

Lucy Bolan: Remember, the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today, as with our guests, is invaluable. Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries, and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve, and carve out your path to CMO.

Lucy Bolan: Welcome to the CMO Chapter Podcast, where we dive deep into the dynamic world of Chief Marketing Officers. Join us as we explore the careers, insights, and strategies of top marketing executives who shape the brands we know and love. Whether you're a seasoned marketer, an aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business. Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: So I am delighted this morning to have Teresa Spetti joining me. I've known Teresa, I feel like, I don't know, 10 years, eight years now, a long, long time, I think since the office work days. Certainly someone that I've admired from afar for a long time, and I'm so excited to have you on the show. So Teresa, do you want to introduce yourself to, to kick off?

Teresa Sperti: Sure. Um, and I can't believe you started opening by saying you've been involved. That's so lovely to say. So hi everyone. I'm Teresa Spurdy. Um, I'm the founder and director of Arctic Fox, um, which is an advisory consulting and training organization in all things, e com, digital data, and I'm also an ex CMO.

Teresa Sperti: Excellent, excellent. So 

Lucy Bolan: tell me a little bit more about Arctic Fox because as I've said earlier, like I've sort of followed your career and you've done so much over those years. Tell me a bit more, I mean, you know, you've had your consultancy now for how long is it, nearly five years? It's 

Teresa Sperti: over five years now.

Teresa Sperti: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's gone, it's gone very quickly. And I bet it has. 

Lucy Bolan: So what made you take that move from, you know, you were CMO at World Vision, Had a fantastic, I mean, you still have a fantastic career, but then you, you, you saw that opportunity to start your own business. So what made you do that? 

Teresa Sperti: So I think there's a couple of things in that question.

Teresa Sperti: Firstly, I always had the desire to run my own business. And so, um, I think, you know, I always had in the back of my mind that by the age of 40, I probably wanted to move out of corporate, um, and be doing my own thing. The challenge always was, was what was that thing going to be? And I thought that I would be able to work it out whilst I was working, um, client side, but I didn't, um, and so that was probably the first element, um, that drove me to the dark side, if you like.

Teresa Sperti: Um, the second element was that I had a very big personal challenge, you know, where I hit a crossroads in my life. There were some things that happened personally to me when I was in the role as a CMO. Right? And when you are in a CMO role, uh, you're highly visible across the organization. And so what I realized very quickly, given my personal circumstance was I didn't feel it was right for me to try and lead a team of what was 75 people at that point, whilst enduring so many personal challenges, um, related to loss of child and, you know, that type of thing.

Teresa Sperti: So, so I think that. You know, that was really a catalyst for me to say, well, right now I can't be the leader that I need to be, and I need to take a step back. Um, and, and so I hit that juncture and in the road, and I think, you know, had I not, I probably wouldn't be sitting here talking about the fact that, um, I've been running my own business for five and a half years.

Teresa Sperti: The third component is really that what I realized by being a senior leader within a large organization is that the world of, you know, the business world is rapidly changing. And I've been in digital by that point. I started my career in digital back in 2003, digital and data. And, um, and so I'll often refer to myself as a bit of an old dog in the industry because there's not that many people that have been in the industry for 20 years, although it is growing, you know, the organizations that I've been in, we're going through rapid change.

Teresa Sperti: There was a lot of transformation occurring. You know, it requires a modern skill set and a new individual skill set and I had a lot of those, you know, I had built a lot of that skill set over time, but what I realized was, as I lent into that CMO role, it was really difficult to find a provider that could help me 

Lucy Bolan: make the 

Teresa Sperti: change that I needed to across the team, to upskill the team, to build the capability within the team, to lean into the executive, to help drive that the team.

Teresa Sperti: Kind of change in focus, um, to evolve the role and perception of marketing within the organization. They aren't typically the types of providers you find in marketer, and it's not the typical type of support you get from your agency partner. So I really started asking the question of myself, well, who helps people like me?

Teresa Sperti: And that's where Arctic Fox came from really. And, you know, our core focus. is one part kind of the strategic piece. How do we create that strategic clarity and that road map in order to drive change across the organization through the team with a real focus on kind of digital data, e commerce and customer.

Teresa Sperti: And then, um, how do we then upskill the team, which is where our whole kind of training and learning component comes in from a service offering perspective. I mean, you do so much, I bet you're in demand. It's not just me, my, my team, me and my team are in very high demand and, you know, I'm very thankful for all of the support that we've got from the market.

Teresa Sperti: I think that when I established the business, my thought process would be that, yeah, you know, we'll be playing tier two mostly from a brand perspective. What we've really found that we are servicing the biggest of the best brands in the country. And I'm really, really thankful for that. Um, yeah, yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah.

Lucy Bolan: That's fantastic. So I guess, you know, from my perspective, you know, somebody like yourself, you know, you're, you're very specialized, very niche. You've got so much, you know, I guess really sort of tech knowledge and what, what sort of specific, is there any, I guess, can we get any sort of like nuggets of information around any trends or, you know, anything that you're, you know, You know, emerging trends that we're, we're really seeing.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, we all talk about AI, we know about that, but you know, as businesses, like what are you, what are you seeing at the moment in the market? 

Teresa Sperti: That's a really interesting question and could probably be a whole podcast 

Lucy Bolan: on that 

Teresa Sperti: topic. And, and I think you, you know, you've hit the nail on the head, right?

Teresa Sperti: Let's not talk AI and gen AI, because I think everyone knows that that is kind of one of the key Um, trends that are upon us, um, that is really going to shape the next kind of three to five years. And I think it's talked about a lot. So probably people far more experienced than me to talk about that topic.

Teresa Sperti: Um, so look, I think there's a couple of things. I think the first thing I'll touch on, um, is privacy. And, um, I think obviously privacy is not a new concept. We've had a privacy act in Australia for a long period of time. Um, and, you know, when we look overseas, um, Europe, uh, you know, moved in the mid, you know, kind of 2015, 16 in terms of rebooting what it looks like, um, to deliver a modern privacy act into, um, The European Union.

Teresa Sperti: We are on the cusp of what is the single biggest change to the Privacy Act since it was enacted in 1988. And I don't believe that businesses actually realise just how significant this change is. Um, and it's going to change everything. It's going to change how we design and develop experiences. It is going to fundamentally reshape the control and flexibility we need to provide to customers.

Teresa Sperti: Transcribed And the transparency around data, how it's managed and, and give them more rights and ability to manage it. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-Hmm. and decide 

Teresa Sperti: how their data is used. Um, but also, you know, if you look at from a compliance point of view and a breach point of view, the regulators are getting really serious about, you know, breaches and, um, non-compliance.

Teresa Sperti: And so I think that, you know, whilst historically organizations have probably been able to be quite lax around management of privacy. I think that that, um, that door is closing and it's closing very quickly. And what I can tell you is, you know, from all of the brands that, no, we are the partner within market and or that we talk to in market through various mechanisms and ways, whether it's through training or otherwise through our research, most brands, even today are not compliant, 

Lucy Bolan: let 

Teresa Sperti: alone compliant with what is coming.

Teresa Sperti: So I think the next kind of three to five years is going to be quite a significant. Shift in the mindset of business leaders in this country, um, as well as customer leaders around the role and importance of, you know, customer privacy and holding the tension with, you know, delivering great experience, but also ensuring that privacy is at the core of that.

Teresa Sperti: I don't think, you know, if you look at Europe and you look at the mindset of leaders there, it's fundamentally different to where we are at. And I think that, um, gone are the days where we can just assume, well, customers, you know, um, they want great experience. Therefore, we can use their data for whatever we believe is appropriate.

Teresa Sperti: And we're going to have to move on from that. Um, that's a really, really big one. Um, that I would say, I think the second really big one, and this is, you've probably got an array of different leaders, um, and, and professionals that listen to the podcast across different industries. But I would say, um, from a retail perspective, the big ones that I've been talking about for quite a long time, and I think the market's, you know, it's finally dawning on the market, is that Amazon's a real threat.

Teresa Sperti: It's a real threat in this market, right? So. They have demonstrated significant growth, um, over the last kind of three to five years. And if you look at their trajectory, um, you know, it's believed today already they've now probably by the end of the year, we'll reach 6. 5 billion in gross transaction value.

Teresa Sperti: Um, huge. Yeah. So not sales that they bank, but the total revenue going through the platform. That is a lot of money historically has been going to additional retailers, right? So that kind of shifted migration in audiences, um, and the growth of the Amazon prime membership, you know, in Australia, 4. 1 million Australians already using Amazon prime, um, and that drives frequency and shifts.

Teresa Sperti: So, um, you know, and then to further add to that, um, You look at the investment they are making in fulfillment centers across the country. They've made a statement that by 2026, they want to be able to have same day delivery out of every metricity. Wow. I think this is a fundamental shift that we are seeing in market around, um, how shoppers will buy and where they will buy.

Teresa Sperti: And it's going to really challenge. Retailers, CPGs, FMCGs to think very, very differently about their strategy. And I would say some have started to adapt and a more mature, and there's some that are still kind of either unaware that this is this shift is happening or alternatively. Um, probably a little bit in denial that the shift is a couple for you.

Teresa Sperti: I mean, this, I could talk trends all day, right? It's part of what we spent a lot of time analyzing categories of markets and looking at where, um, you know, what shifts are happening in order to, to So, but they're two moments that I think are really kind of front of mind. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I think already, I know there's going to be listeners there going, oh my gosh, like you said, people are going to be like, God, she's nailed it.

Lucy Bolan: She's so right. Oh my gosh, we've not thought about this. So definitely a couple of light bulb moments there. I guess on that, I mean, some conversations that I've been having recently with, with actually quite a few CMOs has been, you know, the role of a CMO in the future, like already, I mean, certainly this last year I've seen, you know, chief growth officer and as we know, we've got CXO, et cetera, coming through more prominently.

Lucy Bolan: How do you see, I mean, you know, there is that concern, especially in the job market this year where, you know, You know, we haven't seen as many CMO roles being advertised in general. Do you see that role, how do you see that role, I guess, evolving? I mean, is it, I personally feel like there's always going to be that requirement, but then it's just going to become so much broader.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Teresa Sperti: So I think there's a couple of, um, components to unpack around that question. 

Lucy Bolan: And 

Teresa Sperti: I don't think the shift has just been happening now. I mean, when I started Arctic Fox, that shift was already happening. We saw, you know, the shift to the. We saw the emergence of the Chief Revenue Officer, the Chief Growth Officer, you know, the Chief Customer Officer.

Teresa Sperti: They are all different flavors of, I would say in part the same thing, because it will depend on the organization and what the role and remit is of those roles. I think what is really challenging about the marketing role, particularly in Australia, is that historically we have been an oligopoly in many categories at markets.

Teresa Sperti: And so to truly differentiate and compete, brands haven't had to work that hard. You know, and, and so, you know, the promotional P's has been critical and that's where most marketers have played. But what is happening with the rapidly changing business landscape is, you know, that status quo way of operating is just not driving growth anymore.

Teresa Sperti: And so it's really challenging brands to need to think differently. And this is why we're seeing this emergence of a series of different roles, right? As experience comes, becomes more important to differentiate. We need greater focus on experience. As our markets become more cluttered, we need to start innovating.

Teresa Sperti: We need to go back to the drawing board and think about proposition, pricing, product, you know, all of those components, you know, part potentially of like a growth, a chief growth, um, role. And so in a way I feel like, and particularly locally, but it's also happening globally, part of this is a rebrand of what is perceived to be.

Teresa Sperti: Marketing in that because leaders across the organization hold a whole lot of historical perceptions around what is marketing do and what does it go through. And historically, as I said, in this country, a lot of marketers have been focused on one of the four P's. It's been the promotional P. Um, and so it's a signal to the organization that, you know, that, that this function actually has to play a much bigger role in driving the business strategy.

Teresa Sperti: Um, and really helping us prioritize our focus around the customer and in some organizations that is absolutely a bit of a rebrand exercise. Whereas others, I would say it's a fundamental shift in the accountabilities of that role and it's becoming that broader remit as you say. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, yeah, I think so. I think, um, I'm curious as well.

Lucy Bolan: I think, you know, I'm seeing and have again this conversation with quite a few of the CMOs where, you know, we're seeing a lot of people entering marketing, you know, they want, you know, they're newly, they've come out of university, they're qualified, etc. And, you know, You know, the first thing, what they want to do is purely focus on social media.

Lucy Bolan: It's like social media, that's what I want to do. And, you know, I get it, you know, most of these individuals, I'm guessing around that sort of like early twenties sort of mark, they're on it every day. You know, that's just a natural, but you know, there's concern that I guess, you know, certain CMOs are going well.

Lucy Bolan: You know, there's this wave of individuals and all they're doing is focusing on this social media and content, et cetera. Like, you know, when I was studying, you know, I was doing rotation programs and I was becoming so much more broader. So, you know, the evolution of leaders coming through, how that's, how is that going to affect us?

Teresa Sperti: Yeah, it's a really interesting one and I'm, I'm gonna, I, I might answer the question in a roundabout way, so Yeah, you can go for it. See how we go. I'll riff this and let's see if we end up back to where we started . A number of years ago, I was having a conversation with a lecturer at, uh, um, very sizable university locally, and I was talking about the issue and challenge around a lack of commerciality in the marketing sector.

Teresa Sperti: You know, with our, within our report that we do every single year, we see commercial acumen, um, as a significant gap coming through in skill, um, the marketing industry. And so I was unpacking it with this lecturer and he was saying to me that ultimately when the university thinks about, you know, development of courses, they are serving the individual.

Teresa Sperti: They're not servicing the needs of businesses in Australia. And you know, if the program and course is geared too much towards kind of commercial and financial components, people won't take the course. And I thought that was a really interesting point around how universities develop programs and content in order to effectively compete.

Teresa Sperti: Uh, because it obviously, um, they are the conduit to the next generation of marketers. Yeah. But if they are not serving the needs of industry, then of course we are going to have some of what is playing out today. Right. If we think about the role of the marketing leader in today's environment, it is far more strategic.

Teresa Sperti: It's far more commercial. It's far more, um, you know, in a lot of organizations, it requires the ability to be able to operate at the highest level to drive that shift and change and really embed, um, that customer focus. And so it's, you know, this is the challenge where we find ourselves in industry, because how are we going to cultivate that next 

Lucy Bolan: wave 

Teresa Sperti: of leaders?

Teresa Sperti: If. The starting points and the educational component is not geared around what is going to deliver Yeah, the right talent for the future. So as I said, I probably haven't answered your question specifically around the social piece, but I get the challenge, right? Like the, the, the, um, I think anyone who is a specialist needs to Understand the core concepts of marketing.

Teresa Sperti: You cannot just be a technical expert on a, on a channel or platform. You can't, you know, to be a really good, solid, well rounded marketer and or digital professional, strategic digital professional, you have to go well beyond the tactics. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. I think it's broadly speaking, I mean, cause I want to probably touch on a bit more around the leadership aspect of your career, because as you mentioned, I think earlier when you were CMO at World Vision, I think, was it 70 people, 75 

Teresa Sperti: people?

Teresa Sperti: 75 in the end. Yeah. Maybe it was 72 or 73, to be honest, but I think I just rounded up to 75. Big number. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. So. Thank you. I mean, I know I've certainly managed teams in the past, but nowhere near that number. Definitely not. And there's a lot that are going to be listening to this. There are quite also new into that leadership period where they might have three direct reports.

Lucy Bolan: Some have got larger, like, were you ever given any advice around, you know, was it just kind of sink or swim? Cause obviously, you know, you became that emerging manager where, you know, you were getting bigger teams, bigger teams, bigger teams. Yeah. 

Teresa Sperti: Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: How do you, how do you just. Sort of learn your groove.

Lucy Bolan: Like how do you become good at leading 

Teresa Sperti: a team? Like is there any ? Yeah. How do you become good? So, so I think, I mean, yes, I was, you know, I didn't jump from zero to 75. Um, manage, yeah. You know, under management from a leadership point of view, my role prior to World Vision was at Office Works and I was leading a team of 10, but, you know, going from 10 to 75.

Teresa Sperti: does require very, very different leadership skills and approach. 

Lucy Bolan: Um, 

Teresa Sperti: and what it does require is, um, you know, you need a really strong, um, leadership team beneath you, you know, or working with you. I don't want to say the word beneath you. That sounds awful, but you know, you need a really, really strong leadership team, um, that can manage their kind of, you know, functions, but you need that leadership team most of all to be able to work effectively together, not just lead individual functions, right?

Teresa Sperti: Because when, when you're. When leaders think their job is just to lead individual functions, silos build, we don't get the right outcomes, right? So building that really cohesive leadership team who are well versed and able to collectively come together to solve problems. So you as the leader do not need to come in to solve every issue and challenge that is emerging is really, really important.

Teresa Sperti: Um, I think secondly, from a leadership point of view, What is so important when you're leading large teams is that everyone has a really, really strong understanding of where we are trying to go and what it's going to take for us to get there, right? And that, you know, one of the things that I learnt very early, there was a speaker I heard overseas, and I cannot for the life of me remember his name.

Teresa Sperti: https: otter. ai And this is stuff, I heard this 10 years ago and I repeat it to clients verbatim all of the time. In a transformation environment, you need to communicate 10 times as much as you normally would. And so taking on leadership roles, and typically my leadership roles are transformation roles because I kind of skill set and bent and, um, you know, I am a bit of usually bought into organizations as a change agent.

Teresa Sperti: You know, my priority and focus was really around creating that clarity. And then ensuring that everyone across the team understood exactly where we were going. And that meant I wasn't communicating at once. 

Lucy Bolan: How do I reinforce 

Teresa Sperti: that message around our vision, our direction, our journey, our progress? How did I use every opportunity to do that within the team, but then also across the organization, the alignment, right?

Teresa Sperti: Because as soon as the rest of the organization becomes misaligned. around the priorities and where we're trying to, you know, where we're all effectively trying to go because that, you know, what we're doing from a marketing point of view has to be aligned with the corporate strategy. But as soon as we start to see misalignment and the strategy changing and we've been going in a different direction, this is where we have friction within the organization.

Teresa Sperti: Yeah. Does that make 

Lucy Bolan: sense? It does. I think it, it's that consistency of the message, you know, you're going through such, and I mean, these, these are big businesses that, you know. I know. A lot of pressure on your shoulders and so it's very, you know, it can be quite intense and it can also be quite stressful.

Teresa Sperti: You have to anchor people back to, we agreed we're going here, we agreed we're going here. Now we can make strategic decisions to move in another direction, but we can't just keep adding and layering and, you know, somebody's got a new brilliant idea, so let's just throw that into the mix, right? And so that did require a lot of kind of time, energy and effort for me as a leader.

Teresa Sperti: To work across the organization and then back into my team to ensure communication channels were open and we were able to stay the course, to be honest, was there is so many destructions in a transformational environment, new ideas, et cetera. But the brands that really make the difference are the ones that.

Teresa Sperti: Create a level of clarity around where they're trying to go 

Lucy Bolan: and 

Teresa Sperti: stick to that plan. And I say somewhat because there are going to be things you learn, which sees you adapting, but adapting for the sake of adapting because somebody else has had a good idea is just a recipe for, um, You don't, uh, an ability for the project and this is to go off course.

Teresa Sperti: Right. So, so yes, I think those two things really important because if the team understand where you're trying to go and how they fit in and the importance of what they do and how that ladders back up to achieving the overarching objective, then you've got a fighting chance. And I'll just make one more point back to your social media piece.

Teresa Sperti: If you treat your team like mushrooms. They're going to act like mushrooms, right? And what I mean by that is still today, we see it all the time. We see mid level managers, individual contributors, not being exposed to company strategy, not being exposed to marketing strategy and direction, and just being fed information to execute.

Lucy Bolan: If you want 

Teresa Sperti: your teams to step up, and being strategic and think beyond channels and think about integration, then start treating them in a way that they are empowered with the information to make more informed decisions and play a much bigger role. Because that's partly why they are focused on channel execution, because, you know, it's coming from the top in part, and that's going to be confirmed as a, as a message to put out there.

Teresa Sperti: But, but it's true. 

Lucy Bolan: I think you just nailed it actually. And I love the mushroom analogy. I've not heard that one before. But also as a recruiter, that's when I get people speaking to me going, you know, I'm not being given growth opportunities. Like I'm not being, you know, there's, there's no opportunity for me to step up.

Lucy Bolan: Like, you know, it's just do, do, do. I want to go back to your career. When I have a look back, I mean, we go back a little bit down memory lane here, but you started off in, um, automotive. I did. And so yeah. You were, I think it was Ford and then you went to Mercedes-Benz. I did. And so, I mean, back then, like, did you always have this hunger in you, this ambition and drive to actually get to like, you know, CMO and, and, and level or.

Lucy Bolan: I mean, when I look back, I mean, those brands I would have thought would have been a fantastic training ground to really, you know, get you on a really solid starting point within your career. 

Teresa Sperti: So, you know, I'd love to say, yes, I had this vision to be senior, but the reality is, is that, you know, when I, even when I chose to do marketing, you know, when back in 1998, And because that's the year I graduated from school, you know, you had those career course books and you looked through them to work out what I want to do.

Teresa Sperti: And there was a couple of lines about each type of, you know, profession. And I saw marketing and advertising went great. I want to do that and, and thought that would be a great career move because I wanted to make advertising and, you know, and I'm, I'm, I'm not a very creative person. So the irony to all that.

Teresa Sperti: So I think early on in my career. I probably didn't know that I wanted to be a CMO. In fact, you know, the department I was working in at Ford, it was the, it was a B2B department. So I think that, um, I am innately ambitious and so I have this drive and hunger. To always be better and to always be moving on to the next thing.

Teresa Sperti: Surprising in part because I've been running my business for five and a half years. This is not, but so I think I always had that ambition and drive. And to be honest, I grew up in the country, so I didn't have a lot of, you know, professional networks. Um, through my parents, um, uh, my, my parents were entrepreneurs.

Teresa Sperti: Um, so that's probably where I've, um, derived my entrepreneurial spirit from. But I didn't have a lot of mentors to even, you know, work it out. So I had to work it out myself and, and I think probably curiosity has helped me in good stead. I, I would say probably if I could pinpoint it, maybe when I came back from the UK, that was when I probably started to, you know, I moved back into larger organizations and, and probably started to think about, yeah, that's the type of role I want to be in.

Teresa Sperti: But, but I think my career transitions have always been about what's next for me, what's the next challenge 

Lucy Bolan: and 

Teresa Sperti: what's that common thread for my skills. And then. What might challenge me next, you know, I've always, I've never wanted to just take on another role, which was like my last role had to bring something new to my skill set or stretch me if that was.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. I think, um, yeah, look, I think it's, it's really interesting because we start off and we never really know kind of which way we're going to sort of dive in and then we get a little bit more confidence and you go, you know what, I can do that and go for it. Yeah. Were you somebody that sort of was very good at seizing and identifying the opportunities?

Lucy Bolan: Because I see now people that, I mean, let's be honest, we don't see resumes or experience where it's 10 years in a role and then they go on to the next, you know, two years with that or three. Um, and then a lot of those moves are quite calculated because it's like, I want to get that promotion. Yeah. 

Teresa Sperti: Look, I think there's a couple of things in that question that I'll talk to.

Teresa Sperti: The first is that, I think my calculated moves were more internally when I was in roles versus when I was out in market from a role perspective. And what I mean by that is I've always been one to put myself forward for a new project or identify project that I think needs to be addressed or initiative that needs to be addressed and then figuring it out, right, if we didn't have the skills.

Teresa Sperti: And I was never the person to put my hand up and say, okay, I'm now on higher duties. I want more money for that. And I'm saying this, and this is going to be really controversial. I know this is going to be really controversial, but acquisition of skills, new skills is an investment in yourself. So I'm not advocating that, you know, people step up and do higher duties for 12 months and they're not getting paid for it.

Teresa Sperti: But if there's a project or an initiative that you think needs to be done, and you can proactively sell that in the, into the business, and that gives you an opportunity to learn, and or there's a project that comes up or an initiative that comes up that allows you to acquire new skills. 

Lucy Bolan: Maybe 

Teresa Sperti: think about shifting your mindset about what is the value for me.

Teresa Sperti: You want to take those skills with you, right? And that makes you more marketable in market. And so that is probably what I've found has allowed me to transition into the roles and get the breadth of experience that I have. Is because within those roles, I was always looking for the opportunity to grow my skills in line with what the organization needed, right?

Teresa Sperti: You can always go and do projects and initiatives that are not required by the organization, but I had a bit of a playground in my role because in a lot of my roles, because often I was brought in to drive. Adoption and transformation of digital e com. So I had a bit of a playground to do that. But then I would really challenge the organisation around what is that, that is going to look like on these projects that I can sink my teeth into that expose me to new things.

Teresa Sperti: So, and then the second thing I would say is that if you look at my CV, You will notice that I have not really stayed in one industry my whole career. No. Yeah. And I would say that that is probably a little bit more deliberate than as I moved through my career versus, you know, knowing that I wanted to be a CMO, you know, very, very early on.

Teresa Sperti: I think the reality is in the Australian market, the market is very small. So you can't pull yourself into one sector or category. As you move up the tree, there are fewer and fewer jobs, right? Yeah. And your ability then to transition. Across to another industry is more limited because you are pigeonholed as a specialist and you don't show necessarily versatility on your CV.

Teresa Sperti: So my advice would be as much as possible is try and, you know, build knowledge across an array of industries to bring more versatility to be exposed to different environments, different industries, different thinking, different approaches, because that ultimately does make you a better marketer and a better business and commercial leader.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think you've hit the nail on the head. I think, you know, I know with cost of living, salary, money in general is very much at the forefront for pretty much most people and I get that completely, but I think, you know, there's times when if you've got that opportunity to step up, even if it's like, you know, temporarily for a project or a campaign for, you know, do it.

Teresa Sperti: That's right. And sometimes asking for that additional money. Might mean you don't get that opportunity. And again, this is why, you know, this is why for me, I think if we shift our mindset to think about what is the, the upside for me, because I take those skills with me and over time that will pay back, 

Lucy Bolan: pay 

Teresa Sperti: back in more senior roles, you obtain over time, the remit that you get, you know, all of that, it pays back over time, or if you want to go and start your own business like me, you know, all of the amazing skills.

Teresa Sperti: Um, and experience I've acquired over time is allowing me to do what I'm doing now. Mm hmm. I guess 

Lucy Bolan: that really feeds into, to my final question. So I want to, I guess, talk a little bit more about, I always kind of wrap up around legacy and impact. So I want to, you know, when you look back at, you know, where you are so far, I mean, you've got many more years ahead.

Lucy Bolan: I've got no doubt. I guess, you know, you've worked with some incredible people, incredible organizations, you know, anything that, you know, is really important to you that you want to be remembered by? 

Teresa Sperti: Oh, wow. That's such a big question. It's a big, it's a big hard hitter. Do you know, I think practically, the clients that we work with, what is ultimately important for us is that they derive value from the work that we do.

Teresa Sperti: And that sounds really simple, but it's not just about making a buck for me. It's about, I want to see change in those organisations. That's why I do what I do and I'm really passionate about what I do. So I get a real personal kick out of hearing that, you know, if we've developed a, a really robust three to five year strategy or whatever, and the organization has been able to make the change, drive all of the change and roll out that strategy, there's nothing better than that feeling because they can see the tangible value in action within their organizations.

Teresa Sperti: So, That does probably at a practical level, give me, um, a lot of satisfaction and, and is a legacy for those that, that engage us in a way, um, because it comes back to ultimately, it also reflects on our reputation, right? If we haven't made the change, it's not, it's not going to bode well for us, our organisation over time.

Teresa Sperti: Um, and I think, you know, in this market, there's, there are too many providers that are really transactional. They do just pick out the markets. It's. churn and burn and whatever. So, so I think that is one of them. I think the broader one for me, if I'm truly honest at the moment, is probably the legacy that I can leave in the industry, which is why in part I started Arctic Fox.

Teresa Sperti: We are in, you know, as I've said a number of times through this conversation, we are in a very, very different business environment than we historically have been in. The marketing industry is changing rapidly. We are not equipped as an industry locally to be able to grapple with the change. And the reason we do, um, the yearly report that we do and a number of the other kind of educational initiatives that we put out in market, Is because we want to change the industry.

Teresa Sperti: We want to help the industry evolve. We want to help marketers be better, do better, be more respected within organizations. And even if we've played a very small role in that through the thought leadership work that we do through. You know, the research that we do, then that's a great legacy to, to leave the industry at a certain point when I leave the industry.

Teresa Sperti: Right. And I, you know, I meet people all the time who say they admire me or they follow me, which I'm very touched by because sometimes you don't know who's listening. Nice to know that people do actively seek you out to listen to what it is that you have to say and use that. In their own roles or their own careers to make decisions.

Teresa Sperti: So, yeah, I think that's probably, um, you know, one of the ones for me that, you know, if I leave a legacy, if you like to the industry, hopefully I've been able to make some change through dialogue and thought later. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, well, I think there's going to be a lot of people already from this conversation are going to be wowed by a lot of the stuff that you've said.

Lucy Bolan: And as I said earlier, I think you've hit the nail on so much. It's going to be a lot of big light bulb moments of that. Um, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the CMO chapters podcast. Thank you so much. I know you're super super busy, appreciate the time. Fantastic. No, it's been great. Thank you.

Lucy Bolan: Remember the road to CMO isn't always linear. It's filled with challenges, decisions, and moments of transformation. Whether you're charting your course or navigating a career shift, the experiences wisdom shared today as with our guests is invaluable. Thank you for joining us. Keep dreaming big, keep pushing boundaries and remember that your journey towards becoming a CMO is as much about the destination as it is about the growth you experience along the way.

Lucy Bolan: Until next time, continue to innovate, evolve and carve out your path to CMO.