A DAY IN THE LIFE –

Michelle LeBlanc

Director, Strategic Marketing

Motorola

Career planning can be overwhelming. With a strong economy, the opportunities presented to me at business school seemed endless. Following the advice of the career center, I established my criteria up front to focus my search: I wanted to join a well-known, established, high-tech company in a product marketing position.

Motorola was an easy choice. I networked through a student organization and was invited to a company-sponsored dinner where I met a number of executives. Following the dinner, I met regularly with these executives to talk about opportunities within the company and visited the company to meet the team and to experience the culture. I never had a formal interview, but months later when I needed to make a decision, I knew the position, the team and the company very well, and they knew my skills and career objectives.

We decided that I should join the future business group in a strategic marketing role for one to two years and then join a business unit in a strategic marketing role for one to two years and then join a business unit in a product marketing position. Working in a strategic marketing position would allow me to build on my existing skill set in strategy and business development to promote entrepreneurship within Motorola. Additionally, I could use the time there to better understand the business units for my next career step into product management.

Future business is a corporate group that has a mandate to identify and establish platforms for future growth. The group includes venture investing, technology scouting, patent portfolio management and a business incubator. My job as director of strategic marketing is to champion and to build the marketing plan for our initiatives. In this capacity, I have had a variety interesting experiences.

My first project was to develop a messaging and communications strategy for our start-up enterprise, BioChip Systems. I worked with advertising agencies and company managers to create a vision, the overall message and customized messages for different audiences. I then managed the tactical implementation, including press releases, product presentations and company literature, for the first four months until the marketing staff was hired. The project required strong leadership skills to communicate the importance of a messaging and communications plan and then evoke participation and collaboration to define the important messages.

I worked with a group to decide whether to invest millions of dollars in a new technology. One team considered the patent position, another considered the strengths and weaknesses of the technology, and my team considered the world market potential. I made my recommendations to an executive vice-president and the chief operating officer. The project required strong analytical skills to understand the technology and the dynamics of the potential market. I relied heavily on the expertise of my teammates.

I also engaged strategic partnerships with companies and academia. In one project, I negotiated an investment and intellectual property agreement beyond the terms of the letter of intent. I worked closely with the strategic partner and a number of law firms to create the documents that will guide the relationship over the next three years. The project required strong interpersonal skills, negotiation skills and attention to detail. I have a new appreciation for the amount of time and energy required to consider every detail in such agreements.

I also worked with engineers to develop business plans for new businesses. My responsibility was to sketch out the marketing plan, including customer segmentation, product specifications, pricing and distribution. These projects required strong written and communication skills and the ability to identify and ask the hard questions.

I have just completed my first year here and have decided to join a business unit sooner rather than later. While I have enjoyed my position and learned a lot, I look back to my criteria and realize that I am not doing what I wanted to do. I have been a strategy position for the duration of my career, and it is time to develop operational experience.

I am now exploring opportunities in the business units for positions in product marketing. In the past year, I have learned about my strengths and weaknesses as well as my needs and objectives. One year smarter, I would add one important criterion to my job search: a great team. A great team will teach you new skills, will support you when you are weak and enable you when you are strong. Each of my projects is only as good as the strength of my team. The people with whom you work can either make your job wonderful or a “character-building experience.”

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Rodney Brown

Assistant Brand Manager

Nestle

As an assistant brand manager for the Turtles, Raisinets, Goobers and SnoCaps brand group, no two days are ever the same. When people call me, they want action not today, but yesterday, which always makes things interesting. My job provides me a unique opportunity to get exposure to both brand and channel management.

My brand responsibilities fall into three categories. 1) Make things happen. I am constantly called upon to come up with new ideas and tactics to drive the business, whether it is an idea for a promotion or a new line extension; 2) Make sure things happen. I often act as a project manager, which entails overseeing all aspects of a project until completion. Most projects require me to work very closely with all cross-functional groups: packaging, design, finance, technical packaging, product engineering, supply chain, sales, regulatory and legal. Some projects are very technical in nature while others are creative. 3) Figure out what happened. As the assistant for the brand group, I am expected to do most of the analysis on the businesses (shipments, consumption, promotions, budgets and competition), which is great because it allows me to add value to any meeting or conversation concerning my brands. Formal brand reports are done on a monthly basis, while informal updates are done all day long.

My channel responsibilities can be challenging as my brand duties. Our group is charged with managing the concession packs of all brands in the division. We are responsible for meeting sales targets, forecasting, developing promotions and managing the flow of information between marketing and sales. Working closely with our key account can be tough, but it gives me a better appreciation of the challenges our sales force faces.

My favorite part of the job usually involves making things happen. I love coming up with creative and innovative ideas to drive the business. Brand management activates my entrepreneurial spirit; it is exciting to see my ideas go from a concept to a profitable reality. One of the most exciting things for me as a marketer is seeing products that I worked on at retail. The feeling I get when I see the new Raisinets packaging on the shelf makes up for all the 12-hour days it took to make it happen. What is most frustrating about my job is that there is never enough time or resources to execute all of the great ideas. But, of course, there is always next year.

To excel in brand management, you must have the complete package: a blend of both hard and soft skills. Hard skills include the ability to analyze financial, sales and technical data, and to think strategically about business issues as they relate to your brand. These skills will help you make things happen and figure out what happened, but the soft skills are necessary to make sure things happen. Effective communication and leadership are vital keys to success. Strong communication skills are critical: often an idea has to be sold ten times before it is officially approved. Many times it is not the best idea that gets executed, but the one that is well thought out, clearly defined and strongly presented. Leadership plays an important role when managing projects: it is essential in getting the attention and active participation of cross-functional partners. The ability to prioritize an manage time is also important, or your days at work will quickly turn into nights.

In the short term, my goal is to follow the traditional consumer packaged goods marketing path, which will lead to a position as brand manager. There are many well-educated and talented individuals who have similar aspirations, and manager spots are limited. But I have always been motivated by competition, so I welcome the challenge.

A DAY IN THE LIFE

Tricia Buenvenida

Assistant Marketing Manager

L’Oreal USA, Inc.

As an assistant marketing manager at L’Oreal USA, Inc., it is hard to describe a typical day, as there isn’t one. Charged with brand management responsibilities for the consumer products division’s mascara segment (which encompasses five existing brands, plus new products in development), I am responsible for maintaining the profitability of the business not only daily, but also in developing and implementing strategies that will help drive its long-term growth and success within the competitive cosmetics landscape. This requires using both my analytical skills and creative abilities, as I forecast consumer sell-through and shipments while also helping to develop and execute strong brand programs that incorporate compelling trade and consumer incentives. It is these exciting challenges coupled with my passion for beauty industry that make my career especially rewarding.

I joined L’Oreal USA, Inc. in August 1999 after graduating with my MBA. Although the company now formally recruits on campus, at the time, I was conducting my own independent job search, relying on relationships with former business associates – I had worked in beauty/fashion advertising before business school. Business interactions with my peers working on other brands within my division help me to understand how their segments contribute to the overall profitability of the division and I can appreciate the strategies of the total brand portfolio and gain a sense of the bigger business picture.

I feel this is essential, as I am generally focused on my own particular business – monitoring and keeping apace of industry trends and competitive new products, their formulas, positioning and marketing plans; ensuring that our laboratories quickly provide new formulas that deliver unmet or improved consumer benefits, while manufacturing produces them to meet a planned a ship date; researching consumer attitude and feedback on concepts; recommending creative strategies for packaging, displays, promotional vehicles and advertising; analyzing the volume of effectiveness of programs or proper pricing of products based on cost of goods; and working with our sales team to distribute the product and deliver strong brand presence in retail accounts. Indeed, I feel like I am running my own business sometimes, as I need to be cognizant of all the factors that can impede a brand’s competitive position. It can sometimes be a juggling act, as I prioritize which decisions and projects are most important on a strategic and timing basis, and must do this without sacrificing the success of another brand. However, it is extremely satisfying when I do see my brands perform well and achieve a strong market share because of strategies that I helped to implement.

I realize that my current job allows me to put my MBA education into action as I learn the operations of the business, but I know that I alone cannot drive the success of the brand. I have found that teamwork is truly important, within sales, finance, R&D, manufacturing, product development, creative services, our advertising agency, as well as our marketing team. It is our shared ambition to have premium-performing and top-selling products in the marketplace that produce winners out of our brands. We work hard but we have fun and love the industry – and usually, the results speak for themselves. The more I progress in my career, the more I see the value of working with smart and savvy people. I learn something new every day from the knowledge and experience of my supervisors. I am constantly being challenged, and therefore raise the bar of excellence for myself and ultimately for our products. As someone at an early point in her career, I find the interaction invaluable in my development as a business leader. But even more fundamental than that, it is the people you work with that make the difference in a productive and enjoyable corporate environment.

Effective interaction and clear communication with others is essential to career success. Strong communication and presentation skills help influence decisions and articulate the importance of a project, sell new ideas or concepts, and sometimes diffuse difficult situations if two functional groups are in disagreement. It is also important to have a long-term strategic vision, strong attention to detail, problem-solving and analytical skills, the ability to manage and execute several projects and deadlines, and an awareness of the cultural world as it inspires “out-of-the-box” creative thinking.

I know that in order to progress in my career, I need to develop and perfect those skills, while learning the operational aspects of the business. Opportunities to present marketing plans or strategic project decisions at divisional meetings have helped me to work on attaining these objectives. It is my goal to continue to build strong business relationships, and ultimately, as a leader, to inspire confidence, spark new ideas and identify new business opportunities that will be successful and profitable.