Precarious conditions and a little bit of discomfort are par for the course for Wendy Clark – and she wouldn’t have it any other way. Her latest thrill: making the leap from senior marketer to CEO. In this episode, we talk to the global CEO of dentsu international and former Coca-Cola executive about the transition, including the massive challenge of leading an organization of 45,000 people and why “micro-knowing” is more effective than micromanaging. She also reflects on why the Great Resignation has really become “the Great Reckoning” for leaders and outlines how she’s building a more diverse workforce that considers a fully-lived life a high priority for better business.
Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Good Company is a production of I Heart Radio. I
like the water just when it's right up to my
nose and I can breathe. But I've got a paddle
like hell. You have my full focus and attention when
I'm like that. Hi, I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company,
(00:21):
where I'll explore how marketing, media, entertainment, and tech are intersecting,
transforming our lives and the way we do business at
a breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the
greatest business minds at strongest leaders who will share how
they build companies from the ground up or transform them
from the inside out. My bed is you'll pick up
a lesson or two along the way. It's all good.
(00:46):
This is an extra special pleasure for me today to
welcome my sister. Yes, I consider Wendy to be my
little sister. I'm much older Wendy, as you know, so
I'm happy to get view that title in my life
because of the extraordinary relationship, friendship, collaboration, and partnership that
(01:08):
we've really forged over I'd like to say almost your
entire career. But for our listeners, it is truly an
honor to welcome Wendy Clark, the global CEO of den
SUE for International and the chief executive officer in that capacity.
Wendy joined DENSU in September. Just by way of background,
(01:29):
before that, Wendy served as the CEO of DDB Worldwide
and previous to that, president Sparkling Brands and Strategic Marketing
for the Coca Cola Company North America and as well
previously where I got first the opportunity to meet Wendy
actually a little before that, as senior Vice president of
Advertising for A T and T. Not only do I
(01:50):
consider Wendy to be such a special friend, but she
has been heralded by ad age and so many others.
Truly is one of the most important women in average rising.
But I would like to just qualify that further and
say one of the most important people in advertising. And
those recognitions including the Matrix Award she runs, an award
(02:12):
Advertising Woman of the Year, just go on and on,
and in addition, formally recognized in two thousand and seven
upon her induction into the American Advertising Federations Advertising Hall
of Achievement. So Wendy, as I said, it is a
great pleasure after that long introduction but so well deserved
(02:33):
to welcome you to a good company today. Well, thank you.
I feel like I'm in good company and it feels
very natural to be here with you, Michael Wendy. What
I'd love to do is have you start by, you know,
sharing with our listeners a bit about your background and
kind of how you charted this path both personally and
professionally to reach the true pinnacle of our industry as
(02:54):
the global CEO of DENSU, the senior most executive woman
in advertising full stop, with a well deserved seat at
that table of global CEOs of the advertising holding company.
So your career started on agency, then client and an agency.
Talk about that journey and how do you feel about
(03:14):
it now and how did you get here? Uh? Well,
I don't think you know. You get asked a lot
of times when you're a kid what did you want
to be? And I was raised by a single mother,
and what I do know, or what I did know
back then, was that I was going to work. I mean,
my mom had experienced a failed marriage and had been
sort of left in a an alert because of that,
(03:35):
and the one thing she instilled to me was you
will be able to take care of yourself. You will
have a craft and you'll be you'll be able to,
you know, stand on your own two feet should you
need to. Um. And so that's from my earliest recollections.
Always that I was going to work, wasn't very clear
what I was going to be. And then you know,
just as I went through school and I loved communications
(03:55):
and uh, you know, I actually is a writer. Coming
out of college, wanted to write advertising, but actually and
once I was on the ages side, clipping too account service.
I you know, the one thing I've been important always
from a female voice, particularly to say I'm an ambitious person.
I you know, a lot of times ambition is held
against women. Um I. You know, I wanted to do more,
(04:19):
and you know, as I got into work, I really
liked it and and it could see how I could
navigate a path and I wanted to live into you
know what I thought I could do. Um along that way,
I've always trying to bring people with me. It's not
solely about me, um my. You know, very deeply held
mantra is lift as you climb and bring others with you.
And so you know, I always say, if if my
(04:40):
narrative ends up being just about me. What a massive
waste that would be. So you know my narrative is
about creating a week around me and bringing other people
with me, for sure. Um. But yeah, I've loved every
one of my jobs and the people I got to
work with. You just went through so many of them.
I mean, my fondest memories of people at A T
and T who are still so close to me in
(05:01):
my life. Um. And of course at Coke were spent
close to eight years. Uh you know, I would say,
you know, Coke is is one of those definitive places
for a marketer. There's a wheat and chaff effect at Coke,
and I really feel like I honed in sharpened skills
while I was there, and now most recently at DDB,
a place that I genuinely just adored and loved. And
(05:22):
you know, I think we went on a pretty good
run there for uh four and a half years. And
and then Denis who called And I wasn't climbing on
that phone call. You never planning on the phone call.
It's never perfectly the right time. But the more I
got to know Tim Andre and the team that were
assembled and the capabilities that were assembled, Uh, it just
became harder and harder, just look to look away from
(05:44):
and really believe that, Gosh, I think there's something we
can do there. So so, Wendy, you made that interesting transition. Again,
you didn't start in the agency business, but you ended
up in the agency business in the nineties. Then you
went to the client side. I think I have the
right My recollection is you went from BellSouth to an
agency to a T and T, and so you were
(06:07):
on that trajectory for many years on the client side,
from A T and T to Coca Cola, and I
well remember the conversations that you and I had back
when you were making the decision to go to d
dB and leave what some would consider a lifetime opportunity
to be the president of Sparkling Beverages at the Coca
Cola Corporation. That was a transition, and part of the
(06:29):
way I've described it to people because people have asked
me because we are known to be such good friends,
so I want to make sure I got it right.
I've said, Wendy made the decision that she wanted to
be in the c suite in a different way, and
whilst you were president of Sparkling Brands and strategic marketing.
(06:50):
Your trajectory was a marketing trajectory. And I'm not saying
that's not an executive, but you weren't in the same
way responsible for the P and L like you are
when you became CEO of DDB, and now that puts
you on a different trajectory. And I kind of say
to people that's and I used you as a model
for this many times, Wendy, that was your transition. You
(07:13):
wanted to be in a different consideration set in your career.
And you're young enough, and you were then and you
still are that that transition was critical for you. Did
I get it right? You got it completely right. I'm
not gonna say anything else. So that was completely right.
I mean I wanted to extend beyond and as you say,
I mean I will always be a market I call
(07:34):
myself a marketer. You know. My my lens is that
in this job, I love getting so I love being
close to our clients because I love getting into their
you know, pernicious challenges and and trying to figure out
the path forward. But but certainly I do genuinely love
this seat that I've had two times now where you
have you know, the broader levers of the business. Uh,
(07:57):
that you're responsible for. I've I've enjoyed that, I've own
from it. It's pushed me, it's developed me, And that's
I'm the type of person. And I think, just back
to sort of owning my ambition earlier on. I like
to be constantly challenged. I like the water just when
it's right up to my nose and I can breathe,
but I got a paddle like hell, you have my
full focus and attention. When I'm like that. When I
(08:19):
get into something where you know, I'm sort of a
muscle memory, um, it's harder for me to focus. Um.
So I love you know these roles throw constant challenges
at you because of the dimension of them and the
intersectionality with so many aspects of the broad business. One
day is not like the other, and so I truly
love that to mention of it. So, Wendy, I'm gonna
(08:41):
let you know in a little secret, I gave you
credit for this at the beginning, but now I've stolen it.
But you said something to me once about management style
that really resonated with me, and my team will now
know where I stole it from because I stopped giving
credit to you publicly, but now I'm about to really
give you credit publicly. You described your management style to
(09:03):
me once as not being a micro manager, but being
a micro nowhere, and you may not, you may not
realize how that landed with me, because you described yourself,
but you described me. I'm not a micro manager. I
had never articulated it that way. But I want to
know stuff because if I know things, those levers then
(09:25):
become more available. And it's the old adage about bad
news that you don't share just becomes worst news. You know.
We've all got those little homilies that we've grown up
on or considered, but that one that you said to
me about your management style really resonated. Could you talk
about that a little because it's so perfect to describe you,
but it's such a great management lesson. Right. Yeah, So
(09:49):
I mean I say I don't like to micro manage.
I do like to micron. That's mine. And because I
don't think any of us in these jobs like surprises,
and if you don't micron, you can get some real
D disease on the surprises. Right. So I just think
that visibility and that ability to understand ed Whittaker at
A T and T used to say, you've got to
inspect what you expect um And that's sort of the
(10:11):
same sort of maunch of just having that. Again, it
takes two, right, you have to be willing to inc
You've got to be willing to get into the micro no.
I don't take the decisions ever from the team. That's
not my style. I like to be in the mix
with them. I want to know and understand and together
will make the decision um. But I think that's the
only way, especially on these very scaled enterprises and densities
(10:33):
hundred forty five countries, forty five thousand people, eleven thousand clients.
You know, I mean the breadth of this. If you don't,
micro no can creep up on you. So you have
to have that orientation. But at the same time, if
every decision comes through me, that I mean, the thing
will come to a grinding home. You simply cannot micromanage.
So you've gotta have great people around you who can
(10:54):
take those decisions absolutely. And another lesson I learned from
somebody when I said, well, you should get there by consensus,
and the person looked at me. Early in my career,
and said, well, consensus is nice to achieve, but in
management you have to be decisive, and sometimes you can't
build a consensus and you've got to make the decision
that might be just more arbitrary. But sure, great, if
(11:16):
you can build a consensus of support, you go for it.
But at the end of the day, decisiveness is what rules. Well,
great teams always have some some form of tension. If
if we've recruited our teams properly, we don't have homogeneous thinkers.
We have very dimensional thinkers, and there should be good,
rigorous discussion and what I would call a positive tension.
(11:36):
In our business. We shouldn't be shy of tension. We
should be shy of negative tension. But you know where
that comes in is that sort of great axiom of
you know, play the ball, not the person. So we'll
we'll debate rigorously about the ball. Once we've had that discussion,
we're gonna line up and we're gonna go to your point.
You you can't endlessly discuss to try to convert people.
(11:56):
You discussed to a point where again we've got that
micro knowledge, we all end stand and then yes, it's
the legist job to make the decision and make sure
everyone's lined up around what we're gonna do. So, Wendy,
you onboarded to DENSU in September, in the midst of
the worst pandemic in a generation. That had to be tough.
(12:16):
You assumed a global role. And as I wrote that
op ed a few months ago about my chief of Stuff,
who I hadn't met for the first four months, and
I wrote an op ed that said, how tall is
Benjamin King? And doesn't really matter because I dealt with
him for four months hired into a highly important position
in my life. You were there the first day that
(12:38):
I hired the first Chief of Stuff thirteen years ago,
so you know the importance of that role in my life.
And here's somebody I put into that role and I
never met other than like this. And the joke was
I didn't know how tall he was because I had
never seen him stand up, and so we made a
joke out of it. And then lo and behold when
I did meet him. The great reveal happened in April
(12:58):
after he joined me four months earlier, and I said,
you're not allowed to tell me. This is going to
be a guessing game, And sure enough, I meet him
before a breakfast and I get out of my car
in New York and he gets there and he's standing
there and I had him pegged at five night and
he's six ft two and it was like, what the
My point is it wasn't important, but it's just part
of the onboarding during a pandemic. How did that work
(13:22):
for you? You need to do assume the most senior
role with an organization that you've effectively never met. Well,
I mean it was unthinkable, really, right, I mean, and
and you know I I accepted the job and resigned
in February. Really is this pandemic was just it was
this thing in China we were hearing about, right, it
just had And so when I accepted the role, I didn't.
(13:45):
I wasn't anticipating this with how I started. I had
some gardening leave and so didn't get to start and
tell him September book. But really, I'll tell you what,
that summer was one of the hardest summers of my career.
Not from a working perspective, because I honestly wasn't working,
but sitting watching this business under the pressure of and
of course having you know, demonstrable impact to the business
(14:07):
and obviously being able to do nothing about it was
really really challenging. But I started in September. I mean,
you know, sort of joking, we said, until I started traveling. Lately,
I've met less than twenty people at the company. We
have forty five thousand people in Densu International, UM. And
I mean it's just an extraordinary thought. And certainly for
someone like me who was used to being on a
(14:28):
plane every week and being in our office and being
with our clients, and I realized how much of my
playbook being in person with people was. It's very hard
and just like you recruiting people across the camera. I mean,
Fred Lavron joined this this year. I mean one, you know,
one of the biggest highest I'll make as our global
chief creative officer. Fred and I have never met in
personal We have now we just three weeks ago when
(14:50):
he started in November one. But you know, imagine trying
to you know, really bring and persuade an executive out
of a role through a camera and just you know,
I mean, I say, like half time, I feel like
I'm coming through this thing. I'm just trying to wild people, uh,
to to you know, feel how I feel. And um,
that that was hard. But on the other hand, and
(15:10):
I give our our comms team a tremendous amount of credit,
we just went on a I was just call it
a crusade internally around communications. If we cannot be together,
we had to generate the feeling that you would feel
if we were. And so we you know, I mean,
every month, I do live conversations with the entire organization.
(15:30):
They can come, they can ask any question they want,
they can ask it anonymously, and we answer the most
voted up question. We do that every single month. Every
single month. We also get the top nine leads together
in a smaller tighter fashion, but again open form discussions,
really facing into the issues, facing into the camera the
same way you would if you were in an office
and able to be with people. So we're really trying
(15:52):
to recreate the feeling of accessibility, of care, of togetherness
for each other and the business by the way, I mean, obviously,
I think one of the biggest challenges coming out of
this is the concerns around the mental well being of
our people. You know, one of the things that keeps
me up at night. How can we create a sense
of closeness with our people that we'd otherwise be able
(16:13):
to observe if we were in the hallways, in the bathroom,
sitting side by side together. We've just really had to
sort of take that mantle. And again it gives credit
to the leaders in the company. You had to make
massive adjustments in the way they worked, but in our
employee engagement surveys through this period, so both last year
and now we just did. This year's our highest scores
(16:33):
in the last three or four years. I've happened during
a pandemic, which would be unthinkable, but I really believe
it's because we've taken such an aggressive stance on trying
to recreate that closeness as much as we could. And Wendy,
we're on the heels of and maybe in the midst
of this so called great resignation and we're seeing it.
I think the last month's number was four point four
(16:54):
million people in the United States quit their jobs, and
the month before was four point re million. I mean,
it's you're talking about eight million, you know, plus or
minus almost eight million people. I don't think they're permanently
leaving the workforce, but they're changing jobs. Some of that
is from that mental health kind of I want to change.
There's another way. I need a balance, whatever it is.
(17:16):
But that is not icing on the cake. It's fuel
on the fire of a dearth of talent that's impacting
you know, we see it in our day jobs for sure,
But go to a restaurant, try to get service somewhere.
There's not enough help, there's not enough staff, there's not
enough of this or that. If you're feeling that our
(17:37):
clients are feeling. I have clients asking me if we
can succalm people to them. So it's not I mean,
we're all feeling this, this pinch. But look, I have
a lot of feelings about this, among other things. Um,
you know, I think, yes, it's being written as a
great resignation. I think as leaders we have to take
a minute here, and I wonder if it isn't indeed
the great reckoning or the great reappraisal on our leadership
(17:58):
and are we really effectively leading our companies the way
that we should be. And I do think that there's
a generational divide that we've got to acknowledge here. Um,
I quote Fast Company it says in the next five years,
two thirds of the workforce will be millennial and gen
Z so just think about that for a minute. And
that's what we're really sensing and feeling, is this generational
(18:20):
difference in what you and I Michael might have done
to build our careers and what their willingness may be
for their careers. And so there are a few things
that I point to very quickly. Number One, we of
other generations have to let go of this rite of
passage that that so we hold out there. And I,
you know, I exaggerate this to a certain degree, but
(18:40):
I can, like you and I could recount the stories
and the sacrifices that we've made to achieve where what
we have done, you know, perhaps most notably, I'll say
I've had three maternity leaves in total. I've taken thirty
five weeks out of the business with three maternity leads.
And they're not triplets, right, I mean, it's an extraordinary state.
Meant to say that when you when you think about that,
(19:01):
and you say, that's extraordinary. I went back to work
each time before my close fit. I mean, just think
about that from it. Now, you and I might look
at that, and people from our generation and go look
at her as you went right back in, right they
if you talk to the next generation. They look at
me like I'm absurd. They see nothing respectable about that.
They think I made a false choice. And so we've
(19:24):
got to flip the mindset here. So number one, holding
our right of passage and all the things we did
out to the next generation not interested and they're not
going to do it. Number Two, I think with companies,
we've got to make sure that these lovely narratives that
we talk about being great places to work and how
we put people first, invest in people, that there's actually
real actions behind that. Um. You know, we we need
(19:46):
to really interrogate our parental leaves. We really need to
interrograte our work environments and the policies and that we
that we engage with our employees on there and really
make sure the narrative and the actions match. Number Three,
on the agency side, we can't make proper progress without
partnership with clients. We still have clients who call last
(20:07):
minute and have our teams working through the night or
working over the weekends. And again, you know, all of
our clients want our best and brightest people. We know
and understand that implicitly, but the best and the brightest
from the upcoming generations are simply not going to work
in a way that people on the agency side once did.
Of course their occasional needs and that's fine, but this
(20:28):
cannot be the way that you work on an ongoing basis.
We will we will simply not be able to attract
our town. The final point I was going to make
of the four, which is about being purpose based and
as companies and having a real you know, mission and
purpose beyond making money, is going to be important to
these next generations. Is important. They're already advocating it. We
(20:49):
have to live into our sustainability commitments. I mean, there's
we have wired in advocacy in our organization in these Again,
millennial gen z very very serious about our social impact
and sustainability. So jumping on a plane for lunch is
highly unacceptable. Then you just don't do that just for
(21:10):
the planet's sake. If nothing like, if you don't care
about your personal health, care about the planet's health. And
so again, this is an entire referendum and an entire
reckoning for us as we are seeing the cross generations. Now,
I love, I will steal from you. In addition to
micro manage micro no, I'm going to steal great recogning
(21:31):
as opposed to great resignation, because I think that's exactly right.
You're looking at through a different lens, but that's the
proper lens to look at. Because people are rethinking back
to that. It's not a badge of honor. I'll give
you the concept that I have always applied it to.
I've always thought that Europeans had a great idea with
the gap year. The gap year is actually a brilliant idea.
(21:51):
For those of you who don't know, that gap year
was that year after high school, before you went to
university or whatever your next move was. You know, a
lot of the folks that I know in the UK, particularly,
gap year was a big concept and I used to
joke again, badge of honor. Yeah, I took a gap
I took a gap minute. I went from college to
(22:11):
law school, to graduate school, to married to kids, to work.
I took a gap minute somewhere. I'm not sure I
made the right choice that gap year. That gap year
would have been a good thing to do. That gap
moment was probably not enough for me to reflect and
make the right choices in my life. And thankfully I
did more, you know, more correct choices than not correct choices,
(22:34):
but again that that reckoning is a reckoning from management,
but it's also a reckoning of one's priorities. So let's
connect with two thoughts and maybe think that there are
people taking a gap year at the moment during this
great reappraisal, a great reckoning, and that we've done an
opportunity to invite them back by being better companies. Absolutely, Wendy,
(22:57):
as we talk about the workforce, it is not a
secret to anybody that we are at a moment of
reckoning in terms of the diversity issues that we are
facing as an industry, but as as as a world,
as a community, not just our business, every business is
facing that same looking through that same lens right now.
(23:17):
And we all understand, and you and I've had this
conversation for a long time that it is critical for
us to open the aperture as we look at the
pools of talent and whatnot. My understanding and I may
have my numbers a little off, but fifty three percent
of Densus global workforce identify as female, and of your
(23:40):
executive leadership in a singular way identify themselves as female. Already.
What about the other side of the diversity and inclusion.
What about not just gender diversity and inclusion, but you know,
ethnicity and all the things that and I don't say
all the things like they're grouped because they're not. It's expensive, right,
(24:01):
So I mean this goes back to that notion of
having really dimensional teams and having that lived experience. So
whether it's your sexuality or your ethnicity or your gender
ability slash disability, right, we want the full breadth of
lived experiences. I think one of the more hidden aspects
of diversity, certainly for our industry, is socioeconomic diversity. I
(24:24):
think we we we don't recruit nearly well at enough
out of lower, lower socioeconomic talent. And that's one of
the programs DNS set up with the code where we're
going into reaching teams that are coming out of school
and or you know, heading into technical school and giving
them digital capabilities and training and skills so they can
(24:45):
pour into our industry so they're invited into our industry.
They might not go to college, that's okay, we can
skill train off a base of that sort of sixteen
eighteen year old command of school. And that's you know,
that's one of the things we're deliberately doing to bring
again that dimension and diversity to our to our team.
So we have to think about it in the fullest sense,
(25:06):
because I mean I don't have to tell anyone on
this podcast, or certainly you, Michael. Study after study after
study says the more diverse and dimensional team, the better
your business outcomes. I mean this is this has proven
time and again. So we all want better business outcomes,
right and so, and that's going to come surprise surprise
by people with these fully lived lives and experiences that
(25:28):
they bring into the workplace. And we get into those big,
rigorous discussions about doing the right thing for the brand
because we all think about it differently. It's brilliants the
best thing we can possibly do for our businesses. So
I have obviously a very strong orientation and desire to
do this. Um you know, we're a global company. When I,
for instance, when I was recruiting Fred, you know, it
was really important to me to make my best effort
(25:50):
to not recruit an American. I felt that that was
really important given that I was American and I knew
we were going to work together as much as we were.
It felt like the right thing to be reflected off
of you know, our broader company UM. You know also
obviously was looking for every aspect of diversity of anyone
who would come into that conversation. But you know, notably
(26:11):
knew that we wanted a global perspective from from that role.
So I think you've just got to be outward about it.
I think you've got to state it and put it
out there and say what you will and won't accept,
and what and what the teams most need to look
at these teams and really have that discussion and debate
with one another. What's missing here out of our collective
(26:32):
experiences and knowledge, What are we missing? What could what
could we take advantage of by making sure we invite
that to our table. So it's uh, we've made that
that ambition public will be utift men and women back
to the gender point by a publicly stayed ambition from
my direct reports on down every level, not taken in aggregate.
(26:53):
That's no, that's no use, right. We've got to get
to layer by layer and make sure we're bringing women
through the funnel of the business. And we have similar
BIPOP goals in the US to be bipop UM. So
we're really putting these ambitions out and stating them so
that number one, our teams are very clear, but that
there's also accountability right sore not hidden. Agenda is a
(27:15):
very public agenda. I've talked about things I've learned from you.
I hope you've learned from me that expression that I
use frequently, which is, don't read people's lips, watch their feet.
And what you've just said is just don't listen to
what I'm saying, watch what I'm doing. And you're doing it,
and and that speaks volumes to who you are as
a person. You know, Wendy, I had you come and
(27:37):
speak to the Media Link annual meeting many years ago,
and you talked about something that that really stuck with
our team, and I still quote it, and that one
I still give you credit for all the time, just
so you know. But you talked about when you were
at Coca Cola Company at that time, and you talked
about the need that you had as a marketer not
(27:58):
to see points solution, but to see end to end solutions.
And that was your view of life and business, and
I know that still is your view. You need to
look at a problem and you don't want to just
solve this part of it. You want to look at
the continuum or that end to end solution. You've translated
that well in your career, But talk about that for
a moment. In terms of how you look at a
(28:19):
client's challenges, you've been the client. I always feel like
my advantage in a consultative role at Media Link is
that I've been in the shoes of the people that
I'm advising. So I'm not somebody who's just looked at
it and admired a problem. I've actually been in the problem.
So I've been in quote your shoes, You similarly have
been in the shoes of the clients you're serving, you know,
(28:43):
in your global CEO role. Does that help you solve
those problems because you understand them better and you can
relate to them better you've walked in their shoes? Yeah? Well,
I mean what I mean, everyone density that I've had
the opportunity to work with will know about. I sort
of have named my alter ego client because you know,
I really do slip into this sort of client alter
(29:04):
ego um where I'm just looking at what we're what
we're recommending, or what we're doing, and it is of
course very easy for me to slip right back in
that slate and frankly, as I said, I describe myself
as a marketer. I think once a market, are always
a marketer. I mean it is my comfort level. There's
no question of of you know, being in that role
in that seat. So yeah, I mean I think that
(29:25):
that has been an advantage. I call myself bilingual a lot,
and I speak client and agency, which I think has
been helpful. Um. The other joke was, you know, whenever
you're looking for me, it's like she's in her office
negotiating with herself. That was the when I came from
the GSTN N to a T and T. That's what
Scott Parkins said. I was in my office negotiating with myself. Um,
so you know, however you want to phrase it, I
(29:47):
think for sure, Um, that has been helpful. Back to
the nature of sort of end to end. I mean, look,
the point is there are more ways to engage a
consumer than ever before. It's an exponential amount of ways
to engage a consumer now. So it's not a one
for one. It's not oh now we have you know,
such and such platform away and and this one goes away. No,
(30:08):
there's just more um and so if you're a client,
you find yourself with more and more partners, you know,
more more complex plans by the way, probably a constrained
budget most likely, where you're trying to make good decisions
around you know, and ever expanding universe of ways to
reach those consumers. And so the notion of being integrated
(30:28):
and end to end of nature is really critical. And
that's you know, the course we've set denso on. We
had a hundred and sixty agencies. We've been really clear
that's that's not there's not an easy user guide coming
to use DENSU if you've got a hundred and sixty agencies.
And I always lean on Mark Pritchard in this moment,
who said, you know, very clearly to the agency a
few years ago at a speech, your complexity should not
(30:49):
be my problem. And that's how I felt as a client.
All of this complexity and all of these agencies and
all these capabilities make it easy for me, make it
end to end, integrate, show me the handoffs, show me
how I get some benefit by lack of redundancy and
duplication because you're so seamless and you're so integrated. That
that was very much my feeling when I was a client.
(31:10):
You know, you hear it from people like Mark and others,
and yes, I think that's really when I say. And
to end, it's the seamless handoff and integration of all
the ways to reach engage consumers. And you know that
is keeping with the ever explaining ecosystem of touchpoints. Well, Wendy,
you know I could spend a day or two or
(31:32):
longer just you know, learning from you and poking around,
but unfortunately we don't have days to do this. These
good company conversations unfortunately have a beginning, of middle and
an end. But before we get to the end, what
I'd love to say is here we are on November.
(31:53):
No one would have expected the eighteen months or so
we've just come through. If you had to make some
predictions about out how our business will look, you know,
eighteen months from now or pick a time in the future.
If you're looking around the corner or over the horizon,
what do you see is there's something that just jumps
off the page at you as this is what what
(32:15):
I see or that's what I see. And you know,
if you could share that with us, as as I bid,
you would do it. Would be a great end to
the extraordinary conversation. Well, sure, thank you for that entree.
I mean, I'm I'm really bullish on the practice of
marketing and communications. Again, I've been in the business thirty years.
I can't imagine a time where any client, any company
(32:38):
doesn't have room for great ideas that is going to
build their business and deliver them the growth that they're
looking for. And and you know, I always say, as
a client, whether it comes from an agency or a
cooperative or a collective or you know, we can put
all these fancy names on what we're doing, great ideas
will always be welcomed from companies to build their business,
and that's what we want to do. Um And so
(33:00):
I believe there's a role for our industry, uh and
I believe that we're going to live into that. I
love how we're expanding now. I mean, obviously we're growing
by leaps and bounds in this consumer experience management space
where double digit growth in that space. We're going to
continue to make acquisitions in that space so that the
growth around commerce and the growth around Martek and cloud solutions,
(33:23):
that that expansion in our industry is fascinating, but it
is an all of itself, not a solution. So that's
where we get to that end to end nature because
we now are doing the data and digital transformation consulting.
That then results in a plan that we go to
market and we can do the investment plan across meeting,
we do the execution plan across our creative and that's
(33:43):
when you get to these really you know, expansive solutions
for businesses. It gets me excited. I think eighteen months
from now, you know we'll be fully into those integrated solutions,
no no question to me. We're gonna be driving further
and deeper into the transformation aspects and the commerce and
the cloud based solutions in our business. And I think
(34:04):
most notably, we've got to acknowledge how important sustainability is
going to be. There is absolutely no question that brands
moving forward and companies moving forward won't be judged by
how much big force for good they are as well
as a force for growth. So those would be my
three things I would say eighteen months from now. Well
as always, Wendy, spending time with you makes me a
(34:26):
smarter person and I'm certain our audience will share that view.
It was a great pleasure to have you as Good
Company because you are extraordinarily good company, and Wendy Clark,
I want to thank you, Thank you, Michael. It's delightful
to be here and I equally learned from you, so
good good time we'll spend and I enjoyed it. I'm
(34:48):
Michael Casson, Thanks for listening to Good Company. Good Company
is a production of I Heart Radio. Special Thanks to
Lena Peterson, Chief Brand Officer and Managing Director immediately for
gen M Good Company, and to Jen Seely, Vice President
Marketing Communications Immediately for programming amazing talent and CONTENTM
Good Company is a production of I Heart Radio. I
like the water just when it's right up to my
nose and I can breathe. But I've got a paddle
like hell. You have my full focus and attention when
I'm like that. Hi, I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good Company,
(00:21):
where I'll explore how marketing, media, entertainment, and tech are intersecting,
transforming our lives and the way we do business at
a breakneck speed. I'll be joined by some of the
greatest business minds at strongest leaders who will share how
they build companies from the ground up or transform them
from the inside out. My bed is you'll pick up
a lesson or two along the way. It's all good.
(00:46):
This is an extra special pleasure for me today to
welcome my sister. Yes, I consider Wendy to be my
little sister. I'm much older Wendy, as you know, so
I'm happy to get view that title in my life
because of the extraordinary relationship, friendship, collaboration, and partnership that
(01:08):
we've really forged over I'd like to say almost your
entire career. But for our listeners, it is truly an
honor to welcome Wendy Clark, the global CEO of den
SUE for International and the chief executive officer in that capacity.
Wendy joined DENSU in September. Just by way of background,
(01:29):
before that, Wendy served as the CEO of DDB Worldwide
and previous to that, president Sparkling Brands and Strategic Marketing
for the Coca Cola Company North America and as well
previously where I got first the opportunity to meet Wendy
actually a little before that, as senior Vice president of
Advertising for A T and T. Not only do I
(01:50):
consider Wendy to be such a special friend, but she
has been heralded by ad age and so many others.
Truly is one of the most important women in average rising.
But I would like to just qualify that further and
say one of the most important people in advertising. And
those recognitions including the Matrix Award she runs, an award
(02:12):
Advertising Woman of the Year, just go on and on,
and in addition, formally recognized in two thousand and seven
upon her induction into the American Advertising Federations Advertising Hall
of Achievement. So Wendy, as I said, it is a
great pleasure after that long introduction but so well deserved
(02:33):
to welcome you to a good company today. Well, thank you.
I feel like I'm in good company and it feels
very natural to be here with you, Michael Wendy. What
I'd love to do is have you start by, you know,
sharing with our listeners a bit about your background and
kind of how you charted this path both personally and
professionally to reach the true pinnacle of our industry as
(02:54):
the global CEO of DENSU, the senior most executive woman
in advertising full stop, with a well deserved seat at
that table of global CEOs of the advertising holding company.
So your career started on agency, then client and an agency.
Talk about that journey and how do you feel about
(03:14):
it now and how did you get here? Uh? Well,
I don't think you know. You get asked a lot
of times when you're a kid what did you want
to be? And I was raised by a single mother,
and what I do know, or what I did know
back then, was that I was going to work. I mean,
my mom had experienced a failed marriage and had been
sort of left in a an alert because of that,
(03:35):
and the one thing she instilled to me was you
will be able to take care of yourself. You will
have a craft and you'll be you'll be able to,
you know, stand on your own two feet should you
need to. Um. And so that's from my earliest recollections.
Always that I was going to work, wasn't very clear
what I was going to be. And then you know,
just as I went through school and I loved communications
(03:55):
and uh, you know, I actually is a writer. Coming
out of college, wanted to write advertising, but actually and
once I was on the ages side, clipping too account service.
I you know, the one thing I've been important always
from a female voice, particularly to say I'm an ambitious person.
I you know, a lot of times ambition is held
against women. Um I. You know, I wanted to do more,
(04:19):
and you know, as I got into work, I really
liked it and and it could see how I could
navigate a path and I wanted to live into you
know what I thought I could do. Um along that way,
I've always trying to bring people with me. It's not
solely about me, um my. You know, very deeply held
mantra is lift as you climb and bring others with you.
And so you know, I always say, if if my
(04:40):
narrative ends up being just about me. What a massive
waste that would be. So you know my narrative is
about creating a week around me and bringing other people
with me, for sure. Um. But yeah, I've loved every
one of my jobs and the people I got to
work with. You just went through so many of them.
I mean, my fondest memories of people at A T
and T who are still so close to me in
(05:01):
my life. Um. And of course at Coke were spent
close to eight years. Uh you know, I would say,
you know, Coke is is one of those definitive places
for a marketer. There's a wheat and chaff effect at Coke,
and I really feel like I honed in sharpened skills
while I was there, and now most recently at DDB,
a place that I genuinely just adored and loved. And
(05:22):
you know, I think we went on a pretty good
run there for uh four and a half years. And
and then Denis who called And I wasn't climbing on
that phone call. You never planning on the phone call.
It's never perfectly the right time. But the more I
got to know Tim Andre and the team that were
assembled and the capabilities that were assembled, Uh, it just
became harder and harder, just look to look away from
(05:44):
and really believe that, Gosh, I think there's something we
can do there. So so, Wendy, you made that interesting transition. Again,
you didn't start in the agency business, but you ended
up in the agency business in the nineties. Then you
went to the client side. I think I have the
right My recollection is you went from BellSouth to an
agency to a T and T, and so you were
(06:07):
on that trajectory for many years on the client side,
from A T and T to Coca Cola, and I
well remember the conversations that you and I had back
when you were making the decision to go to d
dB and leave what some would consider a lifetime opportunity
to be the president of Sparkling Beverages at the Coca
Cola Corporation. That was a transition, and part of the
(06:29):
way I've described it to people because people have asked
me because we are known to be such good friends,
so I want to make sure I got it right.
I've said, Wendy made the decision that she wanted to
be in the c suite in a different way, and
whilst you were president of Sparkling Brands and strategic marketing.
(06:50):
Your trajectory was a marketing trajectory. And I'm not saying
that's not an executive, but you weren't in the same
way responsible for the P and L like you are
when you became CEO of DDB, and now that puts
you on a different trajectory. And I kind of say
to people that's and I used you as a model
for this many times, Wendy, that was your transition. You
(07:13):
wanted to be in a different consideration set in your career.
And you're young enough, and you were then and you
still are that that transition was critical for you. Did
I get it right? You got it completely right. I'm
not gonna say anything else. So that was completely right.
I mean I wanted to extend beyond and as you say,
I mean I will always be a market I call
(07:34):
myself a marketer. You know. My my lens is that
in this job, I love getting so I love being
close to our clients because I love getting into their
you know, pernicious challenges and and trying to figure out
the path forward. But but certainly I do genuinely love
this seat that I've had two times now where you
have you know, the broader levers of the business. Uh,
(07:57):
that you're responsible for. I've I've enjoyed that, I've own
from it. It's pushed me, it's developed me, And that's
I'm the type of person. And I think, just back
to sort of owning my ambition earlier on. I like
to be constantly challenged. I like the water just when
it's right up to my nose and I can breathe,
but I got a paddle like hell, you have my
full focus and attention. When I'm like that. When I
(08:19):
get into something where you know, I'm sort of a
muscle memory, um, it's harder for me to focus. Um.
So I love you know these roles throw constant challenges
at you because of the dimension of them and the
intersectionality with so many aspects of the broad business. One
day is not like the other, and so I truly
love that to mention of it. So, Wendy, I'm gonna
(08:41):
let you know in a little secret, I gave you
credit for this at the beginning, but now I've stolen it.
But you said something to me once about management style
that really resonated with me, and my team will now
know where I stole it from because I stopped giving
credit to you publicly, but now I'm about to really
give you credit publicly. You described your management style to
(09:03):
me once as not being a micro manager, but being
a micro nowhere, and you may not, you may not
realize how that landed with me, because you described yourself,
but you described me. I'm not a micro manager. I
had never articulated it that way. But I want to
know stuff because if I know things, those levers then
(09:25):
become more available. And it's the old adage about bad
news that you don't share just becomes worst news. You know.
We've all got those little homilies that we've grown up
on or considered, but that one that you said to
me about your management style really resonated. Could you talk
about that a little because it's so perfect to describe you,
but it's such a great management lesson. Right. Yeah, So
(09:49):
I mean I say I don't like to micro manage.
I do like to micron. That's mine. And because I
don't think any of us in these jobs like surprises,
and if you don't micron, you can get some real
D disease on the surprises. Right. So I just think
that visibility and that ability to understand ed Whittaker at
A T and T used to say, you've got to
inspect what you expect um And that's sort of the
(10:11):
same sort of maunch of just having that. Again, it
takes two, right, you have to be willing to inc
You've got to be willing to get into the micro no.
I don't take the decisions ever from the team. That's
not my style. I like to be in the mix
with them. I want to know and understand and together
will make the decision um. But I think that's the
only way, especially on these very scaled enterprises and densities
(10:33):
hundred forty five countries, forty five thousand people, eleven thousand clients.
You know, I mean the breadth of this. If you don't,
micro no can creep up on you. So you have
to have that orientation. But at the same time, if
every decision comes through me, that I mean, the thing
will come to a grinding home. You simply cannot micromanage.
So you've gotta have great people around you who can
(10:54):
take those decisions absolutely. And another lesson I learned from
somebody when I said, well, you should get there by consensus,
and the person looked at me. Early in my career,
and said, well, consensus is nice to achieve, but in
management you have to be decisive, and sometimes you can't
build a consensus and you've got to make the decision
that might be just more arbitrary. But sure, great, if
(11:16):
you can build a consensus of support, you go for it.
But at the end of the day, decisiveness is what rules. Well,
great teams always have some some form of tension. If
if we've recruited our teams properly, we don't have homogeneous thinkers.
We have very dimensional thinkers, and there should be good,
rigorous discussion and what I would call a positive tension.
(11:36):
In our business. We shouldn't be shy of tension. We
should be shy of negative tension. But you know where
that comes in is that sort of great axiom of
you know, play the ball, not the person. So we'll
we'll debate rigorously about the ball. Once we've had that discussion,
we're gonna line up and we're gonna go to your point.
You you can't endlessly discuss to try to convert people.
(11:56):
You discussed to a point where again we've got that
micro knowledge, we all end stand and then yes, it's
the legist job to make the decision and make sure
everyone's lined up around what we're gonna do. So, Wendy,
you onboarded to DENSU in September, in the midst of
the worst pandemic in a generation. That had to be tough.
(12:16):
You assumed a global role. And as I wrote that
op ed a few months ago about my chief of Stuff,
who I hadn't met for the first four months, and
I wrote an op ed that said, how tall is
Benjamin King? And doesn't really matter because I dealt with
him for four months hired into a highly important position
in my life. You were there the first day that
(12:38):
I hired the first Chief of Stuff thirteen years ago,
so you know the importance of that role in my life.
And here's somebody I put into that role and I
never met other than like this. And the joke was
I didn't know how tall he was because I had
never seen him stand up, and so we made a
joke out of it. And then lo and behold when
I did meet him. The great reveal happened in April
(12:58):
after he joined me four months earlier, and I said,
you're not allowed to tell me. This is going to
be a guessing game, And sure enough, I meet him
before a breakfast and I get out of my car
in New York and he gets there and he's standing
there and I had him pegged at five night and
he's six ft two and it was like, what the
My point is it wasn't important, but it's just part
of the onboarding during a pandemic. How did that work
(13:22):
for you? You need to do assume the most senior
role with an organization that you've effectively never met. Well,
I mean it was unthinkable, really, right, I mean, and
and you know I I accepted the job and resigned
in February. Really is this pandemic was just it was
this thing in China we were hearing about, right, it
just had And so when I accepted the role, I didn't.
(13:45):
I wasn't anticipating this with how I started. I had
some gardening leave and so didn't get to start and
tell him September book. But really, I'll tell you what,
that summer was one of the hardest summers of my career.
Not from a working perspective, because I honestly wasn't working,
but sitting watching this business under the pressure of and
of course having you know, demonstrable impact to the business
(14:07):
and obviously being able to do nothing about it was
really really challenging. But I started in September. I mean,
you know, sort of joking, we said, until I started traveling. Lately,
I've met less than twenty people at the company. We
have forty five thousand people in Densu International, UM. And
I mean it's just an extraordinary thought. And certainly for
someone like me who was used to being on a
(14:28):
plane every week and being in our office and being
with our clients, and I realized how much of my
playbook being in person with people was. It's very hard
and just like you recruiting people across the camera. I mean,
Fred Lavron joined this this year. I mean one, you know,
one of the biggest highest I'll make as our global
chief creative officer. Fred and I have never met in
personal We have now we just three weeks ago when
(14:50):
he started in November one. But you know, imagine trying
to you know, really bring and persuade an executive out
of a role through a camera and just you know,
I mean, I say, like half time, I feel like
I'm coming through this thing. I'm just trying to wild people, uh,
to to you know, feel how I feel. And um,
that that was hard. But on the other hand, and
(15:10):
I give our our comms team a tremendous amount of credit,
we just went on a I was just call it
a crusade internally around communications. If we cannot be together,
we had to generate the feeling that you would feel
if we were. And so we you know, I mean,
every month, I do live conversations with the entire organization.
(15:30):
They can come, they can ask any question they want,
they can ask it anonymously, and we answer the most
voted up question. We do that every single month. Every
single month. We also get the top nine leads together
in a smaller tighter fashion, but again open form discussions,
really facing into the issues, facing into the camera the
same way you would if you were in an office
and able to be with people. So we're really trying
(15:52):
to recreate the feeling of accessibility, of care, of togetherness
for each other and the business by the way, I mean, obviously,
I think one of the biggest challenges coming out of
this is the concerns around the mental well being of
our people. You know, one of the things that keeps
me up at night. How can we create a sense
of closeness with our people that we'd otherwise be able
(16:13):
to observe if we were in the hallways, in the bathroom,
sitting side by side together. We've just really had to
sort of take that mantle. And again it gives credit
to the leaders in the company. You had to make
massive adjustments in the way they worked, but in our
employee engagement surveys through this period, so both last year
and now we just did. This year's our highest scores
(16:33):
in the last three or four years. I've happened during
a pandemic, which would be unthinkable, but I really believe
it's because we've taken such an aggressive stance on trying
to recreate that closeness as much as we could. And Wendy,
we're on the heels of and maybe in the midst
of this so called great resignation and we're seeing it.
I think the last month's number was four point four
(16:54):
million people in the United States quit their jobs, and
the month before was four point re million. I mean,
it's you're talking about eight million, you know, plus or
minus almost eight million people. I don't think they're permanently
leaving the workforce, but they're changing jobs. Some of that
is from that mental health kind of I want to change.
There's another way. I need a balance, whatever it is.
(17:16):
But that is not icing on the cake. It's fuel
on the fire of a dearth of talent that's impacting
you know, we see it in our day jobs for sure,
But go to a restaurant, try to get service somewhere.
There's not enough help, there's not enough staff, there's not
enough of this or that. If you're feeling that our
(17:37):
clients are feeling. I have clients asking me if we
can succalm people to them. So it's not I mean,
we're all feeling this, this pinch. But look, I have
a lot of feelings about this, among other things. Um,
you know, I think, yes, it's being written as a
great resignation. I think as leaders we have to take
a minute here, and I wonder if it isn't indeed
the great reckoning or the great reappraisal on our leadership
(17:58):
and are we really effectively leading our companies the way
that we should be. And I do think that there's
a generational divide that we've got to acknowledge here. Um,
I quote Fast Company it says in the next five years,
two thirds of the workforce will be millennial and gen
Z so just think about that for a minute. And
that's what we're really sensing and feeling, is this generational
(18:20):
difference in what you and I Michael might have done
to build our careers and what their willingness may be
for their careers. And so there are a few things
that I point to very quickly. Number One, we of
other generations have to let go of this rite of
passage that that so we hold out there. And I,
you know, I exaggerate this to a certain degree, but
(18:40):
I can, like you and I could recount the stories
and the sacrifices that we've made to achieve where what
we have done, you know, perhaps most notably, I'll say
I've had three maternity leaves in total. I've taken thirty
five weeks out of the business with three maternity leads.
And they're not triplets, right, I mean, it's an extraordinary state.
Meant to say that when you when you think about that,
(19:01):
and you say, that's extraordinary. I went back to work
each time before my close fit. I mean, just think
about that from it. Now, you and I might look
at that, and people from our generation and go look
at her as you went right back in, right they
if you talk to the next generation. They look at
me like I'm absurd. They see nothing respectable about that.
They think I made a false choice. And so we've
(19:24):
got to flip the mindset here. So number one, holding
our right of passage and all the things we did
out to the next generation not interested and they're not
going to do it. Number Two, I think with companies,
we've got to make sure that these lovely narratives that
we talk about being great places to work and how
we put people first, invest in people, that there's actually
real actions behind that. Um. You know, we we need
(19:46):
to really interrogate our parental leaves. We really need to
interrograte our work environments and the policies and that we
that we engage with our employees on there and really
make sure the narrative and the actions match. Number Three,
on the agency side, we can't make proper progress without
partnership with clients. We still have clients who call last
(20:07):
minute and have our teams working through the night or
working over the weekends. And again, you know, all of
our clients want our best and brightest people. We know
and understand that implicitly, but the best and the brightest
from the upcoming generations are simply not going to work
in a way that people on the agency side once did.
Of course their occasional needs and that's fine, but this
(20:28):
cannot be the way that you work on an ongoing basis.
We will we will simply not be able to attract
our town. The final point I was going to make
of the four, which is about being purpose based and
as companies and having a real you know, mission and
purpose beyond making money, is going to be important to
these next generations. Is important. They're already advocating it. We
(20:49):
have to live into our sustainability commitments. I mean, there's
we have wired in advocacy in our organization in these Again,
millennial gen z very very serious about our social impact
and sustainability. So jumping on a plane for lunch is
highly unacceptable. Then you just don't do that just for
(21:10):
the planet's sake. If nothing like, if you don't care
about your personal health, care about the planet's health. And
so again, this is an entire referendum and an entire
reckoning for us as we are seeing the cross generations. Now,
I love, I will steal from you. In addition to
micro manage micro no, I'm going to steal great recogning
(21:31):
as opposed to great resignation, because I think that's exactly right.
You're looking at through a different lens, but that's the
proper lens to look at. Because people are rethinking back
to that. It's not a badge of honor. I'll give
you the concept that I have always applied it to.
I've always thought that Europeans had a great idea with
the gap year. The gap year is actually a brilliant idea.
(21:51):
For those of you who don't know, that gap year
was that year after high school, before you went to
university or whatever your next move was. You know, a
lot of the folks that I know in the UK, particularly,
gap year was a big concept and I used to
joke again, badge of honor. Yeah, I took a gap
I took a gap minute. I went from college to
(22:11):
law school, to graduate school, to married to kids, to work.
I took a gap minute somewhere. I'm not sure I
made the right choice that gap year. That gap year
would have been a good thing to do. That gap
moment was probably not enough for me to reflect and
make the right choices in my life. And thankfully I
did more, you know, more correct choices than not correct choices,
(22:34):
but again that that reckoning is a reckoning from management,
but it's also a reckoning of one's priorities. So let's
connect with two thoughts and maybe think that there are
people taking a gap year at the moment during this
great reappraisal, a great reckoning, and that we've done an
opportunity to invite them back by being better companies. Absolutely, Wendy,
(22:57):
as we talk about the workforce, it is not a
secret to anybody that we are at a moment of
reckoning in terms of the diversity issues that we are
facing as an industry, but as as as a world,
as a community, not just our business, every business is
facing that same looking through that same lens right now.
(23:17):
And we all understand, and you and I've had this
conversation for a long time that it is critical for
us to open the aperture as we look at the
pools of talent and whatnot. My understanding and I may
have my numbers a little off, but fifty three percent
of Densus global workforce identify as female, and of your
(23:40):
executive leadership in a singular way identify themselves as female. Already.
What about the other side of the diversity and inclusion.
What about not just gender diversity and inclusion, but you know,
ethnicity and all the things that and I don't say
all the things like they're grouped because they're not. It's expensive, right,
(24:01):
So I mean this goes back to that notion of
having really dimensional teams and having that lived experience. So
whether it's your sexuality or your ethnicity or your gender
ability slash disability, right, we want the full breadth of
lived experiences. I think one of the more hidden aspects
of diversity, certainly for our industry, is socioeconomic diversity. I
(24:24):
think we we we don't recruit nearly well at enough
out of lower, lower socioeconomic talent. And that's one of
the programs DNS set up with the code where we're
going into reaching teams that are coming out of school
and or you know, heading into technical school and giving
them digital capabilities and training and skills so they can
(24:45):
pour into our industry so they're invited into our industry.
They might not go to college, that's okay, we can
skill train off a base of that sort of sixteen
eighteen year old command of school. And that's you know,
that's one of the things we're deliberately doing to bring
again that dimension and diversity to our to our team.
So we have to think about it in the fullest sense,
(25:06):
because I mean I don't have to tell anyone on
this podcast, or certainly you, Michael. Study after study after
study says the more diverse and dimensional team, the better
your business outcomes. I mean this is this has proven
time and again. So we all want better business outcomes,
right and so, and that's going to come surprise surprise
by people with these fully lived lives and experiences that
(25:28):
they bring into the workplace. And we get into those big,
rigorous discussions about doing the right thing for the brand
because we all think about it differently. It's brilliants the
best thing we can possibly do for our businesses. So
I have obviously a very strong orientation and desire to
do this. Um you know, we're a global company. When I,
for instance, when I was recruiting Fred, you know, it
was really important to me to make my best effort
(25:50):
to not recruit an American. I felt that that was
really important given that I was American and I knew
we were going to work together as much as we were.
It felt like the right thing to be reflected off
of you know, our broader company UM. You know also
obviously was looking for every aspect of diversity of anyone
who would come into that conversation. But you know, notably
(26:11):
knew that we wanted a global perspective from from that role.
So I think you've just got to be outward about it.
I think you've got to state it and put it
out there and say what you will and won't accept,
and what and what the teams most need to look
at these teams and really have that discussion and debate
with one another. What's missing here out of our collective
(26:32):
experiences and knowledge, What are we missing? What could what
could we take advantage of by making sure we invite
that to our table. So it's uh, we've made that
that ambition public will be utift men and women back
to the gender point by a publicly stayed ambition from
my direct reports on down every level, not taken in aggregate.
(26:53):
That's no, that's no use, right. We've got to get
to layer by layer and make sure we're bringing women
through the funnel of the business. And we have similar
BIPOP goals in the US to be bipop UM. So
we're really putting these ambitions out and stating them so
that number one, our teams are very clear, but that
there's also accountability right sore not hidden. Agenda is a
(27:15):
very public agenda. I've talked about things I've learned from you.
I hope you've learned from me that expression that I
use frequently, which is, don't read people's lips, watch their feet.
And what you've just said is just don't listen to
what I'm saying, watch what I'm doing. And you're doing it,
and and that speaks volumes to who you are as
a person. You know, Wendy, I had you come and
(27:37):
speak to the Media Link annual meeting many years ago,
and you talked about something that that really stuck with
our team, and I still quote it, and that one
I still give you credit for all the time, just
so you know. But you talked about when you were
at Coca Cola Company at that time, and you talked
about the need that you had as a marketer not
(27:58):
to see points solution, but to see end to end solutions.
And that was your view of life and business, and
I know that still is your view. You need to
look at a problem and you don't want to just
solve this part of it. You want to look at
the continuum or that end to end solution. You've translated
that well in your career, But talk about that for
a moment. In terms of how you look at a
(28:19):
client's challenges, you've been the client. I always feel like
my advantage in a consultative role at Media Link is
that I've been in the shoes of the people that
I'm advising. So I'm not somebody who's just looked at
it and admired a problem. I've actually been in the problem.
So I've been in quote your shoes, You similarly have
been in the shoes of the clients you're serving, you know,
(28:43):
in your global CEO role. Does that help you solve
those problems because you understand them better and you can
relate to them better you've walked in their shoes? Yeah? Well,
I mean what I mean, everyone density that I've had
the opportunity to work with will know about. I sort
of have named my alter ego client because you know,
I really do slip into this sort of client alter
(29:04):
ego um where I'm just looking at what we're what
we're recommending, or what we're doing, and it is of
course very easy for me to slip right back in
that slate and frankly, as I said, I describe myself
as a marketer. I think once a market, are always
a marketer. I mean it is my comfort level. There's
no question of of you know, being in that role
in that seat. So yeah, I mean I think that
(29:25):
that has been an advantage. I call myself bilingual a lot,
and I speak client and agency, which I think has
been helpful. Um. The other joke was, you know, whenever
you're looking for me, it's like she's in her office
negotiating with herself. That was the when I came from
the GSTN N to a T and T. That's what
Scott Parkins said. I was in my office negotiating with myself. Um,
so you know, however you want to phrase it, I
(29:47):
think for sure, Um, that has been helpful. Back to
the nature of sort of end to end. I mean, look,
the point is there are more ways to engage a
consumer than ever before. It's an exponential amount of ways
to engage a consumer now. So it's not a one
for one. It's not oh now we have you know,
such and such platform away and and this one goes away. No,
(30:08):
there's just more um and so if you're a client,
you find yourself with more and more partners, you know,
more more complex plans by the way, probably a constrained
budget most likely, where you're trying to make good decisions
around you know, and ever expanding universe of ways to
reach those consumers. And so the notion of being integrated
(30:28):
and end to end of nature is really critical. And
that's you know, the course we've set denso on. We
had a hundred and sixty agencies. We've been really clear
that's that's not there's not an easy user guide coming
to use DENSU if you've got a hundred and sixty agencies.
And I always lean on Mark Pritchard in this moment,
who said, you know, very clearly to the agency a
few years ago at a speech, your complexity should not
(30:49):
be my problem. And that's how I felt as a client.
All of this complexity and all of these agencies and
all these capabilities make it easy for me, make it
end to end, integrate, show me the handoffs, show me
how I get some benefit by lack of redundancy and
duplication because you're so seamless and you're so integrated. That
that was very much my feeling when I was a client.
(31:10):
You know, you hear it from people like Mark and others,
and yes, I think that's really when I say. And
to end, it's the seamless handoff and integration of all
the ways to reach engage consumers. And you know that
is keeping with the ever explaining ecosystem of touchpoints. Well, Wendy,
you know I could spend a day or two or
(31:32):
longer just you know, learning from you and poking around,
but unfortunately we don't have days to do this. These
good company conversations unfortunately have a beginning, of middle and
an end. But before we get to the end, what
I'd love to say is here we are on November.
(31:53):
No one would have expected the eighteen months or so
we've just come through. If you had to make some
predictions about out how our business will look, you know,
eighteen months from now or pick a time in the future.
If you're looking around the corner or over the horizon,
what do you see is there's something that just jumps
off the page at you as this is what what
(32:15):
I see or that's what I see. And you know,
if you could share that with us, as as I bid,
you would do it. Would be a great end to
the extraordinary conversation. Well, sure, thank you for that entree.
I mean, I'm I'm really bullish on the practice of
marketing and communications. Again, I've been in the business thirty years.
I can't imagine a time where any client, any company
(32:38):
doesn't have room for great ideas that is going to
build their business and deliver them the growth that they're
looking for. And and you know, I always say, as
a client, whether it comes from an agency or a
cooperative or a collective or you know, we can put
all these fancy names on what we're doing, great ideas
will always be welcomed from companies to build their business,
and that's what we want to do. Um And so
(33:00):
I believe there's a role for our industry, uh and
I believe that we're going to live into that. I
love how we're expanding now. I mean, obviously we're growing
by leaps and bounds in this consumer experience management space
where double digit growth in that space. We're going to
continue to make acquisitions in that space so that the
growth around commerce and the growth around Martek and cloud solutions,
(33:23):
that that expansion in our industry is fascinating, but it
is an all of itself, not a solution. So that's
where we get to that end to end nature because
we now are doing the data and digital transformation consulting.
That then results in a plan that we go to
market and we can do the investment plan across meeting,
we do the execution plan across our creative and that's
(33:43):
when you get to these really you know, expansive solutions
for businesses. It gets me excited. I think eighteen months
from now, you know we'll be fully into those integrated solutions,
no no question to me. We're gonna be driving further
and deeper into the transformation aspects and the commerce and
the cloud based solutions in our business. And I think
(34:04):
most notably, we've got to acknowledge how important sustainability is
going to be. There is absolutely no question that brands
moving forward and companies moving forward won't be judged by
how much big force for good they are as well
as a force for growth. So those would be my
three things I would say eighteen months from now. Well
as always, Wendy, spending time with you makes me a
(34:26):
smarter person and I'm certain our audience will share that view.
It was a great pleasure to have you as Good
Company because you are extraordinarily good company, and Wendy Clark,
I want to thank you, Thank you, Michael. It's delightful
to be here and I equally learned from you, so
good good time we'll spend and I enjoyed it. I'm
(34:48):
Michael Casson, Thanks for listening to Good Company. Good Company
is a production of I Heart Radio. Special Thanks to
Lena Peterson, Chief Brand Officer and Managing Director immediately for
gen M Good Company, and to Jen Seely, Vice President
Marketing Communications Immediately for programming amazing talent and CONTENTM
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.