CWC: Deliberate & Detailed

Q: Tell me how you got into comms.

I began my career as a speechwriter for General Schwarzkopf and General Haig, which was such an incredible experience. I love to joke around and say that I had no idea who thought it would be a good idea to give a 22-year-old girl a job writing about homeland security and national defense, but I took the opportunity and ran with it! From a professional standpoint, it instilled the skill set within me to take highly complex concepts and distill them into concise, meaningful pieces of communication that resonates with a variety of stakeholders and audiences of varying degrees of education and awareness.

It was a perfect springboard for me to then catapult myself over into corporate communications, marketing, and public relations. I've worked for large publicly traded companies. I've worked for large privately held companies, and I've helped build a health tech startup from the ground up.

I've deliberately tried to vary my experience to diversify my skill sets, so that I could bring the most value to an organization. I would say that my path has been a bit unique, and that’s deliberate. My career has been really, really fulfilling.

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Q: How did you go about deliberately diversifying your skillset?

I think in comms, deliberate diversification is so paramount to setting yourself up for a successful career that has longevity and relevance. I think it's critical, really. Go work for an agency, go in-house, try different industries, dip your toe in different sectors. You learn so much on the journey!

I relocated from NYC to Atlanta sight unseen to lead corporate communications and public relations for the North American Division of Iron Mountain, the document management company. It doesn’t get sexier than document management, does it? Then I left to work at Spanx, where my team and I wrote about the importance of underwear that holds you in all the right places. Ultimately, I realized for myself, that I thrive when my work has a greater purpose and a higher calling – and that means giving back to something much, much larger than myself. That's why I've spent much of my career now in health tech. But I would just say, go for it. When you're earlier on in your career, you have the gift of flexibility. And say yes - even if you don’t necessarily feel ready, just say yes, and figure it out along the way.

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Q: So, for you, what about health tech is so purpose-aligned for you?

It's such a fascinating place to be, because you take these two industries, healthcare and technology, and they are rapidly moving, rapidly evolving. And I have the fortune of straddling them both, so no two days are the same.

I've been doing this for so long, yet I learn something new, truly every single day, and I'm just genuinely inspired by the people around me who are constantly innovating and pushing to make a difference in the lives of millions of people around the world. ?

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Q: And since you've just started a new role, what do you think is the most important thing in the first 90 days in a new role? How do you get yourself ingrained in the business?

I think it's meeting as many people as you possibly can within your organization and doing so much listening as you can. Earlier in my career, I was very intent on making an impact as fast as possible, and while I think that there is some importance to that, I think as the new team member, you have to do a significant amount of observing and listening and analyzing before you can really formulate any sort of plans and opinions on how to optimize things.

Set up meet and greets, set up one one-on-ones, grab virtual or in-person coffees whenever possible, and just learn as much as you can as quickly as you can.

If you're a comms leader reading this, talk to engineering, talk to product, talk to marketing, talk to sales, talk to leadership, talk to admin staff, talk to everybody! This helps us obtain a really holistic view of where the business is, so that you can then determine, as the comms leader, where can I add the most value? Where are the gaps, and how can I help fill them?

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Q: What’s in your new remit?

I am privileged to help lead global strategic communications for several of the Johnson and Johnson MedTech businesses. My team and I are responsible for telling our story of innovation, shaping our employee communication and engagement strategy, culture and corporate social responsibility, digital marketing and social media, mergers and acquisitions, our brand evolution story, and special projects as they pop up. Thankfully, I have a phenomenal team.

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Q: How do you manage where comms starts and marketing ends, and how that's shifting over time??

It’s interesting, because for the last four and a half years, prior to J&J, I was leading marketing and communications, all facets, including public relations, investor relations, media relations, executive communication, investor communication, and more.?

So, for me, I don't view marketing and communications all that separately. In my current role, I lead social media and digital campaigns, but we also have a very talented global marketing team as well as regional marketing teams, and we all work closely together.

I feel like one of the most important things as comms leaders is to always think about communicating early and often to minimize or eliminate surprises whenever possible.

I like to have marketing and communications in lockstep and if your organization's reporting structure has them separate, I’d say still work as if you're one cohesive unit. I feel like there's never a downside to that, because having a line of sight breaks down redundancies and silos, making everybody more efficient. I believe you can tell the efficacy of a solid campaign when comms and marketing have partnered together.

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Q: How would you describe your leadership style?

I can say with 1,000% certainty that motherhood has transformed my leadership style. I am much more empathetic. I am self-aware enough to know that I was not a very empathetic leader before becoming a mother. I think becoming a mother and going through the pandemic at the same time really dialed up my empathy.

I also believe in high levels of accountability, and high levels of flexibility. You should be able to extend that to your team and if you don't, you might not have the right team in place. I also love to mentor. I think that being a leader is a huge privilege and an honor, and I enjoy rolling up my sleeves and doing the work alongside my team. I find that that's super invigorating.

My main goal is to be the leader that I wish I had had earlier in my career.

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Q: What kind of characteristics do you notice and appreciate in a junior team member? Any advice for early career comms folks?

Find a problem and offer up a solution. Go look for problems, strengthen and flex your business acumen muscle, and propose solutions. It’s such an invaluable skill.

I have said throughout my entire career that I really believe that communication leaders need to have a seat at the table. And thankfully, we've seen the curve start to bend, with more than 60% of Chief Communications Officers identifying as a woman. I've said this for almost two decades, and I’ll say it again - put on the glasses of your CFO, and think about your business from their lens, so you’ll quickly become a valuable component of the team.

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Q: That is a common thread that I've heard. Why is business acumen so important for comms leaders?

I mean, not to be crass, but you must prove your worth. And when your CFO is sitting down with your board reviewing their balance sheet and making the determination of what those non-negotiables are - that the business cannot survive without - your name needs to be on that piece of paper. And unless we tie our work as communicators back to the outcomes of the business, we will always be dispensable. I focus very intently on outcomes versus outputs, and what that means for me is I don't care how many pieces of communication you send out every month, but I care that your communication strategy or campaign drove our top-line growth or sped up our path towards profitability. I care that we tie our work back to tangible value - how many more products were sold, how many more software subscriptions were sold, how did our stock price increase, how did we drive employee retention? Quantify the value you bring to the business and make yourself indispensable.

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Q: What keeps you up at night?

Nothing because I'm so exhausted from juggling motherhood and my career! I sleep like a baby! But I will say, I always have a notepad on my nightstand with a pen, just in case something pops into my mind I can quickly jot it down and go back to bed.

Q: What do you think about work-life balance with motherhood?

I don't believe that balance exists, and I think it's a very scary, detrimental fallacy that's sold to women, that sets us up for major failure. Usually we as comms leaders are rather type A, we're perfectionists, we're hungry, we're driven, and if you tell us that there is this elusive balance that exists, we're going to do our darnedest to achieve it.

Maybe it’s the New Yorker in me, but I think of every day as a pizza pie. We’re always working off the same pie, but each day your slices are shaped just a little bit differently.

?If I have a major meeting that I'm preparing for, or maybe I'm on the road that week, my work “slice” is going to look pretty hefty. That day or week my motherhood/wife/friend/daughter slices are likely going to be significantly smaller. And when there’s a lull between quarters and things are slower at work, I'm going to have the space to pick up my kiddos, have a lunchtime date with my husband, or savor a longer workout. I think about that analogy all the time, and I think it’s healthier to approach this as work-life integration versus “balance.”

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Q: Tell me about your podcast – Mighty like a Mother – how do you find the time? What drove you to start it?

We just sort of make time for what matters, right? I was pregnant with my second, working at a frenetic pace at a health tech startup, grinding away, and joined a female networking group. I met another female executive, also a mom to a newborn and a toddler, and we were chatting one day, and I just was like, Is it this hard for you? And she's like, Oh my gosh. I was gonna say, is it this hard for you? And then we realized, okay, it's this hard for us. Is it this hard for everybody?

And the spoiler alert is- yes, it's this hard. It feels hard because it is hard. And I think there are so many ways in which as moms, we attach shame to our feelings, and then mom guilt comes into the mix and we felt really strongly that in order to help ourselves and help other mothers, we had to create a community. The podcast is our passion project because it's so rewarding and gratifying to connect with our listeners. It is changing the way I show up as a wife, as a mother, and it brings me to tears every single time I receive feedback from other moms juggling all the things. It’s really fun.

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Q: What are some of your favorite takeaways from Mighty as a Mother? Best learnings for fellow working moms? ?

Martyrdom in motherhood gets us nowhere. I think another takeaway that's been really eye-opening is to nurture yourself the way you nurture your children. We all focus on nurturing our children and providing a safe space for them, helping them regulate their nervous systems, and then we're over here, chugging ashwagandha pills and screaming into pillows, so learning to nurture and care for ourselves the way we nurture and care for our children has been transformative.

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Q: Coffee, cocktail, or mocktail?

Skinny Margarita

Q: Who’s your role model and why?

?My grandmother. She instilled values in me from an early age: have your own purpose, make your own money, and love yourself first.?

Q: Do you have a favorite book or movie that you think about often?

Whenever I need a good laugh and a total decompress, My Cousin Vinny never lets me down.

Q: What’s the best advice you've ever received?

Assume positive intent.

Q: What’s one word your friends or family would use to describe you?

Loyal and loving. You asked for one word and I gave you two, so I guess rulebreaker, too?!

Q: How do you start your day? Do you have any go-to morning routines or must haves?

?I so badly want to say that it's 5 am with sunlight in my eyes and grass under my toes and warm lemon water, but it’s not.

I lean over, tell my husband I love him, and him good morning. He’ll make us coffee as I scroll through email - the nature of my role being global, I need to scan for any urgent matters that happened while I was asleep and respond to colleagues who are about to end their day as I start mine. Then the chaos ensues as I try to spend some time with my toddlers before my husband gets them off to school. ?I wish my mornings were more serene, but this is the season of life I’m in.

Q: What motivates you to keep going on tough days?

I want the people that I love – namely my husband, my children, and my parents, - to be proud of me, and I want them to see that I can look challenges square in the eye and not back down. I want my children to watch me and feel empowered to do the same in their own lives.

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