The secret to Google Chief Storyteller — er, CMO — Lorraine Twohill's success

“I do think when you're a non technical person in a technical world, you have your own kind of superpowers."

Officially, Lorraine Twohill is 谷歌 's chief marketing officer. But she really thinks of herself as the tech giant's chief storyteller. That's a superpower, she says, that has made it possible for her to thrive as a non-technical person at one of the world's most technical companies.

Lorraine skills are going to be an increasingly important one in the AI era. The ability to make and launch things and to get answers instantly is now in everyone's hands. But the skills to be able to understand how to make sense of the world, how to predict what people are going to want, how to stay agile in times of change, and how to influence others toward your way of thinking ... that's how people are going to get and stay ahead.

Lorraine would group all of these as EQ: Your emotional quotient. It’s the same thing Jamie Dimon said to me in 2024: EQ is how you set yourself apart.?(We're going to be exploring this theme all month in #ThisIsWorking.)

"We can take all the complexity of a big, busy company like Google and we can distill it down into something that's super simple and relatable to a normal person… "? Twohill distilled it for me for this edition of This is Working. A user, she says "who doesn't really care about all the sausage making or what it took to build these features but actually really cares about just getting through their day and wants something that's helpful for them."

"Know the user, know the magic, connect the two."

Twohill likes to say she's the EQ person in an IQ world. But what about being an EQ person in an AI world?

"First of all, before AI, there was a lot of pretty mediocre things written," she says bluntly. "Technology sometimes becomes a crutch for people rather than just the fundamentals of good writing, good storytelling, get to the point, do work that matters, that has impact and resonates in the world.

"There's no crutch. You may use different tools or toys to get the work done, but ultimately as editor, as creator, as maker, You own it and it needs to be good and good enough."

No surprise that Twohill's own professional story is pretty compelling. The Carlow, Ireland native was head of marketing at Spain-based travel agency Opodo when, in 2003, she got a call from Google. A mere five-years old, Google was already edging out Yahoo's as the world's dominant search engine. But it was hardly the behemoth it would become. "A lot of people at the time thought I was nuts," she said, "What is this Google thing? It was a small company at the time, but, of course that was a really exciting time to join."

Still, the tap meant a lot. Twohill was flattered — even though things did not exactly turn out to be what they seemed. "I thought I was going as a VIP client," Twohill told me, "but it turned out 22 interviews later that I was being interviewed for one of their first roles in Europe."

She became head of marketing for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, building the operation from the ground up. In 2009, the home office called again: We want you to lead global marketing — in the U.S.

Somehow, this was a tougher decision. "This was the third time the role was open, and I hadn't put my hand up any of those three times," Twohill said. "And the only reason I even did the third time was because they came to me and said, 'Look, we really want you to come do this.'"?

Still, Twohill had major doubts she was up to the challenge.

She had a hard time balancing the top-performer yin and yang that is confidence and imposter syndrome. "I had to literally be talked into it by three people, three men, I might add, three senior people who talked me into it." One was CEO Eric Schmidt. And then there was booster Susan Wojcicki, YouTube's CEO at the time: "Nobody else can do this job but you."

"It was probably the first time in my career, people had come to me like that and said, listen: This is not even up for debate. Like, you need to go do this job."

There's much more to Twohill's story. Click on the link (above/below) to get a world view from one of the most connected — and humble — tech executive I've ever had the pleasure to interview.

Our podcast is another great way to experience these interviews. Stream it anywhere!

?? Apple | ?? Spotify

On LinkedIn’s video series, This is Working, I sit down with top figures from the world of business and beyond to surface what they've learned about solving difficult problems. See more from JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon, Savannah Bananas owner Jesse Cole, INSEAD dean Francisco Veloso, Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresvant, Slutty Vegan founder Pinky Cole, Delta Air Lines CEO Ed Bastian, Mattel CEO Ynon Kreiz, former US President Barack Obama, filmmaker Spike Lee, Virgin founder Sir Richard Branson, IMF chief Kristalina Georgieva, cosmetics legend Bobbi Brown, F1’sToto Wolff, and many more.