Over the past few months, Setup has highlighted prominent women marketing leaders who are making waves in their field. From advice on how to form stronger networks to advice on carving a place in a male-dominated field, these stories come from leaders of different backgrounds, industries, and passions, and are both inspirational and informative. 

Featured today are stories from marketing leaders at Robert Bosch LLC, Fiserv, and Regal Cinemas. 

Meet the leaders:

Q1: What inspired you to pursue a career in marketing?

Duraes: I never worked in another area because my entire career has been in marketing. It’s my real passion. I love communication, social sciences, and creating solutions to connect companies with their customers. I cannot imagine myself working in something different.

Welch: A mentor of mine once taught that marketing is math plus psychology. I believe that’s what drew me to it. I’m naturally a numbers person. Metrics and measuring are important; I like everything to add up neatly. The “why” is also very intriguing to me. Understanding what makes people act and buy, then creating something that can influence that is fun. Combining those two things to create marketing campaigns allows me to be finite and use creativity all together. It’s the best of both worlds. 

Hawkins: In college. It took one marketing class to have me smitten with promoting and sharing experiences. There, I recognized my love of creativity could be called “work.” I also went to the movies a lot during this time and thought, “Wow, this is the industry I want to work in.” This dream became a reality when given a shot to be a marketing intern at the corporate office of Regal in my hometown of Knoxville, TN. I handled things from opening mail to emptying trash, but was also given the amazing opportunity to be included in my mentors’ meetings. These opportunities enabled me to soak in the information that would eventually be used when moving my career forward, all while showing that I have the ‘whatever it takes’ mentality. After graduation, I knew I wanted to stay on this career path; however, there were no openings in marketing, so I took a job in newspaper advertising. This provided me a whole new skillset, and when a job opened in marketing, I transitioned to a position that had me working in the field helping open theatres and engaging with the employees that make our theatres run so successfully. These stepping-stones were important in my growth at Regal, as I then transitioned to my current area of focus, leading our corporate marketing with loyalty and partnerships. Working in other areas under the marketing umbrella while also working with our operations team helped to drive forward my 360 approach to being as well rounded as possible in all facets of our business. Also, I am a multi-tasker by nature and like that no day is going to be the same. At every corner, there is something new happening, and as a person who loves hats, working in marketing has given me the opportunity to wear many.

Q2: Are there specific challenges you have faced as a woman in marketing and how did you overcome them?

Duraes: Honestly I never faced challenges for being a woman. In the beginning of my career I had to deal with lack of confidence due to my young age. All the judgments related to my age were frustrating, but I always made clear that I don't negotiate respect - this positioning helped me a lot. I can tell you that respecting others, and making clear that you want to be respected as well is the best way to overcome challenges, especially when related to stereotypes.

Welch: Unfortunately, one of the hardest things I’ve faced is something all too common for women in general. An inappropriate look, uncomfortable words, or a weird insinuation in the workplace that is laughed off as a joke. Degrading comments said to coworkers you hear about second-hand. A story of harassment that unfolded through tears day by day until you finally have had enough. I overcame it by getting away from it and making sure when I did, that no one else would have to experience it. I shared my experiences with HR and I was told that upon my exit from the company, a new sexual harassment training program was put in place. 

Hawkins: Challenges are not in my vocabulary, but looked at as opportunities to make things better. The opportunities that I have experienced have shaped me into being a more confident marketing executive and leader. I know that seeing in my team what they don’t see in themselves and encouraging them to pursue and expand their talents makes them better…and their success is my success is Regal’s success.

Q3: Who is someone that helped you on your current path to becoming a marketing leader? 

Duraes: I’m an observer and learn with people all the time. Regarding leadership, I would say that my team has always been essential to my leadership skills development.

Welch: When I think back across my marketing career, the person who stands out as helping me begin to really become a leader would be my manager at Cisco, Kathy Ditto. This role under her leadership was the first time in my career where I was given the opportunity to truly lead and run my own programs. Prior to this position, I managed marketing, but it was always under the shadow of another leader who was calling the shots. It wasn’t until I worked for Kathy that I was given the opportunity to spread my wings and really show my true ability. She let me build my own campaigns and execute on them with zero micromanagement, only her guidance and expertise as I needed them. This really helped me to step into who I could be and form the leadership skills I always had but was never able to live up to in former roles. I appreciate her management style and that she entrusted me with the role she’d hired me to do. Sometimes to truly see someone’s potential, you must be willing to let go and let them have full reign to show you what they can do for you. She let me do that and I am grateful. This helped shape me into who I am today and how I will lead others.

Hawkins: While there have been several mentors in my career, a person who has helped me in my current path to becoming a marketing leader is my CMO, Ken Thewes. He has continued to push boundaries of critical thinking and tasked our teams to be innovative leaders while not settling for how things have been done in the past but to make them better and more efficient. This way of thinking and motivation has helped me lead a team in marketing that has transformed the loyalty program and launched a new paid subscription arm in Regal Unlimited. Additionally, my team has taken on management of the consumer insights to let the data drive our decisions and are also managing the customer service team that helps make the entire customer journey come full circle into our marketing plans.

Q4: What advice would you give to the next generation of women marketers?

Duraes: Be curious!!! Curiosity will take you far.

Welch: Never stop learning. Find a smart marketing mentor or two or three to follow. Don’t discount the “old” ways of marketing - they still work. Don’t wait until you are in your forties to have confidence in yourself. Marketing is a practice. Don’t be afraid to try something. It may work, it may not. The key is to measure it and learn from it. If it worked, repeat it. If it almost did, tweak it and repeat it. If it didn’t work, move on. 

Hawkins: My advice to the next generation of women marketers is that growth begins and ends with you. Never stop pushing forward out of your comfort zone and never let stereotypical categorizations of women determine how far you succeed as you are the driver of your own destiny.  

Q5: What were pivotal moments in your career that contributed to your success?

Duraes: Definitely the moments where I’ve invested in my personal development. From graduation, 2 Master’s Degrees, learning new languages, or short specialization programs, every step that I took on self-development and preparation was a huge contribution to my career path.

Welch: Oddly enough I believe being laid off was one of the most pivotal moments in my career. The economy was crashing and after having struggled with my husband’s lay-off, I received word on the day he began his new job that I was unfortunately being let go. The company didn’t want to let me go, but just had no choice financially. Of course, I took that news much harder than the news of my husband’s lay-off a few months prior. Hours later my boss called me back and offered to keep me on for 6 months if I could do 2 jobs. I’d need to keep my marketing role plus manage our website and take on a few other administrative tasks. Seemed like a reasonable offer to keep my job so I did just that. I stretched myself and learned new things. I worked hard and kept my job as long as the company stayed afloat. I achieved success because I learned a) I could learn new things and stretch my abilities, and b) the company truly valued me and was willing to find ways to keep me on as long as possible. When that time was up, I had a new job making a higher salary within 5 weeks. I believe my positive attitude and resilience during what could have been a turbulent time played a huge role in this outcome and success.

Hawkins: Generally speaking, throughout my career the pivotal moments have been through building strong relationships while making sure my voice and ideas are part of the conversation. These are the qualities I try to instill in my team as they will also contribute to Regal’s success as it takes all parties to make things happen and to be effective.

Q6: What emerging marketing trend excites you?

Duraes: At this moment, I’m fascinated by gamification and all the possibilities to implement games as a tool for brand positioning, training and sales. Another one that is not exactly a trend, but I’m learning a lot about is SEO - nothing better than a good SEO strategy to increase traffic on a website.

Welch: I’m kind of a sucker for old school marketing. I am a firm believer that the original ways of marketing still work. Direct Mail for instance. It’s a lost art. Who doesn’t like to receive mail in the mailbox? 

I think the most exciting trends are focus areas on customer experience or loyalty programs and advocacy or retention. I also enjoy creating campaigns for account-based marketing programs. But my favorite of all is integrated online offline omni channel campaigns. It’s about hitting them with it all. Everywhere they go. Be where your customers are.

Hawkins: The reemergence of a more powerful customer voice in driving decisions for technological advances, along with leveraging data science and AI, we no longer assume if what we are marketing will be effective, but are now getting concrete data that can be modeled, creating trends that will have positive impacts on our business.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Gain a 360 view of your company to understand the ins and outs. 

• Trust your team in order to let them grow. 

• Curiosity goes far.

• Throw out the old way to innovate for the new. 

• Challenges often lead to opportunities. 

• Make your voice heard.