Speaker 1: You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: I hear our clients and our agencies have done the same,
Speaker 2: and so I think it's a very different conversation. You
Speaker 2: see cmos becoming growth officers. You see cmos taking on
Speaker 2: sales and taking on a datascope far broader than what
Speaker 2: they used to have, and I think that speaks to.
Speaker 3: Marketing as a growth driver.
Speaker 4: Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
Speaker 4: Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. Our guest today is
Speaker 4: someone who's covered the waterfront of media and advertising USA today, Bloomberg, Yahoo,
Speaker 4: Media Brands, and now the CEO of the Americas and
Speaker 4: global Chief Client Officer of the advertising giant Densu. It's
Speaker 4: Jackie Kelly. Most folks who know her in our business
Speaker 4: think of her as some of this very sophisticated, urbane person.
Speaker 4: They might not guess that she's from a fifth generation
Speaker 4: cattle ranching family. She was a member of four h
Speaker 4: who raised steers to show at the county fair and
Speaker 4: sold them to pay for her first year of college.
Speaker 4: She was there for the transition of newspapers to digital
Speaker 4: and the handoff of web portals. To social and search,
Speaker 4: and has worked with high powered personalities like Mike Bloomberg
Speaker 4: and Martha Stewart. She's brought that range to her work
Speaker 4: in advertising, helping clients navigate the rough waters of change.
Speaker 4: She's also got a big heart along with her brilliance
Speaker 4: and her drive to make a real difference in the world. Jackie, Welcome,
Speaker 4: Thank you, Bob.
Speaker 3: It's great to be here.
Speaker 4: So before we jump in, we got a lot to
Speaker 4: talk about. I want to do you in sixty seconds
Speaker 4: to set the context. Ready to go, excellent, Ready to go?
Speaker 4: Do you prefer cats or dogs?
Speaker 3: Cats?
Speaker 4: Are you an early riser or night out?
Speaker 3: Early riser? Definitely?
Speaker 4: La or New York, LA, city or country country, winter
Speaker 4: or summer?
Speaker 3: Winter, salty or sweet salty.
Speaker 4: Farmers or ranchers, ranchers, beach.
Speaker 2: Or mountains, mountains always mountains.
Speaker 4: Pop music or country country? USA Today or New York Times.
Speaker 3: Oh, I gotta go with USA Today.
Speaker 4: Cooker, read out, cook vacation with family or friends, family chat,
Speaker 4: GPT or Google Search, still, Google Search, smartest person you know?
Speaker 4: Mike Blimberg, childhood hero, my parents? And finally, what's something
Speaker 4: you can't without?
Speaker 3: My faith?
Speaker 4: Great? Okay, let's jump in. Let's start with a big
Speaker 4: topic in marketing today. As marketers, we got spoiled in
Speaker 4: the eighties, nineties, and oughts because Middle America was fascinated
Speaker 4: by the coastal elites and wanted to emulate them. But
Speaker 4: in the last decade that began to change. Consumers in
Speaker 4: America don't necessarily look up to the coastal elites as
Speaker 4: the cool kids anymore. There's a different mindset for real America,
Speaker 4: Middle America, or flyover America, whatever you want to call it.
Speaker 4: You're from rural Colorado and have a special understanding and
Speaker 4: connection to this world. So here's the question. How do
Speaker 4: we put something like Uber and TikTok and perspective. I
Speaker 4: mean Uber, which I think everyone thinks is universal, that
Speaker 4: only has ninety million active users in the US, and
Speaker 4: TikTok reaches less than thirty percent of the American population,
Speaker 4: not what you would think of. How do we keep
Speaker 4: that from swaying our own judgment as it influences our
Speaker 4: creativity and our decisions we make every day.
Speaker 2: Well, I think it starts with each of us as individuals. Personally,
Speaker 2: I work really hard to watch and listen to things
Speaker 2: that I wouldn't normally watch and listen to just to
Speaker 2: see the other point of view. Right, if you're an
Speaker 2: individual that only watches Fox News, you should turn on
Speaker 2: MSNBC every now and again because you get the contrast.
Speaker 2: You hear and understand what the other side is saying,
Speaker 2: and it doesn't always have political Right. If you normally
Speaker 2: listen to pop rock, turn on country every now and again,
Speaker 2: just make yourself, as an individual be more curious about
Speaker 2: how others experience the world. Travel to places that you
Speaker 2: wouldn't normally choose to go to, and be present when
Speaker 2: you're there. I think that's one when I bring it
Speaker 2: into the context that you're speaking of with you know,
Speaker 2: professionals designing product or in our case, really understanding consumers
Speaker 2: of products, whether that be current consumers or those that
Speaker 2: our brands want a conquest. We spend a ton of
Speaker 2: time really diving into what is unique about those individuals,
Speaker 2: what do they have in common, what is different. We
Speaker 2: still do ethnographies to really go deep and understand the
Speaker 2: psyche of those consumers so that we can be more
Speaker 2: specific in how we communicate with them. It takes a
Speaker 2: ton of energy, but again it's all about relevance. It's
Speaker 2: all about individuals feeling like you know them, like you
Speaker 2: understand them. It is about that deep understanding and the
Speaker 2: channels that they rely on. Your point about TikTok, while
Speaker 2: that is significantly growing, How people use it, why they
Speaker 2: use it, the role that plays in their life is
Speaker 2: significantly different than the other channels that we would be
Speaker 2: advocating for brands, they all might play a role, and they.
Speaker 3: Play very connected roles.
Speaker 2: So really understanding how consumers are using different channels and
Speaker 2: how those channels can come together in powerful ways is very,
Speaker 2: very valuable. I also think the other thing that's changing
Speaker 2: in our organizations to different degrees depending on the companies
Speaker 2: we work with, but I'll use DENSU as my example.
Speaker 3: One thing COVID taught us is that people can work
Speaker 3: from anywhere.
Speaker 2: We are hiring people from all over, so we now
Speaker 2: have thousands.
Speaker 3: Of people that sit in the middle of the country.
Speaker 2: To your earlier point about it being so skewed by
Speaker 2: the coasts and potentially being in a bubble, let's jump
Speaker 2: to AI.
Speaker 4: Couldn't be a hotter topic right now?
Speaker 3: Couldn't be a hotter topic.
Speaker 4: How will it change advertising and the work you do
Speaker 4: for your clients.
Speaker 2: There is not a meeting I go to where AI
Speaker 2: is not a topic, if not the first topic.
Speaker 3: And I think there's so many layers we have to
Speaker 3: work through.
Speaker 2: If I start with us as an enterprise, we use
Speaker 2: AI today, we will continue to use it to make
Speaker 2: the work we do more efficient, faster, the quality of
Speaker 2: it being potentially better done by computers, so we can
Speaker 2: reframe our human capital against things that only people can do.
Speaker 3: There's many places where we're using it where it's still human.
Speaker 2: Assisted because it requires some oversight to make sure that
Speaker 2: it is indeed giving us the best decision. Some of
Speaker 2: that is around how do you quickly scroll through a
Speaker 2: lot of resumes? We still want human assistance in that
Speaker 2: to make sure that there's not bias. It's being integrated
Speaker 2: into the system by virtue of AI. But I think
Speaker 2: the enterprise business application, we're just beginning to fully understand that.
Speaker 2: I think that's pretty game changing for agency holding companies.
Speaker 2: When I turn to how we're using it with brands,
Speaker 2: I'll give you two examples. One of them is for Intel,
Speaker 2: which has incredible technology to help remove fake content. So
Speaker 2: the campaign is called deep fake, and through their facial recognition.
Speaker 2: Using AI, they can identify very quickly on a computer
Speaker 2: screen who is a real talking head and advocate or
Speaker 2: pundent and who is fake. And that is now being
Speaker 2: applied to governments and companies and media owners to make
Speaker 2: sure that we get fake content out of the realm.
Speaker 2: So that's one example of a client that's using AI
Speaker 2: to really drive good in the world. Another is something
Speaker 2: we've just launched with a brand called Europharma that is
Speaker 2: using AI technology deeply in a scrolling sense on your
Speaker 2: phone where it helps those with Parkinson's do their daily
Speaker 2: exercises to make sure that they don't lose their facial expression,
Speaker 2: which is a very sad consequence of Parkinson's. So there's
Speaker 2: game changing ways to use it to make our work
Speaker 2: far more powerful. The final point I'll make that I
Speaker 2: think we have to be careful about is there's just
Speaker 2: as many probably downsides to it if we're not careful.
Speaker 2: And I am an advocate for proactive regulation and I'm
Speaker 2: excited about some of the groups that are driving this,
Speaker 2: but I think there's lots of ways in which it
Speaker 2: can go wrong if we're not very very astute and
Speaker 2: hold hands as an industry and are very careful about it.
Speaker 4: Hot topic right now. The economics slowdown. Historically advertisers go, oh, economics,
Speaker 4: slow down, quick, take money out of advertising. Save that money,
Speaker 4: We'll throw it to the bottom line, or let's hold
Speaker 4: it and see what happens. There were some important lessons
Speaker 4: learned from twenty twenty. I think one of them was
Speaker 4: that people found that when they started spending again, it
Speaker 4: cost them a lot more money than if they had
Speaker 4: kept spending through the downturn. What do you see happening
Speaker 4: now and what do you what are your thoughts on
Speaker 4: at tizer spending in times like this.
Speaker 3: I think there's so many case studies in history.
Speaker 2: Even if you go back to nineteen eighty two, another
Speaker 2: moment where there was a recession, you had some of
Speaker 2: the best brands launched during that time or grew during
Speaker 2: that time as a result of their spending into it.
Speaker 2: So I think over history we have seen that continue
Speaker 2: to be the case. What I see most with marketers
Speaker 2: right now, which gives me a ton of optimism, is
Speaker 2: there has been a focus certainly on performance right, performance
Speaker 2: and ROI and all of that has definitely come even
Speaker 2: more into focus in the last i'd say eighteen months.
Speaker 2: We have some clients that are probably trading off some
Speaker 2: of their brand spend and brand effort in preference of
Speaker 2: performance right now, but not exclusively, and most are really
Speaker 2: trying to figure out how you work up and down
Speaker 2: that spectrum in order to ensure that you've got brand
Speaker 2: love at the top, which naturally begins to drive performance
Speaker 2: at the bottom of that fine. Well, the other thing
Speaker 2: that gives me a ton of hope is I hear
Speaker 2: our clients and our CEOs especially talk about marketing as
Speaker 2: an investment, as a growth driver, not as a cost.
Speaker 2: And I think that is to the credit of the
Speaker 2: cmos who have embraced data. They've embraced the importance of
Speaker 2: proving the value of every dollar we spend. Agencies have
Speaker 2: done the same, and so I think it's a very
Speaker 2: different conversation. You see cmos becoming growth officers. You see
Speaker 2: cmos taking on sales and taking on a data scope
Speaker 2: far broader than what they used to have, and I
Speaker 2: think that speaks to marketing as a growth driver, not
Speaker 2: as a cost.
Speaker 4: I want to dig into topics we're talking about, but
Speaker 4: I want to first get a little context on you.
Speaker 4: I want to go back in time when you look
Speaker 4: at the Dutton family of Yellowstone, anything there that reminds
Speaker 4: you of your fifth generation Ranching family in rural Colorado.
Speaker 2: Oh my god. I love Yellowstone largely for that reason.
Speaker 2: Did not look like Yellowstone, So I want to be
Speaker 2: perfectly clear. And we never branded each other, only the cattle.
Speaker 2: And I wish I was as crazy and as fun
Speaker 2: as Beth, but I'm not. I wouldn't trade my upbringing
Speaker 2: for anything because it was simple, right, it was, And
Speaker 2: I don't I mean that as in the best way, right.
Speaker 2: I grew up in a very rural area, a little
Speaker 2: town called Franktown in Colorado. I think at the time
Speaker 2: there was probably twenty three hundred people in Frankown.
Speaker 3: There's probably not that much more now.
Speaker 2: My graduating class in high school was two hundred and
Speaker 2: probably bigger than most would think in a rural town
Speaker 2: like that. And I walked into third grade and met
Speaker 2: my best friends. There's seven of us, so we met
Speaker 2: in third grade. We still celebrate every birthday and every
Speaker 2: high and low of life. And I think that that
Speaker 2: connectedness and that family and friends and faith first has
Speaker 2: always stuck with me. You know. We sat around the
Speaker 2: dinner every night together and talked about our day, and
Speaker 2: somebody had to cook, somebody had to clean the dishes.
Speaker 2: I just the routine of that and the consistency of that,
Speaker 2: I think served me well as a human. I hope
Speaker 2: it has helped me raise children in a similar way,
Speaker 2: although never raised with that level of ruralness that I had.
Speaker 4: So what influence did your family in that environment have
Speaker 4: on you that's still with you today? That makes you,
Speaker 4: in essence who you are.
Speaker 2: I had the gift of parents that believed anything was possible,
Speaker 2: and they allowed us to do what we wanted to do.
Speaker 2: They never placed their points of view or their desires
Speaker 2: on us. When I was deciding where to go to college,
Speaker 2: everybody in my family had gone to a university in Colorado,
Speaker 2: and for me, I felt I had four years to
Speaker 2: live somewhere else, and everybody comes back to Colorado my
Speaker 2: family and I raised it to my dad and he said, sure, honey,
Speaker 2: you try, you.
Speaker 3: Go anywhere you want. You can do anything.
Speaker 2: And you know, I guess whether or not I believe
Speaker 2: that the fact that somebody else believed that in me
Speaker 2: mattered a lot.
Speaker 4: Four h I told that story raising Steers. I'll bet
Speaker 4: many of our listeners don't even know what four H is.
Speaker 4: Can you explain real quickly what four H is?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: So four H is an organization where youth take on
Speaker 2: different projects and those projects range from agriculture, which is
Speaker 2: what I did, as well as home economics so cooking
Speaker 2: and sewing, and I also did that. But it also
Speaker 2: now has a lot of technology projects. They have archery.
Speaker 2: The span of what they do now is far different
Speaker 2: than it was when I participated, and it is across
Speaker 2: the United States. Plenty of people in rural New York
Speaker 2: do it and they teach horticulturalism and different things. It's
Speaker 2: about giving your heart and your hands and your health
Speaker 2: to better living and to really learn different projects. And
Speaker 2: then you display those projects.
Speaker 3: So in my case.
Speaker 2: Is where I showed my steers, and then you sell
Speaker 2: them and that money which I did for gosh, I
Speaker 2: did that for twelve years. The money that I had
Speaker 2: saved selling cattle helped pay for my first year of college,
Speaker 2: as you mentioned. And it teaches you responsibility at a
Speaker 2: really young age. Right, You're up at five thirty in
Speaker 2: the morning to feed your animals. You have to walk them,
Speaker 2: you have to show them, you have to bathe them.
Speaker 2: All of that is happening when you're nine years old,
Speaker 2: So it's a really good way to teach young leaders
Speaker 2: at a.
Speaker 3: Young age.
Speaker 4: Moral math and magic. Right after this quick break, welcome
Speaker 4: back to math and magic. Let's hear more from my
Speaker 4: conversation with Jackie Kelly. Let's get your career how and
Speaker 4: why USA Today when you join, newspapers are still in
Speaker 4: full swing and over time. Of course, we know what
Speaker 4: happened to the newspaper and they made the transition to digital
Speaker 4: and other kinds of businesses. What did you see in
Speaker 4: USA today that initially excited you and then how did
Speaker 4: you navigate that change?
Speaker 2: I joined USA Today when they had just turned five
Speaker 2: in nineteen eighty eight, and I joined as an intern,
Speaker 2: and my initial reason for joining was it was opportunistic, right,
Speaker 2: I wanted to learn something. I was interested in broadcast journalism.
Speaker 2: Obviously that wasn't broadcast journalism, but it was the opportunity
Speaker 2: to get into a journalistic organization. And USA Today at
Speaker 2: the time, I love the innovation of that product. At
Speaker 2: the time, there was no color newspapers, there was no
Speaker 2: nationally distributed newspaper. There was no newspaper that could have
Speaker 2: the sports scores from the game ends at eleven o'clock,
Speaker 2: and it's in that morning paper. That was by virtue
Speaker 2: of the satellite technology of printing that USA Today was
Speaker 2: using at the time. So USA Today was breaking every
Speaker 2: rule in newspapers, and I thought that was incredibly exciting.
Speaker 2: So I joined as an intern. Learned a ton That
Speaker 2: was a company that gave me the opportunity. That was
Speaker 2: a company that grew leaders. They would bring people in young,
Speaker 2: they would teach them and train them and give them
Speaker 2: lots of different opportunities. And so I left eighteen years later.
Speaker 2: I liked to joke that I was the longest living intern.
Speaker 2: I had spent nine years in circulation and I spent
Speaker 2: nine years in advertising. So you know, the distribution side
Speaker 2: of a company like USA Today is just as critical
Speaker 2: as the advertising. In the case of USA Today, we
Speaker 2: had just as much revenue, sometimes far more in circulation
Speaker 2: than we did in advertising, especially in the early days,
Speaker 2: as we were convincing advertisers that this was a viable product.
Speaker 3: So I loved it because it was innovative.
Speaker 4: You went on to Yahoo, you did a stint with
Speaker 4: Martha Stewart, and then you crossed the fence to the
Speaker 4: agency side running media brands. What made you jump the fence?
Speaker 2: This is kind of a fun story, and I give
Speaker 2: credit to people that can identify talent and then encourage
Speaker 2: us to do something that would not be obvious to us.
Speaker 2: Case I had left USA, I had gone to Yahoo
Speaker 2: and worked for Wyndam Millard. Wynda Millard is an incredible
Speaker 2: mentor for me and convinced me to come to Yahoo.
Speaker 2: But it wasn't that hard to convince me because I
Speaker 2: knew newspapers were changing. I knew I needed to get
Speaker 2: a much better digital education. I wanted to go to
Speaker 2: the deep end, and at the time, Yahoo or Google
Speaker 2: were your two choices, and Yahoo was teaching brands how
Speaker 2: to build a brand on the web, so that was
Speaker 2: obvious for me. And then followed Wenda to Martha Stewart
Speaker 2: to fully integrate Martha's organization. It was post her being
Speaker 2: in what she calls the clink clink, and we were
Speaker 2: building her brand back and consumers never left her, advertisers had,
Speaker 2: so there was a lot of work to do around
Speaker 2: integrating her organization. I'd love that challenge. It was in
Speaker 2: that moment that Wenda actually had heard about an opportunity
Speaker 2: through a friend of hers that was running UM globally,
Speaker 2: a gentleman named Matt Siler, and she said, you should
Speaker 2: look at this because it would be a next phase
Speaker 2: of your career. And I had wanted to be at
Speaker 2: the agency side. I'd been on a panel at Advertising
Speaker 2: Week and famously referred to agencies as a barrier to
Speaker 2: my progress as a media owner, which did not go overwhell.
Speaker 2: But I believed that agencies were failing clients and media
Speaker 2: owners because they were not giving us the gift of
Speaker 2: time and transparency. Those were the two things that I
Speaker 2: really wanted from an agency, and I just couldn't get anyway.
Speaker 2: Long story short, Matt saw what I saw. Matt saw
Speaker 2: the opportunity to leverage media owners as real content partners
Speaker 2: in the work that media brands and UM specifically was
Speaker 2: doing for clients. And it was the first time that
Speaker 2: I saw an agency executive see what I saw as
Speaker 2: the opportunity to partner differently with media owners. And it
Speaker 2: was one of those moments in life where you can
Speaker 2: keep complaining and pointing the finger and wishing it was different,
Speaker 2: or you can jump to the other side and help
Speaker 2: make that so. And then I got bit right then.
Speaker 2: I just loved the agency side. It's such an incredible
Speaker 2: place to operate in our industry. But that's how I
Speaker 2: got there, great people that told me I should.
Speaker 4: Well, you jumped the fence again, back when you went
Speaker 4: with Michael Bloomberg when he had just come out of
Speaker 4: his twelve years as probably the most spectacular in New
Speaker 4: York City mayor ever, and you joined just as he
Speaker 4: was re entering the private world. Tell us what was
Speaker 4: so great about that that caused you to go, Wait
Speaker 4: a minute, I'm in the ad world, but now I'm
Speaker 4: going back.
Speaker 2: So I'm one of those people, and this is probably
Speaker 2: not a good thing to share, but I keep my
Speaker 2: head down and I don't really look for new opportunities,
Speaker 2: but then something will get into my line of sight
Speaker 2: and I get excited about it. And that's what happened
Speaker 2: with Bloomberg. Mike was coming back to the organization, but
Speaker 2: it was assumed he'd come back into the foundation. I
Speaker 2: don't think anybody assumed he'd come back and be the
Speaker 2: CEO of the company again. And the leadership at the
Speaker 2: time was going to take the twenty six hundred journalists
Speaker 2: of Bloomberg, which is at the time was more than CNN,
Speaker 2: New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal combined. It
Speaker 2: was a for Milis still is a formidable journalism team,
Speaker 2: and again going back to my love of journalism and
Speaker 2: the importance of that and being in a newsroom, I
Speaker 2: missed that aspect, and so the intention was to take
Speaker 2: that incredible journalistic team and really create a competitor to CNN.
Speaker 2: So it was broad in the aperture, from financial news
Speaker 2: to broader general news as well. That's what got me
Speaker 2: in there. And it was integrated right. They had broadcasts,
Speaker 2: they had print, they have the terminal, they have incredible
Speaker 2: digital property, and so the ability to run that and
Speaker 2: have some oversight of editorial was super interesting to me.
Speaker 4: We talked a little bit about den Sue. You obviously
Speaker 4: came back to DENSU. You've had a spectacular impact in
Speaker 4: advertising again through DENSU. I want to talk a little
Speaker 4: bit about corporate culture. People have said our corporate cultures
Speaker 4: and our values is our operating system, and just like
Speaker 4: in technology, if you don't get that right, none of
Speaker 4: the other programs work well. Had DENSU you got the
Speaker 4: far flung organization. We've talked about people working remotely. Now
Speaker 4: and wyoming in places like that, how do you get
Speaker 4: buy in, especially post pandemic, the new work environment.
Speaker 2: I will say post pandemic, it's harder. I think it's
Speaker 2: harder because we do not have people coming together in
Speaker 2: the way they used to, which means as leaders, we
Speaker 2: need to work harder at it. First and foremost, my
Speaker 2: executive team and I work really hard on making sure
Speaker 2: that we are embodying those cultures. We spend a lot
Speaker 2: of time becoming as productive as we can as a
Speaker 2: collective unit and operating system ourselves, and we're really candid
Speaker 2: with one another when one of us is acting in
Speaker 2: a way that may suggest that we're not living into
Speaker 2: those values. So that's one holding one another accountable. I
Speaker 2: think the other is peer to peer platform. We have
Speaker 2: to create visible ways where our culture is displayed. One
Speaker 2: of our values is around making society better. So it's
Speaker 2: not just about the work we do. We want the
Speaker 2: work we do for brands to actually make it impact
Speaker 2: in the world and to improve society. Our global CEO
Speaker 2: kiro Igarashisan talks about being business to business to society
Speaker 2: and that society piece being so important that is really
Speaker 2: in the fabric of our culture. So when we have
Speaker 2: a piece of work, the intel piece of work around
Speaker 2: deep fake is an example of this, we really celebrate
Speaker 2: that because that is an example of us actually making
Speaker 2: the world a better and safer place. So I think
Speaker 2: to put a fine point on it behaving that way
Speaker 2: as individuals, and then when you have a piece of
Speaker 2: work or a client example, making sure the network can
Speaker 2: celebrate that and we.
Speaker 3: Make it visible.
Speaker 4: You've had a charmed career and I know giving back
Speaker 4: is very important to you. You're the board chair of
Speaker 4: the Egg Council. You've been on the boards of a
Speaker 4: number of organizations, but one of the most important clauses
Speaker 4: for you is foster care. I think a foster family
Speaker 4: for over twenty children. Can you tell us a little
Speaker 4: bit about foster care in the US why we should
Speaker 4: all get involved in what touched you about it?
Speaker 3: Now?
Speaker 2: Thank you for asking that question, Bob, because I have
Speaker 2: been accused of recruiting foster parents whenever I can, so
Speaker 2: I will take this opportunity for all your listeners to
Speaker 2: do that. I got involved because my family, through our church,
Speaker 2: had been able to be camp counselors at a camp
Speaker 2: for foster children one summer and through that experience, I
Speaker 2: learned two stats that stunned me. One was that fifty
Speaker 2: percent of the homeless in the US were at some
Speaker 2: point in the foster system, and seventy percent of those
Speaker 2: that are incarcerated were at some point in the foster system.
Speaker 2: So it struck me that if you fix the foster system,
Speaker 2: you might actually fix a lot of things that our
Speaker 2: country then struggles with long term. And more importantly, how
Speaker 2: unfair that these kids never had the chance to live
Speaker 2: up to their full potential. That's what bothered me most
Speaker 2: is the fact that by virtue of their circumstances, which
Speaker 2: is not their fault, they were compromised it to homelessness
Speaker 2: and incarceration all these other things. So it really struck
Speaker 2: me that we could actually make a difference. And I
Speaker 2: mentioned it to my husband coming back from camp that week,
Speaker 2: and I'd had the eleven year old girls, my own daughter,
Speaker 2: Ashley was eleven at the time, and he had the
Speaker 2: eleven year old boys, And as we were driving back,
Speaker 2: I said, I think we should do this, and he
Speaker 2: hesitated because he was with the eleven year old boys.
Speaker 2: His week was not quite as kumbaya as mine was.
Speaker 2: And then he came back two weeks later and said,
Speaker 2: I think you're right. I think we can make a difference,
Speaker 2: and we got licensed. We've now had twenty six foster
Speaker 2: children and we adopted our twenty fifth, which is Little Nova,
Speaker 2: which we adopted last summer, and it is game changing.
Speaker 2: I encourage anyone who has room in their home and
Speaker 2: in their heart to consider it.
Speaker 3: And there's many different ways. You don't have to be
Speaker 3: in it forever.
Speaker 2: You can do respe care where you take kids for
Speaker 2: a weekend as they find a more permanent foster placement
Speaker 2: for them.
Speaker 3: But there's a lot of good that.
Speaker 2: Can come from you just showing love and affection and
Speaker 2: routine to a child at a time when their whole
Speaker 2: world has turned upside down.
Speaker 3: So I highly recommend it.
Speaker 4: Well, you're doing a lot for them. What do they
Speaker 4: do for you? What insights in the humanity in the
Speaker 4: world have you gotten as a result of being a
Speaker 4: foster parent?
Speaker 2: Like all things in life, you get so much more
Speaker 2: than you give. They have fulfilled us as a family
Speaker 2: in a really different way. They have taught me a
Speaker 2: different level of resilience because these kids have seen things, Bob,
Speaker 2: that you and I have never seen, and yet they
Speaker 2: have come out on the other side optimistic and playful
Speaker 2: and hopeful, so they remind you of the importance of resilience.
Speaker 2: I've also learned a lot about the system and our
Speaker 2: government and in many ways where it.
Speaker 3: Can be fixed.
Speaker 2: It's made me more interested in public policy. It has
Speaker 2: taught our family a lot about diversity, right, a lot
Speaker 2: about how different cultures to your earliest point about how
Speaker 2: do we become less polarizing and more integrated. It has
Speaker 2: taught us that because we've had children of all different nationalities,
Speaker 2: and as a result of that, we do our best
Speaker 2: to bring that culture into our home, which has been
Speaker 2: incredibly educational.
Speaker 4: Let's jump to some advice a couple of points before
Speaker 4: we wind up today. You've been through a lot of careers.
Speaker 4: If someone's thinking about changing jobs, what should they consider?
Speaker 4: What advice can you give them?
Speaker 2: The advice I always give people is to pick people.
Speaker 2: I think exceptional leaders can make a mediocre company exceptional,
Speaker 2: and less exceptional leaders can make a great company less great.
Speaker 2: And so I always say, pick people. You will learn
Speaker 2: so much and the opportunities will be so much richer.
Speaker 2: First and foremost, and then the other I would say
Speaker 2: is to not be afraid to zig and zag. I
Speaker 2: think we've gotten very focused as professionals on climbing the ladder.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot more benefit if you're willing
Speaker 2: to go to a horizontal opportunity in order to expand
Speaker 2: your own learning. It will give you an opportunity to
Speaker 2: leap forward in a very different way.
Speaker 4: We end each episode of Math and Magic with a
Speaker 4: shout out to the greats or the influences on our
Speaker 4: guests from the two polls of great marketing, the math
Speaker 4: those whose brilliance is in the analytics finding the insights
Speaker 4: that make a difference in who see the world through data,
Speaker 4: and the magic those who add the spark, those who
Speaker 4: excite the consumer or others with their sheer creativity. I'm
Speaker 4: going to ask you for a shout out. Who are
Speaker 4: your two shout outs on the math side and on
Speaker 4: the magic side.
Speaker 2: On the math side, I would give a big shout
Speaker 2: out to David Williams, who's the founder of Merkel. I
Speaker 2: mentioned Merkle earlier in terms of its importance to our
Speaker 2: capability at DENSU, but David acquired Merkel when it was
Speaker 2: twenty five people and five million dollars in revenue as
Speaker 2: a really direct mail company and built it into a
Speaker 2: robust performance marketing and personalization engine with identity at the core.
Speaker 3: It's incredible what he built.
Speaker 2: And what I loved about David is not only was
Speaker 2: he a mathematician in terms of understanding the power of
Speaker 2: that going forward, but he reinforced for me the value
Speaker 2: of what I call balcony to basement, like being able
Speaker 2: to really understand the guts of the organization but also
Speaker 2: lift up and be really.
Speaker 3: Inspiring with your vision.
Speaker 2: And he knew when to pivot and to see something
Speaker 2: coming and get ahead of it, and he did that.
Speaker 3: Brilliantly for Markle Magic.
Speaker 2: For Magic, I'm going to shout out to a book
Speaker 2: that I've recently just finished by Sally Sessman. And Sally
Speaker 2: is an exceptional executive and communication leader.
Speaker 3: She's been at Amex S D.
Speaker 2: Lauder and now she's advisor, and she's recently written a
Speaker 2: book called Breaking Through. And the magic of this book
Speaker 2: is it is a reminder and an incredible guide on
Speaker 2: the importance of communication. And she has ten power principles
Speaker 2: or tenants in there that really speak two executives. So
Speaker 2: I give Sally the shout out for magic and highly
Speaker 2: recommend the book for everyone.
Speaker 4: Jackie, You've had an amazing career in life. You've still
Speaker 4: got so much ahead of you. I'm not trying to
Speaker 4: make you sound like you're anywhere near the end of that. Congrats.
Speaker 4: Thanks for sharing these insights and experiences with us today.
Speaker 3: Thank you for inviting me, Bob, I appreciate it.
Speaker 4: Here are a few things I picked up from my
Speaker 4: conversation with Jackie. One, stay curious. If you want to
Speaker 4: appeal to customers with different demographics, it's important to venture
Speaker 4: outside your bubble, listen to a different kind of music
Speaker 4: than you're used to, or turn on a different news channel.
Speaker 4: When you stay open minded, your products and your life
Speaker 4: experiences will be better for it. Two. Choose people over companies.
Speaker 4: A brilliant leader can make any company better, and less
Speaker 4: worthy leaders can drag a company down. When you trust
Speaker 4: and admire the people you work for, you'll learn more
Speaker 4: and you'll be more fulfilled overall. Three, don't be afraid
Speaker 4: to change direction. People often get hung up on climbing
Speaker 4: the ladder in one company or industry, but when you
Speaker 4: make a horizontal move to a place you wouldn't have
Speaker 4: expected or climbed to the other side of the fence.
Speaker 4: It may give you an opportunity to leap forward in
Speaker 4: exciting new ways. I'm Bob Pittman. Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1: That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
Speaker 1: to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio. The show
Speaker 1: is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney Rosenbloom
Speaker 1: for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent, which is no
Speaker 1: small feat. Our editor Emily Meronoff, our engineers Jessica Crinchitch
Speaker 1: and Baheid Fraser, our executive producers Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry,
Speaker 1: and of course Gail Raoul, Eric Angel Noel and everyone
Speaker 1: who helped bring this show to your ears. Until next time,