Career Spotlight | 5 questions to Didier Marsaud

Didier Marsaud | Director, Corporate Communications, NCI

1)??How did you find your way to where you are today? Share a little about your professional journey.

Since I was young, I’ve always had a passion for cars, motorsport, travel and adventure. I started my career as an automotive journalist specialized in Motorsport, mainly focused on Rally-Raid and desert races (Paris Dakar, Paris Moscow Beijing, Tunisia Rally, Egypt Rally, Morocco Rally, ...) and I enjoyed all the traveling, discoveries, the adventure and human side of these very specific races. After about 7 years as a freelancer journalist, in 1995 I jumped from the journalist side to the PR side, joining Renault Sport in charge of Communication for the rallying department. It was a dream come true for me. With an educational background in sales and marketing, going from freelance journalism to PR and joining the # 1 French OEM Motorsport dept. was a great recognition of my work, and I am very grateful for this experience.?

In 1998, Renault stopped all its motorsport programs, F1 and Rallying, so I transitioned to the Renault Product Communication team at HQ as a Press Officer. It was a very different experience that was more corporate and product focused, and I learnt a lot. In 2003, with the development of the Renault-Nissan Alliance, I was then offered to join Nissan Europe HQ as Manager Product Communication for Europe. I seized that opportunity as well! This is when I had to quickly improve my English skills, as despite being based in Paris, all the business was done in English. No need to say it was a bit of a challenge! I had the chance to create and organize large product launch events for European media, discovering another side of the PR function, from the event concept, creation, organization and on-site management. It was a very enriching experience again, with many more things to learn.

After 5 years at Nissan Europe, in 2008 I was offered a position in Canada. Working abroad, outside of my home country and my comfort zone, was an experience I always wanted so I took this offer and moved with my family to Canada. After 13 years working in HQ’s, joining a large market in Canada was another very different work experience. I really enjoyed my time here and quickly fell in love with the country, the people and the atmosphere. So much so, that when 6 years passed and I was offered the opportunity to return to France, I didn’t. I fell in love with Canada, Nissan Canada, my work, my life here, so I decided to stay. And I’m still here!

2)??What was the best advice you have received? What would you tell someone starting out in their career?

Two pieces of advice that I have received work in tandem. First, it is to always keep an open mind and the second is to build and grow your network. You need to keep an open mind to take advantage of any opportunities either by elevating your job description or for a new position. Try new things and doing things in new ways, think outside the box, challenge yourself (and others), even if you are not totally sure of your abilities. It will progress your experience, your career and help build confidence. With each project and opportunity, you will learn and gain valuable experience that you can apply to your next goal or role and by doing this continuously you can achieve your career aspirations.

Especially in a large and international company such as Nissan, it is important to build your network. Having great contacts and people to ask for guidance, mentorship and help is also a good way to grow professionally. I had the chance to work with great managers, had wonderful mentors, meet people with very strong experience, and learned a lot from them. Establishing this network and learning from your managers, peers and mentors will allow you to create new opportunities to grow your skill set and career. This will push you as well to do different things, approach your daily tasks differently, look at things from a new perspective and gain valuable feedback. By working in HQ at Renault and Nissan, I was able to build a strong network that helped me a lot and this is still the case here. ?

3)??As part of your responsibility in PR you organize many events, how do you manage those relationships to make sure each event is a success?

What is very interesting about my responsibilities in Canada, as a market, is that I am involved in various different events instead of focusing only on product launch events. My current role enables me to work on a variety of diverse events, from those that are media focused to those that are employees focused, including auto shows, product reveals, press conferences, international events in the US or even sometimes Japan and obviously the Sentra Cup.

?It is extremely exciting and so enriching to have such a diversity of events, diversity of stakeholders and to work with diverse teams. We work very closely with marketing, product planning, sales operations, distribution, HR and the executive team, so we get to collaborate and learn best practices from all these groups of people. The Sentra cup has been running now for 8 years and has allowed us to work as well with external suppliers and partners, not to mention interact with our customers and fans! On top of that, we also collaborate very closely with Nissan North America and Nissan Global in Japan on events, which just adds to the excitement. It makes our days very inspiring to be involved in all these unique opportunities and learning from others in the field. It’s a perfect opportunity for collaboration and creativity to bring forth great events.

4)??What is your secret to success in building a great team and building an environment that supports both personal growth and career development?

I think the most important first step is to build a strong team spirit and make sure everyone works together cohesively. We are a small team, each of us has their specific job but we all help each other by giving feedback, opening discussions and supporting each other by stepping up to lend a hand.

In corporate communications, building a strong team and encouraging creativity and open-mindedness is the key to success. This lets the team feel comfortable to bring new ideas and concepts to the table so we can discuss and make some of these ideas happen! Empowering employees and building their confidence is how some of the best ideas are curated.

Another factor, once you know your team, is to help each individual find the right development and training opportunities and to grow where they want to go. In a small team there are limited opportunities to grow so stepping back to basics of keeping an open mind and networking helps them to develop their transferable skill set to pursue their next opportunity. I always do my best to be there to listen and offer feedback, even if it is just to talk a problem through or debate the best next steps both for a personal issue or a work related challenge. Another positive aspect is that my team has exposure to the executive team. This allows them to build their brand and their presence, which again helps develop their network even more.

Diving into knowing your team and strengthening your team, we recently took with our US counterparts the PI Index, which is a career personality test. It has helped all of us to get to know each other a little more. This was important because even on a small team everyone has a different personality and way of doing things, so this brings awareness to how everyone works and communicates differently. I found this extremely helpful in communicating more effectively even though I may be a little biased as I think my team was already very effective – but this will allow us to optimize even more.

Overall, I have been extremely lucky as a manager and have a great team. This was my second all-new team, the first one has grown and left the nest for new experiences and adventures.?Now we have re-built a great team I hope to keep for a long time! Joking aside, I know everyone has different needs and objectives, so when I understand what they want and what they need to get to the next level, I can help develop them for the next opportunity and future experience they want to be a part of. ?

5. What are you passionate about that you bring to work with you every day? Are you passionate about people, is there a software you love to use, what is your secret tool and drive at work?

?My work is my passion. And the most exciting part of my work is to think of an idea and execute the idea to the end. Whether it is my idea or an idea from the team – I am absolutely thrilled at taking things from concept to final production. Sitting in front of a blank piece of paper and just having a target or vision is how I approach my job on a daily basis with absolute passion an excitement. For example, some exciting and successful projects as the Route 66 Media Drive, The Rogue Warrior, the Micra/Sentra Cup, to name a few, all initially started as a crazy idea or a spark of inspiration.

I love determining what we want to achieve first, based on our needs, strategy, and how we will get there, instead of being presented an already defined tool and then figuring out how to fit in the scope of it. I love the problem solving, collaborations with other teams, brainstorming and working together. This translates to all events no matter if it’s an event for employees, media, influencers, external customers or a simple press communication or message. It is all exciting! Being in a small team lets us manage a lot of things which gives me the feeling of richness and wholesomeness every day. I also love challenges where something does not go exactly as planned and we have to make quick decisions behind the scenes. I guess, I love to work on adrenaline and bringing the excitement of the products we are working on to my desk on a daily basis.