CMO Spotlight | Gabby Cohen - Harry's
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 Gabby Cohen, the Global Head of Integrated Marketing & Communications at Harry’s, to discuss her career path, dreams of being in the Muppets, leadership advice and more.
WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW AND READ THE RECAP BELOW.
Q1 | Tell us about your career path.
Post college Cohen realized that she loved Hospitality and Customer Experience/Service. She then worked in PR for hotels and destinations until she was recruited to SoulCycle, where she spent eight years. “I call myself the SoulCycle sieve - so if it fell through the cracks, I caught it and sort of figured it out. I helped to scale almost every area of the business from four studios to over 90.”
After leaving SoulCycle, she consulted for Harry’s to help launch Flamingo. She then worked as the Chief Brand Officer at Rent the Runway for two years. She then returned to Harry’s to work as the Global Head of Integrated Marketing & Communications.
Q2 | What is your superpower?
“I have an ability to find a commonality with whoever I'm connecting to or talking to…” Cohen is so easy to get along with, that she disarms whomever she is speaking to. She admits that “it unnerves people in a good way.” Finding any form of connection with someone is helpful in business and life.
Q3 | Is there a piece of advice that you would like to pass onto other marketers?
“Stop worrying about what’s next. Just focus on what’s now.”
“I spent so much time being like ‘what's next for me, what am I supposed to do next...like what does my career look like’ versus just like...put your head down, do great work, and that will come.” In this day and age, people are hyper focused on the future and don’t live in the present moment. Cohen makes the point to stay appreciative and immersed in the current instead of looking to what is next. “Sometimes it's just about doing exactly what's in front of you.”
Q4 | What values are important to you as a leader?
Finding the yes is one of Cohen’s most important values. “Come from a yes mindset,” she states. And, with that openness, be open to figuring things out and communicating needs. “Open and honest conversation is really important as well as giving and receiving feedback.” As a leader, Cohen wants to know what she can do best, and also expects her team to take on some independence to navigate their own conflicts.
She also expects people to be kind and to treat people of all positions with respect. She explains, “I would often take people when I was interviewing them to a SoulCycle class because I wanted to see how they treated the front desk, and I wanted to see how they treated the cleaning staff...they are equally as important, if not more important than everyone else in that room - and it's the same way as going to get a cup of coffee...like are they saying ‘yes please,’ and ‘thank you’? Those things matter.”
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 Gabby Cohen, and keep an eye out for more thought leadership from our CMO Spotlights.
Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, spoke with Ben Boyd, the Chief Communications Officer at Chobani, about designing your own career path, the importance of empathy and understanding as a leader, and more.