Lucy Bolan: Welcome to season two of the CMO chapters podcast this year. I'm super excited, super thrilled to announce that we have an absolute whole fabulous host of CMOs, market leaders, experts within their field. Who've been very, very generous with that time to share some candid. pretty heartfelt, honest conversations around some personal career journeys that they've experienced.

Lucy Bolan: Also some lessons that they've learned along the way. This season, it's going to really be your action packed one stop shop toolbox for anything to do with career growth, professional development, um, leadership progression, and also importantly, what it really takes nowadays as a marketer to stand out in what is.

Lucy Bolan: as we know, a very competitive market. It's absolutely got all sorts for everybody. And I really hope you enjoy.

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 step into the shoes of the CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage past to discovering what it's like to really lead and. In the ever evolving landscape of business, stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries behind the brand.

Jac Phillips: Welcome. Thank you, Lucy. It is an absolute delight, honor, and privilege to be here. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, thank you. Thank you. So I've been, it sounds a little bit stalkerish here, but I've been sort of a bit of a fan of Jack's for quite a while. I've been following Jack on, on LinkedIn and yeah, certainly through the fabulous podcast.

Lucy Bolan: But I really wanted to get you on the show today, really Really tap into a bit more detail around what you've been, what you've done, your background, um, and really discuss in more detail, um, I guess advice and tips you've got for those aspiring leaders out there that are looking to potentially go down the CMO path.

Lucy Bolan: Before we get to it, Jack, please feel free to introduce yourself. 

Jac Phillips: Oh, thank you, Lucy. Um, I'm a bit of a fan of yours too. I see all the, the great things that you do on LinkedIn, uh, and the fact that you've got a recruitment business, uh, and are trying to find talent and put talent in great roles, I think is a, an awesome purpose.

Jac Phillips: So, um, I think that, you know, there's some mutual admiration. Yeah, thank you. Who is she? Well, um, that's a very good question. She's still trying to figure that out herself. Um, I have been, I guess, uh, on a, an awesome journey. Um, I've had a career for about 35 years. Uh, that career kicked off in radio in a small town in New Zealand, uh, at school.

Jac Phillips: told off for talking. Uh, so I went and got paid for it instead because I was good at it. Uh, and so I went, went and joined a, a commercial, uh, radio station when I was very young, 20. And that was my first, uh, role was, uh, you know, on air and, and, and in commercial radio. And so media was where I started and, and then moved across.

Jac Phillips: the ditch, as they say, or the Dutch. And, uh, started my marketing career, uh, in Australia, though I did work in a couple more radio stations in my early, uh, days, um, which was fantastic. And that sort of, you know, helped me build my network. I didn't really know anyone in Australia when I arrived at, uh, 21.

Jac Phillips: From there, it seemed like a natural progression to go from sort of media into marketing. And I've always, always been curious about behavior and people. Um, Lucy, I really have. So anyone who's curious about behavior and people, uh, you know, and insights is, is likely to find themselves probably loving marketing and marketing as a career.

Jac Phillips: So, um, yeah, off I went into the world of marketing and, and I pretty much started in, in agency land, actually creative agency land. I moved from Canberra to Sydney and started in my first relationship marketing agency. Uh, and that was an awesome, um, experience. DM and RM, you know, direct marketing, relationship marketing was right up my alley because again, I was so curious about people.

Jac Phillips: I was probably more interested in that than I was above the line and, and advertising. Even though we were part of an advertising agency, the relationship marketing, uh, function was, was a, was a component of it. So, um, from there moved around Australia, working in different agencies, then found myself pregnant.

Jac Phillips: Goodness knows. Immaculate conception, of course. Um, and hightail it back to where my mother and father lived, which was Perth, WA at this point, because I'd need some help. And, um, again, worked in some agencies and set up a little consulting business while I was at home with two very, very little babies. Uh, so quickly had another one following the first and, um.

Jac Phillips: Decided I could manage. I had two good kids. They were pretty easy. 

Lucy Bolan: I 

Jac Phillips: was pretty organized. I had a lot of help. I had my mother in law across the road. I had mum up the road. So I thought, look, um, I can probably go and do a little bit of, um, marketing, consulting, and advising, which is what I did. And it kept me.

Jac Phillips: Interested and, uh, I guess a little bit more interesting because I, I, whilst I love being a mum, I also just needed something, um, with, with the brain. And I was also, I guess, conscious of not becoming irrelevant or losing too much, I guess, information and or training and development by being, uh, at home full time.

Jac Phillips: Okay. So this is back in the days where organisations certainly, you know, weren't doing the parental leave support that they might do today. Yeah. So while I was at home, I said to my husband, I'd love to go to Asia and work in Asia. I had seen some really interesting things going on in Asia. I was reading.

Jac Phillips: Uh, and so he said, well, do it. Uh, he's always been my, my biggest supporter and he was always around for the kids, which meant I had that, um, ability to, to do that. So off I trotted up to Singapore and had a chat to a couple of recruitment agencies, a couple of Lucy's that were up, and They looked at me, they looked at my resume, they said, this is interesting, nothing here at the moment, but we'll stay in touch.

Jac Phillips: I don't think I was home a week and I got a call and it was Leo Burnett saying they were looking for a client services director for a component of their business, which was relationship marketing. And I got a gig in Singapore, so we moved the family up to Singapore and that was in the year 2000. Gosh.

Jac Phillips: So 25 years ago. 

Lucy Bolan: And, and, you know, when you look back, cause. I know you've, you know, since then, I mean, you were obviously with A and Z for like banking for a long time. And, um, I understand, I think it was Visa was the last. Visa was my last corporate gig. Yeah. How did you, I mean, I, I sort of, you know, I'll give you my, my opinion here, but I sort of look at people like yourself and, you know, you, you do come across as very confident, you, you know, have this infectious sort of energy and enthusiasm and.

Lucy Bolan: You know, you look back at, I look at LinkedIn, you look it back at your career and it seems like, how have you? You know, seize these opportunities. Like, is it down to honestly good networking? Is it down to luck? Like what's the secret formula? 

Jac Phillips: That's a great question. And one I've probably not reflected on much.

Jac Phillips: I've missed out on way more jobs than I've ever had. You know, so this idea that I've just gone from one job to the other, and it's all being tickety boo. You know, that's the Instagram look and feel, but it's completely not reality. Um, and I've been given some hard feedback in my time and I've probably missed out on a lot of feedback that I should have been given in my time for their reasons.

Jac Phillips: But I just kept going. I just kept believing in myself, I guess. And you know, look, a lot of it was bluff. Uh, I had a father who was incredible, uh, and he's still alive today and still a bit of a mentor without him even realizing it. I remember saying to him in my first serious challenge I had when I was at the radio station in WA and, uh, we were downsizing, you know, media, everyone was cutting budgets.

Jac Phillips: And I was told, not only will you have an on air segment, but you're also going to need to learn how to produce commercials. We need you in the production studio four mornings a week for three hours. 

Lucy Bolan: And 

Jac Phillips: I was put in the studio and shown the 16 track desk, which looked like something in the front of an airplane.

Jac Phillips: I remember calling my father saying, Oh, I don't know what I'm doing and I can't do this. And he said. How do you know you can't do it? And I said, what do you mean? He said, well, have you given it a crack? And I said, no, he said, well, don't have a go at it. Then call me and tell me you can't do it. And of course, like anything, I, I, I, I learned very quickly.

Jac Phillips: It wasn't actually that difficult. Um, I needed, I needed a few hours to practice and of course I did the better I got and that stayed with me. You know, if you don't have a go and if you don't put yourself forward, how. Will you ever know? Yeah. Um, and most people that hire you aren't hiring you to fail, they're hiring you to succeed because their reputation's on the line.

Jac Phillips: So I sort of took, I think, a lot of that with me when I would go for roles and think, well, this is a bit of a stretch, but I need the stretch. I don't want to stay where I am. And I want to learn something new. I want to work for somebody different. So I should expect that I don't know it all and it will be different.

Jac Phillips: And that's okay. The self talk, I think, positive self talk just kept me applying for things and giving things a go. The network has played a massive, massive role. role in my, in my trajectory. And my network has never worked harder for me than it does now and, and, and how timely, because I work for myself and I need that, you know, to, to work.

Jac Phillips: Um, I don't have a, you know, a, a, a corporate role to, to, to lean on. I'm, I'm, I am my, my pipeline. 

Lucy Bolan: I am the future. Yeah. I heard a saying, um, recently, actually, that my network is my net worth. Oh. Oh, mmm. That's so, so true. 

Jac Phillips: It's a really interesting one, the network. I don't know whether you're okay to get into this now, but of course I coach so many people and particularly senior level women and a lot of female marketers.

Lucy Bolan: And 

Jac Phillips: I'll often say to me, you know, I'll say, how's your network? Uh, you know, what, what, how networked are you? And the first thing I'll go is I hate that whole term network. I hate the idea of having to go out and network. And I said, it really does need a rebrand because of. I've got a feeling the way I'm thinking about networking and the way you're thinking about networking is different.

Jac Phillips: And they say how so? And I say networking is about what you can actually do for others. When you are relying on your network to help you, which is usually when you want another job or your next job or a new job, 

Lucy Bolan: it's 

Jac Phillips: actually too late because if you are helping people all the way through and talking to people and being really open and genuinely Uh, building and interested in helping others and helping new people, then when the time comes.

Jac Phillips: That reciprocation is there, people will absolutely help you and people will talk about you and they will promote you. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. I, I completely agree with that completely. I, I have a personal KPI where once a week I'll introduce five people for coffees with other people, whether it's CMOs with CMOs or, and you know, I'm not.

Lucy Bolan: It's not like a charge for that, you know, but I think, well, you know, you get remembered and you've spoken about, and you know, you're also doing some good. There's so much 

Jac Phillips: value in 

Lucy Bolan: that. 

Jac Phillips: I 

Lucy Bolan: get 

Jac Phillips: genuine joy, delight, and purpose out of connecting people. I mean, it's part of my proposition as an executive coach.

Jac Phillips: So when you sign up for me, I actually create a package for you. And within that packages, I will introduce you to new networks. I will access networks that you've not accessed before, if it's relevant and if it's appropriate. Yeah. Um, and I, I spent an hour last night connecting two or three really great people with some other people.

Jac Phillips: And it's something I really look forward to doing. 

Lucy Bolan: Looking back at your career and knowing everything that you know now, is there any advice that you think, you know what, I'd have given that Jack Phillips when she was 28 years old, a bit of, a bit of advice, what words of wisdom would you share? 

Jac Phillips: How long have you got?

Jac Phillips: So if you are a leader or you are somebody coming through the Rancid Centre this podcast now, you've got clearly great taste because you're listening to this. But the advice I would give myself, look, back yourself. You deserve a seat at the table. You know, imposter syndrome creeps in at 28, at 48, at 58, at 78, would you believe it?

Jac Phillips: That just never leaves you, but you don't worry about that. You just work through it. You know, you're more capable than you give yourself credit for, yeah? And confidence comes from action. So speak up, share your ideas, you know, trust that your perspective is valuable, um, realize that relationships matter more than titles.

Jac Phillips: Success isn't just about climbing this corporate ladder, it's actually about building these strong genuine relationships, your network as we talk about, yeah. The connections you make now, the mentors, the peers, the clients, the mentees, they'll shape your career in ways that you would never predict. So always invest in those relationships.

Lucy Bolan: Um, 

Jac Phillips: get comfortable with discomfort. Yeah. Uncertainty. Uncertainty is exciting. There's only two certainties, sadly, death and taxes. And the fact I'll have a glass of wine on a Friday, that's three certainties. But growth happens outside of our comfort zone. Whenever. I have actually excelled or learned more about myself.

Jac Phillips: It's when I've actually done something I've been a bit scared about. Yeah, I've actually tried something in a job. I've gone on to something and I thought, I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'll figure it out. I'll ask others, I'll read or I'll learn. So say yes before you feel a hundred percent ready.

Jac Phillips: Um, and think beyond the job. Yeah. I talk about personal brands a lot. Build your brand, right? Your reputation is your current. It really is. It's not just about excelling in your role. You know, it's about being known for something, you know, start writing, start speaking, mentor others. Your personal brand will open doors long before you realize you need them.

Jac Phillips: My awesome podcast cohost, Gabrielle Dolan, Raul, you know, she says, what's a personal brand. It's not what you say about yourself. It's what others say about you when you're not. And it's so true. Yeah. And we've all got a personal brand, whether you like it or not. The difference is some of us are trying to shape and control our personal brand, whereas others don't.

Jac Phillips: That's a worry. And I think finally play the long game. Yeah. Balance results, reputation. Yes. They matter. Of course we need results. You need results to demonstrate you, you know, you craft, you're an expert or. You are, uh, qualified. Um, but how you achieve results really matters here. You know, who you are is actually more important than what you do.

Jac Phillips: Um, think about the long term and maybe 

Lucy Bolan: exercise a bit of patience. I think that was some fantastic ingredients you've given us, given us there. So I love it. Love it. I want to ask a question. So, I mean, a lot of the listeners that, that listened to this podcast are, as I've said, you know, aspiring CMOs, or, you know, there might be at that mid level management remit and the thing about, you know, I really want to get to that head of, or, you know, next level, what is it that you should probably be aware of that, you know, when we're going into leadership until you're in it, you kind of go, Oh, right.

Lucy Bolan: aware of that, you know, what would you say to those or give those individuals? What piece of advice would you give them? 

Jac Phillips: I think as you are growing and learning and developing, get a coach, you know, and, and I don't say that. I mean, I've, I've had coaches for years and they've absolutely made a difference to me.

Jac Phillips: So somebody that she makes you stop and look in the mirror and reflect, because I was really good at bum down, head up, just go forward. My idea of reflection was, was, was an hour earlier, nothing, nothing more, um, again, being in a bit of a hurry, being quite ambitious. So what that means when you're not.

Jac Phillips: reflecting. It means that you're not actually stopping and thinking about what are my strengths? Have I changed? What do I want to dial up? What do I want to dial down? And also, what do I bring to the table? And I mentioned that before, be really clear about who you are. This comes back to unique value proposition.

Jac Phillips: I think Lucy, really, you know, what makes you different from other? people, you know, what's going to help you stand out? And that really is defining your superpower or your, or your strengths. You know, are you a growth strategist? Are you a brand builder? Or are you a customer insights guru? Whatever it is, whatever it is that is.

Jac Phillips: And you can be a generalist too, but there will be something in there that is very much your wheelhouse, the stuff that really fires you up. Well, what is it about that, that makes you different or better than somebody else who's the same? Yeah. So you need to position yourself and the answer to that to solving business problems.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. But so, so you're not just another marketer, you're having this clear narrative around, you know, what ties together your experience, also your impact. And that is that strong personal brand. Here's what people. Tell me I do really, really well. And here are some proof points to demonstrate how I've done that really, really well.

Jac Phillips: Um, we, I used to giggle, you know, the marketing department, yeah, the calorie in department often had huge budgets and I never, ever took advantage of that. I was so. I guess privileged and, and honored that I was a trustee of that money on behalf of that brand or organization. But if I wasn't showing results and showing the commercial acumen and saying, well, this is how we're getting the return on the investment.

Jac Phillips: This is how we're going to track these results and measure them. This is how we know this is going to work. Or if we don't know what's going to work, we're going to do a test and learn first. So it's the ability to be able to take all of those things and demonstrate your commercial now. It's your commercial.

Jac Phillips: And that has to be also about the strategic acumen that you've got to, so showcasing that and being able to do that in a way that really shows revenue growth, you know, cost savings, ROI, um, partnerships and relationship building. So you should be a marketer that absolutely understands the value of strategic partnerships internally as much as externally.

Jac Phillips: Some of the best work I've done, and particularly in my later years where I was given access to really great resources, and I had a lot of influence was. Partnering with things that maybe the brands weren't traditionally known to partner with. Visa, you know, a fairly, a fairly traditional, conventional digital payments network is that was digital.

Jac Phillips: Um, obviously it became digital. What was, was plastic initially, but saying, you know, actually, if we want kids to use Visa on their phone, then we need to be where the kids are. Where are they? Oh, they're at festivals. Yeah. So how do I get Visa? And how do I make sure that experience isn't because we're trying to sell somebody something, but it's actually trying to enhance their festival experience.

Jac Phillips: And so working in a way that, and showing people that you've got a really creative and broader thinking when it comes to you compared to others, I think, you know, that that's how you're memorable. That's how you show initiative 

Lucy Bolan: and creativity. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. No, completely. I, I wanted to ask.

Lucy Bolan: Throughout your career, I mean, you know, when people become leaders and I know from that for one, when I became a leader myself, it was almost right off you go sink or swim and no rule book or instruction manual that comes with that. And so. Was it a case that, did you learn your, did you shape your leadership skills from looking at other leaders that you admired?

Lucy Bolan: And I mean, you know, we know that there's leaders out there that you go, absolutely not. I want to avoid that completely. But you know what? I love that. And I love how you've operated that. So how did you shape your leadership style? 

Jac Phillips: Yeah, exactly. Exactly how you described. I have worked with some fuckwits.

Jac Phillips: I can tell you right. At, at, at the very senior levels, people that were paid extraordinarily well. who treated others appallingly and who actually were there because of their network. Yeah. The irony, right? Yeah. Um, but I learned from them. I learned how not to be. And I sort of knew that anyway. Okay.

Jac Phillips: Because there was a misalignment of my values and their values anyway. But, but I also, it, it reinforced and reminded me how powerful leadership is when it is done well and how awful and impactful it is when it's not done well. And it's actually been leadership that has driven me. And I guess. My growth has been around how do I become a really good leader, a leader that cares for people, but holds them accountable, a leader that is fair, but firm.

Jac Phillips: It's very similar to parenting in many, many ways. If I was their best friend, then I wasn't being a good leader. However, I also needed to build relationships that were, you know, uh, deep and meaningful with people. And I cared about them. I cared about them way more. Then I did the work actually, uh, because I cottoned on pretty quickly based on my own experience being led by a very good leader and being led by a very bad leader.

Jac Phillips: The difference in the incremental value I would offer if I worked for someone who really stretched me and took a real interest in me and believed in me. And I've always said, you know, what is my USP as a person? And it is to unlock the, or my purpose I should say, is to unlock the potential of brands and people.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. And I have been doing that for a very, very long time. I was doing it as a junior leader. Yeah. Trying to unlock the potential of a brand, but also because I had relationships in agencies. I had relationships. It's one or two, maybe one direct report at the time. If I could unlock that person's, uh, potential and or the agency through great relationships, then I would be successful because I can't do all the work.

Jac Phillips: I'm, I'm not an island. Uh, in fact, the, the more senior you become, the less on the tools you are, of course. Uh, and that's something that I talk about a lot to, to my clients. So, so, so get a great coach, uh, learn from the leaders you've got and the best leaders I work for question things. They used absolutely critical analysis and curiosity all the time.

Jac Phillips: They coached their people. They were great coaches. Um, they wouldn't tell us exactly what to do. They might tell us what the outcome was they wanted. And then they would encourage us to think about how we would get there. 

Lucy Bolan: And one of 

Jac Phillips: the best questions any leader can ask their team or individuals in their team is what's the barrier that would stop you from doing this?

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, 

Jac Phillips: yeah, yeah, yeah. Be a mindset or, um, something that we don't know as a leader. So you learn so much from leaders and it has been leadership that has driven me because I love. Great leadership. And I see the positive impact it has not just on teams and on the brand and the business, but also on families.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. Because we all take our work home. Our work comprises of so much of our lives. And if you've got miserable staff because you're a miserable shit of a leader, then that's. Um, actually play havoc on people's personal lives. And I, that, that's something I have a real issue with because no job is, is worth it.

Jac Phillips: Oh, 

Lucy Bolan: absolutely. And as a recruiter, I had all sorts of, you can imagine. Oh. I can imagine. Every day. Well, not every day, but regularly. Um, one question I do have, and I'd love to get your thoughts on this. So I often have myself, you know, a lot of, a lot of marketers that, you know, they go for interviews. And one thing they're looking forward to your point is really, really amazing leaders.

Lucy Bolan: And it's, it's hard because it's like, you know, it's, you know, you're in a chocolate shop and you're like, well, they all look absolutely amazing. And then you might taste one and go, Oh God, now I'm not going back for that. And only once you're in there and you've purchased, you know, so how do we, you know, when you're at that interview stage, is there any.

Lucy Bolan: Questions or any advice you give in terms of the task? Oh, yes, yes, 

Jac Phillips: yes, yes. There are so many things. I coach on this a lot. Yeah. Your relationship with your leader, and I guess to some extent the relationship they have with their leader, is going to absolutely shape whether you have a great experience or not.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. That doesn't mean to say you should look for somebody who is a mirror image to you. Diversity is important. When you are being interviewed, you should always have questions. That are very much directed at your leader or new leader. And those questions should, should, they, they, they need to align to your needs.

Jac Phillips: And of course your needs change at different times, right? So my needs as a 32 year old mother in the workplace are very different to my needs when I was a 52 year old. Head of Marketing for Visa Australia, New Zealand, South Pacific. I have different needs from a personal perspective. Yeah, but most importantly, what are your needs for your future direction?

Jac Phillips: So where are you going and where do you want to go? And is this going to be the right leader for you? So there are a number of questions. One of the first questions should be okay. If I am a 35 year old mum or dad, flexibility is pretty important. I do want to be working remotely or even if I'm not worried about working remotely, will I have the support of the leadership if I need to be at home with a child or child care is falling over or whatever.

Jac Phillips: So being able to ask that question really up front. Yeah. Talk to me about. Uh, people in the organization that have families, you know, how, how does it work when it comes to remote working? Well, how does it work when it comes to flexibility? Have no issue in asking that question. If you are worried that if you ask that question, that it might mean you don't get the role, then that was never going to be the right answer.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. So, so the more direct and upfront you can be about this stuff, the better. The other thing is, you know, trying to understand from this leader, what are they doing that's really making a difference in the organization and how do they, uh, use development and how do they support people in order to grow and stretch them?

Jac Phillips: Because you're obviously going to be evaluating that for yourself, right? Yeah. Um, how would they define success? You know, what, what a success in this role and the person coming in, if it's you, then what are they expecting of them to try and get a bit of a sense of, okay, is this going to be a job I can absolutely give my all, but I'm being supported, you know, what's the.

Jac Phillips: How would you describe the culture and, and, and who was the last person you promoted and how did that, how did that work? The more information you can ask about that leader and their style and the sort of decisions they make around the things that will matter to you and your future, the better insights you're going to get in order to say, well, actually, I think that's going to be the right place for me, or I'm not sure I'm going to thrive there.

Jac Phillips: Uh huh. Uh huh. When 

Lucy Bolan: you look back at your career, were there any, were there, cause. Were there any aha moments or, you know, that sort of like golden lightbulb moment for you when you were like, Oh, okay, I've got the full package now. 

Jac Phillips: Well, no, there were golden lightbulb moments of like, Oh my God, I can't believe it.

Jac Phillips: You know, what a disaster I, I created and, and, but I've learned a lot from it and thank goodness that happened. Um, but when you say the full package expand on that, what do you mean? 

Lucy Bolan: Well, you know, getting to that, I guess, you know, real sort of moment of perhaps career euphoria where it's like, you know what, I'm happy, I'm confident, I've got a thriving team.

Lucy Bolan: I've got a, you know, was there ever that moment you got to where it was like, you know what, this is great. Um, you know, that moment in my career where I'm, I've never been happier. 

Jac Phillips: Yeah. Look, I'm an incredibly happy person and I'm an optimistic person. I'm very rarely unhappy. That's not to say I haven't had clustered up jobs.

Jac Phillips: I have been miserable in those jobs, but I, I don't, I don't stay miserable. I don't stay in something that doesn't work. Yeah. Um, but every role has been a hoot and a learning experience here. And I've met so many people who've rocked my world. I really have, as well as the Dick kids that we spoke about and they are to teach that they teach us, you know, how, how to behave and how not to behave.

Jac Phillips: Um, every role has been a gift. I reckon the last. I mean, I was 10 years at ANZ, Lucy. I tried to talk ANZ out of hiring me because I said, I'm just not a banking type. I'd just come back from Singapore and I met an awesome guy who was leading the marketing for the financial planning unit. And he said, yep, no, we need you.

Jac Phillips: I need someone senior to me that can do this. You just come back from Singapore. You've got all these great skills. And I said, this ain't going to work. I'm not banking. You know, I, I don't think it'll work and, and I'm, I'm so sorry, but, uh, you know, ANZ is really impressive and everything, but I'm just, I can't, I'm passionate about it.

Jac Phillips: Anyway, I convinced him and he convinced me that we should give this a go a test and learn. So we did an experiment. Yeah. And I said, I'll come on a three month experiment or project or, you know, consulting sort of scenario. After one week, I went home to my husband and said, Oh my God, the bank, it has so many resources.

Jac Phillips: It has so many awesome people. I'm, I'm going to be trained. I'm going to be developed. I'm going to be invested in. We're working on incredible things and we're helping people figure out how to grow their wealth. And of course I was at that. age of my sort of early 40s were like, that was really important.

Jac Phillips: So, you know, what was going to be some three month little contract ended up being 10 years and I moved all around the bank. So that was an amazing opportunity. The best role in the bank I had was the one at the, toward the very end of my 10 year career at ANZ and that was. Leading the marketing for the ANZ private bank, but talking to ultra high net worth and high net worth people.

Jac Phillips: And the reason why that was such a heavy was because we had to be really, really creative in how we engage with huge amounts of money that were all multi bank. Private bank. So we had to, to really think beyond what, what was traditional sort of money and dive way deeper into, uh, experiential and give them access to people and information that they wouldn't otherwise have.

Jac Phillips: And, and that stretched us. So, so that was a real hoop. Going from there to the Bank of Melbourne is, is one of my career highlights for two reasons. One, because I was given huge resources to do something really provocative, and I got to work under a CEO who I reported directly to, that not only trusted my judgment, but absolutely pushed me to be provocative, pushed me to do different things and try so we could really help the Bank of Melbourne brand cut through.

Jac Phillips: And to be given that support, and, and he loved marketing. I worked for someone who really saw the value in marketing. He loved marketing. He wanted to be involved in marketing, but not to the point where he, uh, had the final say, but we had really great discussions and as a result, we did some really cool things with the Bank of Melbourne, which was owned by Westpac at the time.

Jac Phillips: And then the last gig, which was Visa. I mean, I remember pinching myself on yet another flight to somewhere exotic. You know, I was sent to the South of France to go to the Cannes Line. You know, I was sent regularly to amazing places where we would do off sites to really understand that a market in Asia, Myanmar, you know, and, and we would meet business owners and, and we as marketers would be able to use all these insights.

Jac Phillips: You know, we did campaigns, you know, I did a campaign with a comedian, Ronnie Chang, you know, we partnered. Banjo in the grass. We partnered with the fashion festival. We did so many awesome things and it was because I had the trust of a group of executives who said we need to be different. We need to cut through and who trusted myself and my team and we had awesome agency partners.

Jac Phillips: Anything I have done in my marketing career has not been done in isolation. I have been the smallest component. All I've done. It has, you know, is influence, um, connect, uh, manage up and, and sign off budgets, but the brilliance has come from my team, you know, and, and the agency partners and those, those other, uh, I guess, extended elements of our marketing that helped us achieve what we did.

Jac Phillips: And, and, and that to me has been such a, such a great experience. I've been incredibly, incredibly privileged and, um, yeah, it's been, uh, it's 

Lucy Bolan: been great. It sounds, honestly, yeah, I think you've got about 10 aha moments in all of that, even perhaps I'm sure there's a lot more, but is there any resources or, you know, any, any thought leaders or, you know, any specific, I don't know, marketers or events or books that you'd say, if you're wanting to get to the top spot one day, get a load of that, you know, start following these people or get on top of this.

Jac Phillips: Um, I, I think you can learn from everyone. I really do. I think everybody's a resource. Yeah. I mean, you know, the guy that takes our rubbish. If I have a yarn to him, I'll learn something, you know, um, it's, it's finding time. Exercise for me is a favorite resource and I know that's a blankie, but I, I, I run and I run in nature and some of my best ideas come from when I'm exercising.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. So I'm not in front of a screen because I'm always on otherwise. Uh, and where my mind can just wander. So that's a resource I absolutely tap into three, four times a week. Yeah. I'm talking to people, um, podcasts like this, Lucy, you know, access and listen to other people in their experiences where you go, Oh yeah, yeah.

Jac Phillips: Oh, I should try that. Oh, I might, might go and do that. Um, the keeping it real podcast, which is, you know, I had to say. Yeah. I'd run, you know, with, with Raoul, Gabrielle Doolin. I mean, this teaches me heaps. So yes, I'm a co host of the podcast and I'm putting forward topics, but the things I learned from listening to Raoul, the things I learned from the keepers, our listeners that send up ideas for topics or, or to share a story with us, um, or feedback or insights, um, anything Mark Ritson says.

Jac Phillips: I'm a massive fan. Mark Brinson fan. I've, I've, I've mucked around with him for some time in, in the past. Uh, he's been a great supporter of, of me and some of the work I've done. I've been a massive supporter of him. His mini NBA, do it. Absolutely do it. And if your company won't cover the cost of it, invest in yourself and do it, or it'll pay off.

Jac Phillips: You can also follow him on LinkedIn and he writes a great column for Marketing Week, which is a UK online marketing magazine. Professor Scott Galloway. Oh my God. Do I have the hots 

Lucy Bolan: for man? 

Jac Phillips: Uh, so he's. He's as naughty and rude as I am, and unwoke as I am, so, um, but he is one smart cookie. And he's got a number of platforms he's on.

Jac Phillips: His, uh, email newsletter, uh, No Malice, No Mercy, is awesome. Uh, he's got the Prof G, uh, platform, which is, which is, uh, podcasts. Um, another guy that I sort of, um, accessed just by accident a couple of years ago is an Indian gentleman who's based in the U. S. now, Rishabh Tabakawala. Okay. And he has this amazing newsletter that I get something from every week that I read it and it's called, The Future Does Not Fit Into the Containers of the Past.

Jac Phillips: Rishad Tabakawala. He's also on LinkedIn. He is Steven Bartlett, Diary of a CEO podcast. I love him. Love him. Oh, I could go on and on. I tell you, there are two people in my life or there's three, uh, my husband, but my two kids, 28 and 26, both in marketing, but in very different fields. I learned so much from them because they're right at the, the, the cusp of what's going on.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. You know, they're, they're, they're digital natives. Um, They understand technology very well and, and they're both doing really interesting things in different areas of market and learning huge amounts from them. Now the traditional stuff doesn't change. Yeah. Having a great strategy, knowing who you're targeting, you know, um, understand really clearly what the outcomes need to be.

Jac Phillips: Are you going to measure success? All of those things stay the same. It's everything that Mark Ritson speaks about. Doesn't matter what the platform is. It doesn't matter, you know, whether it's digital or whether it's traditional, whether it's below the line, through the line, above the line, all of those things that I'm just talking about, that, uh, things about, and it's interest and curiosity in people and in, in consumers and behavior, but just looking at, you know, what, where we're going with AI, I mean, it's fascinating.

Jac Phillips: You must be seeing this. I mean, what are you advising to the people you're talking to in regards to the clients you're, you're finding roles for, what are you talking to them about AI? I'd like to ask you 

Lucy Bolan: that. Yeah, look, absolutely. Far away. Quite like being asked a question on my podcast. Um, I, it's interesting.

Lucy Bolan: I've spoken to quite a few people that I'd actually consider to be, you know, AI experts is one guy. Um, Tony Gruber, he's actually written a book, AI for CEOs. And I'd say to anyone to get a load of that, because yeah, he's a smart cookie. Um, I think anyone's still figuring it out, to be honest. There's no one out there that's right now, I'd say an absolute Uber of org structures, and I think what's happening now in regards to AI, it's very much, people are very much starting to factor it in, think, but I think it's going to take another year or so before we really start to see those roles changing.

Lucy Bolan: And people start, I think there's a lot of assuming at the moment around, Oh, we're not going to need a copywriter. Well, we're going to have to change this or this is going to be, you know, maybe SEO will be affected. I spoke to a CMO recently who actually said, I think as much as marketing, yes, it's cause there's going to be changes around that.

Lucy Bolan: And I think with new technologies coming in, it'll be implicated. I think developers specifically in that back end, there's going to be, you know, changes massively where, you know. 16 or 20 stages can be done with one, you know, so it's like really starting to look at how we can upskill there and work with AI in a positive way.

Lucy Bolan: Start to think, okay, well, yeah, we've got chat DPT and look, you know, I think it's a fantastic tool. I'm very aware though, I think with it is, you know, they call it now, what is it? Synthetic slop whereby everything's just, you know, AI generated. And I can see content straight away and I'm like, Oh God, you've not written that.

Lucy Bolan: And I think now the people, you know, I want authentic content. I want more 

Jac Phillips: than 

Lucy Bolan: ever. Yeah, I crave it. You know, I don't want some computer that's backed something out. And I'm trying to believe that someone else has written it. So I think there's going to be more craving for that real huge content. if more so than ever.

Lucy Bolan: So it's going to be an interesting one and one to watch. And I think, yeah, my role, the more I see it definitely is going to be, you know, getting people that are aware of it. If you've done courses, um, there's a marketing Academy, AI workshop, Catherine Tom's runs that. So I definitely recommend, um, reaching out to her.

Lucy Bolan: She does a lot of AI workshops for various businesses. And I know she's a busy lady at the moment, so she's doing well. I that, that's a great 

Jac Phillips: answer. Look, you know, critical thinking, problem solving, using generative AI and doing that in a way that's ethical and, and, and productive. You know, they're, they're the top skills apparently that knowledge workers are gonna need to thrive.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. So, so critical thinking, problem solving and using generative ai. I use AI every day and it in different ways for different things. Um, and they're saying around one. fifth, I think it was, of all current occupations, I wrote something down here, will be replaced by artificial intelligence by 2030. But the jobs that won't be replaced, and particularly given these are jobs like marketing, where you actually rely on core human skill.

Jac Phillips: Yeah. So, you know, the traits that are going to be really difficult for AI to replicate, which is curiosity, you know, intuition, creativity, imagination. It can, AI can help spark those things. I was listening to a really great podcast the other day of a couple that were in an agency, a marketing agency that have gone off and they've created, um, a platform, an AI platform to help agencies reduce, uh, pitch time.

Jac Phillips: You know, so, so making them way more productive, but it's not just about making the pitch efficient. It's also about in sparking more curiosity, sparking more inspiration as part of this AI platform. So if you're not developing creativity, intuition, curiosity, imagination, and continuing to do that, then you aren't going to stay relevant.

Jac Phillips: And, and the big tip there is that, you know, You're not going to develop those if you're in back to back meetings and reading emails all day. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. I mean, get it, have the, make the time, invest in yourself, as you've said. 

Jac Phillips: Yeah, I play with AI, I have a crack at it, you know, there's deep seat, there's chat GPT, there's copilot, there's so many options, then there's the visual ones, I mean, I have a hoot playing with them, you know, the kids laugh at me, but it's, if you don't use it, you lose it, right?

Jac Phillips: Or if you can't possibly. Talk about it. And I suspect, and you again should answer this one, you're the recruiter, more and more of, uh, marketing leaders are going to be expecting people to know how to use AI for efficiency and not just in the, the, the back room, not just on the development, developing side, uh, but also those that are leading and those that are, you know, running brand campaigns and things.

Jac Phillips: How can they? For efficiency and for effect, but not to replace the thinking. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's, it's coming down to, I think, individuals that nowadays, you know, if you can ups, you know, be even more technically savvy across this AI that's coming through. And I say to anyone, you know, if you're thinking about upskilling, definitely AI is something you need to factor in a hundred percent, you know, like there's, there's workshops and training courses that I know that businesses are running and they're on to a winner because it's the, it's the right time people, you know, is still trying to figure this stuff out.

Jac Phillips: Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think if you're an older marketer, listen to this, and I'm not going to say what that age is. It's, it's, it's how you're feeling. I suspect don't. Let this pass you by. Don't be, don't be fearful of it. You know, I remember when email started, you know, I remember when mobile phones that were smartphones and, and, you know, when, when an Apple tablet came out, you know, an iPod and thinking, Oh my God, you know, within minutes, you figure this stuff out.

Jac Phillips: It's actually really intuitive. It's not difficult. It really isn't. It's a mindset. So always, always have a crack. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Well, Jack, it has been an absolute pleasure. I have, I feel like I could talk to you all day, to be honest. I really do. I feel like you're just this, yeah, infectious energy ball, which, yeah, it's just been so great to listen to you.

Lucy Bolan: And thank you so much for coming on the show. I've really, really enjoyed it. 

Jac Phillips: Well, thank you for inviting me on, Lucy. I've loved our conversation and like you, I think there's, you know, we're only scratching the surface. Imagine if we were in a bar with a glass. Oh my 

Lucy Bolan: gosh. Bring it on. Bring on the Cosmos.

Lucy Bolan: I'm back.

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.

THE END

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 step into the shoes of a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to really lead and innovate. Excellent. So I am delighted today to be joined by Gabrielle Sheenan, the one and only. I have known Gabrielle now for, my God, it feels like, I don't know, 10 years or it feels like a long time. At least, at least.

Lucy Bolan: Let's not go further. We won't go, we won't go any further, but look, Gabrielle, I'm delighted to have you joined today. Um, I'm going to let you introduce yourself and then we'll, we'll fire into it. Oh, well, 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Lucy, firstly, thank you for inviting me to join your podcast and congratulations on today being your.

Gabrielle Sheehan: First birthday or you come around the corner on new chapter, which is such an exciting proposition within itself. Thank you. Uh, I started in marketing in the early nineties. So that just dating myself there post finishing university and I've. I had a very dynamic career, I worked in media buying and then I transitioned into brand strategy or from the, from a planning perspective within a creative agency and I transitioned to being a client and now more recently, well, last 10 years being a independent freelance marketer.

Lucy Bolan: Now known as 

Gabrielle Sheehan: a fractional 

Lucy Bolan: CMO. Fractional. And I guess that was one of the reasons why I was really curious. I mean, there's lots of reasons why I wanted to get you on this episode. Lots of reasons. I wanted to talk to you about obviously your career. Uh, we wanted to cover off a little bit more about what you're seeing around brands in general and some various trends you're seeing.

Lucy Bolan: Cause I know I see you as the brand guru when it comes down to all things brand. Um, and then another really key that I also thought we could cover off would be. You are, you know, you've been doing what we now call the fractional CMO role for, is it 10 years? Yeah, 10 years. About 10 years? Yep. And so you were doing it before it really became more of a, shall we say, a thing.

Lucy Bolan: So I know there's going to be a lot of listeners that we have that have just perhaps started to tap into that. So we'll also cover off a little bit more detail around maybe some advice that you can give those listeners around the do's and the don'ts and, you know, what you found that works, what you found that doesn't, that kind of thing.

Lucy Bolan: Um, going into your career, so I don't think there's many brands that you've probably not worked with at some point or industry, shall we say, cause you've done a lot. Yeah. So I guess let's talk about, you know, is this specific highlight for you that really sticks out? Like you think, you know what, that was it.

Lucy Bolan: That was that point where things just started to come into play or made sense for me in regards to my marketing career. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah, look, I'll go back really early in my career. I had the opportunity, I was working in Sydney for a fantastic media director called John Preston at Mojo, then Mojo Partners, which became True North and then something else.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And it was right at the time when media was no longer the back office. Of the advertising agency and we had an opportunity, some planners came out from BBH in London and they were working on, um, Polaroid. And it was the first time I really was exposed to immersion of a brand in situ. So they came out and they showed us that Polaroid was doing a massive relaunch.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So this is the mid nineties and we went into nightclubs and bars and parks and places that people are celebrating and just having fun. And we took an old school camera, the film based camera, and we took a Polaroid. And we, we, and that we'll see the difference between what sort of photo happened when you took a film based photo versus a instant photo.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah. And it, and it wasn't the product per se, but it was showing how to experience the product from the consumer's perspective. And it really helped me understand all the connection points. It's not just media or creative or consumer or product. It's how do you join all of those dots in a cohesive way, in a simple minded thought that really compelled people to say, yes, you're talking to me.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So that probably was the moment that I thought I want to become a brand strategist. 

Lucy Bolan: And that's quite powerful as well, because you as the marketer, you know, the brand guru, you're seeing the reactions of individuals as well, responding there and then, which, you know, I'd get, I'd get a bit of a buzz off that, you know, oh, this is really cool.

Lucy Bolan: Like, you know, how we're sort of seeing that interaction as well. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah. And it's hysterical because, you know, if you think about Polaroid today, you think. That experiment is irrelevant because people have got their cameras on their phones, they're getting that instant experience. So what is the role of a Polaroid today is to make that same experience, that instant experience.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Physical as opposed to digital. 

Lucy Bolan: So 

Gabrielle Sheehan: repositioning is about that physical memory that you can put in your wallet, stick on your notice board, have in a, on your fridge, with your friend that you can't do so well with your phone. 

Lucy Bolan: Most 

Gabrielle Sheehan: people have got 77, photos, you know, and you can't spot them, you don't look at them.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So if I was working on Polaroid today, you would reposition it back to that physical memory that you have ever present. That the joy of photography gives you. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Absolutely. I want to understand a little bit more around going back perhaps a little bit as well. So. You, you've had the luxury, as we know, sort of in that media sort of agency space.

Lucy Bolan: That's where you sort of really cut your teeth. And then, am I right, you went into more sort of like pharmaceutical sort of industries, global company, then into health insurance, very reputable health insurer, where you also had the experience over that time you were in the UK as well. So you got to work overseas.

Lucy Bolan: So do you look back at that time? And because I've spoken to a lot of, you know, CMOs or GMs who've said, you know, that's one thing that I'm really glad I did. I was able to actually, you know, gain employment overseas. Did you see that as really beneficial back in your early days of your career? 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Well, one thing you probably don't know about my career is that in, after I had that experience with Polaroid, I quit my job in Sydney and went to London.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Right. And I'd say every young marketer should move to another market early in their career, early. Get some global perspective. Go to a global market, work on a global brand, get active on how they work. So I had the fortunate opportunity to work as the regional media manager in my early mid, mid twenties, late twenties, Procter and Gamble.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So we launched a number of products. I worked in feminine hygiene and cosmetics and paper towels, and it wasn't so much the categories. It was the exposure to working with 27 markets. 

Lucy Bolan: Gosh. And did you find that job? Before you went to the UK, or was that just you were at the right time, right place, you were in the UK, you had the visa and you got them all?

Lucy Bolan: Right time, 

Gabrielle Sheehan: right place. But that's your, everyone's career, everyone's career, no matter whether you're at the end of your career, in the middle, at the start, it's about creating your own opportunities. So that opportunity was never going to be presented in Melbourne or in Sydney. I had to go and find it and I'd pursue it and be persistent.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And if I was honest, it was not easy to get in. Yeah, it wasn't. And no one was giving, doing me any favors. It was beat the street, hand in your CV, see the recruiters, front up, email, email. I just started dating myself, but you had to put the effort in and demonstrate you really wanted the job. Do 

Lucy Bolan: you think that is, is like, I mean, I don't know, you know, I know you're very generous with your time and you know, you do speak to Barry, you know, your mentor and you help people definitely within the industry.

Lucy Bolan: I've seen you do that. So do you see that? That's something where. Nowadays, perhaps there's a lot more self doubt, do you think? Like people sort of kind of really doubt themselves even more than perhaps, you know, what they maybe would have done back in those days? 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Um, I think that the social media, so LinkedIn and, um, all the digital, um, publications in category now, it's a lot of marketers who are great at promoting.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Oh, look at what I've done. It, that is great, but that doesn't diminish the 95 and their effort. So that's interesting. And that should be provided as a piece of resource to say what is possible. Not, I haven't achieved, you say, Oh, well, they've done that. I can do that. Or I'm already doing that. And I'm going to do this and this, self promotion is an individual choice.

Gabrielle Sheehan: It's not a career defining structure. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. And you bang on, you really bang on. I think with that, it's really powerful statement. I think, uh, absolutely. I want to touch a little bit more on, I think one thing that, and I've, I've watched from afar and I've seen you do it. You know, certain scenarios and I've seen you mingle with people.

Lucy Bolan: Like, I feel like you're, you're just someone that, you know, you connect with people really well, you network with people really well. Is there an art to that? Like, have you, have you managed to, have you just learned, you know, more confidence as you've sort of got more experience in terms of how to do that?

Gabrielle Sheehan: Well, I believe that everyone comes into a room, especially when they come in on their own. They're just as nervous as everyone else, unless they know people. Yeah, no, the warmer and more welcoming you can be, the more comfortable it makes that other person. So it just means that you're interested. If you're a marketer, you should be interested in people's stories.

Lucy Bolan: If you're interested 

Gabrielle Sheehan: in, if you say you're interested in marketing, marketing by definition is, and I always say it's a verb. To go to market, marketing, I N G, marketing's a business of language and communicating, so if you can't communicate with your peers, up or down, then how, that's a great way to practice how you're going to talk to your customer.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Marketing is 60 percent method and 40 percent art. Yeah. Networking opportunities give you the practice of your art. How do you tell a story? How do you engage with someone? How do you find out more about them? How do you learn? So I see networking as much as a learning journey for me, as it is an opportunity for me to meet like minded people, share ideas.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And I think that it is hard to do when you don't know to do it. The more you do, like anything, it's like building a muscle. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. And I think like you said, like naturally being curious, you know, I think it's, it's I know for me as a recruiter, that's something, I mean, I ask so many questions to so many people all the time because it's probably more, I think it's more of a personality.

Lucy Bolan: I'm quite curious to learn about people naturally. So it's probably the same, I think, with marketing. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yes. And I love, I love meeting people because people have all got their own journeys and their own stories and their own interests. And there's a lot of people who do fantastic, impressive marketing work in categories that I don't find particularly interesting.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah. But there's also people who are working on stuff that I am blown away by that I really wish this work that I wish I had done. 

Lucy Bolan: I want to, I want to tap into your experience. So at one point in your career, and we're going back to, I think it was about two, I think 2014 is when you left this particular role.

Lucy Bolan: But you were working for one of Australia's largest, uh, private health insurance providers. And I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, I think your title was head of marketing and brand strategy. That's right. Uh, big, big role, big role. And I think that's actually when we first connected. I mean, at that point, I mean, I'm guessing you would have had a pretty established team, a really big team in terms of like, you know, stakeholders, managing direct reports, et cetera.

Lucy Bolan: At that point in your career, what did it teach you? Was there, was there something there that specifically there were any specific learnings? Because I mean, I see that as a quite a sort of key, a key sort of career moment for you. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah, uh, look, There's personal learnings and then there's professional learnings.

Gabrielle Sheehan: I'd say on a personal level, I realized that I'm an entrepreneur by heart. And when you're in a large organization of 17, 20, 000 people, and there's structures and processes, and you need to get 25 people on board with a single idea, and you're an entrepreneur and you just want to move forward. You've got to learn where, um, you've got to learn what your strengths and weaknesses are and how passionate you are about something.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And I'd worked in the company for a long, long time. So I was ready for a change, do something where I could see my immediate impact. I didn't want to wait two years to have impact. And I think also that had nature to do with the type of business that it was. So, you know, fast moving consumer goods business.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Pace over perfection means you get something to market within six months. And when you work in a large. Global health insurance company, health business, actually, and gone from 2, 000 to 20, 000 people in a matter of 18 months, the machine slows down demonstrably. So the big learning I think personally and professionally is know what you love and follow and do the things that make you excited, because as a marketer, I always believe you're in the department of 

Lucy Bolan: no, everyone thinks 

Gabrielle Sheehan: because I've seen an ad or they hear an ad.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Or they have approved an ad that they know how to make an ad. And then they think marketing is only ads, it's so much more complex than the final product. So I think you've got to know where your passion point is, because you've got to be able to push through all the barriers to yes, because people want to say, Oh, is that all you did?

Lucy Bolan: Um, 

Gabrielle Sheehan: that looked pretty easy. I could have done that. Well, it's like, because they didn't get to cubism before he was able to do a beautiful portrait. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's the craft and the art of marketing is what I learned in that role is as a senior marketer, your job is to manage people. And I was getting further and further away from the craft.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah, and more about people and managing people. And so for me, I love helping people imagine their brand, imagine the vision of their business and to drive that vision forward, soon as you're at that higher level, you're managing people. So if you love managing people, do that. 

Lucy Bolan: And I think, you know what, I can really relate to that because personally for me, I mean, for, you know, my recruitment journey, um, I was saying, you know, you, the more senior you get, the more you're in those more leadership roles naturally, and, you know, managing, and you kind of get to, well, all I want to do is just do recruitment and it's like you, you know, what you're passionate about is brand and, you know, actually being, you know, part of that as opposed to the, Yeah.

Lucy Bolan: Bureaucratic sort of scenarios that we can end up, we can find ourselves in when we get in those leadership roles. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yes. And it's not to say that I wouldn't do one again if I was presented. It's just that at that moment. I, the craft for me was getting lost in, let's go back 10 years ago. Words like mobile first, social media, that's not craft, that's tactics.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah. Yeah. And we were forgetting the storytelling and the brand experience. And we were forgetting about the beauty of all the elements that craft a brand together to make it something that everyone wants to connect with. And we got into process. So as soon as people started talking about agile. They diluted marketing and brand to a process.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Sometimes it's not a process that can be done by Agile. A standup meeting isn't marketing. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Just on that. And we've mentioned the word brand a few times there. I feel like I should be calling you like the queen of brand and, and, you know, Melbourne particularly, but one thing I know you're very, very good at, um, you know, is, is, as you've said, really sort of crafting out a brand strategy and being able to resonate with whatever that business is or whatever the message is with the customer.

Lucy Bolan: So. Is that again, something that, I mean, obviously you're very passionate about that, but in terms of, you know, how have you harnessed that now? Because I mean, we'll go on to it. You're pretty much running your own consultancy now, like you work for yourself. So I'm guessing the branding component that is a real sort of key.

Lucy Bolan: Sell it for you. I mean, that's, that's basically that's your service offering. Is that right? 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yes. So I offer broadly marketing brand through to operationalizing the marketing process, as it were the tasks, the, uh, the strategy, the Intel to get people to take their product to market. But for me, when I'm talking to customers, I start with what is the problem that they're trying to solve.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And I'm finding more and more, I'm getting a lot of startup scale up businesses. They have a founder or a person who has an idea and they're just not. They're kind of not sure how to move it forward. So they go to Fiverr or they get onto Canva and they sort of mock something together and it kind of, it is a little bit cut and paste and it's what I call an accountant's version of marketing.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So it looks nice, it does look nice, but I'm not sure what exactly it is that you're selling. So sometimes it lacks a single minded idea or it looks a little. Like things that they like rather than things the customer likes. So my raft has been moving in towards helping people articulate their propositions and then visualizing that proposition and then building out the journey of the brand.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So when I experienced the brand in this context or that context, what am I hearing, seeing, feeling? And how does, how does the person you want to sell to feel about that story? 

Lucy Bolan: Got you. Got you. So you've 10 years. Is that right? Yep. So how, what made you decide to go down that path initially? 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Oh, it's really interesting.

Gabrielle Sheehan: An opportunity presented itself to buy a, to, to work with a founder of a very well known Australian franchise and to either sell her share or buy the. Her business partners shares our, and I want to mention the brand, but I will say that it was a massive project and I went through a process of learning how to raise capital, how to pitch, how to really sell and translate brand into a.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Um, a commercial proposition. So what is actually the value and where are you creating value for your business? 

Lucy Bolan: All this 

Gabrielle Sheehan: massive learning shift for me. And it taught me about the power of brand in terms of driving a multiple when you're selling, how it influences EBITDA, how it influences customer demand in a commercial tangible balance sheet.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Way, not just in a P& L, but in cashflow, in new streams, in why certain products should or shouldn't be developed. And it was fantastic. It was like giving myself a PhD in, in marketing in how do you buy, scale, sell. Real life experience. Yeah. And it was the most powerful. Uh, decision I've made in my career because it's changed the way I have conversations about marketing.

Lucy Bolan: Well, you've been there. So when you're speaking to founders or, you know, company owners. You know, you've been in that situation to a degree where, you know, commercially you're like, okay, I get where I would, you know, of course you get brand and marketing and strategy and all that stuff, but there's a real result that we want to get out of that.

Lucy Bolan: So, you know, you'll be asking exactly the right questions around, you know, well, what's your current revenue? Where do we want to go? You know, what's your margins like, you know, who you, you know, those. Perhaps dig a, you know, deeper questions at, I don't know, like not everyone perhaps goes there. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Well, I think in corporate you're in a large company and you're tasked with maybe the retail stores.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So you've got to get the posters up and the lamb toolkit and all of those things. Or you're working on a dam system. Your task might be social media. So you're getting only a sliver of the totality of all the actions that are required to build a brand, build a business and have brand be the translation of what the commercial plan is.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So brand is ultimately, there's a commercial strategy. And your brand is what people are buying, a belief in X to buy Y to solve X. It doesn't matter whether you're a global business or a micro business. They're the three things. Who are you selling to? Why are you selling to them? And what value are you creating for that person?

Gabrielle Sheehan: So why should they pay that price? 

Lucy Bolan: I was going to ask you, you've been doing this obviously for a very long time and you've been very successful in doing it. I mean, some of the brands you've, you know, had the. The luxury of working with, you know, some pretty high hitters, like, you know, and they're not all the big, shiny, big brands, like the brands that, you know, with startups and now have gone on to do some incredible things.

Lucy Bolan: Um, I'm sure down to your help, but how have you, like, I want to give some advice because obviously I'm seeing in the market now, there's a lot of people going down this path where they're wanting to tap into, you know, fractional CMO, et cetera, just because of obviously what we're seeing with the market and the economy, you know, what advice would you give.

Lucy Bolan: I guess, senior marketers that are thinking, I'm going to do it. I'm going to go for this. You know, what advice would you give them beforehand? 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Firstly, you've got to know that you're now working with yourself. So there's not a big machine. There's no team. There's no someone that you can delegate a task to.

Gabrielle Sheehan: You're the team. Um, and when you go into a business, you have to work at, is there a team that's going to be there to support you or not? And what is it that their expectations of you and your expectations of them are? So you can't just drop in and say, now I'm in charge. So, okay. I've got 10 people, bang, bang, bang.

Gabrielle Sheehan: You have to be really clear about expectation setting. You have to be clear about what your scope is. You need to be very aware that you are not permanent. Mm mm You are interim, which means that they, that job or that task may be an interim task. Mm-hmm . Or they may be looking for a full-time person in that task.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So if you are. Just choosing a career of being interim, then ultimately you're, um, responsible and accountable. So take Raci, you're responsible and accountable for a moment. But you're not, the person who's responsible and accountable ultimately is a person who's hired you into that gig. Yeah. And it is a gig.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So you are really running a professional gig economy, so you're Uber marketing. So that's the first thing you got to context in your head. The second thing I'd say is build your networks and build your allies before you leave. So I've been fortunate that I haven't needed to set up a website because I've got a very extensive network.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Wow. People that would call me and say, Hey, I hear you're available or, Hi, have you got some time or what's your capacity or that's just built up. So it was all, I, I sort of didn't. I saw the first bit, which was to try and sell or buy into this national retail chain as an opportunity to learn something.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So it was sort of a learning phase, which people suddenly saw I was available and it all happened. So it was not by design. So I say to people now, because there are so many more people doing it, you have to make it more deliberate. Who do you want to work with? What sort of work do you want to do? Why do you want to do that?

Gabrielle Sheehan: What rocks your boat? Because you also have flexibility that you don't have when you're an employee. You have options to say yes to projects or no to projects. Oh, that doesn't really rock my boat. Also know what rocks your boat. So the first thing is, know why you're doing it. Build your networks, know what rocks your boat, be aware that you're working on your own, and be really clear that you're only there for a period of time.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Be the best job you can do. But don't ever think that that project will roll on and roll on and roll on. Hope it might, generally, if it's for a discreet project, that's what it is. So that's, they're the, they're the mindsets. And the one major piece of advice I'd say is believe in yourself. If that's what you want to do, but you've got to be entrepreneurial and you can be hungry and you don't have to drown in LinkedIn with a thousand opinion pieces.

Gabrielle Sheehan: They're fun, good, but you don't have to be an academic or the smartest person. 

Lucy Bolan: And so on an average, I hope you don't mind me asking this, but I mean, you know, are you sort of managing up to like, I don't know, four or five clients at any given time or, you know, do you sort of find you have to really be careful about how you're managing your time as well?

Lucy Bolan: Cause I know you're busy. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah, you do have to be careful because you have ebb and flow, so you have to also be good at managing your own money. A hundred percent, you can have 10 projects at once. And when you have too many projects, you either can't deliver the project or you, so you have to say no to a project because you haven't got the capacity or you have to engage other people.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Right. And when you engage other people, then you have to take on invoicing and billing for other people. So it depends on how big or how independent you want to be. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: So you have to know there's only X number of hours in the week and how many hours do you want to work? Because if you're working too much, you also can't build your pipeline.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. I think, um, people almost always say some of that feast or famine, you know, you can be really, really busy for say four or five months. Great. And then as we all know, you get into the beginning of the year and it can sometimes take time to ramp up again. You know, people are on annual leave and it just takes time.

Lucy Bolan: You actually earn your income in 

Gabrielle Sheehan: nine 

Lucy Bolan: months of the year 

Gabrielle Sheehan: as a consultant. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. And so do you feel like you're, I mean, I fit, well, just, you know, probably cause I feel like I know you fairly well, but you're quite confident around exactly what your areas of expertise are when we talk about marketing, is that safe to say?

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yep. Yep. So very clear. And the other thing I do is to maintain my skillset because you're working on your own. It's not like I'm bouncing ideas off anyone else. I meet up with other marketers to talk to them about what they're working on. And I read and so, and I've just, I've just finished Matt's 

Lucy Bolan: book, Matt Jones.

Lucy Bolan: Amazing. I've heard good stuff. I was going to ask you what resources you recommend. So this is one of them. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: And I absolutely loved it. It very, very generous of Matt to go through his thinking and their process and how they work together as a team and then how they shaped the voice of their brand and what their brand rules and marketing rules were.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And it shows you that the concept of a playbook gets overplayed, I think by marketers. Yeah. I do think you have to know what your brand language and brand method is. So every brand with its own personality there, there becomes, when you're clear about who your brand is, there's clear do's and don'ts and there are clear, um, what I love about Matt is he's taken some old theories and he's given them a nice little refresh and a really lovely new lens on brand experience and around the role of the funnel or the lack of the funnel.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah. And look, I won't spoil the highlights because it's a really good read and it's. Beautifully entwined with the gin story. So there's bits, there's marketing bits, there's the gin story, there's cocktail recipes. It's a wonderful rate. 

Lucy Bolan: I love it. I was going to ask you as well, cause I know we touched on this right before we, we jumped on this, but conversations I'm having certainly with, you know, a lot of marketers at the moment have been around, you know, I'm going to call it.

Lucy Bolan: You know, where, where does brands sit nowadays? Because I found certainly last year, you know, with the economy doing what it was and everyone probably looking more performance marketing and, you know, there's quick sort of leads to sort of convert, et cetera. And in some cases people look at that and go, well, it's cheaper.

Lucy Bolan: We're going to do it easy. We'll get some quick conversions. I mean, I see businesses and I won't mention names, but independent retailers that are selling premium products. But one thing I really admire is they, they nail it when it comes to the brand strategy. Like they're talking about how the product's made, how it's developed, like why it's, you know, there's a night, there's an understanding why it's at that price point and they do it well.

Lucy Bolan: But I feel like I feel quite sad because I'm feeling like brands are moving up less away from that almost. And I feel like, are we now in this point a bit where. It's kind of like, you know, the bigger brand campaigns, I don't know, do we see them as often? 

Gabrielle Sheehan: I think the role of the 60 second, 45 second TV ad that was big theater and, you know, think back to this is a big ad for CUB, Kelton Drive, Beer and all those, and the British Airways ads and all those famous ads, they were great, but that's because brands didn't have a thousand channels to split their story across.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Um, yeah, of course, because you've got more channels, doesn't dilute the importance of knowing who you are and what you stand for, and there's one golden truth, no one ever went into a shop before performance marketing. No one went into a shop to buy a brand. They didn't know. You didn't actively go into a shop.

Gabrielle Sheehan: I define performance marketing is like having an A frame outside a shop, suddenly stumble across it. So when you're in search and you're in Google, you're actually actively saying I'm looking for. So you've actually made a conscious decision. So if you, if the person's searching and they're not thinking about your brand.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And they know they can get your brand, then your brands have no credentials. Then I go back to a, uh, old book and Hugh McKay wrote, which is, I'll come back to the name of the book. But anyway, Hugh McKay once said that people don't search for brands that are not on their shopping list. That was way before, or this is 30 years, 40 years ago, this book was out.

Gabrielle Sheehan: That rule has not changed. So performance marketing is the close, the sale, you know, you close the deal. Brand is opening the opportunity. You don't give yourself the chance to be open. 

Lucy Bolan: Then 

Gabrielle Sheehan: it's really hard to close and the close gets more expensive. 

Lucy Bolan: You want that 

Gabrielle Sheehan: to be cheap and cheerful. You need to invest up front to get people to fall in love with you first.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And then the golden thing about brand is it drives price and it protects price. Well, I would say always think, you know, 60, 40, if you, if you invest 60 percent of your time in getting people to love your brand, then it becomes very easy to use performance marketing as a clever leader. It's not a strategy.

Lucy Bolan: You mentioned, and we spoke about this earlier, you've got a couple of other books there, I think, recommendations that have really impacted you. And I think your learnings as well. Can you share them? 

Gabrielle Sheehan: Yeah, so I, when I went to London and I had my experience being there, I think I was at a golden time. So I was there at a golden time when I did a brief stint at TPWA.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And Apple was relaunched and PlayStation was launched. PlayStation 4 was launched. And I had the grand fortune of working with some incredible marketing thinkers who really inspired my career. I met a lovely man called Don Cowley who edited this book here, Understanding Brands. Right. Now it's a very old book because it was first published in 91 96.

Gabrielle Sheehan: It is by 10 people who do understand brands. It's an excellent, excellent read. And the topics it says on the back here, what is a brand? What makes good brand advertising? What makes good brand packaging? How to value a brand and how to think about international branding. So that's, love it. The second one is, this is a first edition of Eat Big Fish, Eat the Big Fish.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Oh yeah. Yeah. By Adam Morgan. Adam Morgan was the, um, inspiration and the founding strategist behind the concept of challenger brands. Oh, that would be really interesting. So he authored this book and created eight rules of challenger brands and that's when we had an era of. Orange Teleco and Lime and we had Goldfish Credit Card and we had all these wacky, crazy sort of out there stuff.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And people were just disrupting rules and breaking rules left, right, and center. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Got to remember those days. Yeah. And TBWA went with disruption as a concept and Adam split out and created his own consultancy called Eat Big Fish. Ah, brilliant. Okay. That sounds really cool. Yeah. And now he collaborates with Mark Ritson with.

Gabrielle Sheehan: John Evans, um, systems one, eight big fish. So it's really worth, everyone should check out his website and check out the part inside and a few other books that he's written. Yeah. Amazing. The last one I think is a goodie, but an oldie is, um, Jack Trout's big brands. And it's because the rules of marketing haven't changed ever.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Mm. Mm hmm. Know your customer. Know that your product is solving their problem, place that they can access it, give it a price point that they believe is the right value point, price point for that product, promote it to them in a way that's going to make sure that all makes sense. Yeah. Those rules haven't changed.

Gabrielle Sheehan: It's just that we have more ways of doing it today. 

Lucy Bolan: Love it. And I think the call outs there, you know, really, as you said, I mean, look. The fundamentals of Brandon, you know, it's still the same. It's just, we've all got these fancy tools and resources and, you know, modern technology now to really sort of, you know, jazz it up and, you know, optimize it, as you said, for all these various different channels.

Lucy Bolan: So I think going back to some of those books, it's almost like the Bible. Exactly. You know, navigating gear, you know, the lighthouse of exactly. Okay. Do and don't, you know, keep you on the right track. Well, it's funny you say that because lighthouse is one of the 

Gabrielle Sheehan: principles of Challenger Brands. There you go.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And I've not read 

Lucy Bolan: the book. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: And I'll just add one other thing, um, is as a young marketer, things aren't either or, they're and. So it's not have a market or have a creative team or use 

Lucy Bolan: AI. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: AI is another tool. So we just keep adding, add, add, add tools to our toolbox. And then as great, the greatest marketers in the world that I've ever seen is that they keep things really simple and they just pull out the tool they need.

Gabrielle Sheehan: So Apple was successful with their jobs, kept everything simple. The world was booming and getting more complicated and. Windows 97 launched and all these crazy things, he kept things simple when they relaunched. Their whole proposition was we're not gray and black, which was IBM. So they went, they launched iPod.

Gabrielle Sheehan: They, you know, very simple, basic ideas. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Gabrielle Sheehan: So keeping simple is a rule that will just hold you instead as long as you add, not replace. 

Lucy Bolan: I think you bang on. I think no matter what the product, or even, you know, in your case, like the service offering, I think it's, you know, a couple of things that you've mentioned.

Lucy Bolan: In regarding itself, you know, you're very, you know, you're very clear about what it is that you can offer when you're speaking to, you know, new clients or, you know, projects that perhaps, you know, from a peak business, et cetera. Um, and I think in general, just keeping it simple in terms of, you know, how you communicate with those clients, you know, also.

Lucy Bolan: Whether it's a marketing campaign or the product, you know, I would say I completely agree. It's going to make your life a lot easier and also theirs as well. And mainly, you know, the customer gets the message as well, a hundred percent. I 

Gabrielle Sheehan: mean, a recent example of something I've worked, a project I've worked on was the launch of instant scripts.

Gabrielle Sheehan: And Instantscripts was a small startup, a doctor, a tech gun, and we had a tiny little office of six people in South Yarra. So we had a product person, a marketing person, a finance person, and two startup people and some devs. And we took that and the marketing contribution was, how do you sell something like repeatable primary care?

Gabrielle Sheehan: And I was teaching founders how to keep it simple. I know you can do all of those things, but what is the person really need? They need us. The instant scripts, we were able to keep, keep it really simple. People need to be able to cut through the noise, give you a color. They need a simple icon. They need a simple language.

Gabrielle Sheehan: They need people who look like them in the comments. None of this is rocket science. We kept the rules very simple and created the essence of a new brand and just then made it big. So the first campaign was not at home. So summer holidays, not at home, but need the doctor. Yeah, it does. No, this isn't, you don't have to be creating a Khan award winning ad to create a powerful marketing.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, it's, it's really, I think, very true. And I think that's part of who you are. I think your messaging and the way you communicate to your clients. And I think that's probably why you've been so successful as a, you know, fractional CMO for the last 10 years in, you know, really pulling out these opportunities.

Lucy Bolan: Well, it's been an absolute pleasure. I have to say, I've really enjoyed chatting to you. I know Gabby, look, I'm sure there might be listeners that, I don't know, maybe find you on LinkedIn or go, Hey, I've just started a new business. You know, if you get any of those requests, I'm sure you're quite happy to chat to people.

Lucy Bolan: For sure. For 

Gabrielle Sheehan: sure. 

Lucy Bolan: And 

Gabrielle Sheehan: I feel like people should just, the, the gift that marketing gives the world or marketers should give the world is the ability to communicate. So please reach out. I'm always open to talking to people, having coffees. Doing what I can do to guide people, point them in the right direction.

Gabrielle Sheehan: Also, if there's someone in my network that they'd like to meet. I can't guarantee the other person wants to meet them, but I can guarantee you that I'll at least be, I'll 

Lucy Bolan: consider that as well. Amazing. Well, thank you so much. I've really enjoyed it. You're always just a delight to chat to, so I really appreciate it.

Lucy Bolan: Thank you. Oh, 

Gabrielle Sheehan: wonderful. 

Lucy Bolan: Thank you for having me.

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.

THE END

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 step into the shoes of the CMO, this podcast is your backstage path to discovering what it's like to really lead and innovate in the ever-evolving landscape of business.

Lucy Bolan: Stay tuned as we uncover the stories of the visionaries. Behind the brand.

Lucy Bolan: I am absolutely delighted this week to welcome the wonderful one and only Shannon Barnes. Shannon, welcome. 

Shannon Barnes: Thank you, Lucy. 

Lucy Bolan: Shannon, I've had quite a few conversations with you. I think I more so the, the last year, and I, one thing I've always really enjoyed for our conversations is just, you know, your ability to, your enthusiasm, I think naturally and you know, your energy.

Lucy Bolan: And I think one reason I wanted to get you on this podcast with, I feel like you're gonna have. You know, you have that impact, I think, on people where you can really sort of say how it's, give a bit of advice as well, which is been looking for here. Yeah. And, and, and yeah, look, really, really looking forward to hearing what you've gotta say.

Lucy Bolan: So I'm gonna start by saying, would you like to introduce yourself? Please. 

Shannon Barnes: Thank you so much. And thank you for that lovely little preamble. Like it was very, very. So my name is Shannon Barnes. I am, uh, currently, uh, head of Marketing and Communications, um, at We Super and, um, but being pretty much had a career for about 25 plus ish years.

Shannon Barnes: So been around the traps, uh, a fair bit. Um, and, and I think that the, the key thing as well is to sort of start. When you, when I talk about my career journey as well, is that I've done a lot of different things. So I have not, I'm not a career marketer by any, uh, stretch of the imagination, but I've always been in roles that have involved, um, very, very much, you know, customer member outcomes, uh, very much around, uh, what does, what does good from a delivery perspective, but.

Shannon Barnes: Um, and then, you know, really focused on, um, sort of business supporting businesses with growth agendas. So I think that that's always been a theme regardless of the role that I've been in. Uh, that's certainly been a theme that's run, um, pretty consistently through the last, uh, 25 odd years. 

Lucy Bolan: Thank you for summarizing that and I wanna scale it right back to the early career, the early part in your career.

Lucy Bolan: Now, am I right in understanding that you started out in, is it agency sort of more that 

Shannon Barnes: started in PR back in the day where there were, uh, a number of big American, uh, PR agencies in, uh, Melbourne. And so I did, uh, PR at RMIT, uh, straight Outta school. So that was, again, I probably didn't really know what.

Shannon Barnes: He was. But, uh, one of my sister's friends had done the course and said, look, if you like, um, you know people, you're a good communicator. It's a. It could be a good option. Right. Uh, so I investigated that and, uh, was very fortunate to get into that course. Um, that was a, a, a pretty, um, hard process at the time to get into.

Shannon Barnes: Um, so, you know, obviously, you know, uni is uni you, I, I mean, I must say it's me. I. Probably did the bare minimum to get through the three years. Um, but you know, that's everyone's horses for courses. Um, but really that did really ignite my love for communication, for how do we disseminate a message? How do we actually make sure that people understand what we're trying to do?

Shannon Barnes: But also with the, with, you know, public relations, there's a commercial element. You're, you're pushing a, a narrative or a a, a product or a, um, a, a brand, uh, to, to. I. So, um, and this was back in the day when, uh, there was no email and, uh, it was phones and you had to call journalists and actually speak to people and be prepared that they might put the phone down on you or, um, actually just really lean in to building relationships.

Shannon Barnes: But you build relationships by giving them good stuff. So don't just, you know, where one of my. Early learnings was you can't be just give it to everyone and hope someone might pick up that. You have to be really thinking about what does that journalist cover? What's their interest? Have they have, they looked at this stuff before?

Shannon Barnes: And also clearly manage your client's expectations because everyone wants the front page or everyone wants the back page, or everyone wants the front page of the business section. Uh, the reality is.

Shannon Barnes: Do their expectations around.

Shannon Barnes: Is really essential to like, and again, that that stakeholder piece, helping your stakeholders understand what is the expected outcome for that piece of work. And this is what, you know, I always say, you under promise and over deliver. Yeah. That is the best position to be in, right? Um, and so yeah, that was the, the early days in, uh, pr.

Shannon Barnes: So I worked, uh, also for a, um, a com. It was actually called Gray Advertising, and they had a PR arm. And so I went into that, did a lot of envelope, uh, you know, uh, stickers on envelopes and name tags and guest lists, and ringing journalists and checking phone numbers and faxing media releases. But you have to understand the machine.

Shannon Barnes: You, you have to understand that all of those component parts feed into the end outcome that the client sees and the public sees. So, you know, I, I don't, I think that's really important work that you do as you are building and understanding the components of, um, a skillset that you are driving. Yes. You wanna be eventually the person that's writing the media release.

Shannon Barnes: No.

Shannon Barnes: Some grunt work and I, I don't think that that should be, you know, underestimated about how much you learn doing those component parts. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, you know, when I look back at your career, you know, you have. You've done a lot, you know, you've had some great exposure working for what I would say some of Australia's top tier one brands within the financial services sector.

Lucy Bolan: So when we look at, you know, you, you've had, I, I mean are we, are we talking about eight, 10 years now, where you've been at that head of sort of GM level 

Shannon Barnes: been uh, yeah. Sort of be 10 years now being at that, that senior level and, um. Interesting over the 10 years of leading very different teams, um, with different levels of, um, uh, impact, uh, all, you know, all sort of, you know, I've led, uh, smaller teams, really, really, really big teams, very eclectic teams, more techie teams.

Shannon Barnes: More, sort of more business focused delivery teams. And obviously marketing, digital and comms have kind of been a constant sort of part of that journey. But yeah, it's been, um, I've been very fortunate to work with some really amazing companies, but also that those businesses have also, um, allowed.

Shannon Barnes: What they've seen me do in certain roles and have and able to then track those same uhhuh components. And it might be a completely different role, but those attributes still remain. And I think that that is really an important part of when you are recruiting your senior leaders, um, is actually thinking about what are the true attributes.

Shannon Barnes: You don't necessarily need someone who's assuming, no, that's not the right, that mightn't be the right person. You need someone who is going to be able to see the big picture, connect the dots for the team, mobilize the team, but importantly prepare, you know, provide air cover. Allow them to do their jobs and also get outta the way and, and support them from the side.

Shannon Barnes: You don't need to be in the detail all the time. Yeah.

Lucy Bolan: You know, there's individuals out there that aren't getting that from leaders, and so therefore they're lucky elsewhere. Yeah. 

Shannon Barnes: Yeah. And I think that that comes down to role modeling a lot, because I have been very fortunate to have some really exceptional leaders in my life. And I, you know, two of them are, are, are still in my life today.

Shannon Barnes: And even though I worked with them many years ago, and I'm still, and I've become, you know. And I've seen their careers also go from strength to strength. And I think what's core to that is that we both saw in each other something that we both liked, you know? Yeah. They saw in me attributes that would help them deliver to, you know, their goals.

Shannon Barnes: And I saw in them someone that could help bring the best out in me. And I think that is really when you find. The most perfect relationship is when you are both understanding that this is for mutual outcomes and that you both understand the strengths of what you bring to the table. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.

Lucy Bolan: So always, because I, I find that, like from my perspective as a recruiter, I'm having conversations a lot with. You know, managers that might be at that say, we'll call it one twenty one forty mark, and they're still trying to find the fate and they're still, you know, working out, do I wanna be a CMO one day?

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I mean, you know, some are cut for it and they absolutely wanna go for it. And some go, you know what, it's not for me. And that's absolutely fine. Yeah, a 

Shannon Barnes: hundred percent. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Always had that drive and ambition. I mean, it sounds like you've obviously had some great role models as, as you've said, but I.

Lucy Bolan: It's like you've just got this whole boost of confidence, but in a good way. Yeah. Work for you. 

Shannon Barnes: Yeah. I would say that possibly I haven't always been this way. I've always. A real, I've always loved my work. I've always bought, I've always enjoyed the people I've worked with. I've always enjoyed the, you know, I've made it a point that I've worked for organizations that I could really get on board with and, and I love where they're going.

Shannon Barnes: Uh, the people piece is essential for me. I have to feel like it's. It's the culture that will bring out my best. Um, and therefore I can be my best. Um, so, you know, but I would say it was probably only, probably after I had, like, I've got three children, so I would think it was after I had my third. And I was really thinking, uh, around what, what does next look like, you know, with my career and my, I was product manager at the time Yeah.

Shannon Barnes: At a, at a bank. And I, I loved it, I loved the people I worked with and all of that sort of thing, but I was like, is there, is there an itch? Like is there something I'm, you know, I feel like, do I wanna explore something different? And when I made different wasn't necessarily, uh, you know, that organization.

Shannon Barnes: It was a more, I I was looking for a challenge. Yeah. You know, I, I had been a product manager, uh, for about 10 years. I had just covered every single retail I. Uh, including and also in business banking as well and enjoyed it because it was like running a little your own business, right? I love, love, loved it.

Shannon Barnes: And we were given a lot of, um, uh, support, but a lot of autonomy to do. Um, so it was a great learning experience for me, and I look back on that in very, very fond, fond, uh, uh, memories. Uh, but I do, I do think it was probably at that moment when you kind of, probably you are at a bit of a juncture, you know, uh, uh, where you can go, do I.

Shannon Barnes: Lean into this and push myself. And it might be a challenge for the family. I mean, I've got little people at that stage, a husband's working full time, you know, all of the normal, you know, things that a lot of people, uh, are going through. Um, but I was decided that I wanted to explore that. I didn't wanna ignore that little, you know, the little buzzing.

Shannon Barnes: Um, and, uh, I was very fortunate that when I moved to, uh, Medibank. Uh, I was, uh, I had a, a fantastic leader there, but she introduced me to someone who is now one of my, you know, most, you know, she's one of my favorite people. And it was, uh, under her leadership was where I think I really understood what was possible.

Shannon Barnes: And, you know, I really understood that I. She shy away from opportunities just because I don't, I I've never done that before, or, yeah. Oh no, I've, oh no, I, I've never, you know, that's, oh, I don't, you know, I don't think, I'm sure there's far more qualified people than me, the usual stuff that plays out in your head.

Shannon Barnes: Um, but I think under her, with her support, it was like, you know, she'd go. This team's coming to you, you are doing this, blah, blah. And I'm like, oh. Oh, okay. Okay. And it's funny that at the start you're a little uncomfortable and you're like, God, will someone turn around and go, why the hell is bring that stuff?

Shannon Barnes: You know? And you actually find out, no, not. No, no one is going, why the hell is this woman doing these things? Like, and then you do start building the confidence. And the more you understand a business, the more you can bring to the table, the more you can bring, um, other experiences that you've had to the table to help.

Shannon Barnes: Problems solve, identify opportunities, leadership, people, pe you know, that people piece. Yeah. Really important when you've experienced those things before you can bring them with you. 

Lucy Bolan: Uh, I've got a, a question and it, it might hopefully be not too much of a careful, but I'd love to get your thoughts on this one.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I have a lot of individuals that, you know, I'm gonna say, you know, marketers that, as I said, are at that sort of mid range mark. Yeah. Certainly, probably more so at the moment. They, you know, I often say, you know, people aren't looking for a new job. They're looking for the right leader. Mm. And that's a lot of the time.

Lucy Bolan: Yes. And a lot of, you know, senior leaders, CMOs that I've had conversations with, they said, well, I've always not been afraid to ask the tough questions and interviews. Because it's all well and good saying Oh, but you know, you end up knowing what good looks like when you're going for interviews. Yes. But not anyone does.

Lucy Bolan: Yes. So in your experience, is there any advice you'd give to people that perhaps are interviewing at the moment, you know, and they're just trying to work out, you know, it might be an amazing brand, but is this person really gonna be the right one for me? Like, what would you say to them? 

Shannon Barnes: I, I, I, this might be controversial.

Shannon Barnes: I don't focus on technical skills. Okay. I, I assume if you've been working in marketing at a relatively sort of meaty business that you know what you are doing. I, I am assuming a lot. I know that, and things come out in, obviously in the chat because you obviously talk about the technical, but I don't hire on the technical.

Shannon Barnes: I.

Shannon Barnes: Uh, energy and perspective that they come with. Yeah, because I think the last, the worst thing you can do is hire a whole heap of people that are like you. Yeah. It's the worst thing you can do. I look for, uh, I, I, everyone, I'm assu like, you know, there are people that will have different strengths, right? I look for people that they'll have a different strength to me.

Shannon Barnes: So if I'm someone who is very. You know, sort of, uh, I operate at this level. Yeah. I'm not in the detail. I need someone who's in the detail. I can't have another person that's like me because the whole thing's gonna fall over. Right. And I look for really, uh, people that can make a connection. Because in our business it's all about relationships.

Shannon Barnes: It doesn't matter if you work for a bank, a superannuation company, an insurer, or you know, a technology company. It is on relationships and we call it stakeholder management or whatever we wanna call it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's understanding people's drivers. If you can do that, you'll, you'll succeed. And I think that's the other point is that it's really under understanding that as it doesn't matter what level of the business you come in, either, like, I don't want people to think that that's a, a more senior.

Shannon Barnes: Attribute or or capability you, if you can demonstrate value and then you can think outside of the box. Even in a more junior role, I would say you are setting yourself up for success. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, yeah, 

Shannon Barnes: yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: I agree. And 

Shannon Barnes: take initiative. Don't wait for someone to tell you now. It mightn't, you know, be the right time and all that sort of thing.

Shannon Barnes: But if you have ideas or ways that you think we could do things differently, prepare schedule time mm-hmm. With your leader or, or a more senior co or a colleague, workshop it and come with a pitch. Come with a, like a through.

Shannon Barnes: It's just, and if they do, you probably shouldn't be there. Like you don't work with it, you know? Um, so I think there's something in that, like don't underestimate your thinking as well, even if you're in a more junior role, because what will get you from sort of that middle area, you know, in the, in the, in the whole hierarchy.

Shannon Barnes: Yeah. It's those little extra bits that you bring as an individual that will get you to the next bit. 

Lucy Bolan: A hundred percent. And I think that word initiative, you know, I've never known a leader ever in my career, ever say, oh gosh, you can't believe that person's just, you know, it was so inappropriate. You know, a good leader's always gonna be like, good on you.

Lucy Bolan: That's, 

Shannon Barnes: I love that. I love when people say, you know, I've got, um, someone in my team, uh, he's probably, uh, maybe two. Luck under a couple leaders. He reached out to me, had some ideas. I loved those ideas. We circled back, we've gone and talked to some other teams, and now we're now working around that. The genesis of Ike's idea is obviously blossomed, but that is a fantastic thing.

Shannon Barnes: Like someone showing initiative, someone showing that they actually are thinking broader than, than what they are essentially on their pd. Yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: absolutely. I'd love to get your thoughts. So I'm getting a lot of, of individuals at the moment that, you know, are really starting to, you know, think, okay, well, do I wanna be a generalist marketer or do.

Lucy Bolan: And, you know, we're looking at the future, the evolution of, you know, the CMO role. What's happening there? Yes. Um, you know, and I'm getting lots of different opinions around, you know, I've got graduate marketers that are coming out of university and they're all thinking social media. Yes. Social media. And so then what's gonna happen?

Lucy Bolan: We're gonna have all these, you know, social media and gurus everywhere. Yes. So on. What was coming outta uni, what would you say to them? Like, you know, is it best to just broaden out their expertise as much as possible? 

Shannon Barnes: Yeah. It's funny, right? Because, um, you know, when I came out of uni, social media did not exist.

Shannon Barnes: Yeah, yeah. Nor did you know, nor did, um, uh, really, I mean, the internet had started, but no one was using it for business purposes. I mean, no one had a phone unless you were a, you know. Use car salesman, um, you know, then, you know, and the phone probably costs about three grand or something. So, you know, uh, probably more than that, but you know what I mean, like, things have changed significantly.

Shannon Barnes: And that's probably, in my personal opinion, I don't think when you are first out of uni. That is your time to spread your wings. That is your time to get a taste of all of the component parts that come that, that make up that very, very, very broad umbrella called marketing. Yeah. 'cause it might be that you are more of a creative, it might be more that you are more of a content person.

Shannon Barnes: It might mean might, it might, um, that you actually. Data and insights, um, and, and, and all of the wonderful things that come out of that world, or you might be, um, someone that actually ends up using that as a segue into more of a digital role. 

Lucy Bolan: So I, 

Shannon Barnes: I kind of think when, especially when you are out of uni or even after your first, you know, first, second, or third role, um.

Shannon Barnes: Skip everything. A little bit of a go. Like, you'll, you'll have plenty of time to specialize, plenty of time. And I just know that that's one of the things that I loved working in agency straight after, um, uh, uni, not necessarily. Collecting all of my, doing all my time sheets and stuff, that was not so fun.

Shannon Barnes: But what it did do was give you a taste of a little bit of everything. So even though I was, I was firstly in PR advertising sort of adjacent. You know, we were doing everything from, you know, events to, uh, you know, really heavy media work to, uh, media training, which I used to love doing, um, help or helping with at the time I was on the side.

Shannon Barnes: Um, you know, uh, writing you really hone your right, your craft in terms of how you write and you communicate. And I think, and now, I mean, that's just now that was just my experience. And now I think about, you know, I've worked in operational roles. I've done deliv, like big, large scale, uh, program delivery.

Shannon Barnes: I've done, uh, I've had like a, a sort of a kind of a techie element to my role where I've had testing and environment management and, you know, it's like all of those things gave me a taste. Something that now comes together so I can understand technology. So I, I think that it's one thing anyone who who listens to this walks away with do not under, don't not underestimate the importance of understanding technology.

Shannon Barnes: Yeah. It is a technological world. You have to understand it. You have to understand your data. What does your data allow you to do? Not do? What do your system, what your mar, even your MarTech stack does? Mm-hmm. Does it do? What are the opportunities? How can you optimize? That for me nowadays would be a, I think that's a pretty much a, a no regrets skillset that really marketers, um, you know, regardless if you, uh, wanna be a social media specialist or a brand specialist or a, you know, or a content writer, you should really understand your tech ecosystem because that will help you bring your ideas to life in a far more seamless 

Lucy Bolan: way.

Lucy Bolan: Perfect. I think you're so right. Absolutely. And especially with our advances with ai, it's just gonna keep on evolving as we know, as we know. 

Shannon Barnes: And marketing will evolve significantly with those 

Lucy Bolan: developments. Absolutely. Is there any advice that, you know, you, you sort of look back and think, God, I wish somebody, you know, had once shared that with me when I was, you know, three years into my career.

Lucy Bolan: Is there anything, any words of wisdom or anything you sort of recap and go, I wish I knew that. Then? 

Shannon Barnes: There's a couple of things actually that I look back now and go, uh, that get. Being really good at delivering something, you know, an outcome with the best for the, you know, optimal for the business, optimal for the people involved and optimal for the end customer.

Shannon Barnes: Absolutely critical. So you have to get stuff done, you know, just full stop. Don't dither, just make it happen, right? Just get it done. That will get you so far. But then you have to, I remember, this is an another, one of my other second, my other favorite boss said to me, Shannon, I'm not recruiting you because you are good at, at getting stuff done and that you are good with mobilizing people and you're good with getting, you know, everyone on the same team and all that sort of thing.

Shannon Barnes: I am recruiting you in this role because I want you to deliver through others. You now are influencing. Providing the air cover, doing all of the senior stakeholder staff to allow your team, your direct reports and their teams now to deliver. She said, the skill that got you to this table talking to me is not now the skill.

Shannon Barnes: I want you to now, you know. Um, explore, explore different. So, you know, it's kind of that difference between when you go to the wa you know, the what, it's like, you know, you're a SME or you are a, you know, you really, you are known for certain being a problem solver or fixing issues and all that sort of stuff That will get you into the consideration set.

Shannon Barnes: Then you have to demonstrate that you can be the person that can empower others to then do all of the things that you used that you were known for. Right. Um, and I think that that was something at the time I remember thinking it was quite, I was kind of, kind of bit, a little bit extremely, a little bit, because I was like, but that's kind of my form.

Shannon Barnes: Like that's what I'm known for is like, you know, just, you know, get something's a bit of a problematic or whatever it was like, you know. Let's, let's get Shannon involved. You know, that's a big thing, right? Yeah. Um, but that's not necessarily the skill that will get you to the table. Mm. And the only other thing I will tell you, um, the share, which I actually even say it to my team today, is never fall in love with your own idea.

Shannon Barnes: Mm. Your idea can be the start of a bigger thing. Your idea will very rarely be the end game. So don't get so, so never double down on what you think is right, because it's a collective, one person cannot know everything. So understand and harness the skills and thinking and knowledge of those around you to build on that idea.

Shannon Barnes: And again, I think that is something that I still, I still, I mean, I think my family would suggest I don't do that, but I think I do that. So, yeah, so I think that Love it. That's really important component of when you are looking to stretch and innovate and uh, really, you know, sort of really had that, that that true blue sky thinking you are contributing to a.

Shannon Barnes: A broader set of ideas. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. And I think what you've said there is really gonna resonate with our listeners. Absolutely. And I think it's really worth words of advice. I love what you've said about not falling in love with your own idea. 'cause there's been times when I absolutely have and it's easy to get offended and Yeah.

Shannon Barnes: And also what happens, especially when you are quite person like I.

Shannon Barnes: What I bring to the, I can actually make people then just shut down. Like if I double down, in my opinion. Well, people are gonna go, oh shit, you know, she's so loud and she's so ated and she's not, she's not budging. That doesn't help anyone because what do I have done is essentially just take all of the oxygen outta the work room and not allowed everyone to just pepper in.

Shannon Barnes: You know, they're little, they're little nuggets because you know, I, you know, maybe it's a bit of a harsh learning. I probably have to learn. But, you know, that is something you have to realize is that you are a, you are a, you are bringing something to the table that you want others and you need to encourage others to, to, um, feed fading to and collaborate.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. I just wanna touch on, uh, and, and probably pushing forward to, I guess, your career now in, in some ways, but when we talk about, I guess I, I made a lot of, you know, CMOs, et cetera, GMs executives, and, you know, there's a lot that, that have done a lot of work behind the scenes to really work on personal brand.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I say personal brand, I'm talking. You know, they're in conferences or they're doing, you know, speeches, et cetera, and you know, the excellent networks is networkers, I should say. Is that something that you've had to work out yourself or is there any advice you'd give to anyone that's wanting to, I guess, be a bit more recognized externally?

Shannon Barnes: I think it's really important to, um, nurture your networks. So I'm fortunate. I've worked in Melbourne for the majority of my career. Lucy, you'll know this. Everyone knows someone who knows you. Um, I routinely will have someone reach out to me, you know, that I have worked with and go, oh my God. So just joined our business.

Shannon Barnes: You know, you.

Shannon Barnes: To really nurture the network that you cherish. Like I'm not saying, you know, be in contact with everyone. I'm saying the people that bring you joy or you know, you learn something from them. What I've learned as well is that no one ever says no to. Do you wanna, Hey, I'm, I'm gonna be in the city. We haven't chatted for ages, but do you wanna catch up?

Shannon Barnes: I wanna, you know, can we shoot the breeze or talk about, you know, talk about old days or whatever. People do like that. People wanna catch up with them, right? And I'm not suggesting that you have to do it all the time, but, but that is my networking, so I don't necessarily go to. Networking events or whatever.

Shannon Barnes: I do like, um, I do like the financial services. Um. Conference that, that gets run in Melbourne. I do like that because it's a bit of everything. Wow. It's techy. It's more customer, it kind of melds a lot of, um, different, like different component parts together, which I actually really enjoy and you know, obviously run into a lot of people at that thing.

Shannon Barnes: Absolute. 

Lucy Bolan: But really 

Shannon Barnes: for me, it's about my personal network and they're the net that's the network that I have cultivated and I have nurtured over the time of, you know, 25 years. Right. So. And I don't want anyone to ever be shy to reach out to someone and, and be just that, Hey, I saw I, you know, I saw this, you know.

Shannon Barnes: Shannon would love to, you know, can you add me to your network and let me, can we catch up? Or something like that. There is no drama. I'm more than happy to chat to people. Likewise, I'm very appreciative when other people are happy to have a chat with me, you know? Well, I'm doing the reach out, so, you know, I do think there's, there's that, the swings and roundabouts.

Shannon Barnes: You, you, you get back what you put in. Absolutely. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah.

Lucy Bolan: I guess you've mentioned, uh, a conference there, the financial services conference. Yeah. Any resources or even books even that you'd say, you know what, these guys, or this particularly was a real benefit for me, sort of as I've kind of got more senior or promoted. Is there anything there that you'd sort of recommend?

Shannon Barnes: Uh, it's, I, I'm probably gonna be really disappointing, but note, I think it's actually having a finger on the pulse of the world. We understand what is going on in the world, whether it is a state election or you know what's happening in Europe or the US or whatever. Actually know what's going on in the world is all I could stress because.

Shannon Barnes: That brings insights because, you know, we talked about AI before and we know all about, you know, um, chat GPT and then we obviously had, you know, the, the, the hoo-ha around, um, the Chinese version, you know, a week or so ago that crashed the market. Just know stuff, like you don't have to be an expert. Make it your point to understand the world and then what does that mean for your, for your job, right?

Shannon Barnes: Because all of these macro, global, um, uh, workings, yeah, they all disseminate, they all come into the Australia economy. They all then come into our business. If we're working in financial services, it absolutely comes down in some way, shape, or form. And even, and especially if you're, even if you're in retail brands, that sort of thing, even more so like how do you start under, when you start knowing more about the economy and what people on the ground are feeling and experiencing, that should change the way you are marketing.

Shannon Barnes: That should change the way you are connecting with your end audience. So yeah. I must say I would, yeah, I could not stress that enough, but, B, understand what's going on in the world and don't get your news from TikTok. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Love it. Love it, love it, love it. I think, you know what, it's such a valid point because I asked that question to quite a lot of different leaders and, and there's some that, you know, have read, you know, specific books that go me was a real, you know, change.

Lucy Bolan: You know, it really sort of helped me out or whatever it was. I think you're so right. Sometimes it's the simplest thing and the simplest influences. Yes. And you think Right. Just, you know, getting commercial, especially if you're wanting to become one day the big leader. 

Shannon Barnes: Exactly. Understand what will impact your business.

Shannon Barnes: And it's not gonna be in a book that was written five years ago. Yeah. It's happening now. We are a part of a global economy. Now, Australia is very small in that global economy, but we still feel the ramifications, good or bad, with what is happening in other parts of the world. And therefore that definitely impacts the way you want to connect with in from your business to your end customer.

Shannon Barnes: And I just think that that's a really, you've, yeah, you've got to, you've got to understand how it all connects. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, Shannon, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the podcast. Thank you so much. I just think you've got this energy about you and I know so many people are gonna really find this episode Really, really exciting.

Shannon Barnes: Oh, thank you, Lucy. It's been an absolute pleasure and thank you for making it. So easy for me. I've never done podcast before, so this is very exciting. You 

Lucy Bolan: nailed it. You nailed it. 

Shannon Barnes: Thank you so much. I really, really enjoyed it.

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.

THE END

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 are seasoned marketer, aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes.

Lucy Bolan: Of the CMO. This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to really 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 absolutely delighted today to welcome Martin Kelly now. I have known Martin for God, I don't even know now, 15 years, years. Let's skip over. Skip over a long, long time. A long, long time. So I'm really excited and delighted to have Martin on the CMO Chapters podcast show. So Martin, I'm gonna let you kick off.

Lucy Bolan: Would you kindly introduce yourself? 

Martin Kelly: Sure. Um, my name's Martin Kelly, and from the accent you can hear originally from Scotland, been here over 20. 20 years now. I'm the fuel marketing director for Brandwatch. Though I do need to do the caveat, I'm speaking here as an individual, not on behalf of, of Brandwatch as all good, uh, market should say.

Martin Kelly: Um, yeah, look, I've been in the industry over 20 years now. Got my master's from Monash here, and then how, and I've. I jumped nicely, jumped around some different verticals, um, deliberately. So, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah, 

Martin Kelly: but that's where I am now. 

Lucy Bolan: Excellent. Fantastic. And so know's a bit of an accent there. We know from Scotland originally.

Lucy Bolan: I wanna, I, I, a lot of the, the guests, I've sort of, well, some of the guests I've sort of spoken to have originally, you know, they come from different countries, et cetera. So I wanna ask about how did you find, you know, you came here 20 years ago, so you've had to really work probably twice as hard, you know, to really sort of tap into, you know, building out your brand, et cetera, within an Australian market.

Lucy Bolan: So can you tell me a little bit more about that? It's a big question just to kick off. 

Martin Kelly: I suppose, and this comes down, so yeah, I, how I ended up getting here, um, long story, but, um, met an Australian girl, lived in London for a couple of years, then she wanted to move back. She'd been overseas for four years at that point.

Martin Kelly: So did, um, did at one point go, go back with her to the, the UK for the year. But, um, and then eventually I see, want to get into marketing, done a little bit in my undergrad. So then, um. Came back, did a master's at, at Monash, and, and finally sort of broke into the, um, the market space. Probably it is harder because you don't have old school friends you can tap into.

Martin Kelly: You don't have those people from the first two or three jobs to tap into that have all grown together. Um. A big one is then networking. Going to, like I, and I'm probably, I'll use the word network like 57 times in this podcast because I'm actually really passionate about it. The amount of people that go, like I remember going in like not lecturing, sorry, being just asked to go into a market society at one of the unis.

Martin Kelly: Um. It's probably now about 10 years ago now. Mm-hmm. From when I was working for a previous company and one of my things was, well, and there was a young guy and he is like, I really try to break into marketing, but I, you know, I've got no contacts. And I'm like, okay, so what have you done about that? Yeah.

Martin Kelly: And he's like, what do you mean? Now this is when every man, that's probably longer than 10 years ago now, every man, his dog was on Facebook. And I'm like, did you put a post on Facebook to all of your contacts is know anyone in marketing. I can buy me a or that I can buy a cup of coffee too. And he is like, no.

Martin Kelly: Now it actually worked out. He went to school with my nephew. Oh. So actually he could have had me. Yeah. You know, come out. Um, so part of that is then it's forcing yourself to network, which sounds ridiculous, but going to, to conferences, using like, I think part of it is the live stuff. Going to conferences, meeting up with people, knowing each other.

Martin Kelly: You know, staying in contact, even if it's the odd text message, if it's the, the cup of coffee type thing when you're, you know, if you've got contacts in different cities when you are there, you know, going, right, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah. 

Martin Kelly: Yeah. I at instead of, you know, if you're meetings at 10, flying in at seven and grabbing a coffee at the airport with somebody or, you know, close to, but it's not.

Martin Kelly: And a lot of time it's, it's not Ali type, you know, just you them on it. These guys are brilliant, these are guys are, they can give you some really good advice, but you've got some really good, you know, you can make some, some good friends at that. Absolutely. And then using technology, like what companies do you want to work for?

Martin Kelly: Who can you follow on LinkedIn? What advice can you get from them on LinkedIn? And if you can, the biggie would be trying to find yourself a mentor. You know, trying to find yourself somebody that you can. Meet once in a while and have that conversation. Mm-hmm. And I had one, um, a few years ago. I've sort of got, sort of got one now.

Martin Kelly: I don't think she knows she's my mentor, but I think she is. Um, and we catch up every six months, but I remember I was sort of starting to look for a, a job and I didn't have the confidence and I was always wary. And, um, I remember talking to the, this guy and I, and his line was, do you know what you're looking for?

Martin Kelly: And I said, I'll know it when I see it. He won. Yeah, he went, Martin, you are, you probably scared to take the leap of faith. And his advice was, you know, on a bit of paper, draw out and if the job's 80, well all, everything you're looking for and if any job is 80% of that apply and go for it. And I needed that.

Martin Kelly: I needed that kick in the butt. So, sorry, that's, I think I've sort of, but yeah, that's sort of some of the advice. 

Lucy Bolan: And, and so I mean obviously, I mean you, you really, I mean, I personally think I agree, you know, completely. Like I think networking is absolutely one of those major channels that I think, given that we've gone through covid, we've all been locked up.

Lucy Bolan: You know, we should absolutely be making the effort to be, to be more out there. So I'm guessing, given that you're such a big advocate for it, has, has actually networking really helped you in your career, like in terms of. You know, getting, say from one role to another or knowing somebody or getting, you know, how has that actually helped you?

Lucy Bolan: Like, 

Martin Kelly: uh, there's like a couple of basic things of getting the people you trust. Even just look at your CV and you would be one of those people that thank you, you know, seriously, like you, you said at that, and you're one of the recruiters that I totally trust. You're the one that I will send people to and they're, but you're also the one that, you know, if I need the advice of it might not be a, a role that.

Martin Kelly: That you're trying to recruit for, but it'd be the one that I pick up the phone and go after this situation. Mm-hmm. What do you, what do you think now? But also, yeah, if you take it back to the absolute basics of when you're looking, the person that sends you the text message going, well, we're trying to recruit for this position one, do you know?

Martin Kelly: Or two, do you want to apply? But it doesn't even have to be that direct. It can be the, I need to look at my, or probably the. I'm applying for a job with this company. They're about to eight me an offer. Um, do you know somebody that works there that I can have an enough, an offer worker chat to? Um, so I think it's all of those things, but it's probably also just the, the simple advice.

Martin Kelly: So again, the, the person I was talking to that I catch up with every sort of six months for, for lunch, um, some of the advice, um, that she gave me was, um, is about staying in a role. And she, she just interviewed Sunday and they had about 20 years worth of experience. They had two years experience, 10 times.

Martin Kelly: They just kept doing the same job over and over again, and her line was just make sure you're not in that situation. I sort, I had got to there, I'd, I'd done a role for about 11 years and probably for the last four or five was just doing the same stuff over and over again. So that's really helps. So I think it's, it's almost every box.

Martin Kelly: It's that, as I said, something is. So perfect. As we are looking for a marketer, can you help us? Yeah. To help 'em with the cv, to the unofficial references, to the, the general advice, so, yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: So how I wanna ask, so, and, and I, I, I've got an estimation in my mind, but how long would you say, how many years is it now that you've been actually as a like, marketing director level?

Lucy Bolan: Were you saying sort of like seven or eight years mark? 

Martin Kelly: Well, it's, it's sort of, yeah. So I say, well, depends on the title, but in reality, running the, the region generally and running the teams, um, probably about 10. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I mean, I, I looked, I had a look at your career, you know, previous, obviously I, I feel like I know you quite well now, but I wanna ask, I mean, have you always personally had that ambition to get to marketing director or, you know, one day GM sort of stage?

Lucy Bolan: Or is it being the case of, as we know, you know, we get more experience, you go from another to another, to another sort of like, you know, I just wanna understand sort of like how ambitious you've been. 

Martin Kelly: Um, look, I, I, I've always been ambitious, but not crazy. Yeah. Ambitious. So I'm not the person that, you know, steps over the dead body to, to apply for the wrong Yeah.

Martin Kelly: Type thing. But I am, but I've also realized as your career goes on, there's a point where that, you know, that you just keep doing the same thing over and over again. In order for you to have time to do the bigger role, you need somebody else in to do the role. Now, that's not demeaning the role because some of those stuff I've loved and it's been really good, but you've needed to build a team and you've needed to get more experience, and you realize that the excitement, the, the, the thing that gives you fire in the belly, the one of you know, that new experience, the, the thing that you're stretching yourself.

Martin Kelly: You need a team behind you. Yeah. That's taking care of some of the stuff so that you can take that, that leap of faith. So I've, I've never been, you know, looking at wanting a team of 75 and, you know, crazy. But I've realized that you need to have team supporting you. You and everybody can can, can grow through one of my, um, big bug bear.

Martin Kelly: And it's something that I feel really passionate about. The, you know, when you're trying to mentor somebody through, but they, the you're not quite there yet. You're not quite there yet. I'm, I'm so against that. It's ridiculous because I've had it for a while in my career, so I'm very much, uh, okay. What are the, and I always had this conversation recently, and it was, um, with, with one of the, one of my staff and it was.

Martin Kelly: Let's, we've got the hard targets for the year, but what are our soft targets? Mm-hmm. Are gonna help us get our, our, you know, our targets and, and do of that. But then also on that progression, right? This is what we need to see. And, and, and it being a, a proper conversation, not a thing. Yeah. This is what you need to do.

Martin Kelly: It's, uh, okay. Can you present, can you do this? Can you take ownership of this? Can you manage this? Can you do this Right? At that point, I think you're here. You can do 80 to 90% of those, then that gives me some stuff to allow me to hand it over so I can do other things that are gonna keep me. So yeah, I think there's that.

Martin Kelly: Like, as I said, I've never been, I want, you know, 800 employees and you know that crazy one, but 

Lucy Bolan: yeah. It sounds like you've got a, a solid head on your shoulders in terms of, you know, you, you're ambitious, but you're not gonna like, you know, you, you're realistic at the same time. Um, I guess on that, it was something that she sort of dovetails quite nicely.

Lucy Bolan: A question that I do ask quite a lot of people is, and, and I know I've personally been in this situation myself, as we get more senior, you know, you get a team, you might start off with two direct reports and then you may go to five or might get to 10. And there's no, from what I understand, I mean there's no real, real like rule book in terms of how best to manage a team.

Lucy Bolan: So I mean, how have you sort of like, you know, really refined that from your perspective? 

Martin Kelly: Um, look, trial and error 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Martin Kelly: A lot of the time. And, and, um, but also learning from good managers and probably learning more from bad managers. That, that would be my one. So there's a couple of things where. I look back on, on my career and, you know, information.

Martin Kelly: Now not all information can be shared and we've all, we all have that situation, but there's a lot of times when you're like, you kept me in the dark about this for, you know, there was one about we're gonna launch a brand, and it kept getting delayed and marketing had got all the merch and we'd got an entire plan and we then kept updating the plan and eventually I, I sat in a review and just went.

Martin Kelly: Where are we at with this? And they're like, oh, we'll tell you when you need to know. And I went, I see dad system. That's not good enough. And they're like, what do you mean? I said, I've got merch that I've now spent money on. Watting, not Watting, but um, also when you decide, you know, 1st of June to launch it and want me at a conference on the 10th of June, that's not doable, sort of thing.

Martin Kelly: So I think it's that, but I think the big one is. Bringing them along in the journey. Yeah. Sharing information, sharing goals and objectives, working with them in communication. It's funny, I, I thought about this other day. I, I did, um, one job years ago and it was a, it was a, a six month contracting job and it became a bit a shocker to be honest.

Martin Kelly: And it was only sort of while later that I looked back and went, my manager never met with us. Never found out, gosh, happening in the right. Yeah. Really. And it, and it was one of those where we went and it became just ale. And it's that, so it's that communication. It's giving time to staff. Now there's also the flip side of let the staff get on themselves with you.

Martin Kelly: You're not, I had an old boss in London who I still think of and I learned a huge amount from, and he was like, you're the expert in this. I'm not, I'm not gonna tell you the job. If you screw up, we can, we can help you back. But just let them get, get on with it. What are their skill sets? So I think the big one is bringing them along in the journey, screening as much as you can, sharing the objectives.

Martin Kelly: And, but also, and I'm gonna call out and um, um, an old boss of mine, um, guy called Chris, and it was his line, which was, if you're not failing, you're not trying anything new. So having the culture of. We're gonna have a crack at this and we're gonna hold hands, and my line is we're gonna hold hands and jump off a cliff.

Martin Kelly: And, um, but it's that one of, let's take, and I'm not talking about stupid risks. I'm not saying you take your entire budget No. Yeah. Put not on the back of a plane or something. Right. A skyr type thing. But saying, do you know what? We've never been at this conference. Everything looks okay. We'll make the decision.

Martin Kelly: And if it's wrong, it's wrong. But let's not review in hindsight, you know? So, yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: And in, in general, I wanna understand from your, your point of view. You know, I speak to a lot of marketers, you know, coordinators, but also, you know, I'm gonna say marketing managers. Even though at that sort of like 1 20, 1 30 mark, who, you know, in their mind one day want to be at that, you know, 200 sort of mark, you know, gm, head of et cetera.

Lucy Bolan: Is there any advice that, you know, sort of top level that you go, you know, what, if you are seriously thinking about going up to the next step and going into, you know, that real sort of director or head of level, what advice would you say give those people? 

Martin Kelly: Like couple of things. So first network, uh, secondly study.

Martin Kelly: Um, be, be reading, but, and it doesn't always have to be marketing books, and I've got a couple that I chat.

Martin Kelly: And it's also listen to other things. Listen to different podcasts. Listen to different movies. Don't just be the guy that only reads marketing books because you'll learn more from a cookery book, or you'll learn more from that obscure, you know, the going for a bike ride. So, so have a balance in life. Um, and then the, the sort of more detailed stuff would be.

Martin Kelly: Understanding the da, the balance in marketing between data and art or science and, and art. It, it's the difference between them and the beginning. And probably one of my mistakes early on was not, not looking enough at the data. Now I've also seen people go too skewed purely at it and they're like, oh, I bet.

Martin Kelly: And you go, but we got these things out and there's the stuff that you can't track. You track what you can. Mm-hmm. And you do your best to track it and report on it. There's going to be someone that was at an event that moves to another role that gives you a different email address that suddenly there's a, and that we had one, we, I was at a conference last year and we got everybody that was scanned and it was perfect.

Martin Kelly: And literally I'm at my desk and one of the sales guys goes, yeah, Marty's, um, just behind me. He was the guy I saw present and I from. Hadn't downloaded anything but it went away or hadn't downloaded anything directly. So I think it is known the data. So you make an informed decisions. Oh, mm-hmm. Now there's, and also being able to question the status quo, being able to, you know, when it is, that market's rubbish, that market.

Martin Kelly: So a role I had and the sales staff wouldn't chase our, would not follow up MD with our free email address or Gmail, blah, blah, blah. And I did an analysis and went, there was, I think it was something like three or 400,000 worth of pipeline and a hundred thousand dollars worth of sales made from people that come in with Wow.

Martin Kelly: Last year. And they were like, yeah, but it's a waste of time. And I'm like, you really wanna leave that on the, on the, on the table. Um, so it's that, it's that balance sort of thing between, you know, knowing that, but yeah, the big one would be. Know, your know your numbers enough that you can make informed decision.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, yeah. 

Martin Kelly: But also people want to take the odd risk here and there. 

Lucy Bolan: I've heard that before actually from a few, um, you know, leaders where it is very much, I think initially you go into marketing, we've all got our areas for development and I think, you know, I know it's something that I'll put my hand up.

Lucy Bolan: I've had to, you know, get my head around p and ls and you know, numbers and, you know, I've had some very interesting conversations with my accountant that mean. Gobbledy goop in my book. But anyway, we get that. Um, in terms of, I guess one thing that I know can be sometimes a challenge and sometimes when it works really well, it's a match made in heaven is when marketing and sales work really well together, that that beautiful marriage, but as we know, doesn't, so what's your advice?

Lucy Bolan: You know, anyone who say. I guess what have you done in the past to sort of really merge that relationship? Because it can be difficult sometimes. 

Martin Kelly: Um, look, I, I've got war stories from when it hasn't worked. Um, and I remember at one point talking to, and I had to report into him, uh, but talking to the, the sales director about an event and he's like, staff up.

Martin Kelly: Really fancy that one. I went. It's in Tasmania in June, and they quite fancy going to the Gold Coast, but this event, the Gold Coast is terrible. Yeah. They, they thinks a lot of value in it and me going, can you prove it to me? Because at this point, and also it's my budget, so, um. A bit like the staff thing.

Martin Kelly: Bring, bring them on the, the journey. Now I am ridiculously lucky, um, by the moment at, at Brandwatch, and I've been since I, I started here. Um, great relationship with sales, very much cooperative, very much working, uh, together. I also make it clear that I'm not beholden Yeah. To sales. Um, but I take them as a, um, I take quite a, a.

Martin Kelly: So it's, it's taken them on the journey, but not be beholden to them and sharing information. I've worked for companies that, um, like I, I worked for one company and once a week I would literally just do a really quick update of this is what's happened the previous weeks. This was going on in the next two weeks.

Lucy Bolan: Mm-hmm. 

Martin Kelly: And I didn't think there was anything surprising about that till about four weeks in. And a couple of sales guys went, we've never known this. And I'm like, what do you mean you've never known? Like. How can you not have known that we're doing a webinar, we're going it a live event. We're doing that, you know, we're doing a mail out and he's like, nothing was ever shared.

Martin Kelly: So it's, but also being careful that sales are there to close business or to get people in the top of the funnel. So helping them as much as you can. Yeah, as well. Yeah. I think that that, um, and also being respectful for, for their, for their job. It's really easy at times. Marketers wrongly to be really arrogant and to my go sales.

Martin Kelly: I'm not in sales for a reason because I don't think I could do it. Alright. And I've got the utmost respect for people that do it. So, and I think maybe that helps me. Absolutely. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Martin Kelly: Um, so yeah, I think it's that. The mutual respect is working with them. It's bringing them on the, the journey, but it's also then again, non their targets.

Martin Kelly: One of, I think, one of the issues when sales and marketing fall out is when marketing brings its own Kool-Aid in the sensitive, some magnificent thing. That's the wrong market to the wrong people, to the, you know, like they, you should know. Like, you should make sure that you're aligned. So yeah, I think that's it.

Martin Kelly: You know who, what, why, when, when, how well we actually targeting the amount of people that is like, um, we're targeting these people, and the sales guys go, we're, we're targeting the wrong people. And you're like, oh, you need to tell me that. Yeah, we need to, you know, we need to fit agreement as I'm building the marketing plan that we're in agreement.

Martin Kelly: And again, then. Okay, guess what? 75% of our sales have come from this title or this region, or this state or that, you know, or this vertical or whatever. So 

Lucy Bolan: yeah. Yeah. Back it up. Yeah. The data component's really important. Absolutely. Um, is there any sort of, you know. As you've obviously developed, et cetera.

Lucy Bolan: Uh, I mean, is there any sort of resources specifically, or events or even I guess, thought leaders, if you will, that you've personally admired from afar that you would recommend our listeners also tuning into, or, or books, et cetera, um, that you think would be really beneficial? 

Martin Kelly: Um, I'm a massive fan of, um, the StoryBrand idea.

Martin Kelly: Um, and the reason for that is it's too easy for you to get caught up in your own information, and it needs to be, is it important to customers or, or not, you know, um, are your potential customers or not? So, you know, knowing that, uh, a warehouse has 40,000 widgets, nobody really cares knowing that they can get you something within an hour.

Martin Kelly: I about that, you know? Um. So the, the StoryBrand one, um, there's a couple, um, the first 90 days, so Forry starting a new job. I've shared the, and when this comes out, I'll share the image of it again. Yeah, brilliant. I'm a massive, massive fan of, of that. Um, the leaky funnel again, um, big fan of that book and, uh, the recent trout marketing warfare, that's one that I read once every couple of years to just keep my thought.

Martin Kelly: Um, those, um. Leaders wise, it can be everything. It can be the guy that, um, does atomic habits. I quite like him purely because it is that, you know, rather than I'm going to start running, I'm a runner. Yes. You know, and it's, it's, it sounds a little bit corny, but, um, I think also just marking wise, um, Sutherland at the moment, seeing a lot of stuff from, from him that makes total sense.

Martin Kelly: Um, like the, the one of Coke in, its. You would've thought the competitor would cook, would've been cheaper, larger bottle where Red Bull is. Yeah. You know, a smaller bottle and more and more, a much smaller can and more expensive. Um, I think there's that. And then there is just a, a general people that you see that do well for themselves in business.

Martin Kelly: And you go, can I, can I, Lynn? Yeah. A bit. Lynn. Yeah. And who? And again, that's about LinkedIn, you know, following them up or following them on, on social. So 

Lucy Bolan: yeah. Okay. Thank you. And I wanna ask a little, probably tap into more, so personal branding is another little real key point that I often, I feel like nowadays, you know, as we're getting more senior.

Lucy Bolan: There's, there's some that really thrive in that personal brand, and you go, well, I wanna be that person who's, you know, a panel expert, I'm a judge, or you know, I wanna be presenting at conferences. Then you get some that actually go, you know, I'm really not interested in that. It's just not me. But when we talk about personal branding, I mean that obviously means it's everything.

Lucy Bolan: How you portrayed in work and how you portrayed, you know, on LinkedIn and online, et cetera. Have you had to really work at that yourself or is that something that you've been quite aware of, that you've wanted to focus on? And if so, how have you done it? 

Martin Kelly: Um, look, it's something I've been aware of, but I've also had to, to work on it.

Martin Kelly: Um, so look, there's a couple of things. One, I do quite like presenting. That's why I'm on doing, doing this. Um, probably also, I think as you get a little bit older. I've seen a few people that have, I, I call it let the old man in. So then there was one guy we worked with, I'm, I'm definitely not gonna name names, but he retired at 60 and I was having a conversation maybe two years ago, and I'm like, he was only 60.

Martin Kelly: He looked like 75. Ah, like he just. He just, and, and as I said, I think he, he dressed all, he acted old, like everything, you know, he, he'd like, as I said, the, the old man in sort of thing. Um, I think it's also what do you want to do and where do you want to be? Mm. And how, you know, like, so if you are very much don't want to present, do wanna do any of this, that's fine.

Martin Kelly: If you do put yourself up for doing it. Uh, I've seen a, a, a thing, um, and a few socials that I really rate, which is. Your first podcast will be good, but it'll be hell. It'll be, and your hundreds will be a hell of a lot better, but you won't get up to the hundreds without, you know, it's Absolutely, yeah.

Martin Kelly: Putting yourself up there, like putting yourself up to, you know, even just purely present at work, you know, like, again, um, I go back to years ago at a company and we'd have a, I think it was a month, it was either a monthly or a quarterly management group, and I started to attend. Everybody else would take the report and just read through it.

Martin Kelly: And I knew I had to work on my presentation style, so I put together a PowerPoint and I would stand up in front of every dinner present and I would get feedback from somebody. I trusted the room and I different person we each time and when there was a speaking slot at at work, I put my hand up to it.

Martin Kelly: And it's not just that. When can you do that? When have you got offered a podcast? You, you take it on, can you Now you always dip your toe in the water. Yeah. Don't go from, I've never spoken at work to suddenly in front of 5,000. Right. But can you come on a webinar and do special comments on it? Can you be on a, a panel, on a, at a conference, or, you know, a five minute intro?

Martin Kelly: Can you simply introduce people at, at lunch or, you know, something like that. Like, dip your toe in the water, make it a. A journey type thing. And then there is a point where you need to give yourself a break. So they, they've, again, this is going back to, to presenting. I had spent, and it was a couple of years, and I mean even things like, I used to have both hands up, like almost like a southern T-shirt.

Martin Kelly: And I used to, then I actually used to wear a belt and grabbed the belt. So that one hand was fine, two hands were, and the very end, and as I said, it's been about a two year process. And I presented at a, a staff conference and I got some advice from a guy, um, and yeah, really, really trust him. And, and he's like, like, Marty, um, you're not Marty anymore up there.

Martin Kelly: I said, whoa, whoa, whoa. And you know, when you're like, oh, right. He's like, everything you're doing dry. So just relax now. And theoretically you wouldn't lean on the lectern when you're presenting. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm. 

Martin Kelly: But. If you feel it's necessary, lean on the lectern. If you want, be yourself out there because you're ticking all the boxes.

Martin Kelly: You are almost robot, you know? So it's, yeah, it's that if you, what do you want out your personal brand? Where do you see yourself going? And then how do you get there? And I, a lot of that is speaking to people is, is funny. Couple of, um, last year I was, can't, I think I was flying Singapore. I can't, can't remember.

Martin Kelly: I talking to a couple of guys just on the plane and one of them was like, he'd went to, went to get a job, uh, internal interview hadn't got there. And I'm like, okay, so did you go back and say, how do I get there? Right? And he's like, no. I said, okay, can I suggest? And but you know, it's one of those, you don't want to be the old man.

Martin Kelly: I don't wanna be Grandpa Simpson. You're talking about my time. Yeah. As Steve, I was you. I'd go and say to him, okay, I'm here. I want to be here. Then maybe it is, you need to go back and do a math stuff. Maybe you need to do some crazy and you don't wanna do that. But also it means when that next job comes up.

Martin Kelly: And you go to the interview, you can go, remember you asked me to do A, B and C. I've done a B and I'm working towards C. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Martin Kelly: Um, so I think it is that, but yeah, personally it is something I've worked on. Yeah. Something. You need to work on it. And you also need to see how you come across. You need to be looking at a lot of things, but you also need to give yourself a break and just be yourself as well.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Martin Kelly: As I present from my son's bedroom, because, uh, there's no other rooms available in the house, so. Yes. 

Lucy Bolan: Well, you're looking there, there. Very professional. We're all good. We're all good. Um, something I just wanna pick up on there actually, that you've just mentioned, I think it's a valid point to address, um, and something that I know I've spoken about in the past.

Lucy Bolan: Is the feedback side of things. Something quite early on in my career, um, that, well, one of my directors we're going way back, like 20 years ago. She used to say to me, she used to say, whenever you get one promotion, always ask, or what do I need to do to get the next? And I used to think, God, is that not really cheeky?

Lucy Bolan: Or, and she said, well, no, because you need to be knowing, well, what's the goal? Like where's the target? Or else, you know, this whole succession planning. I also think with that, it ties into the feedback side of things because you know, at the end of the day, never ever be scared to ask for feedback. I think it's so important because, you know, it could be not quite the magical words that you wanna hear, but at the end of the day you're gonna really learn from it and you know, is that something, I mean, you mentioned that you asked feedback and I thought, well, curiosity to you, because I bet there's a lot out there that don't.

Martin Kelly: Uh, yes. I think you should be, the only caveat to that would be. Um, also listen to some of the feedback and see if it's relevant or not. Um, so something I, I worked for somebody at one point who would find fault in anything, and no matter what you did would concentrate on the name tag being wrong rather than the.

Martin Kelly: You know, 300 people at an event that was, you know, up there with, uh, Robbie Williams at um, net type thing, right? So I think there is that. It's getting the balance. I'm a massive fan of feedback. I'm a massive fan of what can we do, like doing the honest debrief. Okay. What done, what a. If you want that, then it's going to cost.

Martin Kelly: So it means this, so. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm, mm-hmm. We, um, 

Martin Kelly: and a couple of roles, we've done stuff where, you know, you've done a live event, there's name tags and there's like, can we not just get one of those printers? We can, they can, but they cost X amount. Yeah. So that means we've got X Life staff, or we've got X number of clients and it, that's the, the balance.

Martin Kelly: So I'm a massive fan of asking for feedback. I'm a massive fan. Exactly what I, you know, talked about before with staff of. Here's the goal, doing a constant review of them. Mm-hmm. And again, probably one of my biggest, and this is jumping back to the previous question, is making sure you're looking at the goals too often.

Martin Kelly: Set your goal from January and on the 31st of December, you get the dust off them and you're like, let's look at these goals rather than I said, bring up x amount of time to get you to this position. Um, so constantly been looking to how you can improve, constantly looking for feedback. But also be wary that some of the feedback you don't need to take on board I that there's also some times when if you're screwed up, you'd need to take it between the Yeah.

Martin Kelly: The eyes and, but Right. I won't do that again. But there's also times when you go, you really, or you know, you really giving me that feedback. Okay. And it has to be a look. Thanks. I'll take that micromanaging. Ah, yeah. Seriously, I, I want a couple that I think back on and you go. I did all of this and this is what you're concentrating on.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah.

Lucy Bolan: And just finally, I wanna ask, when when you look back at, I mean, I know you've got many more years to go, I have no doubt. But when you look back at where you are so far and look back at your career, I guess, what's the legacy and impact that you'd like to think? Well, you know, I know I, I made a difference there.

Lucy Bolan: Or you know, is there anything that really matters to you? 

Martin Kelly: Yeah, look, I think it's probably some of the staff that you've worked with and that you've, you've mentored them, and I think that's the, that's the biggie. But I think also some of the big projects you've taken on when you, you started and you went, there's no way we can do this.

Martin Kelly: And suddenly you, you'd do it. So there was a, a company, we did a, a massive event in overseas, and it was one of those, it was literally two years in the planning. And it was my baby. And you took it from, you know, really small to, and you look at that and you go at the start, I never thought we could do it.

Martin Kelly: So it's, it's having that, um, with it. Um, how do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time. Yeah. Or more you can chew and chew like hell sort of thing. But I think it's that, and I think you have made a difference. You know, you have moved things forward. One of the, I did one role and it was only for. A year in, I then caught up with, it was a contracting role.

Martin Kelly: Somebody was often maternity leave and I caught up and with, uh, it was one of those, a whole lot of people were moving and I, and I moved on. Um, but then I caught up with the new regional director and, um, the conversation was just being a real legacy here because you did set the, set the standards. So yeah, I think there's that, and I think you look back on stuff, but there's always a, you know, did you challenge yourself?

Martin Kelly: Did you. Did you hope? Did, did you take some risks? Yeah. Like, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah. I, 

Martin Kelly: I, I probably, I'll look back on the time where I wasn't taking risks, and that's the one where there's not a legacy generally at all. And there's very little, because you're like, there was a, there was a, you know, a fear culture or something where the ones where you go, right, let's go in.

Martin Kelly: And there's been a couple of times when I've went and it's almost been a blank bit of paper. Right. I need to build this from scratch. It's the ones that you go, okay. I took it from Yeah. Paper to, you know, humming along nicely. So, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah. And I think as well with that, you know, you made a valid point. I think it, it's when also from the top down, and I'm talking like, you know, owner, founder, CEO MD board, you know, they need to, you need to be in sync to also have that appetite to go, well, we're gonna think a bit more, you know.

Lucy Bolan: More around innovation and you know, what are we doing that the competition aren't, as opposed to a little bit of what I think is what happening is, is in the market, is is a bit vanilla. You know, how many businesses actually are taking risks right now? You know, we're, we're hiring direct for direct industries and 

Martin Kelly: I, I remember, um, looking for a couple of roles and one, um.

Martin Kelly: And it was ridiculous. One, they wanted somebody with 10 years worth of that industry experience. There was four of the companies, but they didn't wanna com, uh, have somebody from a competitor. And I remember like talking to the HR person, going, I. Can, can we just go through that again, just, just so that I'm, I'm, maybe I'm missing, maybe I, you know, I'd say there's a time to miss here stuff.

Martin Kelly: I went, you want somebody with industry experience, but not from your competitors. And they're like, yeah. And I'm like, okay, so it's, sorry. And it is that one of, and there was one industry I, I looked at and the, it was literally a merry-go-round. And I remember speaking, going Totally get that. Don't ever complain that somebody doesn't take, somebody doesn't do something different.

Martin Kelly: What do you mean? I went, what you doing? You know? Yeah. Just, just on the miracle route. So I think it is that one of, let's take some risks. I'm, uh, um, I quite like what Jack has done now. I've, I've seen, oh, hell bring, was online telling them that, you know, everything's terrible. Stink. At least they've done something different.

Martin Kelly: Yeah. You know? Absolutely. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Martin Kelly: Maybe just can be one of those ones that comes back and bites me when they go grow, you know? And then in a year's time and it's like, who thought that was a good idea? But, but again, being vanilla, you can't always play it safe. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Martin Kelly: You know? 

Lucy Bolan: Well, Marsha, and it has been an absolute pleasure.

Lucy Bolan: Thank you so much for your time. Thanks a lot. I always enjoyed chatting to you, but I, I've really enjoyed it. It's been really great. So thank you so much. It's been great to have you on. 

Martin Kelly: Thanks a lot. 

Lucy Bolan: Take care. 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 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.

THE END

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 are seasoned marketer, aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes.

Lucy Bolan: Of the CMO. This podcast is your backstage pass to discovering what it's like to really 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 today. Um, super, super excited to have the one and only fabulous Anna Kova with us. Welcome. 

Anna Samkova: Thank you, Lucy. It's nice to be here. 

Lucy Bolan: Well, I'm so delighted to have you on the CMO Chapters podcast. I've been really looking forward to recording this episode. Actually, Anna know is somebody who I've known, I think in my network for quite a while.

Lucy Bolan: It's been a client and then yeah, now through consulting, um, we've certainly reconnected and um, I feel yeah, our listeners today are gonna find Anna's story and her career journey. Super, super inspiring. So I know I'm putting you on a little bit of a pedestal there. 

Anna Samkova: Ah, thank you. 

Lucy Bolan: So Anna, please start, if you could start by introducing yourself, that would be great.

Anna Samkova: Oh, thanks Lucy. And thanks for the opportunity. Anna. Thank you for being in touch. Always enjoy our catchups. And I sincerely hope that this episode, uh, will help your listeners because it is, ultimately, it's not about me, but if I can share. Some nuggets from my story that can inspire people. That's, um, that's what I would like to achieve, um, with this episode.

Anna Samkova: That would be lovely. But, um, yes, before anyone will question my accent. I am originally from Ukraine. I migrated to Australia 31 years ago, so Australia's been home, not from day one, but after about three years of struggle, it became home. For sure. So, and I've never looked back and, um, obviously made the right decision back then when it is obvious now, but it wasn't, it was a bit daunting at the time to move countries and, uh, learn a different language because I didn't speak English when I arrived and I was already 23 years old.

Anna Samkova: I finished uni, um, in Ukraine and I was just in the beginning to starting my career and already had a, a couple of job offers too. But then. I decided to move for a couple of years and then got stuck in here, but I'm very happy I did. 

Lucy Bolan: You're here to stay? 

Anna Samkova: Oh, for sure. Now. 

Lucy Bolan: So tell me a bit more, so your background since being in Melbourne.

Lucy Bolan: So I, I remember I worked with you when you were at the past group. So you were there for about 10 years? Um, I think it was, or just over. Um, and then more recently, is it two years now I'm thinking? Right. You've had, um, Albion Consulting, is that right? Albany. 

Anna Samkova: Albany, Albany Advisory. I've been in since March last year.

Anna Samkova: So this is our first year anniversary. So very exciting. Yes. I left Brand Collective in December, 2023 after studying a past and then been merged with Brand Collective, dropped the PAs name, became Brand Collective Group. And um, uh, overall I stayed there for 15 years. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. Excellent. And your background has always been in that sort of like digital loyalty, CX sort of remit.

Lucy Bolan: How did you. I mean, I'm guessing you didn't necessarily start in that. So how did you evolve over the years? Did you just find what you enjoyed and you know, really just started to sort of throw yourself into it 

Anna Samkova: or we see good. I wish I. I could find what I enjoyed, it was, uh, the first few years was purely about survival really.

Anna Samkova: Um, and, um, trying to, um, learn the language, try to make some money. Yeah. And, uh, earned a living. I, my daughter was born, I. 11 months after I arrived in the country as well. So that was, that was an interesting transition on its own. So yeah, it was a lot to think about it. No, I didn't, um, have time to think about enjoyment, so I was purely focusing on survival and then it was touch go, should I just drop everything and go back where everything is already established and everything is convenient and my family is there and I could rely on support or just continue the grind and um, and go through the challenge.

Anna Samkova: So. And that's where I started flexing my resilience muscle, um, I suppose and, um, do what felt uncomfortable. So learning the new language at the age of 24 was very uncomfortable. And having the newborn, uh, in the country that I knew no one, uh, was very uncomfortable as well. But career-wise, I had a marketing background and, um, uh, I am.

Anna Samkova: Fell into this role after running my own business for about four years here already. I fell into the corporate role. Uh, I think you remember Do internet. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Anna Samkova: When they just started and uh, um, I remember being approached by the founder and he said to me, I need someone to build a loyalty program for my customers.

Anna Samkova: And at that time they had a database of a hundred, 439,000 people. I dunno why I remember this number, but obviously it's step with me. And, uh, my question to him was, what's loyalty programs? And his answer was. I don't know. Just go and find out all I want. I want some sort of deals for my. Customers. That's all I want.

Anna Samkova: Yeah. So I went and asked millions of questions and um, I am, by nature, I have a very curious mind and I do go above and beyond when I'm interested in something. And yes, I was challenged to find out what it was. Uh, and then, um, we launched it on, uh, national tv, um, a year and a half later. And somehow it made me a loyalty specialist.

Anna Samkova: Very quickly. Um, and then, yes, I never looked back. So from loyalty and marketing, I fell into digital, uh, before the digital became a thing because, uh, uh, I, I was in retail already. I was a past group and, uh, I had a person sitting next to me, uh, putting um, some, uh, closing into express post envelopes and she would have about 10 bags under her desk.

Anna Samkova: And I said to her, what are you doing? She said, you know, we have this link book online, but if we can just see what we sell. I said, yes. And she says, well, occasionally, somehow they manage to place orders online. And that's what we, what I do, I'll just, um, I. Uh, fulfill those orders. So anyway, I'll look into it.

Anna Samkova: And then it became a multimillion dollar, gosh, uh, online e-commerce business. Wow. A few years later. Yeah. So I just literally just falling into things, so. 

Lucy Bolan: Wow. Wow. You make it sound so simple. I just fall into it. Fall into this. 

Anna Samkova: Yeah. Well, you know, because I, I don't have the wife opportunities to come to me.

Anna Samkova: I create opportunities. I work hard. I'm curious. I learn a lot and, um, I, I stay ahead. I have great connection and relationship with people, uh, over the years, but, uh, look, it's, it's, it's probably sounds glamorous, but it, it hasn't been, because, you know, I was battling my health issues as well. I had a, um. I had a major car accident, uh, but I was still in Ukraine.

Anna Samkova: I was 20 years old. So my, my life kind of flashed before me, um, very quickly. And, um, I stay, I was in and out of hospitals for, uh, about five years. I. So Gabby's birth kind of was a miracle because I was, uh, officially told that, uh, it is unlikely that I will have ever have kids due to the severity of my injuries as well.

Anna Samkova: And they, um, such that took such long recovery, no one actually believed that I will recover. But, um, somehow I kind of played with life and told myself. A story every single day. What if today is the only day I have to leave? What would I do? Mm. And so I called it later, uh, the Game of Life, obviously do it in, I did it intuitively, but uh, I just wanted to really see how long I've got and, um, what I can fit into the time that I have.

Anna Samkova: Um, I didn't believe that I can, uh, leave while I'm 54 now that I live that long. So it was touch go for a long time, but, um, yes, somehow I'm still around and, um, still doing what I, what fulfills me. So it's been, it's been great. 

Lucy Bolan: Do you think, and this, I don't mean to go too deep here, but do you think having gone through something quite horrendous like that really early on in your career has almost made you fairly fearless, where you just go, you know what, like, I.

Lucy Bolan: I look at you now and I see you as a very successful, you know, business lady. You've accomplished a lot. You've got a fantastic reputation, a fantastic network, a great, you know, incredible credibility. But with that, it comes a lot of, you've gotta put your neck out on the line and you've gotta be a little bit fearless.

Lucy Bolan: Do you think having gone through something quite horrendous like that early on, you sort of became stronger and. Almost, you know, you said that had that game of life you wanted to sort of just play around with. Do you think that helped to spur you on? 

Anna Samkova: I would say absolutely. I was quite a shy child growing up.

Anna Samkova: I know it's very difficult to imagine right now, but, but I was, and um, since the car accident, um, you know, the whole survival journey, I didn't have any psychologist or. I didn't, I didn't get any counseling at all, so everyone was just so focused on repairing my body physically on a physical level, but not on a mental one.

Anna Samkova: So no one worked with me at all. I. With my mental, um, state of mind, which wasn't great because, you know, I kind of really experienced that death or whatever that means for a very short period of time. And, um, it's, it wasn't fun. And I was with my, um, last year at uni and because it impacted my face as well, so I had a plastic surgery on my face too.

Anna Samkova: So I couldn't really, well, I could, but I didn't wanna see myself in the mirror for about a year after that happened because it did not look right. So, you know, at 20 years old you kind of can't see half of your face. It's a bit dramatic. So it impacted my confidence, but a lot. But what it also gave me, it gave me that sense of, uh, urgency in terms of life is too short.

Anna Samkova: And I don't know if you've heard the news about Daniel Brecken, uh, this week, um, that I knew Daniel well. And, uh, and it impacted me a lot. So at 57 his life just ended without any warning, just like that. So, um, and it shook the entire retail community. And, um, um, you know, I have this sense, uh, that I live with every single day.

Anna Samkova: Because I also have a very intimate understanding of death that it can happen anytime. I don't wanna be very negative on the call. Mm-hmm. But one thing for certain that what we know we are, we're all going to die. It just, it's just a different timing for everyone. So I get the sense of urgency at the age of 20 to leave to my fullest potential and to discover it was up to me.

Anna Samkova: I took full control of that for me to discover. What it might be, because you know, you always have two choices. And after the car accident, I could have just drawn in depression and I had access to very fancy medication and morphine because I was in a lot of pain. So it was readily available to me at any time.

Anna Samkova: So it wasn't that difficult to overdue on those painkillers, but you can take that route and become an addict and what have you, or you can. Stepped up to this challenge and say, okay, well it happened to me for a reason. So why did I just discover what's beyond that? And it meant that I had to feel uncomfortable every single day.

Anna Samkova: And, um, I dropped all the fear. I thought it doesn't really matter if I only have 24 hours. What would, what would it matter? Uh, what it would matter to me? It is just to live with no regret. Yeah. So what would I wanna do right now that will impact my future self, where I'll live with no regret? So it's a mindset.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, I think it's incredible. You shared this story with me when we caught up recently and, well, I think it was last year now, and I, I have to say, I have a lot of coffees with a lot of people. Um. But I was just, I was blown away by that, uh, about that story. I think you, you, I meet so many people, but then to really understand what goes on behind how they've got to where they are, I just find fascinating and, and that story certainly really, I know it's gonna resonate with many of our listeners, I'm sure 

Anna Samkova: the strangest thing that actually do think that the story was dead.

Anna Samkova: Interesting. And I only share it publicly probably. I, I started to a few months ago because so many people actually asked me, will you write the book? I'm thinking, why would I wanna write the book? Like, everyone experiences it. But it turns out that it's not, not everyone. And I hope not everyone because yeah, no one, no one wants to go through so much hardship.

Anna Samkova: But, um, if you do and the life presents, um. Itself with all this situation and circumstances that we have no control over it. I wasn't driving that car. I was, I was a passenger in that car. I had no control whatsoever. But I saw the incoming car and I knew this was gonna be the end, but luckily for me it wasn't.

Anna Samkova: So what do I do with it? Like how do I turn it around? 

Lucy Bolan: Incredible. I wanna go back to the past group. So I think you, you got to, am I correct if I said the title was GM of Digital, I think, 

Anna Samkova: is that right? Yeah. Digital and loyalty. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, digital and loyalty. So at that point, how many would you have been managing roundabout that week?

Lucy Bolan: That sort of level at, 

Anna Samkova: that at has a, probably would've had 15 to 20. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yes. 

Anna Samkova: It's after the merger, it, it became a bigger team of about 40 people. Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. I get, um, I have a lot of marketing managers that, you know, they wanna gain more responsibilities because they see the big salary and they think, right, well, you know, if I wanna buy that house or I wanna live here, I wanna have a certain standard of life.

Lucy Bolan: I've got to be earning the big salary. And so to do that, I've got to manage team, and I've got to get the big numbers and. It's not, I, I've certainly learned over the years I've seen it firsthand. It's not for everybody. So, I mean, how did you evolve into becoming that leader in terms of harnessing your management style and, and actually 'cause you know, you've got different personalities there.

Lucy Bolan: Some, some management, you know, approaches are gonna work for some people and they're not for others. Did that just happen over time? 

Anna Samkova: Absolutely. Oh, just exactly what you said. I evolved into it. I never had this idea that this is the package that I want to have. This is the, the title I want to, I. Acquire.

Anna Samkova: This is how many people I want to manage. I just evolve into it. So I never asked anyone for any promotions ever in my career. I never ever had to have this conversation. I never asked for pay rise. Um, I just, um, have this tenacity of showing up every single day and do the work and do it well. And for me it became that it's about incrementality as well.

Anna Samkova: How can you do better? Every single day. You know, the famous book, atomic Habits, but that was for me, it was before the book. I'm, I'm glad that, uh, um, the book came out because I could finally actually, um, conceptualize it to myself, what I've been doing over the years. But you evolve when you step into the challenge because, uh, you sometimes.

Anna Samkova: Not everything could be perfect and lined up in front of you, and people come to you and say, I would like to promote you because you're doing such a good job. And it's sometimes you just need to look into what it is that you do every single day and how the impacts people around you. And then you have to overlay this with, what can I do better?

Anna Samkova: Every single day so that tomorrow I'll be a better leader, a better person, a better manager than I am today. And yes, you're right. It does depend on, um, there are so many personalities in the team that everyone's got a different day, someone has a good day, someone has a bad day. You have to manage the dynamic.

Anna Samkova: You need to make sure that they all have a common vision as well. So you have to be a very good communicator, one-on-one and one to many. Uh, I think I, the inclusion is very important, taking people on the journey with you and, um, sometimes I think it's very healthy to show your vulnerability as well. As a leader, you're not gonna get all the answers all the time, but, and, and it's okay to admit that.

Anna Samkova: Did you 

Lucy Bolan: have mentors? Uh, like, you know, you, I mean, you were in Melbourne at a young age. You had to learn how to speak English. You know, you, you've really accomplished a lot along the way, you know, have you been comfortable asking for a mentor or did you have people that you sort of look back and go Look?

Lucy Bolan: They, they would. Those sort of guiding lights in a way in tough times. 

Anna Samkova: Well, I wish I had an opportunity to listen to as a mentor because I didn't know anyone, so I didn't have an existing network I had to build. But yeah. Do you know what I've learned it, it's an interesting one. I, I've learned that I. You never become, well, I don't mean you, but I'm generalizing that no one becomes successful on their own.

Anna Samkova: If people look back on the journey, they will always find that there, there were people that inspired them. Supported them. Uh, they backed them up. Mm-hmm. And, uh, I, I, and I think we can call them mentors, we can call them friends. We can, it can be a combination of all, but none of us do it on our own. None of us.

Anna Samkova: And we always have someone that we can call, text rely on, and um, uh, those people, uh, are being our backers as well. But then the better relationship you have with people, the more backup you're going to have because they will know you, they will know your patterns. Have a number of friends whom I can call after not calling probably for 10 years, and we'll connect immediately.

Anna Samkova: And they're the ones who tell me exactly. Um, and they will remember our conversation 10 years ago. So there is that, that connection that you need to nurture with like-minded people in your circle, for sure. But yes, over the years I, I was so fortunate to bump into people that believed in, believed in me, uh, gave me chance, gave an opportunity, supported me through my choices.

Anna Samkova: Um, absolutely it wasn't just me. No, 

Lucy Bolan: no, absolutely. You mentioned, um, just then that you obviously had to build up your networks from scratch, and I know something that, you know, a lot of marketers, when I speak to them, male and female, they do struggle with putting themselves out there and networking in general.

Lucy Bolan: You know, what advice would you give to those individuals that, you know, they're wanting to sort of promote more of their personal brand and get out there and, you know, is there any advice you'd sort of say what, which would be a good starting point 

Anna Samkova: for sure. You know, my recommendation is an excellent question, by the way.

Anna Samkova: Uh, my recommendation, don't ever make it about you, because it's not about you, it's about that person who is in front of you. So just be. Uh, understanding, uh, before you feel understood, for example, step up first, offer the, um, help first volunteer to, uh, for support first, reach out to that person first. Be the, be the first person to, to do that, um, to, to, to step closer to whatever that other person is and keep, and.

Anna Samkova: Have very good relationship with, uh, with people ongoing, not when you want them, but when actually you feel that they, they're, they are in that vulnerable moment where they can I. Do some good with a cup of tea or, or have conversation or wherever it might be, or just a, a walk together because all of us have those moments and when we can be in front of people and in those moments, this is, it goes a long way and it's a, again, this cumulative effect, you know, over the years.

Anna Samkova: This is how you build the relationship. You and I probably, you're very active on LinkedIn and I absolutely love your authenticity that comes through your post. But you and I see this game on LinkedIn every single day when people hop on. I. And then just say, me, me, me, me, me, me, me. And they just hop off.

Anna Samkova: And then you don't see them again until they is, they're there again announcing something else. It doesn't work because you, we strive on authentic connections and people, people can feel it. They know Yes. When you, when it's about, just about them or when it's about everyone else. And you know, I use that scenario in, in customer experience strategies as well.

Anna Samkova: You cannot do anything wrong when you follow the customer. It's impossible. Mm-hmm. Not possible, but you know, what they want, how they want it, uh, what is what, um, uh, make them feel good, what makes them, uh, shop with the brand, whatever that, that, that moment for them. And when you follow and you. Uh, support them on their journey and you provide them with what it is that they want, or if you just solve their headaches as a starting point, you can't do anything wrong.

Anna Samkova: So when you step out of what about you to what about them? Yes. Uh, situation again, you can, you will always build great connection with people. Uh, 

Lucy Bolan: I think that said, and, and you, and you spot on, I think around, you know, those authentic connections. You know, people, people crave that and want that. And I think you've gotta play, I hate saying this, but you know, the long game in some instances you meet people and then great, you've had a coffee and there might not be anything there, but initially, but then in six months there's another, you know, oh, we could maybe work here together, or there's a collaboration opportunity, or there's, oh, I'll introduce you to this person who I just spoke to, so.

Anna Samkova: Yeah, perfect example of that. If people just follow what you do, I think they will just nail it. And, uh, it, because it just, um, it's not about what we say, but what we do when we say it that matters as well. And we just be meant to lead by example. I. And I think you do an fantastic job at it because you lead by example and if people dunno what to post on LinkedIn and they're not sure they should read a posts because then it just comes through in such a helpful and warm and authentic way that, um, it's, it's a pleasure.

Lucy Bolan: Oh, well that's really kind. I'd say the same about yours as well. I love the case studies that you put together. They're brilliant. Um, I wanna talk a little bit more about Albany Advisory. So this is where you currently work now. So what was the decision around going consulting? I'm just curious to understand 'cause you do get, I'm getting a lot of marketers now that are going down that route of becoming fractional CMOs or consulting, et cetera.

Lucy Bolan: So what, what way do you want to go down that path? 

Anna Samkova: See, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I didn't make that decision. I just fell into it. Literally fell into it because I stepped out and I, I, on LinkedIn that I'm out of, uh, brain Collective and in my head I thought that it would be a very good idea to have a sabbatical for a year.

Anna Samkova: I don't know why I thought that it'll be a good idea. My personality, but, uh, everyone reached out to me after that announcement on LinkedIn and they said to me, so what are you doing? And I'm like, didn't I just say that? I don't want to do anything. And, um, so two months I was on sabbatical and I was just so bored.

Anna Samkova: Um, so bored. And, uh, one, uh, brand reached out to me Yeah. Um, a few times. And, um, they at some point asked me, so what's the definition of your sabbatical? When are you going to actually stop this? Because it act that it doesn't suit you. Just have a meeting with us. Let's just have a conversation. And anyway, that meeting, um.

Anna Samkova: Led to, um, them asking me to consult to them, but what I, one thing I have to mention, what I was very clear on that I don't want to have a full-time job. I didn't know what I'm going to do, and I thought, well, I'll stay in the flow. That was my answer to everyone. I'll just stay in the flow and see what comes up.

Anna Samkova: But, um, I, I did not want to have a full-time job. I was very certain on that. So when recruiters started to approach me, so my answer was always no. But then consulting, I didn't know what consultants do, but that I just had to figure it out because I knew exactly how I can help them. And, um, yes, I started with them in March last year.

Anna Samkova: They were my first client. Um, I forgot all about my very quickly because I've been busy ever since. 

Lucy Bolan: Thrown in the thick of it. Absolutely. What would you say to individuals out there nowadays that are wanting to, you know, aspire to one day perhaps be in your shoes and perhaps are wanting to go down the route to becoming specialists within, whether it be CX or loyalty?

Lucy Bolan: Do you see? I feel like in my mind, you know, I always have these conversations with marketers where it's like, do you become broad? Do you need to be a generalist or do you need to be a specialist? Um, you know, there's, there's arguments I think, on both sides and arguments around what the evolution of some of these senior roles are gonna look like in the future as well.

Lucy Bolan: Um, what's your advice for people that perhaps are starting to think, you know, I really wanna get into loyalty in cx. Like, do you, I mean, I can, I personally think there's gonna be a huge evolution there as AI technology kicks in. What are your thoughts? 

Anna Samkova: Sure. I, I think, you know, I wouldn't create dogmas around it and that strict definitions, uh, and uh, should I be a generalist?

Anna Samkova: Should I be. Uh, uh, specialist, I think you evolve into, uh, the things and the roles that the market dictates. I. Yeah, I think maybe it's best to follow, to follow the, uh, trend because especially for the marketers, things change all the time. What we did last year, we can't replicate this year. It's just not possible.

Anna Samkova: The world has moved on. The economy is different. The, uh, the consumer sentiment is very different. So sometimes you just need to say yes to things and then figure out how to do them. That would be more probably, um, uh, advice and you need to, uh, build relationships before you need them, 

Lucy Bolan: right? Mm-hmm hmm.

Lucy Bolan: Because you 

Anna Samkova: just dunno at what point you're gonna make, have a phone call. Uh, people say, look, I've been seeing you on LinkedIn and, uh, you seem to know about X. Uh, we need help with X. Um, can we please have a chat? I get it all the time. So this, yeah. Right. LinkedIn became like a, a lead generation platform.

Anna Samkova: Yeah. Which I wasn't in, that wasn't my intent. I just wanted to share and continue to share my points of view and my experience with the view that hopefully it'll help brands and businesses to, to implement, um, that, so, um, make strategic moves as well. And, uh, sometimes our biggest growth moments, uh, come.

Anna Samkova: Come from, um, lateral moves, I would say, and stepping into things that uncomfortable for you. Step into the CRM, figure out what this digital transformation means and how AI could, uh, be applicable for marketers speak and, and be that person to disrupt it whilst the marketing is still warming up to what is it that we're going to do and how AI can.

Anna Samkova: Help us, uh, uh, with efficiency in our businesses. And adoption is not that big still. Mm-hmm. Yes, we have chat bots and, uh, that we can in, we incorporate ai, but they still, let's put big insurance companies and, and the banks. But the retailers are not that fast because they're set in their ways. They have the processes and it's not easy to disrupt that machine.

Anna Samkova: So. 

Lucy Bolan: I find, um, I find it really fascinating. I think everyone's still wondering, you know, I, I get asked now, you know, ai, you know, what, what are you seeing in job descriptions and, you know, what's the impact gonna be on, you know, and honestly, right now, not much. I'm not seeing much. I think, you know, we're all still figuring it out.

Lucy Bolan: We're all still, I. Some may be a little bit more advanced than others, but no one's an expert. So I think 

Anna Samkova: no one, you're absolutely right. No one's an expert, so therefore people shouldn't have that imposter syndrome and that they, they need to have an urge to put it on their resume because we are all still trying to figure it out.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask, is there any specific, and maybe this is a little bit more of a personal question, but you know, when I speak to you, I feel like you always, you've got a project going, you're busy, you're doing something here. Like, you know, you're so productive, you're on the go. Is there any habits or daily.

Lucy Bolan: I don't know, mechanisms in your work, in terms of how you manage and measure your day in terms of, you know, being productive and making sure that, you know, you're getting across what you need to do. Is there any advice you give to people that perhaps are wanting to go down this consulting route, um, and, and make the most out of your time and, and, you know, so just so that they're keeping on task.

Anna Samkova: Lucy, we can have the whole podcast just about that. 

Lucy Bolan: Awesome. 

Anna Samkova: Yes, there is a system. I do have a system. I love my system. I've finessed it over the years, but, uh, I have a very strict, uh, morning routine that, um, uh, last a couple of hours. So it consists of, um, meditation, exercise, reading. Always. And if I'm doing any courses and always doing something, then I will, uh, fit into that, uh, morning time.

Anna Samkova: So I get up at five o'clock, so by seven, eight o'clock I'm already probably, um, ahead of many, many people. Uh, in terms of, um, uh, my intentions for the day. I set the intentions the day before. So by the time that I get up and if I don't. Feel very awake, then it doesn't really matter because it's not my decision making time.

Anna Samkova: I made all the decisions the night before of what my top three priorities for the day, um, are and, um, how, uh, my day is planned out. But you're right, as a consultant. We, we don't get paid just for showing up. So there is a very different, uh, role that we play. Uh, time is of our biggest essence. So, and we do need to know how to manage the time.

Anna Samkova: So having the focus time is very important. Important. I. I stagger my appointments and my meeting so that I have them back to back. But I also block out my calendar that I have some thinking time because I work on complex projects sometimes and it requires me to, to think it through. And, uh, I don't want to be interrupted and disrupt disrupted because then my, my thinking is not clear and I'm not gonna come up with Yeah, the best decision.

Anna Samkova: So, um, definitely I have the journaling method as well. I reflect on my days, how I capture my learnings, how I set the goals for the weekly and monthly. Oh yes. I'm, I'm very structured like that. 

Lucy Bolan: I'm not, I I'm not, I knew you'd have something in mind, but I, I'm just kind of li listening to you and I'm like, I gotta put like 5 45 'cause I'm a gym person in the morning.

Lucy Bolan: I've gotta go to the gym. Um, but when I hear 5:00 AM I'm like, you're part of that 5:00 AM club. 

Anna Samkova: I, I know Robin Sharma book, right. The 5:00 AM club. It didn't resonate with me, but I, the 5:00 AM club, uh, just the way it was written, I don't know, just too futuristic. But the other one that made a big difference, uh, I think I read that book maybe good 15 years ago.

Anna Samkova: So I've been on this 5:00 AM club before Robin Sharma with the book, 

Lucy Bolan: right. 

Anna Samkova: And, um, fall, uh, l or Rod. Uh, the, I will probably get back to, I'll send you the link to, to this. Yeah. But, uh, uh, something, the morning, something, it's a fascinating book, actually resonated with me because I still remember how the book starts and it start with him having a, a car accident.

Anna Samkova: So, gosh. And I think that, and it was very, uh, dramatic as well. So starting with, with. The book with, with that was, uh, I know, I, I just felt very connected to it. And then after he created that morning routine and I followed that ever since, it's been 15 years, probably need to revisit the book. Maybe he has a quel, but now as well.

Anna Samkova: But, um, yeah, that was, um, that was the best. It actually changed my life. It's, uh, my career after that skyrocketed. Uh, not that I necessarily that's what I wanted, but it's just something about that routine and showing up every single day. To that routine that's made that, that, that made a massive difference.

Anna Samkova: 'cause you're more intentional. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Anna Samkova: You know, you just don't, you don't wing it. You're just like, okay, this is, this is what I want and I know what I want, so I don't have time to think about what I don't want. 

Lucy Bolan: And you're so right. I mean, yeah, I, I completely agree. You know, I've had weeks where I look back and go, God, I feel so, you know, unproductive.

Lucy Bolan: Like, what have I done? You know, I should have done this and should have done that. And I'm, I'm definitely my own worst enemy as well. I'll, I'll, you know, really have myself on a high expectation. If I'm not hitting it not bad, then you know, I'm, I'm failing. But I've gotta say, I have to have, you've gotta have a business client, a strategy, you know, a weekly to-dos.

Lucy Bolan: It's, it's, it's super important. Absolutely. 

Anna Samkova: I remember the name of the book. The Miracle Morning came to me. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, the Miracle Morning. Have you heard of it? I don't know, but I'm going to, I'm gonna be Googling that. Yeah. 

Anna Samkova: Brilliant. Um, I highly recommend it, but in terms of what you just mentioned as well, hard to reflect on nowadays because you will always find the highlights in your day regardless how bad it went.

Anna Samkova: Always. And it's good to capture those highlights too, not just to focus on what didn't go well, but what did go well. And I always highlight, you know, at the end of the week, like Sunday afternoon, that's my time where I think about the three wins for the week as well. That just passed. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Anna Samkova: Okay. And there is, can I tell you, it is always more than three, even if I want to prioritize the three, that there is always more than that.

Anna Samkova: And it's just you constantly that by following this routine, you are in that appreciation state and the gratitude state. That's probably why I have so much goodness coming my way all the time. I don't know, but there is, it just seems like I'm attracting it. 

Lucy Bolan: Ah, look, I, I think, yeah, I think whatever you're doing don't stop.

Lucy Bolan: It's clearly working. So yeah. You are on the right track for sure. What, what's the legacy and lasting impact? So, you know, at the end of the day, you know, you've, you've already accomplished a lot and you know, you've got this fantastic. You're in this really awesome spot at the moment where, you know, you're working with some great businesses, consulting, you know, I mean, I can imagine you're getting a lot out of that, but where do you, what's your lasting impact when you think about, okay, well, when I'm starting to slow things down, finally, what would that look like for you?

Anna Samkova: So for me, it's, I tell you what it is and what drives me every single day because I don't have to do what I'm doing now, but I, it's the, the. It's not about me. It is about how I serve people, how I impact as many people as I can in a positive way. How can I be of service and how I can add value. That's probably why I enjoy consulting so much, just because it gives me that, um, that, that diversity across different industries, different people, uh, different talents, the different skills, and um, uh, I absolutely love that space and that's why I started coaching people for that reason.

Anna Samkova: Because, well people, because, not because I decided that I want to do coaching, but because people started reaching out to me. In terms of, and I want to, uh, transition from corporate to consulting and freelancing, um, to pick my brain on the, on the framework and how I, um, created that, um, that structure and the mechanism, what questions I ask.

Anna Samkova: I create subes and content pillars and what have you, and I'm very happy to share that because, um, I, you know, the. We are only making impact by the amount of people, uh, that we are impacting in a positive way, and that's what inspires me every single day. You know how many people, how many more people I can help.

Anna Samkova: What good can I, can I do? And I think, yeah, that's, that's what it's all about. It's no longer about me. I have luckily, for me, achieved all the, that level of success as whatever my definition of success means in my life by the age of 54. And it's all about, you know, supporting those people that I know in Ukraine, some financial, in some mentally, and, uh, looking after, uh, my family.

Anna Samkova: And, uh, this is always, I always think about this every single day. How much, how much I can help. 

Lucy Bolan: I think you're remarkable, Anna. I think you're a real breath of fresh air and yeah, super, super inspiring and, and yeah, thank you so much for being part of my CMO podcast. I, yeah, I've really enjoyed listening to you.

Lucy Bolan: I think Alices are gonna get so much out of this as well. It's almost like a reality check. 

Anna Samkova: Absolute. See, this is, this is the whole idea, right? It's not just a. To, to talk about me all the time. But the idea is if there are some bits and pieces in this conversation that can inspire people to keep going no matter what, that's the main thing, and everyone should, because life is too short.

Anna Samkova: It's just no point of contemplating. You just have to just dream big and get out and just get it because you will regret not, uh, doing something that you wanted rather than you'll regret doing it. I. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. A hundred percent agree. 

Anna Samkova: And you're the best because thank you for this podcast and thank you for interviewing all these beautiful people.

Anna Samkova: I love, uh, listening to it, and, uh, I, I think you're doing a remarkable job by showing up because these podcasts are not easy to organize. I don't run a podcast, but I, I can only imagine. 

Lucy Bolan: Well, they keep me busy, that's for sure. Exactly. But you're 

Anna Samkova: doing it be, and you just, and you keep showing up and you keep adding value and you keep, uh, helping people out.

Anna Samkova: And you know, I caught up with you, I don't know, maybe a couple of months ago and two months later, you already have so many fresh projects going on, so good for you. See, I mean, you're an inspiration to us all, so, and I'm very grateful that you do what you do. And you've being a person that so many people gravitate towards.

Anna Samkova: I mean, I feel like my entire network knows Lucy, because sometimes when I wanna be too smart and say, well, maybe you should talk to Lucy, Paula, and then they're like, Paula, I'm ready. Reached out to Lucy and I, I'm in communication with Lucy, and I had a cup of coffee with Lucy and said, okay, well I can't even surprised anyone anymore.

Anna Samkova: But, um, yeah, so it's, you, you just, you're so instrumental in our community. Everyone knows you, everyone loves you. So thank you. 

Lucy Bolan: Aw, that's, that's, gosh, that's so kind of you to say. Thank you very much. Well, it's been a pleasure. I will let you go. But, um, I'd say to anyone, look, Anna, is somebody worth reaching out to if you are ever Yeah, I'm sure.

Lucy Bolan: Open to conversations perhaps in the future or. Um, yeah, going down that loyalty cx, she's definitely a great starting point, so thank you so much. 

Anna Samkova: Thanks, Lucy. It's been such a pleasure.

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.

THE END

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 are a seasoned marketer, aspiring CMO, or simply just curious to understand what it really takes.

Lucy Bolan: To step into the shoes of the CMO, this podcast is your backstage path to discovering what it's like to really 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, okay, so I am absolutely delighted today to welcome Tony Gruber. So Tony, welcome. 

Tony Gruebner: Thank you very much for having me. I know that we've had some, uh, you've had some great, uh, people on, so I'm, I'm very pleased to join that list. 

Lucy Bolan: Oh, look, you, you're very, very welcome indeed. Um, I was really keen to, to chat to you really today, obviously to cover off.

Lucy Bolan: Bit more around your background? Very much. I think one of your real sort of areas of expertise that we're gonna talk about is obviously ai, AI specifically within marketing as well. Um, and then a little bit more around the future of probably what we're seeing around CMOs and, and sort of what the future's gonna look like given that AI is the thing, um, that's gonna keep evolving.

Lucy Bolan: But before we crack on, can you introduce yourself please? 

Tony Gruebner: Uh, yeah. So, um, I'm Tony Gruner. Um, I. A slightly unusual sort of path towards sort of being a chief marketing officer. I come from more of a analytical, uh, geeky numbers background. Um, so I, um, uh, I'm originally from New Zealand, if you couldn't get that from the accent.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and, uh, did a range of roles, um, yeah, really just a range of roles. I studied, um, studied commerce, um, and then went to London, um, or went to Dublin first and then went to London and then did a bit of the, uh. Overseas experience in my twenties and then came back. I didn't quite come all the way back to New Zealand.

Tony Gruebner: I, uh, sort of came back to Melbourne just to sort of stay for a year maybe and see how it goes. And that was 13 years ago. Uh, and I'm still here now. So, um, I have, um, in that time I've, I've really worked at two major, two sort of main sort of places in terms of where I've worked. I worked at Sportsbet for nine years.

Tony Gruebner: Which was a very interesting journey from 2011 through to sort of 2020. It's um, it went from being a relatively small business to the behemoth that it is today, 

Lucy Bolan: ah, 

Tony Gruebner: uh, during that time. And that was, that was a lot of fun. And, and I did a range of different roles there, but mainly sort of in the analytical, um, background and obviously working with the marketing teams.

ony Gruebner: I mean, everything at Sports Bet is around marketing and, uh, and, and that, and as you'll, as, as pretty much anyone probably watching this will know. And then I moved to, uh, Pepperstone. So Pepperstone, probably few people will know exactly what Pepperstone is, but Pepper Stone's a financial trading company, um, one of the largest financial trading companies in the world.

Tony Gruebner: Um, Australian, uh, started and Australian owned. Um, it is, um, essentially B2C, um, uh, financial trading, um, and in some ways a lot of similarities to, uh, to sports betting just, uh, in the financial markets. Um, heavily regulated global. Uh, Pepperstone has customers 173 countries around the world. Uh, and uh, that was when I really first, I, I, I started in the chief marketing officer role.

Tony Gruebner: And, um, uh, that was sort of my first quey sort of marketing role. Um, so, um, I mean, at that sort of level, I should say, um, I obviously did a range of different marketing roles, uh, prior to that. Uh, it was interesting to sort of be in charge of a, a marketing function for, uh, the three and a half years that I was there.

Tony Gruebner: Uh, and then, uh, over the last probably six to 12 months I've been, um, I've been doing a bit of sort of freelancing, uh, being a bit of a sort of free agent, working with a lot of startups, um, and doing some really interesting stuff. Um, and I think, as you mentioned, sort of dabbling in the sort of AI world and, uh, as.

Tony Gruebner: As everyone seems to have, um, AI expert on their LinkedIn profile these days. Yeah, I've been trying to, I mean, coming from a, coming from a data background, um, and also having led data science teams going back over 10 years now, uh, it was obviously subject matter that a lot of which I was very familiar with, but a lot of which is very new.

Tony Gruebner: Um, okay. And so it's really been good to refresh on that. And I, I've got a lot of sort of thoughts. I mean, I think the thing about. Hopefully what I can get across from an AI perspective is that my skills in that space are not technical. They are in the, um, understanding of what it means commercially and what it means for A CMO, what it means for a CEO, what it means for, um, for businesses.

Tony Gruebner: And, um, so I've spent a lot of time in that space thinking and, um, it's a, as you know, Lucy, it's a very interesting space. Oh yeah. And a very fast growing space. Probably by the time this podcast is out. Um, who knows if, if everything will be, uh. Still, uh, still sort of the same, but, um, yeah, it's, it's an interesting space and I think it's, uh, I think one way or another it's here to stay and, um, for good or bad.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and, uh, it's certainly something that everyone's gotta get their head around. So yeah. Hope that gives a little bit of an insight as to a, a bit of my background. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you. I guess I was curious to, I. We, you know, reviewing obviously your profile and, you know, I've met with you, you know, and we've had various conversations, et cetera, a few times.

Lucy Bolan: But you've been at that because you were, you actually were, as you said, at Sportsbet for, I think it was about nine and a half years. You got two executive GM level where you were managing. It was about 30, 40 people at that level. 

Tony Gruebner: Uh, at that, in that role, 40. Um, yeah, I'd done roles prior to that. There were 200 and something in instead of operational roles, but yeah, in the sort of data and analytics base, it was probably about 40 people.

Tony Gruebner: Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: So I guess my question to you is, you know, you've come from this real sort of, you mentioned it quite earlier, like the sort of geeky numbers, the data sort of side of things and naturally, you know, I've met quite a lot of people in that space and I've always found, you know, if you've got that capability and that skillset, but you've got the ability to also have that extroverted sort of leadership mentality.

Lucy Bolan: I look at someone like you, incredibly smart, you know, you've obviously done very well to get to the, the remit that you have. So have you always been ambitious? Like have you always had that drive to did? Did you always think, okay, that's where I wanna get to one day to be a CMO? Or did it honestly just sort of evolve organically?

Tony Gruebner: And no, um, I mean, I think definitely my career has evolved organically. I think that that's, and, and I've been, I'd like to sort of sit here and say I've been very purposeful with every step that I've done, but a lot of it's sort of fallen into place. But, um, when you look back, I think there's probably a lot in that that was probably intentional even if you didn't know it.

Tony Gruebner: Um, mm. And I think my, my skills and, um, this is a blessing and a curse. My skills is as an all rounder and, and as ability to bring all that together. So. Um, I mentioned that I come from the analytical space, but I'm not the most analytical person and I've been working, obviously, in the, in the marketing space.

Tony Gruebner: Um, but there's people who have been working for 20 odd years in the marketing space. Um, my, my real ability is, is to bring all that together and sort of piece, um, put those pieces of the puzzle together, which I think is a really useful, um, or an incredibly useful skill. Um, but you need people that are specialists obviously along go along alongside the generalists.

Tony Gruebner: Um, I. And then in terms of sort of broader leadership, which you sort of were, were referring to. I mean, I think that introverted, extroverted, I don't think it matters whether or not you're introverted or extroverted as a leader. I think that's, that's completely irrelevant. But what really does matter is your ability to, sometimes as a leader you need to be introverted.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and sometimes as a leader you need to be extroverted. And I think what's. What's really important is, is the ability to actually scale and work out. And this is where EQ comes in, obviously, but really understand when's the time to do each of those things. And I think that's the skill that you've really gotta have.

Tony Gruebner: It's because you're a certain personality type. I think that's overblown. Um, and we do all those disc profiles and all that kinda stuff, which is nice to know and nice to know about yourself. At the same time, it's, it's your ability to actually broaden and actually have range, I suppose, in terms of what you can do.

Tony Gruebner: That's, that's, mm-hmm. That becomes much more important. Mm-hmm. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, and I think you've hit the nail on the head there, just around, you know, well, emotional intelligence. 'cause you know, you're managing large teams like that. It's all well in good saying, okay, we've got this goal, we've got this objective, but you've gotta have a temp gauge.

Lucy Bolan: You've gotta be able to sort of really, you know, the leaders you've said, sort of understand. Okay, well. You know, really the team's down, but why is it down, like, you know, culturally sort of identify that as you've said. What do you think like a, the a, a good CMO needs to have? You've mentioned a few things there, but anything you'd wanna sort of like hone into more?

Lucy Bolan: So, 

Tony Gruebner: I mean, I hate to give for the same reason we're just talking about, I hate to give sort of, uh, examples that are, you know, you have to be this, you have to be that you can't be this. Um, I think there has to be a range of things. Um. Back to my, back to my last point. But I think the CMO role has obviously changed a lot over the last 10 or 15 years with, there have been a digital and the need to, uh, they need to have people that are more numeric.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and they, the sort of art and the science of, um, of marketing have, have really, um, come together. And I think, I think in some regards, I think the. I mean, marketing broadly used to be about the art and then it's become much more about the science. I think we've probably over-indexed, um, towards the science.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and I think that it needs that right blend. And this is where it comes back to the point that I was making before around that how are you, um, you know, can you blend both of those things? Yes, I come from an analytical background, but I've had to make sure that I understand the. The art side of, of marketing, the branding side, all that kinda stuff, because that's all massively important.

Tony Gruebner: And that's essentially what a CMO is, um, a CMOs, I mean, it goes without saying, but A CMO is tasked with the whole of the marketing department. Yeah. They're not tasked with one part of it. Yeah. And so the person that can, you can, you can always hire a person that's brilliant at performance marketing. You can hire a person that's brilliant at these things.

Tony Gruebner: Um, but unless you bring it all together, and that's where that EQ point comes in. I think ironically, I think this becomes, you know, in, in some regards, I don't think any AI changes any of this, it just heightens it. Um, everything just gets amplified. And so the points that I'm making, I don't think the changes in an AI world.

Tony Gruebner: I mean, you mentioned, we, we talked a bit about eq. Um, as of yet, uh, chat gpt doesn't have eq. Um, uh, you know, it doesn't know when the team's down and you have to pick them up and all that kind of stuff, and that's where. Um, you know, those kind of skills, those human skills, if you will, uh, become even much, become much more important in that, um, uh, in an AI driven world.

Tony Gruebner: So, um, in, in short, in terms of what you're saying, I think the CMO has to really understand it has to be jack of all trades. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-hmm. 

Tony Gruebner: And the danger with that, um, the danger with that is how do you, how do you operate in this world of. I like to talk about the, the Dunning Kruger syndrome quite a lot because, um, you know, Dunning Kruger is where, you know, if you know a little about something, you, you overestimate your abilities and that.

Tony Gruebner: Mm-hmm. But I think the thing is with, with businesses becoming so complex and especially the CMO role becoming very complex, you operate all the time in this Dunning Dunning Kruger world. Yeah. You operate in this world where your staff will know more about this particular topic than you do. Um, and so the biggest skill you can have is how do I operate actually, well in that Dunning Kruger world when I might know a little bit about what you're talking about, but I don't know everything.

Tony Gruebner: I don't know as much as, you know. Um, and I think that's a skill in itself, and I think about really good leaders mm-hmm. Is the, is someone that can have that humility or the intelligence to really pick, or intelligent might be the wrong word, but the, the ability to pick things up quickly and at least, you know, sift through.

Tony Gruebner: Sift through the bull. If if yeah, if you need to or, um, uh, or, or pick up those things and operate in a world where, Hey, I don't actually really know what I'm talking about, but, but can I, but how can I, how can I still be efficient in that space? Um, and you find yourself in that world so much as a, as a CMO or any executive role, to be honest, because you, 'cause your, your remit is so broad and so wide.

Tony Gruebner: Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. I think naturally having that ability to sort of, I think also be quite vulnerable when you need to do as well, I think's gonna be important. Let's talk about, let's talk about ai. I guess one reason I was very keen to chat to you is 'cause I feel, you know, you, you've, let's be honest, like you've.

Lucy Bolan: I think shared on LinkedIn as well. You've also written a book, which I really also wanna talk about as well, AI for four CEOs. Um, so let's just, I'm just gonna ask, what is ai? 

Tony Gruebner: It's a really good place to start. Um, I mean, there's a lot of definitions and I mean, I think, I think, I think it's a really important place to start because I think it gets, AI gets sort of made into all these other things and I think we, we get well ahead of ourselves before actually sitting back and going, well.

Tony Gruebner: Well, actually, what is this thing? Um, and then the next question's gotta be, well, why? Mm-hmm. Um, which I think a lot of people jump two steps ahead and, and don't ask those questions. I mean, in, in my mind, and I've got a really, I try to keep things as simple as possible, a for my own head, but b, for communicating to others.

Tony Gruebner: But really it's about, it's about the automation of human thought in some regards. And it's, that's not actually strictly what AI actually is, but from a. For all intents and purposes, that's what it is. And so, I mean, automation is nothing new in businesses. I mean, um, right from the industrial age, which is, you know, over a hundred years old, like we've been trying to automate things, but we've been at, we, we've automated everything that doesn't require human thought.

Tony Gruebner: AI gives us the capability, um, doesn't necessarily mean it's always the right thing to do, doesn't even necessarily mean it's good for society. Um, but it gives us the capability to actually automate human thought. Um, and so when we're, when we're typing our stuff into Jet GPT, the amazing thing about it is that we're getting answers back, which are, there's no rules that have come up with those answers.

Tony Gruebner: So, yeah. Um, there's no, you know, there's no if then statement that's, that's working in the background to, to actually answer that. There's actually, it's a replication of human thought that comes through and so. Hopefully that's, I mean, that's oversimplifying what AI actually is, but for all intention purposes, that's what it is.

Lucy Bolan: I. You know, I get, well, I've asked this question to a few people and you get so many, as you said, we could go really deep. We can keep it really simple and I think the best way Yeah. To try and keep it as simple as possible, so at least you get more people trying to go, oh, okay, I get it now I understand.

Lucy Bolan: What's the, um, I guess, what are the practical ways. That you are seeing, because I think, you know, you have got this skillset where, you know, you've got this data analytics, you've been a senior marketer at an exec level. You also do have purposely really started to dig deep within the world of ai. So how do you see marketers starting to use ai, you know, within their daily roles in the future?

Lucy Bolan: Like how do you, what part's that gonna play? 

Tony Gruebner: Yeah, we're already seeing, I. A, a massive adoption in things like use of things like chat, GT and generative. Mm-hmm. Generative ai. Uh, most of it though is quite ad hoc and by ad hoc, I mean you, uh, a lot of people are probably using, um, accounts like chat GT accounts that probably aren't, um, uh, aren't even, they're not even allowed to use in the workplace.

Tony Gruebner: Um, oh yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-hmm. So, 

Tony Gruebner: and I, and I say that not to dob on people about their security thing, but I say that because it shows how. These systems are not properly integrated into workflows. They're not properly integrated. So a lot of it's ad hoc. A lot of it's people are using it because they find it incredibly useful.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and um, and the more and more I use of it, the more, more useful I find it and the better I get it using it. Um, and. Um, and the more I find that, the more it can do. But I think the next evolution has to be how do these things actually integrate, um, oh, at a really, really basic level. And I could give a hundred different sort of basic examples, but like I use, you know, you might use chat GPT to formulate what you wanna put in a PowerPoint if you're creating a PowerPoint slide uhhuh.

Tony Gruebner: Um, but I'm still copy and pasting that test text. Yeah. Across into, um, uh, into text boxes and Microsoft PowerPoint and, and all that kinda stuff, and formatting my slides and whatever. And when you actually add it up, I actually think, well, did I actually save any time here? Um, and maybe I didn't. Um, or maybe what I saved was negligible.

Tony Gruebner: Um, I think. How that actually integrates into our day-to-day working, where it comes to the point where the slides get automatically created. And I mean, this is, this is ha like this exists, don't get me wrong. Mm. But, um, uh, it still can, can sometimes be, sometimes be clunky and, um, it's still sort of in its evolution.

Tony Gruebner: But I think that integration point is really important. And one of the things that, I think, one of the things CMOs have to think about is, is this sort of saying that, uh, there's a sort of saying that for. SaaS product that's, that gets used. Um, there's going to be an AI replacement. Yeah. Um, I think that might be that, that's probably true in some regards, but I think the thing, interesting thing to think about is gonna be, well, let's just say we use eight different tools in our marketing department.

Tony Gruebner: Mm-hmm. Um, are we now gonna have eight AI tools that replace them, or are we gonna have one AI tool that replaces them? Like a, a chat GPT. Universal thing, or are we gonna end up with 25 different tools that replaces those, that replace those eight? And I think a lot of teams at the moment seem to be going down that path of that 25 because Uhhuh, they're gonna end up, um, because, uh, people in teams are just using their own stuff and bring it all in.

Tony Gruebner: And there's no real orchestrated thought around, well how does this actually gonna look and how do we integrate it? And. Um, I mean, all the AI tools are fantastic. I think that like, there's, there's so many good ones, and I know we talk about chat GT hallucinations and everything, but they're, they're getting less and less and, you know, people say, you know, do you use chat?

Tony Gruebner: GT do you use Gemini? Do you know, use this? Yeah, they're all good. Like, I think the point though is which one integrates better? Which one actually fits into the system better? I think that should be much more of the consideration in, in that, um, in that conversation. Mm-hmm. 

Lucy Bolan: What about, I guess I'm curious to know, I mean, one thing that I guess I probably get a little bit concerned to a degree, or maybe I just dunno enough about it, is what about the ethical components to this?

Lucy Bolan: So, you know, are there any sort of ethical concerns that you think that we should probably, you know, keep in mind when we're actually using ai? Like what would you say? 

Tony Gruebner: Yeah, I think, um, I mean, I think you're right to be, um, you're right to be concerned. I think it's, uh. We're already seeing it. And, and to be honest, I think there's a lot that we're not actually seeing, but we're seeing the outputs of it through, you know, social media algorithms and things like that.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and what impacts that that's had on the world. And essentially training people like the users of social media to, um, to act in certain ways and think in certain ways. Um, it's, but I think, I think the thing to consider here, and it goes back to what I was talking about before, is AI is the amplification of.

Tony Gruebner: What already exists. Um, and so that, that's why it's dangerous. It's not Dan, it's not necessarily dangerous. I mean, there are examples of this, but it's not necessarily dangerous because we're creating new problems. It's dangerous because we're amplifying the existing problems, um, much more so. So, um, you know, if, just using a sort of basic example, if you've got an insurance company that's working out how to do the premiums and.

Tony Gruebner: Um, the data tells us that certain ethnicities are, um, are more dangerous to, um, uh, need to have higher premiums because they're, um, uh, and, and then we give that to the hands of an algorithm without, without censor checking it. Um, you know, what does it do for those ethnicities or, you know, if it was gender or if it was, those kind of things.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and there's, there's hundreds of different examples along those, along those lines, and especially in the marketing space. I mean. I remember I was in a conversation, um, with a senior marketer who was working in a government agency. Mm-hmm. Um, and they sort of raised the point of how, uh, someone in their team came to them and they said, we, we need a, um, piece of Aboriginal artwork.

Tony Gruebner: But, um, we're struggling to find someone at the moment and it's very expensive. What we can find, um, can we use Midjourney to generate a piece of Aboriginal artwork? And their, their instant response. And everyone, everyone in the conversation that I was with, their instant response was, hell no. You can't do that.

Tony Gruebner: That's, that's deeply unethical for the government to be, you know, bypassing, um, uh, an aboriginal artist that could be getting paid, but at the same time, yeah. Then the question got expanded. Well, what if we were looking for a Italian piece of um, uh, artwork? Would that be okay to then bypass an Italian artist?

Tony Gruebner: Like, it very quickly gets into a world where you realize there is no rules on this stuff. There's no, yeah, there's no guide. And, um, we are gonna have to make our own rules as to what, as marketers, as to what we think is right and what we think is wrong. Um, and I mean, hopefully the government sort of catches up and, and think, but I think don't think you can rely on that.

Tony Gruebner: Um, it's not, not, that's not a dig on the government. It's just really challenging. The space is so fast moving. Um, so. Yeah, the ethical side is a, is a deep concern. Um, and I think it, I think businesses really need to, and, and senior leaders and businesses really need to be, uh, responsible for it. Just 'cause you can do something doesn't mean that you should do it.

Lucy Bolan: I wanna talk a bit more about your book. So why did you decide to write the book? 

Tony Gruebner: Good question. I was wondering that a few times as I was writing it.

Tony Gruebner: In some regards, it was cathartic for me. I mean, I mentioned before, I, I've worked with data sciences as they were called, building algorithms and, and doing some really cool stuff in this space. Um, uh, and I think that, sorry, so I had have quite a bit of a background in it, but I think, I mean, when Chachi PT was announced, everything sort of blew up in terms of ai.

Tony Gruebner: And the reason why everything blew up was all of a sudden everything was visible. There was an interface to ai. It doesn't mean that AI just all of a sudden existed. Um, yeah. At that moment. Um, and this, that was sort of the, you know, it's been a long sort of trajectory to get there. Um, and I think that, so I, I had a good background in this, but at the same time I felt like if anything else, I needed to find a quick way to refreshing and getting speed on, you know, what, what is happening and how quickly is this happening.

Tony Gruebner: And, um. If, if nothing else, forms, forms in my own views in my own head. Um, and one of the easiest ways to do that was, well, maybe it wasn't the easiest way to do it, but one of the ways to do this was to put this into a book and put this down into words. Um, and to really format it. I mean, I think writing a book was something I'd never really thought about doing.

Tony Gruebner: Yeah. But it always sounded cool. And I look up now and I see, I see a range of books on my bookshelf and my books there. That's pretty cool. Very 

Lucy Bolan: cool. 

Tony Gruebner: At the same time, I think, I think it was more so a cathartic experience for me just to, just to actually get my head straight around a, a lot of these topics because there was so much, um, swirling around about it.

Lucy Bolan: So the book is called AI for CEOs. So is this purely for, I mean, tell me like, who would you say the book is intentionally, you know, for, I mean, I, I've already had a bit of a summary and I've looked at it. It seems like you've gone down the whole, you simplifying what it is. It's quite similar to our conversation that we're having.

Lucy Bolan: So. Is it aimed at, I guess, educating businesses around the, the, the dos and don'ts or, 

Tony Gruebner: yeah, the tagline underneath that is the least technical book you'll ever read about ai. And there's times when it has to get somewhat technical because it's pretty hard to talk about AI without being technical. But I mean, I think, I think that the point is that it's.

Tony Gruebner: Uh, the AI for CEOs is obviously just a catchy title. It's, it's AI for senior leaders, um, and people that I think people that definitely, and, and this is probably most people, people that don't really understand what this AI thing is and how to apply it into their businesses. Um, and they need some strategic frameworks and some commercial oversight, and I think there's a real gap there because so much of what you read about AI is so technical and 

Lucy Bolan: mm-hmm.

Tony Gruebner: From a business point of view, the technical actually matters very little. Um, uh, I mean obviously you need to be understanding what's happening and, and you know, some of the little bits going on behind the scenes, don't get me wrong. But at the same time, AI is only useful if you're actually using it for stuff that makes sense.

Tony Gruebner: If there's a, essentially an end consumer that's going to, um, get value from it, um, and we lose sight of that so much, um, and we focus so much of, oh, this is great. We can do all this stuff. Versus, oh, actually, actually, these are the same problems we've been trying to solve. I mean, it's, um, it's customer experience.

Tony Gruebner: It's, it's trying to make sure that you mm-hmm. Create better experiences for your customer. Um, and there's a lot of AI that exists out there that doesn't do that. Um, yeah. Uh, because it's been built first with a technical mindset of, well, it would be cool to, it would be cool to build this. And then you try to work out what the product market fit for it actually is.

Tony Gruebner: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Um, rather than the opposite. And I know that goes without saying, and it sounds obvious that that should be the case, but so many people miss that trick. So from my point of view, I'm, I'm quite an evangelist for that sort of, that point around AI's only as useful as you, you know, the, the problems it's solving.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and so the book is very much based on that and very much based on this is. It gives some strategic frameworks and blueprint. Yeah. And, and starts to talk about, well, how do I set up my teams in the future? Um, and um, you know, how do I actually make this successful versus mm-hmm. Uh, versus just have these cool tools that end up, you know, doing some cool stuff, but they actually don't really moving the dial.

Tony Gruebner: They're not really moving the dial. 

Lucy Bolan: I think it's a, a great time to have it out in the market. Let's be honest. I think, you know, a conversations that I'm are. You know, various, you know, whether it be CMOs or GMs, et cetera. And you know, of course it is at the forefront for many people. And I think having that area around sort of team structures and, you know, there's a lot of people also quite concerned around, you know, the implications of ai, is my job gonna be safe?

Lucy Bolan: You know, all that scenario. Um, so yeah, definitely a good time to, to have it in the market for sure. I wanted to sort of, I guess, talk a little bit more around still to a degree around sort of ai, sorry, ai, but if you given everything that you now know, if you were, say, I don't know, going back to 25, 26 years old and you were starting off your marketing career, what, what areas or what key skills would you be absolutely going, okay, now that I'm looking into the future, what would you be really starting to harness on or well focus in?

Tony Gruebner: I dunno if this is a, this is a helpful answer, but I mean, I, I would say learn everything. Um, uh, like you need to, I, I, I've talked a lot around how you need those all around skills, especially in, in any role, but especially in marketing. Um, and I think AI really heightens the need for this. And so learn PPC, learn brand, learn, you know, even learn design even if you're not a designer.

Tony Gruebner: Learn, learn, design, because. You need those understandings and you need to, you know, I talked about the Dunning Kruger sort of curve before. Mm-hmm. You need to start working your way down the curve on so many different things. Um, and don't I, I think if you want to, I mean, if, if you wanna specialize and become really awesome at something within marketing, then, then great.

Tony Gruebner: Become, become the greatest PPC person in the world or become, um, you know, become fantastic at SEO or whatever. That's great. But if you actually want to progress and you want to, um. Become A-C-E-O-A CMO or you want to, um, become a senior leader, you need skills in, in a range of different areas. So I think find a way to learn everything and the good news on that.

Tony Gruebner: Now, um, you know, this is one of the, I think hopefully one of the benefits of AI is that I think learning those new skills, uh, or, or at least giving you the capability to learn those skills, new skills, will be much, uh, faster. Oh. Um, and I'm not just talking, I mean, there, there's ways that AI can sort of help.

Tony Gruebner: Train you. But I think as well as that, like even, you know, let's just say you're not a designer, so you don't have the, the skills to design, but there's AI tools out there that, you know, give you a massive leg up. Um, now you still need to, you still need to learn the basics of design. There's no AI tool that's gonna just create logos for you and, um, uh, you know, create beautiful Instagram creative or, or whatever.

Tony Gruebner: But I think that the, the leg up that you can potentially get from these AI tools is massive. Um, and so I think I'd leverage that as much as possible. So, yeah, I, I, I'm a big advocate for if you want to, if you want to get to that sort of level, you've gotta be a really good, all rounder, you've gotta understand a lot of spaces.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and like I say, every, every, every area has got a lot of complexities, but marketing probably more than any. And, um, and it's only becoming increasingly so as, as businesses become more complex and the world becomes more complex, and yeah, getting a handle on.

Lucy Bolan: I'm certainly, as a recruiter, seeing a lot more, you know, individuals coming into sort of be, you know, really wanting to harness and become a specialist. And I know that there's frustrations to a degree, you know, more the exec level going well, we've had to really fight to have a seat at the table as a CMO.

Lucy Bolan: So I guess my, that filters really nicely into my next question. What, what do you see or how do you see the future of the CMO role evolving? 

Tony Gruebner: I mean, I think the CMO role, I think. It's a tough question, but I think it'll become more of a, um, I mean, obviously the's stuff that I've talked about in terms of, in terms of having to broaden and, and it becomes more complex and, and all that kinda stuff.

Tony Gruebner: But I think, I think more than that, you become the conductor of the orchestra a lot more. I gonna take this back to how you need, think about your teams as, as a cmo, especially in an AI world, is I think that the teams that you create need to be. More filled with all rounders themselves because of, because I think that's in general, but also with the ai, um, aspect on it as well.

Tony Gruebner: And I think that's gonna be true for the CMO role as well. You need to be, um, you need to be much more and, uh, of an all rounder, and I think those, those deep specialist things, not all of it, but a lot of it will be replaced or supplement or heavily supplemented at least. Mm-hmm. By ai. Mm-hmm. So your ability as a CMO or any senior leader in a marketing space as to how do you bring all that together?

Tony Gruebner: You know, I talked about before the questions like, you know, are you gonna end up with 25 AI tools running around, doing nothing, doing not much, versus how are you actually, um, orchestrating that? So it's actually, you're actually creating workflows that are, um, uh, actually efficient. Same as same is true with your workforce.

Tony Gruebner: How are you? How's your workforce gonna be changing your, your team, I should say? How's, how's your team gonna be changing? Uh, I, I like to think about teams in terms of, uh, bandwidth and bandwidth and capability. So the whole reason you have a team set up the way you do is primarily bandwidth in terms of, you've got x amount of work to do, so you need X amount of people.

Tony Gruebner: But the other thing is capability, um, in terms of, uh, we need these particular tasks done or these skills, so we need to bring in those skills. And I think in the, um. In the past, a lot of the, um, this is, this has actually ended up with, we've ended up with marketing teams, which are very fragmented in terms of, you will bring in a PPC person, you will bring in a programmatic person, you will bring in a creative person, you'll bring in a creative video person.

Tony Gruebner: You'll bring in an SEO person, but you'll bring in a copywriter. I think that's going to, uh, I've called it sort of job bundling. I think those, those things are gonna start to blend more, um, or need to blend more. And it's not necessarily about trying to cut jobs, um, or trying to, trying to reduce the size of your team.

Tony Gruebner: I just think it's, I think people will have the capability with AI to do more and to stretch into other, other places. And I think that you're gonna need to create new jobs anyway. Like you might need to create. A video AI expert you might need to create Yes. Some of those things. So you need to free up what's existing.

Tony Gruebner: You can't, we can't just go down a path where we're just creating more specialized roles. 

Lucy Bolan: No. 

Tony Gruebner: Um, and the other thing is I think that teams function. I think that one of the problems marketing teams have got is because you have these such specialist roles. And we've needed to have such specialized roles.

Tony Gruebner: You end up with so many handover points in the process. Mm. Uh, you end up with, it has to go to the SEO person and then it has to go to the copywriting person. Yeah. And then, then it goes to the design team and all that kind of stuff. And those workflows are not particularly efficient. If we can actually reduce a lot of those steps by making, making sure our team can actually, uh, work across more areas, then we can actually make things more efficient.

Tony Gruebner: And so this is. Sorry, that's a long-winded way of, of coming around to sort of say, this is where the ZMO has to be the conductor of this. They have to, yeah. They have to create a plan that actually makes the team more efficient because you're being asked to do much more, um, uh, often with less. Um, yes. And I think that this is the way you've gotta actually be thinking about it critically.

Tony Gruebner: And it almost becomes like, you know, it, tech teams have been designed but like within an inch of their lives over, over the past sort of 10 or 15 years to make sure you can. You can get that efficiency through agile mm-hmm. Processes and all those kind of things. And I think marketing teams need to start thinking about their teams in a similar manner because, um, otherwise, you know, you, you have to have a very efficient marketing team.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely, absolutely. A question I'm getting a lot and, and, uh, it's hard for me to answer because my, my answer is I actually don't know, is. You know, what's my view like do you see, is it gonna be roles that are just absolutely no longer gonna be needed in marketing or you know, you mentioned like an AI videographer or you know, is it gonna be this influx of roles that you think, okay, we'll probably start to like upskill here 'cause we're gonna need it.

Lucy Bolan: Like, is there anything there that you, if you could look into your crystal ball that you potentially foresee? 

Tony Gruebner: Can I also say, I dunno. So, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah. Okay. I'll give you that. No, no, no. I 

Tony Gruebner: think, I mean, I, I don't know, but, um, I would be, I, I think this point that I'm making though around, um, I, one way or another, however it looks, people are gonna have to do a wider range of things.

Tony Gruebner: Yeah. Um, and I think that's, you know, when I, when even, even as far as going, when I think about my, my three kids gonna school and whatever, like, and how are they gonna, what are they gonna be educated for in the, in the 

Lucy Bolan: mm-hmm. 

Tony Gruebner: In the, once they sort of have careers and all that kind of. It, it has to be.

Tony Gruebner: They ha I think the one thing they have to learn is how to learn and how to, and it doesn't matter so much what they learn and they have to really get sort of quite broad with what they're doing. The roles will change, um, massively in marketing teams over the next few while, but whether or not it'll be less or more in a marketing team, I don't know.

Tony Gruebner: Um. Historically with automation, with increased automation, there has been more new role. The, the same amount of new roles sort of come in to replace the old roles and just in different ways. Um, I think that's what'll happen with AI to a large degree. Um, but at the same time, um, I think, I think if you are looking at future proof yourself.

Tony Gruebner: You have to be able to do a range of things because AI is, you think about it under this lens as well, AI's not that good at doing a range of things. Um, AI's very good at giving you specialist stuff, but in terms of actually putting all the pieces of the puzzle together, um, that's still very much a human skill, um, to be able to do that kind of stuff.

Tony Gruebner: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And to, you know, be, have those people skills and all that kind of stuff. That's all needed through leadership. That's, that's all always gonna be needed. Uh. Uh, so I think those are the kind of skills that you have to really, um, uh, work on and mm-hmm. To future proof your role. I think that's, that was, that's where we're both thinking.

Lucy Bolan: And just finally before we wrap up. I ask for anyone you know that is listening that you know, really wants to get up to speed, whether it be around, you know, marketing, leadership, ai, all the areas that we've covered today. Is there any books or resources? Obviously we've got your own, but is there anything that you would sort of recommend, um, or that's even helped you throughout your career?

Tony Gruebner: Yeah, it's a hard one. I mean, my, I got a cop out answer to this. My, my first answer would actually be. Not books or courses or anything like that. Yeah. Okay. My first answer has to be in some regards, imitation or it comes from talking to other people. Um, and it comes from, it comes from looking at others and what they do and taking things that they do really well and trying to apply that.

Tony Gruebner: And, you know, there might be things that they don't do as well. And trying not to apply that. I think that's where we really learn. Um, and that's where a lot of people, I think, I think a lot of people underestimate their ability to learn in that space. 

Lucy Bolan: I think 

Tony Gruebner: people also underestimate, I think if I was to give myself in the early sort of parts of my career, one bit of advice, it would be ask other people for that sort of palp or mentorship.

Tony Gruebner: You sort of have this sort of view in your, earlier, in your career that you know other people that have, have done these things. They, yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: You 

Tony Gruebner: know, they don't want to give you their time. That's actually very rare actually, when you find, um, most people actually love to give you their time. They love to talk about their journey.

Tony Gruebner: They love to actually give you help and advice and, and where they can. And so the first place I'd be going to is how do you, how do you learn from the others around you? Um, in your team or in your networks, in your, uh, wherever you can find people that are doing this successfully. Who can, who can I take out for coffee?

Tony Gruebner: Who can I, um, yeah. Who can I do those things? And you'd be surprised as well. You don't have to be too tactful about it. You don't have to like, you don't have to be too strategic. You have to go, this is the person I wanna talk to. Yeah. Because you might have a random conversation with someone and you know, there, there might be just elements that you can take outta the conversation that you never thought, um, you never thought might be useful.

Tony Gruebner: Mm-hmm. So that would be the first place I'd go to. And then obviously there's just so much stuff online these days. Yeah. Um, and I, I think, I think the thing that I'd be looking at. Is how do I, how do I find a way in terms of where I can put this stuff into real use? So how can I, no, no. Mm-hmm. Um, you know, if I'm doing a course or whatever, like instead of just doing the course or you know, even just reading a book or whatever, how can I actually try some of these things in the real world and, and, and, um, and work off them?

Tony Gruebner: 'cause that's where you're gonna get that sort of real feedback, um, and 

lucy Bolan: apply it 

Tony Gruebner: and whether or not that's in your job or whether or not you have to sort of create it. Um, I mean, I learned a lot about marketing from, because this is going back a long time ago, but, um, it was during the GFC and I couldn't get a job in London and I created a, uh, a dog bed website, um, selling dog beds.

Tony Gruebner: Um, and it, it was just about learning about marketing firsthand. Um, and, um, I learned basically how to market, how to do PPC, how to do SEO, how to do all those things just firsthand rather than trying to learn it from a book. Um. But yeah, buy my book anyway 'cause um, 

Lucy Bolan: little bit of a plug there.

Lucy Bolan: Oh, love it, love it. Well look, I've really enjoyed, it's been so good catching up. Thank you. I think, um. There's a lot then that you've said that. I don't know. It, it's really rung true to me, and I think, um, I, I really like how you've just been able to simplify a lot there as well. But, um, I think a lot of listeners are gonna go, aha.

Lucy Bolan: There's gonna be a couple of light bulb moments there, hopefully. 

Tony Gruebner: Thank you. Um, thank you very much from me on. I really, really enjoyed it. Thanks, Lucy. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Brilliant. Of,

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.

THE END

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 are seasoned marketer. Hiring CMO or simply just curious to understand what it really takes to step into the shoes of the CMO.

Lucy Bolan: This podcast is your backstage path to discovering what it's like to really 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 absolutely delighted. Today to be joined by one and only Liam l Lack. Welcome. 

Liam Loan-Lack: Thank you, Lucy, for having me. 

Lucy Bolan: You are very, very welcome. So I met Liam, gosh, I don't know, it feels like a couple of years ago we've had conversations, coffees, et cetera, kept in touch and I felt that Liam was gonna be the perfect person for this particular podcast 'cause of various different reasons.

Lucy Bolan: He's had a fantastic career. Not only that, he comes across fantastically charismatic. I feel like my listeners are gonna get so much out of this conversation today. So. Super excited putting you, putting you a little bit on a pedestal there. Um, so Liam, I'm gonna start with, can you please introduce yourself?

Liam Loan-Lack: Sure. So my name is Liam. Um, I'm currently, uh, in consulting or agency land. So I'm the, the Chief Commercial and Strategy Officer, uh, for an independent, uh, media and marketing agency called Matcham Wood. Before then, I was client side for many years. Um, so I was in, uh, CMO and, and broader commercial roles in financial services, uh, FMCG, uh, and then e-comm.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, and then all the way back, uh, when I was, uh, a young buck, uh, with, with hopes and dreams. Uh, I was a, I was a lawyer, um, back in the uk so I've had a, an interesting, uh, career development to get to, to where I'm today. 

Lucy Bolan: Right. There you go. So you were a lawyer before you got into to marketing? 

Liam Loan-Lack: That's right.

Liam Loan-Lack: So I was a, an intellectual property lawyer. Uh, and your listeners can tell from my accent, I'm, I'm guilty charged as a pom. So I was, uh, I was in the uk. Um, and I really enjoyed the, the study of law and, and, and fundamentally the relationships that people have with each other through the mechanism of the law and society as a whole.

Liam Loan-Lack: And I guess that's where my, my curiosity. In, I suppose, relationships that people have with intangible things began like intellectual property is an intangible good. Right? And a very valuable intangible. Good. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-hmm. 

Liam Loan-Lack: And so I guess looking back, perhaps I was always a closet marketer because at the end of the day, you know, you, we are monetizing something that is intangible in many instances as as market is.

Lucy Bolan: Absolutely. So, so what, I've gotta ask the big question. So why the change? Why, how, what made you go into marketing? 

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah, so I think there was a, there was a few reasons. If, if I look back now with the, uh, the experience I have and with a bit of a bit of gray hair, which is always helpful for, for context. Um, I, I think I realized that I enjoy taking risk and, and risk is something that lawyers are allergic to that, that that's not part of the profession.

Liam Loan-Lack: Their job and they're experts at it, is to compartmentalize risk. No, manage that. Whereas I like to be thinking about, okay, yes, we need to manage it, but what, let's talk about the upside and the opportunity too. And so I felt secondly that I wasn't getting that, that, that. Essentially all, all that vibe, I guess from working in a, in a, in a, in a type of law practice that I was working.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, then I, I left, um, actually without a job to go to. And so, um, the first thing I, I, I learned in my life, I guess when it came to my career was I. If it doesn't feel right, you've just gotta act on it. And sometimes, yeah, if you don't have a plan, that's cool too. And I didn't have a plan, like I didn't know what I wanted to do.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, I spent all this money on law school. I'd really pour my heart and soul into it, aged about 4,000 years. And, and, uh, I didn't have a plan, but I trusted the process. Um, I actually fell into executive search and recruitment for sure in London, really living the British stereotype. Um, and, uh, uh, uh, no, no further comments on that lu.

Liam Loan-Lack: But, uh, and, uh, and, uh, so did that for a while. Um, and then I fell into, into a multinational marketing agency, and it was a complete accident. Um, but I ended up loving it. So that's, that's a bit of the real story behind how I fell on ball. 

Lucy Bolan: I really like that. You've just shared that with me. Thank you.

Lucy Bolan: Because actually I, I mean, I, I, yeah, I didn't realize that you'd actually been a lawyer beforehand. And it's interesting because. I've had a few CMOs and you know, leaders that I've interviewed, and there's a common theme there that something that resonates with me. If it doesn't feel right, you don't have to stay in it, you know, and I think that comes down to if you've got a, you know, a leader that you're not gelling with or it's a culture or a team or you know, whatever it is, there's always options, you know, to some degree.

Lucy Bolan: So is this when you were your first marketing role? Going back a bit here. So this was in agency was okay? Yeah, yeah, this was in London. And so it wasn't long when you were in there before you then moved to Australia. Is that right? 

Liam Loan-Lack: That's right, yes. So I was into public group, um, which now of course been, uh, acquired by Al Media Group, so won't exist in, in the, in the medium term.

Liam Loan-Lack: So I was there big American. Um. Firm, and I loved the, the pace of agency and consulting life. And what I loved in particular was I felt like I understood clients, oh, the way that other people in the agency business didn't, or I, or at least I understood them differently, I guess. Uh, that probably came from my years of advocacy training and all, and, and they coming at it genuinely from the, the angle of the business problem, the risk and the upside, and agencies talk about.

Liam Loan-Lack: We care about the business outcome. They, they say that until the cows come home. But I guess I really meant it and, and I was very ardent. In my, in my resolve to make sure that the things we were proposing to the client was absolutely fit what they required. Um, and, and, and I guess that was, that was distinctive.

Liam Loan-Lack: And, and I had a style which was, which was quite, uh, progressive. I was probably a bit too cheeky in a few meetings. Uh, and I was, and I, and I was very direct. And I think clients found that refreshing, or at least that was my, that was my outtake from it, that some probably found me quite annoying and precocious.

Liam Loan-Lack: But yeah, you, you, you, you can't be any, everyone's cup of tea. And I certainly, I certainly learned that, um, early on and, and I guess I left the UK so I was running the, the Amazon business for UK and Ireland, a great account. Um, my boss was crazy enough to have promoted me like six times in like four years.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, and, and that was awesome because. She really believed in me and she and I learned the value of having a leader 

Lucy Bolan: Wow. 

Liam Loan-Lack: Who didn't feel threatened by you and, and, and really gave you the opportunity, gave you that stage, is what I, and created that stage for you to perform. Um, and, and, and that was a key lesson.

Liam Loan-Lack: And, and that stood me in good stead for when I've subsequently, um, I worked in the US for a bit and then back to the uk and then went to, um, to Australia. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. Wow. I mean, it's impressive. And, and I think now you've, you know, you've been CMO, you've taken client side roles, you've definitely progressed and, and gone through the, the ranks.

Lucy Bolan: When you look back now, do you feel that having that agency experience early on in your career was a solid, you know, big tick for you in, I mean, would you recommend others to potentially go that, that way or, 

Liam Loan-Lack: yeah, great question. So. I have a few views on this. So, so of course I would say, 'cause I've gotta own my bias that my agency experience has stood me in good stead.

Liam Loan-Lack: Right? Um, why do I say that? And I'll also give you some views on why that is perhaps not the, okay. 'cause I wanna be trying balance as possible. So the reason I say that is a, a consultant or an agency person, let's say. He's able to grasp things on average. This is a generalization. Of course. There's always variance very, very, very quickly, and they add value very, very, very quickly.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, I have noticed when I've been client side, people who do not have the agency experience and our client side are, their pace is not there. Their sense of urgency isn't there. Um, and, and they just don't get it quick. Of course, there are outers, right?

Liam Loan-Lack: There is something important and valuable to be said for really having a considered point of view and being able to move at a pace which isn't like a velocity of a hundred miles an hour, but is more considered and bringing a business on the journey. Right. Being your stakeholders around the journey, being patient with the way a business makes decisions because everyone makes decisions differently.

Liam Loan-Lack: And those type of skills are really something that, of course, people who've been clients side their whole life, they really get, they get that stakeholder management and, and the other, the other overlay I would add to that, Lucy is, and agencies on the whole are spec, are specialists. They're really good at like that one, one corridor or maybe quite a wide corridor things.

Liam Loan-Lack: When your client side, you are more, you are more generalist. 

Lucy Bolan: Ah. 

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, and so I have seen it where it's difficult and challenging for people to go from agency side into a generalist client side role. Yeah. Having said that, I did do that myself. Um, and, and it, but it, and it, but it was challenging. So I guess in, in some, I do feel like it's stood me in good stead.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, but I do have to catch myself because. You, there are some very significant downsides as well, so you do have to be quite aware those things. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. Well certainly, you know, when I've been hiring. You know, if you've got hiring managers that have been and walked that walk where they've also been agency side, they're a lot more open to getting, you know, talent that's come from, from that sort of, you know, that background as well.

Lucy Bolan: It's, um, an interesting, um, yeah, it's an interesting conversation to have. It 

Liam Loan-Lack: is. And, and all I would say for your listeners, if they are hiring managers on the call, um, and, and listening. I, I would strongly suggest when you're dealing with exec, such partners like Lucy or, or, or others, that I wouldn't make the brief prescriptive and go, they must be from client side or, or indeed they must be from agency side, like we are all marketeers, all of us, and what I've, what I've found quite interesting moving from the UK, working in the us, then moving here to Australia, there is 100%.

Liam Loan-Lack: This strange, I don't know, divide, let's call it. I've had client side marketeers say to me off the record, oh, li I avoid agency side like plague. I'm never doing that. And, and, and they seem to believe that they're, they're some, some way down the supply chain, I guess. And, and, and I don't buy that in the uk.

Liam Loan-Lack: I really was, because I learned craft of marketing there and the trade there. I really understood the value of an agency and the value of a client who really understood how to get best out of an agency, right? Mm. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-hmm. And, and 

Liam Loan-Lack: many and the amount of super senior clients who have swapped between agency, super senior, they've gone to different adjacent roles.

Liam Loan-Lack: Like in the uk that's very common. I don't, I feel like. Australia is a bit more parochial, a bit more conservative when it comes to that viewpoint. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah, I would agree. I would agree. Curious, maybe a little bit more of a personal question here, but have you always been, you know, have you always had that ambition to get to, you know, CMO or gm?

Lucy Bolan: Were you ever scared of becoming a leader? 

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah, good question. Um, the short answer is no. Um, why though? Um, I think leadership can be taught. Uh, it management can certainly be taught, leadership can be taught, but to a lesser extent. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-hmm. 

Liam Loan-Lack: I, I have always felt that my, my really Lucy, if I was to write a one line cv, my biggest skill and the only skill that I'd say really matters is I have a high level of empathy and emotional intelligence.

Liam Loan-Lack: That's really what I have. 

Lucy Bolan: That's 

Liam Loan-Lack: all. 

Lucy Bolan: And, and 

Liam Loan-Lack: the more senior you get in business, the more that matters more because you are less removed. You actually have less control the more senior you are, which is bizarre, but you actually have less. And, and so I, I realized, I suppose young on that I was more attuned to, to this as a, as a concept.

Liam Loan-Lack: Than others. And I, and I, I, I had my first, um, uh, direct rapport when I was like, uh, 21. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Liam Loan-Lack: So it was like, oh gosh, what'd I do with, but the poor guy, um, I, so, you know, and so I, I definitely, uh, learned quickly. That if you really don't consider people's thoughts, feelings, reactions, all the basics, then that can really land you in some awkward places, right?

Liam Loan-Lack: And so mm-hmm. You can get some incredible output, learn and grow together if you leverage your emotional intelligence. And so that's why I'm, I knew early on that I, I had the leadership streak Yeah. Me because I knew this was probably my overdeveloped skill. But then having said that, Lucy, you know, I, I, in the roles that I've subsequently got.

Liam Loan-Lack: I've constantly struggled because you oscillate between being an effective manager. Being an effective leader. Mm-hmm. And, and I would say that there is so much blurring of those two things and it, yeah. And it's, it's, it's a mentally an energetically exhausting thing to move between being visionary.

Lucy Bolan: Meeting 

Liam Loan-Lack: in the truest sense and being really bolted on, buttoned down on the process, the deliverables, and making sure we've got the right operational structure. And I guess for the, from my experience in small senior roles, it, it's an exhausting kind of seesaw between those two things. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah. And as, as you've developed as a leader, I mean, you mentioned, you know, one leader that you worked with before who, you know, gave you that, you know, life 

Liam Loan-Lack: in, in my, so, 

Lucy Bolan: yeah.

Lucy Bolan: So I mean, would you, would it be fair to say that you've also been inspired by other people around you and other leaders? And also I'm sure you've witnessed, you know, some behaviors that you kind of go, well, I definitely don't wanna be like that. 

Liam Loan-Lack: Yes, certainly, certainly. So look, there, it, it takes all sorts to make a world, Lucy.

Liam Loan-Lack: Is, is what what I would say. And, and I guess being both managed and then being a manager has taught me a lot about myself. Right. And I've definitely experienced, uh, a, a very poor experience with a, with a manager who was. Absolutely brilliant in delivering results. Like, just like I was in awe of this person in awe.

Liam Loan-Lack: Wow. But at what cost? 

Lucy Bolan: Ah, and, 

Liam Loan-Lack: and the means in their mind justified the end. And I definitely observed that there was a tolerance around, um, that. In the particular business that I was in, because the reality was, is that the results were being delivered. And I, and, and I took that as the lesson of, wow, I never want to be that person.

Liam Loan-Lack: And but it was hard though because at the time you, you are kind of, you are wrapped up in the need to deliver the need, deliver a commercial result, and it was coming. And so you kind of, everyone turns a blind eye to that. So that, that was a, that was a real, uh, interesting learning experience for me. And then on, on, on the flip side, on a more positive experience.

Liam Loan-Lack: To answer the other part of your question, I've a, a leader I've had subsequent in my career, um, they taught me the value of simplicity. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Liam Loan-Lack: So not, not only when you get more senior, your emotional intelligence becomes more important and you have less control. Ironically, the, the more important the value of just relentless simplicity.

Lucy Bolan: Mm. Mm-hmm. 

Liam Loan-Lack: If you cannot say it in two sentences, don't say it. Yeah. Because you need to be able to orchestrate your team, orchestrate the wider business, and if you can't create that reductive simplicity, you either don't understand it, you haven't defined the problem, or you don't have all the information.

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah. Huge lesson for me, which was like leveling up. 

Lucy Bolan: I think you've just nailed that. When you say simplicity, I could say the same when, you know, I've interviewed marketing directors or CMOs and I say, what have you done? And they've done 101 million things. But if I ask the question, you know, what have you been tasked with doing when you took this role?

Lucy Bolan: I. You know, I met with someone recently and they just like, again, did what you did. Simplicity. It was in one sentence, I did dah, dah, dah, dah. And it was just, I got it and I thought, well, if I get it like that, my clients will. Perfect. 

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah. And, and, and that's the, the nub, isn't it, Lucy? Because here's the reality in the information age that we live in 

Lucy Bolan: mm-hmm.

Liam Loan-Lack: The, the stuff that travels the quickest and has the most impact is the simplest stuff. Not, not necessarily the most technically brilliant. Not necessarily even the right answer for something. Yeah. In the stuff, which is an easy get. That's Yeah, exactly. So, yeah. Yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: exactly. So as you've developed, you've become, you know, as we said, more senior, you've got to, have you had to work on personal branding?

Lucy Bolan: Like, has that been something that you've had to, and I know people kind of kind of go, oh God, what that word, you know, what does that word mean? But what does that word mean to you when we say personal brand? 

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah. Um, good question. I think it means having a point of view. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm, is, 

Liam Loan-Lack: is my first one. Um, I remember it doesn't make, it doesn't make me laugh.

Liam Loan-Lack: My first boss, who I mentioned who was awesome and she's still one of my mentors today. Uh, and uh, she, I remember she said to me before a client meeting, it was so random, she's, she was like, oh, Liam, do you know what you need? You need like a big pair of like, you know, lime green glasses or statement blazer, something to like, you know, something to like, uh, you know, make you stand out, build, build your personal brand.

Liam Loan-Lack: Uh, and I think I was, I was, uh, I was really cheeky and direct even about then, and I, and I said to her, I was like. I don't think I, any props stand out. Like was, was my, was my response. Uh, and, uh, and I, I'm reflecting on that. I, I definitely think, yeah, a point of view, as I said, is, is the thing like stand for something in, in business and genuinely in life, right?

Liam Loan-Lack: You know, reflect your character should reflect. Things that you really passionately believe in and, and in our industry, what, what, what my, I believe my point of view is, and you do have to be relentless and simple and consistent in this point of view, is I'm interested in, in initiatives. Um, that really professionalize our industry.

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah. Uh, what I loved about the law was that it was a really solid profession. There were like these hallmarks of being a royal life, this set pathway. Mm. Big things you had to do, like external accreditation. There was a value to the profession moving into marketing. It's like the wild west. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Liam Loan-Lack: And, and, and that's both annoying, let's be honest.

Liam Loan-Lack: Mm-hmm. It's also a great source of opportunity and I choose to see the opportunity more than I see the annoyance. 

Lucy Bolan: Mm-hmm. And so 

Liam Loan-Lack: my personal brand, I believe, is about anything which is helping professionalize our industry, creating codification, creating more evidence about the things that we do. Because if, if I.

Liam Loan-Lack: That doesn't just help me in my career. That raises the bar. The tide rises for everyone. And so that, that's something I hope and believe my personal brand is, is about. Um. Mm-hmm. And then, and then aside from that, you know, Lucy, I think. Everyone has a distinct communication style and nces and as I said earlier, I'm very direct.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, I don't shy away from an awkward conversation. I'm pretty cheeky. Um, and, and, and that is, that's the things that should just come out. If you can bring more self to work, um, I, I hope that people can bring their whole selves to work. Um, that's a broader conversation on, uh, on the way that workplace practices are involved.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I think, um, lots of valid points there. In terms of, I guess everything you've learned now, now that you are, you know, at the height of where you've been, and as I said, taking these senior roles in the past, when you look back, do any, like, what advice would you give to say your 28-year-old self?

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah, probably two things. I. I personally probably leaned in a bit too much into the, the, like being hardcore, like at work. Like I used to work weekends to get something done and hit up a deadline and, um, I was, yeah, and, and like this was pretty regular because I was so committed to a good outcome. I think I would tell my 28-year-old self, actually, if you are doing it, that probably means you haven't delegated it effectively.

Liam Loan-Lack: You, you are trying to be the hero. Mm. And, and you're not probably being a team player, okay? So think about that, because in business you achieve nothing alone. So that's probably the first advice I would give because I think the narrative around youth are, people are more youthful than myself and just youthful generations.

Liam Loan-Lack: Gen Z, gen Alpha, I think. There's this, this, I believe there's this narrative of, you know, you've just gotta work so hard to succeed. You've gotta put in all the hours. You've gotta, yeah. You've gotta beat everyone else. You know, you've gotta be like this piranha at work. And, and, and, and I don't buy that.

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah, and I think the problem is that now's quite dominant, so how do we create a more collegiate mentality around success? So that would be my first advice I would give. Um, and, and the second one, I think it would be a bit more patient because I, I do think I was pretty bullish. I want to try client side, uh, as quickly as possible because yeah, I, I wanted the next challenge and I'm, I'm, I'm an impatient person and I, and I do feel there's a level of impatience that people have as they go up through their careers.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Liam Loan-Lack: The older I get, the more I learn the actually. A career is not a linear journey. It's a gen adjacent journey. It's a, it's sometimes a step down. Heaven forbid you wanna take a step down, right? Like, you know, but, but life happens and you've got to be able to have patience. Mm-hmm. As long as you are growing or if you are teaching, mentoring and coaching others.

Liam Loan-Lack: Don't adding tremendous value and you are still growing as a person anyway by doing those things. So I think a healthy level of patience, um, would also have stood me in, in, in bedstead. So they're the two things. Um, I would've said, don't think, think about the collegiate mentality of success and then a bit patience would be some advice.

Lucy Bolan: I think that's well answered. I think I would also, uh, be on the patient, uh, yeah, I'd be in the patient bucket as well, that's for sure. Not very patient. Um, I wanna ask, I wanna ask as well, so I do speak to a lot of individuals who, let's call it, you know, mid-management level. They're at that, you know, period in their career where they're starting to think well.

Lucy Bolan: I might be on that sort of 1 40, 1 50 mark. I really wanna get to the 180, 200 plus and it can be a really hard, you know, window to break through. Yeah. Nowadays in, you know, the economy and what we're seeing and there's a lot that I think in doing it very much because, you know, it's there in their view, it's the only way they're gonna make that 200 k plus plus plus mark.

Lucy Bolan: But then, you know, I, I do try and sort of give them that option and say, well, look, you know, you can still earn a really decent living, but you don't have to manage teams because it's almost, until you've actually done it and been there, that's when you are managing a team. And then people go, oh. What have I signed up for?

Lucy Bolan: Like, this isn't what I wanna do. So what advice, in a long word about question, what advice would you give someone who's really starting to think about, well actually now I wanna go for the top stop. This is what I want. You know, what would you say to them? Yeah, you need to be bad for, 

Liam Loan-Lack: um, well be careful what you wish for is, and, and then I would share, I'd share an anecdote, which is.

Liam Loan-Lack: Um, you know, I spent most of my years in middle management wanting a bigger team, and then when I got a bigger team, all I wanted to do was kind of get rid of my direct ball, right? So, 

Lucy Bolan: you know, 

Liam Loan-Lack: uh, so you know, like this is the beauty and the sting of business, right? People, right people, human capital, that is the thing, which is all that matters in business, I think.

Liam Loan-Lack: We have this, uh, overlay at the moment with technology being so important. Of course, ai, of course, I've got, yeah. Being so important. Yes. But at the end of the day, it's still about people. And if you are in a middle like management level role between the brackets that you talked about there. My advice is think about instead of trying to collect people and, and, and, and like, and departments or, or capabilities, think about the, the ongoing legacy that you can leave for your business.

Liam Loan-Lack: So, for example, um, have they, have they ever done a brand campaign before? Do they need a new marketing technology suite? They do an audit for that. Think about projects that you can yourself to that, that perhaps aren't even in your direct scope. Perhaps they're slightly adjacent to which you can go, I wanna actually run and own this, and I will put in the hours to to, to wrangle stakeholders, to get suppliers on the hook to deliver the commercial business case.

Liam Loan-Lack: Mm-hmm. If do things like that you showing. Not only are you committed to your business, but you are more, you are more concerned about legacy rather than collecting pieces on a chess board in like a Game of Thrones kind of fashion. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. If you 

Liam Loan-Lack: do that, you gotta to point to that and go, that was something that I delivered commercially off.

Liam Loan-Lack: I'm back with this support, without the support that is more valuable and more interesting as a hiring manager. When I've hired clients, the hiring agency side, than being, than people saying, oh, I've managed a budget of 20 million. I've had a team of 14. I don't care. I actually, I, I care about what Incremental commercial return you've delivered.

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah. And if you've been a nice person whilst doing it and, and not burn everyone on the way. So that, that's some of the advice I would, I would give. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Thank you. Do you see the CM O changing? Because you know, if you think. Looking at the mid-management level in say, I don't know, maybe five years or eight years time, these people might get to that.

Lucy Bolan: Like, I mean, I'm seeing these titles now. I think we even touched, touched on this chief growth officer and you know, all these, do you, how do you see that? Do you see, see it's almost changing or sitting within a different function in the future. 

Liam Loan-Lack: So I was speaking with, um, a very reputable exec search partner in the UK because I've got, still got lots of connections in the uk.

Liam Loan-Lack: And they said to me that, Liam, we don't even use the word marketing now in the, in, in the briefs that we get for marketing type roles because it, it sniffs of unaccountability and, and lack of commerciality. We're actually talking, we're actually talking about chief customer officers. Mm-hmm. 

Lucy Bolan: Chief 

Liam Loan-Lack: experience officers.

Liam Loan-Lack: Right. And, and so that was really interesting. So is the marketing role dead? Who knows, but I won't go into that subject. So. I do think that we are already seeing that disruption of the CMO role. You only need to look at. The way in which marketing technology has arisen in importance. The, the import, the gr, the, of course the importance of the meta and Googles of this world.

Liam Loan-Lack: Technology and marketing is now one and the same thing. The challenge we have with that technology comes a massive legal compliance, 

Lucy Bolan: ah, 

Liam Loan-Lack: burden, which marketers now rapidly trying to upskill on. Mm-hmm. 

Lucy Bolan: And 

Liam Loan-Lack: not only that, post covid. My, my, my opinion of what's happened there is to the CMO role budgets have never been rebased to anything like they were pre covid.

Liam Loan-Lack: They were a horse cut, and they were never based back to where they should have been proportionately or otherwise. And so now, um, marketers have been drawn more into the world of finance, which is a good thing. But the same time they've been ragged into the regulatory burdens of technology, which is now the same thing with the marketing profession Now.

Liam Loan-Lack: So the role of A CMO has never been more confused. 

Lucy Bolan: Ah, the 

Liam Loan-Lack: CMOs I, I speak to when I was a CMO, whilst I worked in brilliant businesses, like I really, I was so lucky to work in the business I worked in. Um, it, it was nevertheless still challenging. Like you are, you are constantly prove, try, proving value. Um, and, and I always had good experiences with my.

Liam Loan-Lack: Client side companies I know of other CMOs who, who have, are not having good experiences where every day it is trying to justify the value and, and everyone's still having an opinion on marketing, which as a profession every day is still so different given technology is one. And the same thing with marketing.

Liam Loan-Lack: So it, the role is, has changed fundamentally, and I actually don't think in the future. We will have CMOs. I think it will be the top of the tree for marketing will be. Yeah. Chief customer, customer asset. Yeah. Chief. I don't even think, I think marketing as a, as a, as a, a name for our profession, I'll be phased out and it will be growth marketing, product marketing.

Liam Loan-Lack: Yeah. As, as more splinters off of that. 

Lucy Bolan: When you've progressed and developed, was there any, I guess, thought leaders or would you advise any, you know, marketing managers out there to read a specific, is there anything that really grabbed you, Ted Talks, any resources that you'd say, you know what, I'd definitely recommend jumping on board this.

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. 

Liam Loan-Lack: So I, I was very fortunate. Um, I, I was part of the, um, I am part of the Marketing Academy alumni, so that's, uh, an amazing. Development course, if I can call it that. It's so much more than just the development course though. And, and through that, um, when I was on that cohort in 2020, I experienced an enormous way of incredible thought leaders, um, and, and coaches who really inspired or provoked me on my journey.

Liam Loan-Lack: So check out the Martin Academy as my short answer, but outside of that. Um, uh, there's, there's one book I always come back to by, uh, John k called, uh, obliquity, which is essentially about how if you wanna achieve something, the best way to get there is actually indirectly, it's more lesson for life. And that, that lesson has stood me in a lot of good stead over my years on this earth.

Liam Loan-Lack: So I'd, I'd recommend that. Um, and then the final thing I would say is, um, you are in, you are firmly, firmly in charge of your own career. Yeah. We expect anyone else to do it for you. You are not just in the driver's seat. You are the car, you are the engine. Right. You are, you are it. So you have to go and find.

Liam Loan-Lack: The things that speak to you because there there's not shortage of, of people out there. Um, go, you're gonna go to some talks, they're gonna be crap. You're gonna go to some, you're gonna be like, that was weird. Then you're gonna find some that, that are genuinely like, wow, this really speaks to me. So it's your job to give you your brain some food and go and go and experience that.

Liam Loan-Lack: So, um, be provocative. Go out there and attend. There's so much out there, right? Yeah. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah, absolutely. And finally, my final question. I've, I've so enjoyed listening to you, honestly. I feel I could just listen to another hour, but we've got one more question. Oh, no, no. Listen 

Liam Loan-Lack: to that. No, no, no.

Lucy Bolan: Um, what would be your lasting legacy that you'd hope to leave, but in the industry? I know you're not dead yet, but, 

Liam Loan-Lack: uh, no, no, no. Not, not yet. Um. I would love to be able to contribute to the industry per what I said earlier, and have played a role of some sort in. Creating a, a shared professional pathway into our industry.

Liam Loan-Lack: So, you know, uh, in all universities there's this, there's a, there's a syllabus or curriculum, which isn't just academic, but super practical, right? Mm-hmm. And we have some type of formalized way to get into our industry. So we have standardized skillset, uh, ev uh, at every level of our industry. So when you're recruiting for a marketing manager, you are the skillset when you're recruiting for, um.

Liam Loan-Lack: Someone who's a consultant in, in agency business, these are the skill sets. If I could contribute to that, I feel like we would have a better economic output as, as an industry, we'd be taken for want of a better word, more seriously. Mm-hmm. Um, in, in, in corporate Australia. And, and thirdly, um, I'd love to do that, to help, um, Australia and and a NZ have more of a, uh, more of a heavyweight punch when it comes to our industry on a global scale.

Liam Loan-Lack: So that, that's what I'd love to be able to contribute. 

Lucy Bolan: Yeah. Well I'm sure you are over halfway there. I have no doubt. Well, Liam, thank you so much for your time. I've thoroughly enjoyed listening to you. I think, um, yeah, our listeners are gonna find this so fascinating. Um, I know you're quite active on LinkedIn, so I'm sure perhaps if anyone wants to reach out to you, be welcome.

Lucy Bolan: Connect more than welcome. 

Liam Loan-Lack: I mean, for my personal brand, I have to be on LinkedIn, right? I don't have lime green glasses, so I've gotta do something. Yeah, 

Lucy Bolan: exactly. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

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

THE END