CMO Spotlight | Aron North - Mint Mobile

The CMO Spotlight is a chance to get an inside look into the minds and journeys of high-performing marketing leaders. 

Setup CEO, Joe Koufman, virtually sat down with Aron North, the Chief Marketing Officer of Mint Mobile (partially owned by Ryan Reynolds), to discuss the importance of working at an organization that fosters growth, his appreciation for Kobe Bryant’s “Mamba Mentality,” and how he embraces failure.

WATCH + READ THE RECAP BELOW (SCROLL TO THE END FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW)

Q1 | Is there any advice you’d like to share?

“It counts where you land. The brands and the places you work matter, particularly early on in your career.”

North advises marketers to be intentional about the places they work early in their careers. “You don't necessarily need a big name. You need a name of a brand, agency, or company that is known for high-quality marketing.” It’s important for marketers to do extensive research when looking for jobs. Look for organizations that produce great work and have a great culture because those are the places you can learn from the most. He continued, “That's the type of thing I'm looking for when I'm hiring: 'How are you going to bring value to us beyond the explicit things you need to do for the job? How are you going to make us a better group?’ That's really what I want, so I try to coach people to get that early in their career.”

Q2 | What is your superpower?

“I love failure. I talk about failure all the time because failure is a pretext for risk-taking.”

North’s superpower is hard work, dedication, and “relentlessness.” He stated, “I've always had to work really hard and I think that is the superpower - relentlessness and grinding it out.”

Q3 | Where do you find inspiration?

“I think when it comes to creativity, you typically draw from life experiences.”

North explained, “When it comes to work, we take inspiration from anywhere.” When Mint was in the first stages of development, the team looked at their “direct-to-consumer contemporaries” and took inspiration from them. North explained that for creativity, he tends to draw from life experiences. “A lot of times, we'll have these moments of clarity where our team is off-site working on some project or brainstorming and then there's a light bulb moment. I think the way we get there is by getting out of our day-to-day and the mundane and interacting like real people. That's where we can draw inspiration.”

Q4 | What values are important to you?

Mint Mobile’s four core values are values North also lives by.

The first one is Ownership. He explained that he “expects everyone to be taking pride in what they do.” 

The second value Owning the output adds to the first. “Everyone here is an options holder, so there is that sense of ownership there. We like people who are action biased. We use data to drive decisions but we will cut before we measure twice sometimes if we think there's opportunity.” 

Their third value is to Embrace the adventure. “I think with a company like this, that's growing like crazy, you have to be okay with this ever-present change.” 

The last value is Invent and simplify. “We want you to be adventurous and invent, but do it in a way where things get better…and typically simplification is that.”

North believes that these values have helped personally guide him and his decisions about who to have on his team.

Q5 | What is your mantra?

North described himself as a die-hard Lakers fan and looks up to the late, great Kobe Bryant for his work ethic. Bryant's “Mamba mentality” and extreme dedication, as well as the idea “I will outwork you” is how North operates. “No matter how hard you work, I am going to outwork you. That is my mantra and approach,” he shared.

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For more marketing leadership advice and a view into the mindset of marketing executives in various industries, be sure to watch the full interview with Aron North, and keep an eye out for more thought leadership from our CMO Spotlights.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW TO THE RIGHT.