Squeezing Innovation: CEO Monica McGurk's Fresh Take at Tropicana

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[00:01:40] The mandate for cultural relevance has really driven the Trap can and brand

[00:01:45] to embrace these moments of cultural relevance where we can insert ourselves into something

[00:01:52] that seems really true to the brand identity and its role in consumers lives,

[00:01:57] but do it in a really unique and refreshing way. For example,

[00:02:03] To thrive in a rapidly evolving landscape, brands must move in an ever-increasing pace.

[00:02:08] I'm Matt Britton, founder and CEO of Suzy. Join me and key industry leaders as we dive

[00:02:13] deep into the shifting consumer trends within their industry, why it matters now,

[00:02:17] and how you can keep up. Welcome to the speed of culture.

[00:02:28] Today we're thrilled to be joined by Monica McGurk, the CEO of Trap can and brand groups North

[00:02:34] American Business Unit and also best-selling fiction writer, Monica. So great to see you.

[00:02:39] I can't wait to dive in today. Yeah, great to speak with you. Excited for our conversation.

[00:02:44] Absolutely. So let me ask you a question. When you were growing up, did you think one day

[00:02:47] you would be in charge of selling the most beloved orange juice brand around the world?

[00:02:52] Did you ever imagine that this would be where you would end up?

[00:02:55] Never in a million years, although I will say my affinity for food and the entire agricultural

[00:03:02] production chain does go back to my childhood. I grew up inside of long tradition of family

[00:03:09] farming. My first real job actually was as a contract grower of cucumbers for a pickle

[00:03:15] manufacturer. So maybe I should have known, but no, I had no idea.

[00:03:20] That's amazing. So walk me through your journey just high level of how you got from there to

[00:03:26] where you are today, kind of the steps you took in your career that led you to end up here?

[00:03:31] Sure. It was not entirely purposeful to be honest. I ended up, no, and that's the

[00:03:37] beauty of a great career. You get mentored and you have great opportunities that you stumble

[00:03:42] into and are able to take advantage of. So I went to college, first generation college attender.

[00:03:48] Didn't really know that much about the route I was taking kind of got steered into a pre-law

[00:03:54] type of program. I thought it was going to be a diplomat, go into international relations

[00:03:59] and had a change of heart kind of late in the process as an undergrad.

[00:04:03] Had in the meantime accumulated quite a bit of student debt, something I think a lot of

[00:04:07] your readers and observers can relate to. So knowing I had a lot of debt and wasn't really

[00:04:13] crystal clear on my career path, ended up going into business simply to have a job

[00:04:19] and start to pay down that debt. I ended up being lucky enough first to take a role in

[00:04:24] manufacturing operations and the management training program and then pivoted into consulting,

[00:04:30] which is a fantastic proving ground and training ground for people who don't know exactly what

[00:04:37] they want to do and also don't have a real business background. How do you pivot

[00:04:40] consulting with a lot of people who think that you'd have to have a certain chunk of

[00:04:43] relationship or connection to even be able to do that? It's a great question. The college I happened

[00:04:48] to go to attracted a lot of recruiters in investment banking and consulting and probably

[00:04:53] is over-weighted there. So there was a pipeline, but honestly when I went through the process

[00:04:59] I had the same question. I was like it's kind of sketchy that someone like me could be a

[00:05:03] consultant when I don't really know anything, but to know many people during the recruiting process

[00:05:08] I ended up taking that operations training program because I really wanted to have a link

[00:05:14] to something tangible. But a few months into it I wasn't learning at the pace I thought

[00:05:19] I wanted to and then I was capable of if I were with a consulting firm in kind of the big

[00:05:25] playing space. So I was lucky enough that they were able to re-pick up or re-offer me that

[00:05:32] opportunity. And so I joined a consulting firm and ended up over time shifting my focus from what

[00:05:39] started out as operations into more strategy, marketing strategy. I founded the innovation

[00:05:45] practice for consumer in the Americas along with some great colleagues. And from that got

[00:05:51] really, really interested as I kind of grew in my partnership to think through why it was so

[00:05:58] hard for so many of my clients to sustain innovation. I was fascinated by that question because

[00:06:06] successful innovation on the one hand is super cross-functional. You have to think like a general

[00:06:10] manager and understand everything, soup to nuts, sourcing, supply chain, the market opportunity.

[00:06:18] And it's a leadership and cultural challenge which I think many of us in our industry have

[00:06:23] struggled with. So I ended up jumping into the organization practice and did a lot of leadership,

[00:06:29] development, culture change, large-scale transformation and commercial capability

[00:06:33] building. And that just really reminded me how much I liked being in the tangibleness

[00:06:41] of a real company as I called it and that I wanted to kind of go back into industry. And

[00:06:46] so I made that jump in 2011, 2012. Ended up going into startup land then was lucky enough to get

[00:06:54] recruited to Coca-Cola where I spent several years ultimately leading strategy, brand planning

[00:07:01] and the e-commerce business along with analytics and insights for the North American business.

[00:07:06] The e-commerce very much racing especially for CBG company.

[00:07:10] Yeah, it was white space for us. So that was really, really a fun charge. I then moved

[00:07:16] to Tyson where I started out leading global strategy, founded their venture fund and some

[00:07:22] really cool food tech spaces. You know, wound my way through leading the food service business

[00:07:28] and I stint as chief growth officer and then rejoined a former boss at Kellogg where I was

[00:07:35] also the chief growth officer. And now I'm at Tropicana and I think the thing that

[00:07:40] threads all of those experiences is first my passion for growth and commercial capability

[00:07:45] building, my ability to reframe problems to help unlock opportunities in what many would

[00:07:52] consider kind of stagnant legacy companies. My passion for brands and my ability to lead

[00:07:59] teams and really help them rethink the art of possible in service of customer profitable,

[00:08:07] sustainable mutual customer growth and the consumer for whom we do what we do every day.

[00:08:13] Absolutely. So you mentioned first of all, fascinating career. We haven't even gotten to

[00:08:16] the fact that you're a fiction writer. We'll get into that at the end but you talked about

[00:08:20] sustaining innovation and I have to tell you Monica, like I run a company that knows 300 people

[00:08:25] and already in our small size, I find it challenging to keep that startup mentality

[00:08:31] where when you have a startup mentality, innovation is somewhat easy because you have

[00:08:34] small amount of people over who are like, let's just do this. And then the more layers

[00:08:38] the bigger you get, what I found is just ultimately, but you need alignment of incentives

[00:08:44] because there were some roles especially like the onset of AI right now in a technology company.

[00:08:49] AI is scary so the incentive of embracing something new, I think can be juxtaposed with

[00:08:55] somebody of well is this going to take my job? Do I really want to embrace change?

[00:08:58] So how have you been able to manage, I guess, the people part of innovation because ultimately

[00:09:04] you can't drive innovation without people and you can't get those people to embrace what you want

[00:09:09] without them getting them to believe in a lot of ways change the way that they've always been

[00:09:13] thinking about things. Yeah, it's such a fascinating topic. We could talk for days about

[00:09:17] this topic. I start with first clarity of purpose and strategy and I think one of the things

[00:09:25] that we're really crisp on at Tropicana Brands Group is our goal. First of all, as I carve out

[00:09:34] we have a very clear financial objective over the time horizon that we're focused on right now

[00:09:39] but also how to get there. We went through a very clear strategic planning process

[00:09:44] where we define what we call value creation pillars which were all defined consumer back,

[00:09:51] understanding occasions and needs states, how our brand portfolio was deployed against them,

[00:09:57] where we had white space opportunities to take advantage of, layering in channel insights, geographic

[00:10:04] insight, consumer cohort insight so that we were able to define very clear focus areas and do the

[00:10:12] math basically of how each brand would uniquely contribute to driving those outcomes. So we have

[00:10:18] very crisp articulation of the what and the spaces to target. That lays the groundwork for

[00:10:24] the how which is where innovation can come into play. And so I think we're lucky in that we've spent

[00:10:31] a lot of time defining that and that creates the alignment of incentives and every year when we do our

[00:10:37] planning process everything links up to that algorithm. We just are continuing the cascade

[00:10:44] of what we call our OGSIM doing a cross-functional round robin to make sure those are aligned

[00:10:50] and that our incentive scheme reinforces that as well. So that's one angle into it. The other

[00:10:57] is the role of the cross-functional perspectives and diversity of thought. And there's been a lot

[00:11:02] of academic research I think what I'm about to say which is diversity and I mean that with

[00:11:08] like the capital D any way you want to slice and dice diversity is really, really great for

[00:11:15] generating ideas. It actually can be counterproductive or more of a challenge when you talk about

[00:11:21] execution. Have you ever heard that there's a coral monica in all your town and all your

[00:11:25] thing? There are no statues of committees because it's true. This is a great one. Yeah.

[00:11:30] So it's how do you get the best out of that front end and the development and tap the genius

[00:11:36] of not just the people in your organization but all of the people in our ecosystem of suppliers

[00:11:41] and partners to come up with the brilliant ideas and bring them to life but then how do you get

[00:11:48] super disciplined on execution and not get in your own way? And so we're spending a lot of time

[00:11:54] on that and excusing both parts of that problem with agility. So whether it's on the front end

[00:12:01] driving really agile research processes moving pack structure and what we call designed a

[00:12:10] consumer value. You're figuring out what in our formulas are actually value adding and that consumers

[00:12:16] want and are willing to pay for what's actually just cost and complexity that we can take out.

[00:12:21] In past times that probably would have taken us six months to do a project on that

[00:12:26] and we've been able to hone our processes to do 30-day sprints and come up with

[00:12:31] multi-million dollar opportunities whether it's top line or bottom line that are really going to

[00:12:36] change the needle of how we go to market. We've been able to take six-month processes

[00:12:41] for pack structure and consumer feedback whether that's in-home handling to quick reactions to

[00:12:49] concept designs and compress that down in really meaningful ways or have deployed new research

[00:12:56] techniques that can capture what consumers are saying but also what they're actually doing,

[00:13:03] how they're reacting subconsciously to a shelf set, to a claim and move again things that would have been

[00:13:11] 20 to 50 thousand dollars a pop to two to three thousand dollars at a pace quick turnaround under

[00:13:18] a week to be able to keep things moving and that's just on the front end. So I think all of

[00:13:23] those things work together when you have clarity of purpose and deliberately tackle

[00:13:30] the sense of sphere or risk aversion that can be inherent in some of these companies and I think

[00:13:36] when you've got big beloved brands like Tropicana, like Naked there can be that tendency to be like

[00:13:43] I have to protect. Right exactly. Just don't miss it all right. Yeah this crown jewel I have

[00:13:48] to protect it and not mess it up and what we're really challenging our teams to do is

[00:13:53] you think beyond that we've got your back let's think about risk management in a very

[00:13:58] tailored way so that everything we're doing we encourage people to think okay is this a

[00:14:04] two hour, two day, two week, two month kind of problem and how are you going to deploy

[00:14:10] yourselves against it in light of the answer to that? Is this a reversible decision we're about

[00:14:15] to make or an irreversible decision is the risk that we're taking on catastrophic or minimal

[00:14:22] and that enables us to be really bold in the choices that we're making.

[00:14:25] Absolutely I'll never forget Michael what they spoke to me with a lawyer and who is telling me why

[00:14:31] we couldn't do all these things for our business who had stayed in Airbnb and took an Uber to the

[00:14:36] meeting and I was thinking if you told them they couldn't your entire life would have changed

[00:14:40] right because those companies basically bucked the trends and that it's easier when you're

[00:14:45] a startup when you're a larger company and more to pretend. I think those two directions

[00:14:49] become even more diametrically opposed because Tropicana is a beloved brand right it's

[00:14:53] institution you don't want to mess it up but you have to keep it.

[00:14:56] We have to keep innovating we have to make sure we're relevant and relevant in culture

[00:15:02] and so it's a fun challenge from a cultural standpoint you know where we often say we're

[00:15:07] the biggest startup that will ever have the pleasure to work in because as we carve ourselves out

[00:15:12] we do get the chance and need to stand up new systems new processes new ways of working

[00:15:17] everything from scratch so it's not divorced from the past it's informed by the past but

[00:15:23] definitely with an eye on the future. Yeah and you've now been a CEO for a couple years now

[00:15:28] did that role kind of have to change the way you went about how you spend your time because a lot

[00:15:32] of people they'll be an associate and then they become a director and like well can I actually

[00:15:37] really be a director I've never been a director before but you never are until you are a CEO

[00:15:41] is kind of the pedal to their role in any organization let alone a company like Tropicana

[00:15:46] how are you able to prepare for that role and how is it different?

[00:15:49] So on the one hand I would say people have this funny sense of a CEO as being like the decision

[00:15:57] maker but you always have a boss even a CEO like reports to a board and ultimately you report to

[00:16:03] your shareholders and you're responsible and accountable to your consumers your customers

[00:16:08] right so anyone who thinks that you're like totally free from having a boss so to speak

[00:16:14] like that's just a false assumption and in fact the responsibility I think is even greater

[00:16:20] at this kind of a level that said I think the mindset of focusing on what only you can do

[00:16:28] in that role the things that no one else will be able to do is a really powerful one because it

[00:16:34] helps you really hone what you spend your time on and you can be very purposeful in that

[00:16:40] so strategic clarity culture building people development and succession those are things that

[00:16:47] if you're not doing them whether you're a business unit CEO or a global CEO like no one else is going

[00:16:53] to pay attention to those or has the ability to unleash those things so I think it's being

[00:16:59] very purposeful about that and then knowing kind of your own strengths and weaknesses

[00:17:04] and making sure that you're deploying your team and building the right team around you so that

[00:17:09] you've got the best highest performing team possible to go to market we'll be right back

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[00:17:56] LinkedIn has professionals you can't find anywhere else including those who aren't

[00:18:00] actively looking for a new job but might be open to the perfect role like me in a given month

[00:18:06] over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites so if you're not looking on LinkedIn

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[00:19:00] talk about Tropicana I saw post a couple months ago that I actually saved because I thought it was so

[00:19:05] inspiring about how Tropicana is found there is the Rossi rides in US mentally which is 25

[00:19:10] hours in his pocket and you're now embarking on the company's 75th anniversary I believe so

[00:19:16] obviously so much heritage so much love for the brand how do you think consumers see the

[00:19:21] Tropicana brand today where do you want to take it tomorrow what are your some of your

[00:19:24] plans to bring up the life so Tropicana remains in market leading in terms of equity and share in

[00:19:32] the United States and North America so it retains this incredible relevance in consumers daily lives

[00:19:42] the opportunity that we have and where we want to take it is on the one hand from the orange

[00:19:49] juice heritage right which is deeply rooted in the founding story really creating from scratch this

[00:19:57] category right before Anthony Rossi had his vision it was really hard to get fresh tasting orange

[00:20:05] juice at scale the lengths he went to and the team around him went to to innovate how this is made

[00:20:13] are incredible whether it's pasteurization in a gentle way to preserve the nutrition and

[00:20:20] the quality of the taste cues or coming up with entire new routes to market like ships

[00:20:26] and chilled distribution all these things like it was pretty incredible how he innovated and that

[00:20:31] was all in service of fresh taste for all so as we think about how we remain relevant to

[00:20:38] consumers it's no secret there's been a lot of inflation and food and orange juice has been no

[00:20:45] exception in part because of challenges in the supply chain so thinking through how do you remain

[00:20:53] affordable and accessible to all families while you continue to have that incredible quality

[00:21:01] is job one relevance is first of all accessibility second our grounding is in

[00:21:08] natural nutrition this is a very unprocessed minimally processed category we squeeze and we

[00:21:16] bottle there's a little bit of pasteurization to make sure that it retains all that goodness

[00:21:21] but other than that it's pretty simple that is very relevant to today's consumer

[00:21:28] unique in the marketplace yeah yeah it's unique it's very relevant for people who are

[00:21:34] looking for clean offerings we have no added sugar that's often misunderstood in this category and

[00:21:41] in for our tropicana brand so the fact that the only thing that is in there is the natural

[00:21:46] sweetness that comes from an horror just something that we want to make sure people know about

[00:21:50] and then we need to make sure that for those who are concerned even about

[00:21:54] the naturally occurring sugars that come from the fruit that we're offering them alternatives so our

[00:22:01] light offering which has 50% less calories and sugar than regular orange juice again very naturally

[00:22:09] occurring a real great innovation that provides those consumers for him that is important choice

[00:22:15] are zero drinks similarly great tasting refreshing but an additional functional offer for those to

[00:22:24] him that is important right it seems as really in a main packaging as well yeah we've done great

[00:22:30] innovation in packaging our naked brand didn't not to abandon the discussion on tropicana per se

[00:22:35] but naked was the first national brand to bring our pet to scale and we continue to look at ways to

[00:22:43] drive sustainability in our end-to-end supply chain fun fact that many people don't know

[00:22:49] we use everything in the orange and we process an orange everything is utilized nothing goes to

[00:22:55] waste it's a zero waste production that peel the rind gets used in other end products whether it's

[00:23:02] providing oils that go into fragrances in another end market or into animal feed it's a very very

[00:23:11] sustainable production so that's another element that we're trying to drive to ensure

[00:23:17] we remain relevant because consumers and shoppers increasingly are looking for brands that reflect

[00:23:22] their values and sustainability is certainly one there's also the opportunity to broaden the occasion

[00:23:28] lens if we have this very fast growing arm of the tropicana brand in our drinks portfolio

[00:23:35] it's been very incremental at shelf for retailers so it's a win for them to have us in the

[00:23:40] market and it offers great again accessible premium tasting drinks for afternoon refreshment

[00:23:48] occasions for evening meal accompaniment occasions and then there's the continued penetration of other

[00:23:56] occasions that are on the go through our single surf portfolio where we've invested a lot in

[00:24:01] new capacity and continue to drive investments in our sales capability our routes to market

[00:24:08] to make sure that anywhere a consumer wants to have a tropicana we're there at that moment of choice

[00:24:16] so those are all really important focus for the tropicana brand in our portfolio at large

[00:24:21] and it all could really make sense and I think the playbook from where you said you probably

[00:24:26] understand where you need to go executing as you kind of looked earlier is is the hardest

[00:24:30] part sometimes right the landing the free something like from a consumer engagement

[00:24:35] standpoint are the things that you're particularly proud of in how tropicana is connecting

[00:24:40] so Monica from a consumer engagement standpoint what are some of the things that you're

[00:24:45] kind of particularly proud of in terms of how the brand is creating engagement connections

[00:24:49] thanks for that question the mandate for cultural relevance has really driven the

[00:24:54] tropicana brand to embrace these moments of cultural relevance where we can insert ourselves

[00:25:02] into something that seems really true to the brand identity and its role in consumers lives

[00:25:08] but do it in a really unique and refreshing way for example we were observing through our high

[00:25:15] levels of social engagement this trend of consumers pouring tropicana pure premium over their

[00:25:22] breakfast cereal and as we then commissioned some custom research to understand that behavior

[00:25:30] we found that there were literally millions of consumers more than the populations of like

[00:25:35] new york and three other cities combined doing this so that led us to launch this limited grand

[00:25:45] appropriate tropicana crunch cereal inserting us into that conversation similarly we launched

[00:25:51] them a most maker recognizing that that brunch moment wouldn't be the same without tropicana

[00:25:57] pure premium in that part of culture more recently with all of the conversation around AI

[00:26:05] and almost like AI fatigue we saw the opportunity to show up at CES you know the spunky consumer brand

[00:26:14] to really tell the story through our tropicana limited edition of how tropicana pure premium

[00:26:21] has never had artificial ingredients and to prove it we're taking the A and the I out of the brand

[00:26:27] name for this moment in time and so it was this really cool activation that is relevant in culture

[00:26:34] seizing that moment of conversation that in a way that's truly deeply related to the brand's

[00:26:41] equity and reason for being yeah it's a fantastic idea and again great way to kind of use cultural

[00:26:47] relevance especially contextually at a place like CES trying to work consumers are talking about

[00:26:52] into the brand yeah we got like 1.2 billion impressions out of that which is incredible

[00:26:58] you'd mentioned naked both of these which are under your portfolio as well as Kavita Kombucha and Izzy

[00:27:04] Parvated Drink so these are acquisitions I assume that the company has made over the years or where

[00:27:09] they want right so when you look at bill versus buy and driving growth in the future how much

[00:27:14] time are you spending looking at new emerging consumer trends to drive M&A in the marketplace

[00:27:20] versus really focusing on innovating on the kind of mothership brand so to speak

[00:27:24] yeah great question it's a both it's definitely a both and we have in our strategy or corporate

[00:27:30] strategy one of our value creation pillars is what we call new horizon and that could be

[00:27:36] internal innovation to enter into even new categories or it could be whether it's

[00:27:41] opportunistic or strategic M&A tuck in big deals would have you we remain quite open on both

[00:27:47] fronts so as we think about portfolio strategy it's how do you deploy the brands that we currently

[00:27:54] have where are the white spaces we want to target and there's always that discussion of make versus

[00:28:00] buy and that's informed by the things you would expect on the list capabilities route to market

[00:28:08] if there's someone who's already gotten a head start if we think there's something unique that

[00:28:13] we can bring to the table and I think for brands that are thinking about partnering or

[00:28:20] selling finding a natural home the kinds of things that we offer are pretty unique as a platform

[00:28:27] we've got the only true scaled chill dsd distribution path in the united states it's incredible asset

[00:28:36] that we have we've got leading shelf position across a number of the segments that are really

[00:28:42] relevant so we've got very top of mind presence with retailers and almost every channel that you

[00:28:48] can think of we've got an incredible investment in research and development to complement whatever

[00:28:55] an emerging grant is already doing on their own including having open new r&d centers

[00:29:01] in the united states and europe in the last two years we've got incredible pilot plant

[00:29:07] facilities and incredible manufacturing expertise that we can deploy and a very unique

[00:29:13] transportation system to get things to market so it's great we're super open to it you always have

[00:29:20] to be clear about the value that you can add and i think we are so if you have an amazing

[00:29:25] natural food startup in a drink space you're looking to sell maybe keep them on again mind

[00:29:30] yeah give me a call exactly so let's shift your little bit my good to you because

[00:29:35] not only your mom which i know is a massive as well but you also are a fiction writer a lot of

[00:29:42] people who have gone down the path you have would have put something at their passion about like

[00:29:46] writing on the side and kind of maybe regretted it one day but you didn't you stuck with it

[00:29:51] why is doing that and kind of the collecting that creative side of writing important to you

[00:29:57] and tell us a little bit about that journey that has paralleled your career sure so it started

[00:30:04] over a decade ago when i had what i like to refer to as my mini midlife crisis

[00:30:09] i was still at the consulting firm at which i was a partner and i had this moment in time where

[00:30:17] this actually was over a couple of year period but i had gone through my third maternity leave

[00:30:22] and re-entry into the workforce and i had some real challenging personal issues that my family

[00:30:29] was dealing with and i found i was struggling at work and as i was trying to figure out like what's

[00:30:37] going on like why is this suddenly so hard for me i realized that i had been so focused

[00:30:44] and all in as a mom probably if i'm honest my husband were here i say probably under

[00:30:50] delivering in the whole waste bit of the equation in that family focus and so in and focused

[00:30:56] on being a partner and serving my clients that i had let everything that was just for me anything

[00:31:02] that was like just fun and pleasurable kind of get squeezed out of the equation and so when things

[00:31:08] got tough at work and my personal life at the same time i just had nothing in the tank

[00:31:14] like nothing and around that same time a colleague of mine passed away suddenly

[00:31:21] and it's a cliche but it really was that wake up call of oh my gosh i don't have an endless set of

[00:31:28] decades ahead of me like i could also be gone in the matter of a blink of an eye and it caused

[00:31:34] me to really step back and think about what i needed to do differently because i wasn't

[00:31:41] doing any good for anybody in the state i was in and that's when i made a commitment

[00:31:47] to make some changes to create some space for myself i was still getting on a plane almost every

[00:31:52] day so i had to find something that worked in that kind of schedule and writing was something

[00:31:58] that i had enjoyed in the past that i felt i could do right i could carve out time on a plane

[00:32:03] not do an extra memo but do a little bit of creative writing i knew i liked it because i had worked

[00:32:10] in my professional setting on business writing so i knew i enjoyed it so i figure i would give it

[00:32:16] a whirl and at the time one of my mentors had been talking to me about how he and his son

[00:32:23] were scanning all of the harry potter fanfiction in the world to try and predict what was going

[00:32:28] to happen in the final installment of the harry potter series which put fanfiction on my

[00:32:33] radar screen and i decided oh that's an easy entry like i can start writing fanfiction i don't

[00:32:39] have to come up with something completely from scratch and so that's how i started

[00:32:43] dipping my toe into it fanfiction is basically when you riff on something that someone else has

[00:32:51] already written you take the characters you take the setting the plot people do prequels they do

[00:32:57] sequels they do alternatives yeah some authors embrace it some actually have said no i don't

[00:33:03] give the rights to that but generally it's been pretty well accepted as a form of homage and a

[00:33:10] new form of pop culture well i think it was an existing kind of story arc so you could just write

[00:33:16] and you don't have to create yeah because you have a day job exactly so it was a great way and

[00:33:21] there are all these platforms i got on fanfiction.net and you can upload a chapter at a time and for

[00:33:26] someone like me it was brilliant because i thread on feedback and you could just watch the reviews

[00:33:31] coming in so it was a great way to learn as well because you'd get all this feedback from

[00:33:35] people you're like oh my god i can't believe you did this with my favorite so i did that for

[00:33:39] a bit and then after one of my fanfiction novels won an award my husband really encouraged me to

[00:33:45] write something original and so i did i didn't think that much of it other than i was tired of

[00:33:51] writing about fanplayers so i was going to write about angels and a few years later i'm now on my

[00:33:55] fifth book about to come out on march 26th and it's just been a real joy for me it's a creative

[00:34:03] outlet to me it's problem solving like how you piece together a plot and a character arc

[00:34:09] in all of these really interesting things i've met a ton of interesting people doing this as i've

[00:34:14] done research because i'm very fact-based so i like to meet people who are doing the kinds of

[00:34:20] things that i'm writing about and learn about places that are featured in my books but most

[00:34:25] importantly it's given me a lot of personal energy and i just encourage everybody to think

[00:34:31] about that for themselves like you can't sustain the kinds of ups and downs of an

[00:34:35] executive career especially given what's going on around us if you don't have ways to re-energize

[00:34:43] yourself so people always ask like how do you find the time it's just like anything like some people

[00:34:49] like to do a round of golf every weekend i do this you know it's not about what it is it's just

[00:34:55] whatever it is that's gonna bring you joy and energy and i also imagine it's also helped you

[00:35:00] as an executive right having that creative outlet the time to think probably in ways

[00:35:05] that you didn't realize at the time have allowed you to be a more well-rounded leader i believe it has

[00:35:11] and for me writing first it's storytelling and at the end of the day CEOs executives were storytellers

[00:35:19] if you recognize a good story you're going to be that much more effective when you talk about

[00:35:23] creative if you can tell a good story you're going to be that much more effective in

[00:35:27] leading people and helping them find their own source of inspiration in the journey you're

[00:35:32] inviting them to join you on it's also an exercise in empathy right because you have to

[00:35:37] understand your characters and even the villains if you don't have some empathy for them and you

[00:35:43] don't understand what makes them tick you're not going to tell a good story about them and

[00:35:47] characters will fail to connect with your readers and so i think it's made me much more in tune

[00:35:54] with empathy and understanding where people are coming from and what it takes to help them

[00:36:02] on their own journeys yeah absolutely so wrapping up here first of all thank you for sharing so much

[00:36:08] of this i just know our listeners are getting so much value from your learnings and your journey

[00:36:12] and i just can't wait for audience to hear about it when you look back at your career what are some

[00:36:17] of the decisions that you actually think you made right along the way and you'll lose some of them

[00:36:21] during this interview that allowed you to be in a position that you are today as an executive

[00:36:25] as a leader that maybe we could impart on some of our younger listeners let me answer it in a

[00:36:30] couple of ways one just generally in one about marketing specifically and i'll start with the

[00:36:37] latter for marketers i think great marketers particularly marketers who want to make it into

[00:36:44] the c-suite as a cmo a cgo as a ceo start with following the money and understanding end to end

[00:36:54] how products get to market because you can have brilliant ideas but they have to make money

[00:37:02] and if you don't understand where the sinkholes are it's really really hard to line up an organization

[00:37:09] we can see ideas and they're like well how does this connect to my business goals and

[00:37:12] they don't really understand it yeah i mean it is so powerful when a marketer can do that

[00:37:19] that sometimes means beyond the financial acumen also understanding your consumer in ways that i

[00:37:25] think are getting lost in today's environment they were so focused on data and data ai enablement

[00:37:31] all of the things that you can do with agile methods are amazing but i think we've swung too

[00:37:39] hard and we're losing out on observation like people will tell you things but if you're not

[00:37:45] watching them as they shot in their home seeing what they're actually doing you're missing the

[00:37:52] boat like that value of that ethnography and i'm not talking about focus groups i'm just

[00:37:57] thinking like really getting out and seeing things getting out in stores getting out in homes

[00:38:02] it's incredible and it's so much more important now than ever because digitization and ai which

[00:38:09] enables us to create all this content at scale it unleashes the flood of consumer and shopper outreach

[00:38:18] that if it's not relevant just gets turned off it becomes actually a dissatisfy with your brand

[00:38:24] so as a marketer like you've got to be better at the fundamentals than ever before otherwise

[00:38:31] you're going to get tuned out so it reminds me of that quote from picasso learn the rules

[00:38:37] like a pro so you can break them like an artist and i think that's really really important for

[00:38:42] today's marketer from a bigger picture career standpoint i've always just really believed in

[00:38:48] knowing yourself and what makes you tick because what makes me tick is different than you mat is

[00:38:54] different from anybody else so knowing your own motivation and then acting accordingly is

[00:39:01] really important for me i follow people every decision i've made where that was very top of

[00:39:07] mind for me has worked out great when i've not been true to that maybe not as well like i always

[00:39:15] learn and get a lot out of any situation i'm in but i'm more motivated than that by financial

[00:39:21] remuneration or some other things but everyone's different so it's really just knowing what makes

[00:39:27] you tick what kind of an environment is going to enable you to thrive and do your best work

[00:39:33] and live in the way that you really want to live and make your mark and search that don't

[00:39:38] search what other people tell you to do like don't chase the title if that's not important to you

[00:39:44] you've got to be a little bit humble in doing that and you have to have a lot of self-knowledge

[00:39:48] and that second gets yourself and it'll change over time and so i think probably

[00:39:54] my other bit of advice on a career standpoint would be don't beat yourself up if you don't

[00:39:59] have it all figured out because careers are long life is long and you can change your mind get

[00:40:06] endless read is and keep finding the thing that makes you happy amazing we're gonna leave with

[00:40:12] that it's been amazing interview monica and i cannot wait again for our listeners to hear

[00:40:16] this so thank you so much for taking some of your busy schedule which is clearly busy

[00:40:20] you know to talk with us today my pleasure i appreciate the opportunity

[00:40:23] absolutely on behalf of susie and ad week king thanks again to monica megurk the CEO of trappa

[00:40:28] kindly groups north american business unit for joining us today be sure to subscribe

[00:40:32] right review the speed of culture podcast on your favorite podcast platform until next time see you

[00:40:36] swim up take care the speed of culture is brought to you by susie as part of the ad week

[00:40:45] podcast network and agus creator network you can listen subscribe to all ad weeks podcast

[00:40:51] by visiting ad week dot com slash podcast find out more about susie head to susie dot com

[00:40:57] and make sure to search for the speed of culture in apple podcast spotify and google podcast or

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[00:41:06] on behalf of the team here at susie thanks for listening

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