February 29, 2024 • 37 mins
Kellyn Smith Kenny was born to innovate. From her early years, she was a textbook over-achiever, thriving as both an athlete and a mathlete and joining any additional club she could squeeze her way into. Growing up, she watched her mom run a hospital and her dad contribute to groundbreaking work at Bell Labs, inspiring her to dedicate herself to meaningful work. This well-rounded foundation has taken Kellyn far in the world of marketing. Her resume is stacked with giants of business like Microsoft, Hilton, Capital One, and Uber, where she learned to approach work like she’s captain of a sports team. Knowing the game inside and out and fostering a diverse, cohesive team is of the utmost importance. Currently, as the Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T, she has continued making bold moves to breathe new life into an iconic brand. She sat down with Bob to explain just how she does it.
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 (00:01):
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
When you obsess over the competition instead of obsessing over
the customer, you're going to get yourself into big trouble
because if you're obsessing over the competition, all you can
ever know is what they've already done. You can't drive
a car ninety miles an hour down the road if
you're looking in the rearview mirror, and when you're studying
the competition, you can only be looking backwards.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hi, I'm Bob Pipman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. On this episode, we're
going to dig in deep with one of the most
versatile and agile marketers in the business. Microsoft, Capital One, Uber,
Hilton and now AT and T have all been atten
from her handiwork. She's a rare blend of sociologist, strategists, technologist,
(00:54):
quant and strong leader. She's Kellen Smith Kenny, the chief
marketing and growth officer at AT and T. Kellen grew
up and what the college in the Northeast. Her dad
was a mathematician, her mom was a nurse, and her
aunt was an artist. She calls it an incredible influence
of art and science and empathy. Growing up, we call
it mathem magic. Rare to find both in one person.
(01:17):
But she is one of those unicorns, and her career
is not so much marked by where she has been,
but rather it's marked by the big successes she has
had at each stop. She and her marketing campaigns have
won a number of awards. When you dig into how
she does it, it'll be apparent why. Although kell and
I are not old friends, my old friends who know
(01:37):
her well rave about her both as a marketer and
as a human. Kellen, welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Before we jump into the meaty stuff, I'd like to
do you in sixty seconds. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Do you prefer cats or dogs?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Dogs?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Introvert or extrovert.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
An introverted extrovert or possibly an extroverted introvert?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Mountains or bas each mountains ski or snowboard ski ski ski,
your first job, lifeguard, dream.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Vacation, helly skiing on a glacier.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Athlete or athlete both cell phone or landline, cell phone,
all dressed up or keeping a casual all dressed up.
Favorite thing to cook?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I can barely boil water.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Smartest person. You know, my grandmother, childhood hero, my parents
favorite city, Seattle, And what did you want to be
when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
President of the United States?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Well that's yet to come. Okay, before you get to
be president of the United States. Let's talk about a
little bit of some other stuff here, and let's jump
in to where you are right now. AT and T
one of the greatest brands of the last one hundred years.
You've got a brilliant strategist, John Stanky is your CEO,
and he is clearly driving the company to maximize your
(03:00):
assets and capitalize on that amazing brand. Describe for us
this next phase of AT and T. Where are you headed?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
When I think about where AT and T is headed
in the future, we want to be famous for delivering
the type of connectivity that connects people to greater possibility,
and we want to do it in a way that
makes everything simple. We want people to have the confidence
knowing that it's coming from the experts at AT and T.
We want every single touch point that we have with
(03:31):
a customer to be inspiring. That means we need to
lean into best in class, best in breed connectivity solutions
from five G and fiber to the converged way that
consumers and business decision makers are choosing to consume connectivity today.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So how does having this long and storied brand help
you and how does it hurt you? What do you
have to work around?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
The company was founded by Alexander Bell one hundred and
forty seven years ago, the inventor of the telephone, the
inventor of cable fiber, the first transcontinental phone call, the
first call to the moon, three G, four G, five G,
even the information theory was founded in AT and t's
Bell Labs. And so we've got this incredibly rich legacy
(04:20):
of innovation and invention that has powered commerce across the
United States, that has changed human relations, that superpowered so
much of the innovation and the technology growth that we
saw in the early two thousands. So, on the one hand,
you've got this incredible legacy, and every single employee inside
(04:42):
of AT and T wants to live up to that legacy,
and we want to usher in the next great wave
of innovation for the next one hundred and fifty years.
But also you have to resist getting complacent. You can't
look backwards and take a victory lap again and again.
You have to push forward into the future.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Is there's still a legacy of the brand power of
Bell Labs. I mean, when I was growing up, there
could not be a bigger name in technology and innovation
than Bell Labs.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, I'll tell you a funny little story, and
my dad actually worked at Bell Labs, and so I'd
heard about Bell Labs as a kid growing up. What's
been incredible since coming to AT and T is when
you meet with people who work in the labs. They
are some of the finest academics and scholars in their universities,
in their colleges, and they will tell you they contemplated
(05:33):
every big tech company and they wanted to come to
AT and T because they wanted to be part of
Bell Labs. So I would say absolutely, if you look
at the incredible contributions that Bell Labs scientists, technologists have
made to our society, there is a tremendous amount of
pride there.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
So you're a marketer who is not based in La
New York or San Francisco, but rather in Dallas. Just
being in real America give you and your marketers an edge.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Now, that's a great it's a great way of thinking out.
I always tell people. I'm a New Yorker living in Dallas,
supporting the Cowboys, eating the best tex mechs in the US,
and wearing cowboy hats to the rodeo, and absolutely I
think it helps you get in touch with your customer base.
But even if you are a marketer living in LA
or San Francisco or New York, it is so crucial
(06:27):
that you spend time with the customers that you spend
time with frontline employees. That is the best lesson. One
of the most incredible experiences I've had at AT and
T is we have these connection days for our employees
that work at headquarters, and I actually went into people's
homes and installed fiber. You get to see the types
of questions that customers have, from the very tech savvy
(06:49):
customers who want to do everything themselves, to the customers
that are much more reliant on the technicians that go
on premises. You get to see what it's like to
actually wire fiber throughout a building that's got you one
thousand tenants. It's pretty extraordinary.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Well that's cool. So how has your past experience Microsoft,
cap One, Uber Hilton prepared you for this particular opportunity.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Gosh, I've had such incredible opportunities in my career. The
thing I learned at Microsoft is that technology and technology
alone is not going to be the reason why somebody
adopts your product. I worked at Microsoft and the very
first product I worked on was Windows Vista. It was
(07:36):
one of the most highly anticipated technology products of its era.
I think it was five years in the making, people
everywhere or on the edge of their seats waiting to
see what Microsoft would release. You probably remember that when
we released it into the marketplace, it landed like a
nuclear thud ball bomb. It was a total bomb. And
(07:58):
what we learned in that time time was that we
had fallen in love with the technology and we had
forgotten about the most important person in the equation, and
that was the end user. We missed the consumerization of technology.
We missed that the vast majority of our customers weren't
using ninety nine percent of the features that we put
(08:20):
in that operating system. That ultimately bloaded the operating system,
slowed it down and made it far less attractive. And
so the incredible lesson learned from Microsoft is focus on
the customer. I'd seen at times in my career, whether
it was teams I was on, or competitors I was
facing off against. Is when you obsess over the competition
(08:44):
instead of obsessing over the customer, you're going to get
yourself into big trouble because if you're obsessing over the competition,
all you can ever know is what they've already done.
You can't drive a car ninety miles an hour down
the road if you're looking in the rearview mirror, and
when you're studying the competition, you can only be looking backwards.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It sounds like you probably did the same thing at
Cap one, Uber and Hilton two. A consumer focus seems
to be your hallmark.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh thank you, Yeah, I would say at Capital one
we were incredibly, incredibly scientific about how we went to market,
and so we treated it as this just obsession with
getting better and better. We had this learning mindset, this
growth mindset all throughout the company, so that test and
learn mentality was so critical. And of course when you're
(09:32):
testing and learning, the ultimate guidepost is the customers. Are
the customers receptive to it? Are they buying it? Are
they upgrading? Are they telling other people about it? You
get immediate feedback. The other thing that was incredible about
Capital one is that that company found religion about building
a brand through all of the testing and learning that
(09:54):
it did in performance marketing before performance marketing was even
a word. And so, years and years ago, when Capital
One was one of the largest customers of the US
postal service, they ran a test a blank envelope with
no branding on it, and then an envelope that actually
had the Capital One logo on the outer left hand corner.
(10:16):
And what they originally found was that the blank envelope
outperformed the branded envelope. And right then and there, yeah, ouch,
and right then and there, the founder and CEO of
Capital One, Rich Fairbank, said this is unacceptable. We have
got to build this brand. And so that's when the
company really leaned into building awareness, building consideration, building familiarity,
(10:40):
and ultimately preference.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Interesting stuff. We keep going back to power of brand, brand, brand,
even when we talk performance marketing.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
So when I arrived at Uber, we were spending around
a billion dollars in performance marketing. However, what we started
to recognize was that the pipeline of true prospects where
we were going to source that next great wave of
growth was starting to elude us. And we did some
very rudimentary quick turn research based on hypotheses that some
(11:12):
of us on the team had. Do you remember when
people say I'm going to call an uber?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Do you remember, Oh yeah, I sure do.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Right, So we did a survey and it turned out
that eighty five percent of people who had never tried
Uber thought you literally called an uber. You picked up
the phone and tiled one eight hundred and five to
fyy five UBER. So we recognized that we had a
massive amount of education that we needed to do. So
we recognized we needed to turn on more upper funnel
(11:38):
channels like radio, like TV, like digital video. And I
cannot make this up. Within the first two weeks of
turning on TV, all of the lower funnel performance vehicles
were performing twenty seven percent better.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I want to go back a little bit on what
you're doing at at and T. Let's talk about the transformation.
It's a huge, huge company and by reputation, you would
expect it to be more toward the bureaucratic the end
of the spectrum. So how do you John Stanky and
the rest of his team turn the battleship for transformation.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
One of the things that we recently did as a
company was we declared our purpose. We said, what is
the epicenter of why we do everything that we do,
what motivates us? And we did a tremendous amount of
research across customers, employees, investors, historians, even people in adjacent industries.
(12:35):
We wanted to understand how they viewed AT and T,
where they felt that we had room and frankly, the
authority to play, but we also wanted to make sure
that it was a reflection of us on our very
best day, that it honored the folklore and the incredible
history of the company, but that it was ready to
take AT and T into the next several decades. And
(12:58):
so when we declared that purpose, which is to connect
people to greater possibility with expertise, simplicity and inspiration, we
paired that with a series of seven strategic imperatives, the
things that we knew we needed to do over the
course of the next five to seven years to really
become famous for connecting people to greater possibility, to really
(13:20):
become the undisputed expert on connectivity. And then in addition
to those strategic imperatives, we focused on the culture of
the company. We declared our culture values. When you're working
inside of a legacy company. Having clarity of purpose but
also having clarity of expectation on the culture you want
(13:41):
to build is so incredibly powerful. We talk about acting boldly,
not playing it safe, you know, not allowing yourself to
take that victory lap and then get complacent, but continuing
to challenge yourself. And then if we're going to act boldly,
we need to move faster. So those four cultural values
are guiding every action we take inside the company, and
(14:04):
then we evaluate ourselves on how are we progressing against
those culture pillars. Each year we survey our employees, we
get their feedback and they don't hold back, and so
just keep pushing ourselves and pushing ourselves and pushing ourselves
to be the very best that we can be.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The world we live in is filled with messages for
consumers and across so many platforms. How do you break
through that? Are we back to the magic of reach
and frequency?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Gosh, when you look at the statistics, it is staggering.
Customers are being bombarded with content. The last time I checked,
I think the average person scrolls through at least a
football field and a half of content on their phone each.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Day the last time, like it to me.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I must say, I know the last time I checked,
the average personived over one hundred and fifty emails a
day the last time I checked, And this one really
knocked me back in my seat. The amount of time
that the average consumer in the US spends on social
media per day is over two hours. If we think
(15:16):
about that in aggregate, that's over one full month a
year that people are now spending on a technology that
fifteen to twenty years ago didn't even exist. The game
board is stacked differently now for marketers, the game board
is stacked differently for brands. So can we play the
game the same way that we played it fifteen twenty
(15:37):
years ago? Not a chance we won't be successful. You know,
if the old measure was reach and frequency, that totally
undermined the power of incredible creative at least at at
and T we are really leaning into how do we
make sure that the quality of our creative is the
absolute best in industry, and how do we make sure
(15:57):
that the media and sponsorships that we're engaging with are
the absolute premium.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Moral Math and Magic. Right after this quick break, welcome
back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from my
conversation with Kellen Kenny. I want to step back in
time a little bit. I want to put you in context,
tell us where you grew up, and paint a picture
(16:25):
of that time and place.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I grew up in a town called Brewster, New York.
It was the last stop on the Harlem line of
Metro North, so there were absolutely friends of mine whose
parents commuted into this city. The city was a place
that I went once or twice a year. Went to
Brewster High School, where my graduating class was one hundred
(16:47):
and eighty. I was a big time athlete, and as
you appropriately called out an athlete, I had fourteen varsity
letters by the time I graduated. So I come from
a law online of athletes, and I was always taught
that you got to work really hard, and if you
work hard enough, practice long enough, you can be successful.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So how often did you eat at Red Rooster?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Okay, not only did I eat self served ice cream
at Red Rooster in Brewster, but I also went mini
golfing at the Red Rooster. Have you ever gone mini
golfing there?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
I have. I have when my oldest son was a
little kid. And by the way, with a little kid,
you've got to stop at Red Rooster. Just the drive
was how far to Red Rooster, not how far is
it to where we're going.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Well, I got to tell you I never took off
as a golfer, and I blame the mini golf course
at the Red Rooster because that windmill obstacle. It got
me every time.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So talk a little bit about your parents. You mentioned
them earlier. What impact did they have on you?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, my parents were definitely my heroes growing up. They
were both incredibly kind, loving, supportive, but they set a
really high bar for their one and only child. I
threw my hat into the ring for everything class president,
you know, varsity sports, varsity society, national honor society, if
(18:15):
there was a club, I wanted to raise my hand
and be a part of it. But my mom, she
started her career as a nurse. She then went on
to lead out patient services for one of the largest
hospitals in the state of New York. It was White
Plains Hospital. At the time, she had an organization of
a thousand people, and every once in a while, and
(18:36):
I would have a day off from school, she'd bring
me into the office and I would do administrative task
like filing and I remember thinking, Wow, the people in
the hospital, they really respect my mom. She was kind
to everyone. Everybody greeted her with a smile, but you
could also tell that she meant business. She was tough,
(18:56):
but a huge inspiration. And then my father, who I
had mentioned, worked at Bell Labs. He actually worked at
Bell Labs after his stint with the Boston Red Sox,
so he was a professional pitcher in the Major Leagues
for the Red Sox. And his nickname when he was
pitching for the Red Sox was college Boy, because at
(19:17):
the time, a lot of professional baseball players actually didn't
go to college. And not only did he go to college,
but he was getting his master's degree at the University
of Southern cal in the off season, so obviously he
really valued education. He went on to work at Bell
Labs and then he went on to become a teacher.
(19:37):
But he was always my number one coach. So every
sport I ever played, my personal coach was my dad.
He just loved sport, he loved competition, and he was
an incredible motivating factor all throughout my life.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
So let's talk about college. You went to college at Colgate,
Why there and what did you study?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So I started off as a math major. I then
migrated over to computer science. I ended up minoring in
computer science but really falling in love with economics, so
I majored in economics. And one of the coolest things
I did when I was at Colgate was I went
on the London Economics Study Group and we got to
do incredible programs with the London School of Economics. We
(20:19):
had economists for her Magistry's Treasury coming in and doing
independent study with us.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
You went on to be a tech consultant, then went
to Northwestern for business school. What foundations did those experience
give you?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I had an important realization that I wanted to be
closer to the customer. While I loved the work that
I was doing as a technology consultant, I loved the
intellectual rigor of it, what I missed was the feeling
that I was impacting something directly. And I would say
as a pretty young professional, I began to form my
(20:54):
values as an individual. And I always say that the
eyes of Kellen are I want to have an impact.
I want to drive real innovation, and I want to
do all of that with integrity. My personal motto is
that the view is better from the high road. Then
I went on to Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, where
the program was famous for being student led, and I
(21:17):
didn't really know what that meant before I got there,
But what I realized was they expected you to form
your committees. They expected you and your co students to
run every one of those committees, to decide on the strategy,
to define the execution, plan, to operate to raise the funds.
(21:38):
We really were self governed, and that was so important
because for the first time in my career, I was
working with people who had very, very different backgrounds from me.
And what I originally thought when I went into business
school is this is taking longer we have to We're
wasting all this time figuring out how we want to
work together. That was sort of my going in assumption
(21:59):
for the first two three weeks at business school, I'll
just do it, it'll go faster. And then within four
or five weeks I realized, Kellen, you idiot. The collective
wisdom of this group of four or five or seven
people is truly transformative. And one thing that I kind
of beat myself up about was I had always played
(22:21):
team sports, I had always played softball, I had always
been on basketball teams growing up. Why did it take
me so long to figure out that the working world,
the professional world, was a team sport too.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
You know, it's interesting. We talked to a lot of
people in mathem Magic, and I think that's probably one
of the common elements that comes through is teams when
people don't and the people who build great teams are
the big, big winners here. It's interesting looking at your
career and you know it's going through the research. I
was sort of fascinated by the fact that, you know,
and Microsoft, cap One Uber you were building had extra money.
(22:58):
They have plenty of money to put at it. And
then at Hilton you were dealing with a situation that
had big cutbacks and heag count and spending. Yet you
won there as well. So clearly it wasn't how BIG's
my budget? How many people do I have? What was
common about those challenges you had?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Well, one of the most galvanizing conversations I had related
to Hilton happened before I joined. I was sitting down
with Christmasta, the CEO, and he was passionately speaking to
the power of brand. He said the last two remaining
(23:40):
loose ends that he wanted to tie up was around
technology and brand, and he said, how is Hilton going
to achieve its full potential? How is Hilton going to
leave the legacy that it deserves if you're a franchise
company and you don't have world class technology and you
don't have world class brand and marketing. And so I
could see even before I started. Frankly, we were just
(24:03):
having a conversation. I wasn't even applying for the job,
but I could see that he was dead serious about
investing in Hilton's future, and he had incredible natural instincts
about where to take marketing and where to take the brand.
The ambition inside the company was really inspiring. And one
of the things that I found inside of Hilton that
(24:26):
was such a secret weapon was the culture of hospitality,
the customer focus, and the entrepreneurial spirit of making sure
that every single customer's stay was a type of momentum
that I was able to leverage coming in and doing marketing.
That was another example of a company where we needed
to define the purpose. It was another example of the
(24:47):
company where we had an incredible, rich legacy. We were
able to, again through experimentation and learning agendas, get to
a place where we were much more efficient.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
You've got a pretty high perch in the world of business.
How should we think about companies' responsibilities and even imperative
to help the world be a better place? And what
should we do and what should we not do.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
One of the things that's been inspiring to me about
AT and T is that the company has a legacy
of doing the right thing, stepping up when we recognize that, hey,
there is a digital divide forming in society. The kids
who have access to computers can do their homework, and
the kids who don't can't do their homework. And so
(25:32):
I would say so many of the lessons that I've
learned throughout my career in terms of doing the right
thing the responsibility of businesses have really been epitomized by
the stances that AT and T is taking. I absolutely
believe that companies need to do good in the world,
and that doing good in the world is motivating to employees.
(25:53):
It attracts customers to you, it attracts investors to you.
Over the course of the past three years, we've deployed
over two billion dollars to help close that gap, and
we identify the gap as people who either don't have
access to it because they're in a community that is
so rural that it's underserved, or to people who technically
(26:16):
they do have access, but it's not affordable to them.
And AT and T is trying to fight the pressures
on both ends because we recognize that if we want
to have a brighter future as a society and as
a country, we need our children the leaders of tomorrow.
We need those students to have access to technologies so
(26:37):
that they can do their homework, that they can continue
to learn.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I will give AT and T a nod. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi,
when I was elementary school, AT and T brought things
to our elementary school assembly and I still remember them
bringing in I guess it was in the air of Sputnik.
They brought in was at the Vanguard satellite or brought
in some presentation, little model of it and showed it
(27:02):
to these kids in this little town. And I was
a science kid, and it was like changed my life.
And I'm sure at that moment it was the same thing.
It was that sort of continuing community outreach and trying
to build the next generation. So let me move back
to you. You've had great successes people who know you well,
(27:22):
friends of ours. The one word everybody uses is humble.
How do you keep your ego in check when you've
had all these successes?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
First of all, being described as humble is a real compliment,
So thank you for passing that along. I appreciate it.
I truly want to be seen as somebody who is
both humble and confident. And part of where my humility
comes from is if you're surrounded by extraordinary people, extraordinary
(27:52):
friends and extraordinary family, extraordinary coworkers, it is humbling. Every
time I'm in a relationship with a coworker or a mentor,
I am tracking all of the things that they do
that really impress me, and I want to be more
like them. And so there's rarely a person that I
(28:12):
come across that I don't think X, Y, and Z
are the things I admire about that person, and I
wish I could be more like that. And so I'm
constantly thinking about where I want to go, not what
I've accomplished. I'm constantly thinking about what I can do
to be better, not what I've done that makes me good.
And by the way, that's probably a byproduct of being
(28:34):
raised by parents who had an incredibly high bar that
kept on rising. So I just focus on where the
bar is rising, not the bars that I've already leaped over.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I think it probably goes back to that mini golf
course at Red Rooster, that humbling experience of the windmill.
Let's talk about work life balance. Any advice on that.
You got a family, You obviously have a rich mosaic,
a friend ships. How do you make that work?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
That is a question that keeps me humble. My family
is an incredible priority for me. I was asked a
question the other day and they said, how do you
stay grounded? I'm like, well, if you have an eleven
year old daughter, she's going to keep you grounded. She's
going to put you right in your place every day.
Same thing with my eight year old daughter. But no
(29:22):
balance for me is making sure that I'm there at
the school concerts, making sure that I'm there to help
with homework, making sure that I'm there to cheer them
on when they're starring in an production of The Jungle
Book or Cat and the Hat. We talked about this earlier.
I'm not someone who can cook. I don't get home
(29:42):
and whip up a meal. I outsource that, but I
do try to be present when I'm home. I do
try to make sure that the weekends are as sacred
as humanly possible for family. I do try to make
it home to tuck the kids into bed every night.
I used to sing them lullabies almost every night, but
I was told by my eleven year old that that
(30:02):
is totally uncool and now unacceptable. But yeah, it's just
making time for the moments that really matter, prioritizing time
on vacation and then with work. I'll be honest, I'm
not the best at not letting it encroach on life
outside of work, but at least when the kids are awake,
I try to be with them. It's after they go
(30:23):
to bed that I hop back on the phone or
the iPad or the computer and bang out work or
even take work calls. The one thing I will say
as a leader that I am very proud and think
I've done well, is I really honor my team members
their time with their families. I don't ever, unless it
is a true emergency, I don't ever send them a
(30:44):
text or an email on the weekend. I always am
very respectful about things they're doing in the evening, and
so I think modeling it with your direct reports. Making
sure that people on your team know that you really
respect their time is another way.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Do you think that that experience you had with your mom,
where you went to work with her and saw her
working and participated in her work helped you understand that
sort of work life integration that families have.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Oh? Absolutely, so. I saw a woman who was the
epitome of work hard, play hard. There was no one
more diligent. There was no one more focused on making
sure her patients had excellent, excellent care. There was no
one more focused on making sure that when she had
(31:37):
her state reviews that she came back and got a
perfect score again, because that was a reflection of the
type of care that they were offering their patients. But
also she was a wonderful leader. But it didn't end there.
She was an incredible mother. She came to all my
softball games, tennis matches, ski races. She literally would bundle up,
walk up the side of mountains, you know, in the
(31:58):
middle of a blizzard if it meant importing me. So
she was an incredible example. But not only that, she
had a rich life. She had wonderful friends, She played
tennis herself, and she competed. So I saw a woman
who worked incredibly hard but led a very rich life
with family and friends. She was an incredible example to me.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
So let me ask one more personal question. If you
could go back in time and give your twenty one
year old self some advice, what would that advice be.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Believe in yourself and continue to challenge the status quo.
Don't accept that because somebody has tried it before and
it's not been successful, that it can't work out for you.
Be the type of person that other people want to
be around. Be the type of leader that brings out
(32:51):
the very best in those around you. Extend trust, create
a psychologically safe environment for everyone you work with, because
that's when people do their absolute best work.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
We end each episode of Math and Magic with a
shout out to the greats on both ends of the
spectrum of marketing. The math folks, those who use the
analytics as their secret weapon, and the magicians, those who
use that sort of raw creativity and showmanship, who get
your shout out for each So my.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Shout out on the math and science side Adam Grant.
I actually had the opportunity to interview him at a
marketing town Hall a couple of years ago, right after
he had written the book Think Again, and in my
humble opinion, it is the best business book of our generation.
He systematically and scientifically illustrated the difference between companies and
(33:47):
individuals that approach their work like scientists, with humility, curiosity,
a bias for learning. They challenge their assumptions versus the
people who are trapped in that over confidence cycle of
hubris and arrogant and confirmation bias. And I read that
book and I thought, oh my gosh, everybody needs to
read this.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Okay, on the magician side, who gets it?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Okay, I'm going to give it up to my girl,
Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Wow, I know so.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
A couple of months ago, I had an opportunity to
interview Reese and Jennifer Garner and Mindy Kayling at the
inaugural Shine Away connected by AT and T event in
La and Reese really does have that magic touch. In
addition to being a brilliant business woman with an insatiable
(34:35):
appetite for books, it seems that every project she touches
turns to gold. Her formula of championing the creative work
of women is producing staggering results. I know this because
I prepared for the interview, but at the time, over
sixty of Reese's book clubs picks had landed on the
New York Times bestseller List. She had fifteen wins. I
(34:56):
believe it was across Emmy's SAG and Golden globes. Not
to mention, you know some of my very favorite content
of the year and over the past few years. My
shout out goes to Reese Weatherspoon.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Wow. That's great, Kellen. Really a great conversation, and sadly
we just scratched the surface. But thanks for the insights,
stories and advice, and most of all, congrats on your
amazing successes.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Well, thank you so much. It is an incredible honor
to be interviewed by you.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Kellen. One, get on the ground. You need
to know your consumer to know what they want, but
you never will unless you meet them head on. Get
out from behind your desk and seek out experience as
you usually wouldn't be in be in the focus room,
get on the retail floor, our visit customers' homes with
(35:51):
technicians like Kellen did. The more you know, the better
your product will be. Two, your brand is whether you're
a startup or an iconic company like AT and T,
the most important thing to do as a marketer is
to build a strong brand identity. Make sure the public
knows who you are and what your brand stands for.
(36:14):
That familiarity will bring trust, and trust will bring a
loyal consumer base. Three. Work as a team sport in business.
Your greatest tool is the people around you. When a
team really works together, their diversity of experience will bring
about more creative solutions and build something unique. I'm Bob Pittman.
(36:35):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney
Rosenblut for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent. Small Feet
Mathematics producers are Emily Meronoth and Jessica Crimechich. It is
mixed and mastered by Bahed Fraser. Our executive producers are
(37:09):
Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course a big
thanks to Gail Raoul, Eric Angel Noel and everyone who
helped bring this show to your ears until next time.
You're listening to Math and Magic, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2 (00:08):
When you obsess over the competition instead of obsessing over
the customer, you're going to get yourself into big trouble
because if you're obsessing over the competition, all you can
ever know is what they've already done. You can't drive
a car ninety miles an hour down the road if
you're looking in the rearview mirror, and when you're studying
the competition, you can only be looking backwards.
Speaker 3 (00:32):
Hi, I'm Bob Pipman, and welcome to Math and Magic.
Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing. On this episode, we're
going to dig in deep with one of the most
versatile and agile marketers in the business. Microsoft, Capital One, Uber,
Hilton and now AT and T have all been atten
from her handiwork. She's a rare blend of sociologist, strategists, technologist,
(00:54):
quant and strong leader. She's Kellen Smith Kenny, the chief
marketing and growth officer at AT and T. Kellen grew
up and what the college in the Northeast. Her dad
was a mathematician, her mom was a nurse, and her
aunt was an artist. She calls it an incredible influence
of art and science and empathy. Growing up, we call
it mathem magic. Rare to find both in one person.
(01:17):
But she is one of those unicorns, and her career
is not so much marked by where she has been,
but rather it's marked by the big successes she has
had at each stop. She and her marketing campaigns have
won a number of awards. When you dig into how
she does it, it'll be apparent why. Although kell and
I are not old friends, my old friends who know
(01:37):
her well rave about her both as a marketer and
as a human. Kellen, welcome.
Speaker 2 (01:42):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Before we jump into the meaty stuff, I'd like to
do you in sixty seconds. Are you ready?
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I'm ready.
Speaker 3 (01:49):
Do you prefer cats or dogs?
Speaker 2 (01:51):
Dogs?
Speaker 3 (01:52):
Introvert or extrovert.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
An introverted extrovert or possibly an extroverted introvert?
Speaker 3 (01:59):
Mountains or bas each mountains ski or snowboard ski ski ski,
your first job, lifeguard, dream.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
Vacation, helly skiing on a glacier.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
Athlete or athlete both cell phone or landline, cell phone,
all dressed up or keeping a casual all dressed up.
Favorite thing to cook?
Speaker 2 (02:25):
I can barely boil water.
Speaker 3 (02:27):
Smartest person. You know, my grandmother, childhood hero, my parents
favorite city, Seattle, And what did you want to be
when you were growing up?
Speaker 2 (02:37):
President of the United States?
Speaker 3 (02:38):
Well that's yet to come. Okay, before you get to
be president of the United States. Let's talk about a
little bit of some other stuff here, and let's jump
in to where you are right now. AT and T
one of the greatest brands of the last one hundred years.
You've got a brilliant strategist, John Stanky is your CEO,
and he is clearly driving the company to maximize your
(03:00):
assets and capitalize on that amazing brand. Describe for us
this next phase of AT and T. Where are you headed?
Speaker 2 (03:08):
When I think about where AT and T is headed
in the future, we want to be famous for delivering
the type of connectivity that connects people to greater possibility,
and we want to do it in a way that
makes everything simple. We want people to have the confidence
knowing that it's coming from the experts at AT and T.
We want every single touch point that we have with
(03:31):
a customer to be inspiring. That means we need to
lean into best in class, best in breed connectivity solutions
from five G and fiber to the converged way that
consumers and business decision makers are choosing to consume connectivity today.
Speaker 3 (03:49):
So how does having this long and storied brand help
you and how does it hurt you? What do you
have to work around?
Speaker 2 (03:57):
The company was founded by Alexander Bell one hundred and
forty seven years ago, the inventor of the telephone, the
inventor of cable fiber, the first transcontinental phone call, the
first call to the moon, three G, four G, five G,
even the information theory was founded in AT and t's
Bell Labs. And so we've got this incredibly rich legacy
(04:20):
of innovation and invention that has powered commerce across the
United States, that has changed human relations, that superpowered so
much of the innovation and the technology growth that we
saw in the early two thousands. So, on the one hand,
you've got this incredible legacy, and every single employee inside
(04:42):
of AT and T wants to live up to that legacy,
and we want to usher in the next great wave
of innovation for the next one hundred and fifty years.
But also you have to resist getting complacent. You can't
look backwards and take a victory lap again and again.
You have to push forward into the future.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
Is there's still a legacy of the brand power of
Bell Labs. I mean, when I was growing up, there
could not be a bigger name in technology and innovation
than Bell Labs.
Speaker 2 (05:13):
You know, I'll tell you a funny little story, and
my dad actually worked at Bell Labs, and so I'd
heard about Bell Labs as a kid growing up. What's
been incredible since coming to AT and T is when
you meet with people who work in the labs. They
are some of the finest academics and scholars in their universities,
in their colleges, and they will tell you they contemplated
(05:33):
every big tech company and they wanted to come to
AT and T because they wanted to be part of
Bell Labs. So I would say absolutely, if you look
at the incredible contributions that Bell Labs scientists, technologists have
made to our society, there is a tremendous amount of
pride there.
Speaker 3 (05:53):
So you're a marketer who is not based in La
New York or San Francisco, but rather in Dallas. Just
being in real America give you and your marketers an edge.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Now, that's a great it's a great way of thinking out.
I always tell people. I'm a New Yorker living in Dallas,
supporting the Cowboys, eating the best tex mechs in the US,
and wearing cowboy hats to the rodeo, and absolutely I
think it helps you get in touch with your customer base.
But even if you are a marketer living in LA
or San Francisco or New York, it is so crucial
(06:27):
that you spend time with the customers that you spend
time with frontline employees. That is the best lesson. One
of the most incredible experiences I've had at AT and
T is we have these connection days for our employees
that work at headquarters, and I actually went into people's
homes and installed fiber. You get to see the types
of questions that customers have, from the very tech savvy
(06:49):
customers who want to do everything themselves, to the customers
that are much more reliant on the technicians that go
on premises. You get to see what it's like to
actually wire fiber throughout a building that's got you one
thousand tenants. It's pretty extraordinary.
Speaker 3 (07:06):
Well that's cool. So how has your past experience Microsoft,
cap One, Uber Hilton prepared you for this particular opportunity.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
Gosh, I've had such incredible opportunities in my career. The
thing I learned at Microsoft is that technology and technology
alone is not going to be the reason why somebody
adopts your product. I worked at Microsoft and the very
first product I worked on was Windows Vista. It was
(07:36):
one of the most highly anticipated technology products of its era.
I think it was five years in the making, people
everywhere or on the edge of their seats waiting to
see what Microsoft would release. You probably remember that when
we released it into the marketplace, it landed like a
nuclear thud ball bomb. It was a total bomb. And
(07:58):
what we learned in that time time was that we
had fallen in love with the technology and we had
forgotten about the most important person in the equation, and
that was the end user. We missed the consumerization of technology.
We missed that the vast majority of our customers weren't
using ninety nine percent of the features that we put
(08:20):
in that operating system. That ultimately bloaded the operating system,
slowed it down and made it far less attractive. And
so the incredible lesson learned from Microsoft is focus on
the customer. I'd seen at times in my career, whether
it was teams I was on, or competitors I was
facing off against. Is when you obsess over the competition
(08:44):
instead of obsessing over the customer, you're going to get
yourself into big trouble because if you're obsessing over the competition,
all you can ever know is what they've already done.
You can't drive a car ninety miles an hour down
the road if you're looking in the rearview mirror, and
when you're studying the competition, you can only be looking backwards.
Speaker 3 (09:03):
It sounds like you probably did the same thing at
Cap one, Uber and Hilton two. A consumer focus seems
to be your hallmark.
Speaker 2 (09:11):
Oh thank you, Yeah, I would say at Capital one
we were incredibly, incredibly scientific about how we went to market,
and so we treated it as this just obsession with
getting better and better. We had this learning mindset, this
growth mindset all throughout the company, so that test and
learn mentality was so critical. And of course when you're
(09:32):
testing and learning, the ultimate guidepost is the customers. Are
the customers receptive to it? Are they buying it? Are
they upgrading? Are they telling other people about it? You
get immediate feedback. The other thing that was incredible about
Capital one is that that company found religion about building
a brand through all of the testing and learning that
(09:54):
it did in performance marketing before performance marketing was even
a word. And so, years and years ago, when Capital
One was one of the largest customers of the US
postal service, they ran a test a blank envelope with
no branding on it, and then an envelope that actually
had the Capital One logo on the outer left hand corner.
(10:16):
And what they originally found was that the blank envelope
outperformed the branded envelope. And right then and there, yeah, ouch,
and right then and there, the founder and CEO of
Capital One, Rich Fairbank, said this is unacceptable. We have
got to build this brand. And so that's when the
company really leaned into building awareness, building consideration, building familiarity,
(10:40):
and ultimately preference.
Speaker 3 (10:42):
Interesting stuff. We keep going back to power of brand, brand, brand,
even when we talk performance marketing.
Speaker 2 (10:49):
So when I arrived at Uber, we were spending around
a billion dollars in performance marketing. However, what we started
to recognize was that the pipeline of true prospects where
we were going to source that next great wave of
growth was starting to elude us. And we did some
very rudimentary quick turn research based on hypotheses that some
(11:12):
of us on the team had. Do you remember when
people say I'm going to call an uber?
Speaker 3 (11:15):
Do you remember, Oh yeah, I sure do.
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Right, So we did a survey and it turned out
that eighty five percent of people who had never tried
Uber thought you literally called an uber. You picked up
the phone and tiled one eight hundred and five to
fyy five UBER. So we recognized that we had a
massive amount of education that we needed to do. So
we recognized we needed to turn on more upper funnel
(11:38):
channels like radio, like TV, like digital video. And I
cannot make this up. Within the first two weeks of
turning on TV, all of the lower funnel performance vehicles
were performing twenty seven percent better.
Speaker 3 (11:54):
I want to go back a little bit on what
you're doing at at and T. Let's talk about the transformation.
It's a huge, huge company and by reputation, you would
expect it to be more toward the bureaucratic the end
of the spectrum. So how do you John Stanky and
the rest of his team turn the battleship for transformation.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
One of the things that we recently did as a
company was we declared our purpose. We said, what is
the epicenter of why we do everything that we do,
what motivates us? And we did a tremendous amount of
research across customers, employees, investors, historians, even people in adjacent industries.
(12:35):
We wanted to understand how they viewed AT and T,
where they felt that we had room and frankly, the
authority to play, but we also wanted to make sure
that it was a reflection of us on our very
best day, that it honored the folklore and the incredible
history of the company, but that it was ready to
take AT and T into the next several decades. And
(12:58):
so when we declared that purpose, which is to connect
people to greater possibility with expertise, simplicity and inspiration, we
paired that with a series of seven strategic imperatives, the
things that we knew we needed to do over the
course of the next five to seven years to really
become famous for connecting people to greater possibility, to really
(13:20):
become the undisputed expert on connectivity. And then in addition
to those strategic imperatives, we focused on the culture of
the company. We declared our culture values. When you're working
inside of a legacy company. Having clarity of purpose but
also having clarity of expectation on the culture you want
(13:41):
to build is so incredibly powerful. We talk about acting boldly,
not playing it safe, you know, not allowing yourself to
take that victory lap and then get complacent, but continuing
to challenge yourself. And then if we're going to act boldly,
we need to move faster. So those four cultural values
are guiding every action we take inside the company, and
(14:04):
then we evaluate ourselves on how are we progressing against
those culture pillars. Each year we survey our employees, we
get their feedback and they don't hold back, and so
just keep pushing ourselves and pushing ourselves and pushing ourselves
to be the very best that we can be.
Speaker 3 (14:19):
The world we live in is filled with messages for
consumers and across so many platforms. How do you break
through that? Are we back to the magic of reach
and frequency?
Speaker 2 (14:34):
Gosh, when you look at the statistics, it is staggering.
Customers are being bombarded with content. The last time I checked,
I think the average person scrolls through at least a
football field and a half of content on their phone each.
Speaker 3 (14:50):
Day the last time, like it to me.
Speaker 2 (14:53):
I must say, I know the last time I checked,
the average personived over one hundred and fifty emails a
day the last time I checked, And this one really
knocked me back in my seat. The amount of time
that the average consumer in the US spends on social
media per day is over two hours. If we think
(15:16):
about that in aggregate, that's over one full month a
year that people are now spending on a technology that
fifteen to twenty years ago didn't even exist. The game
board is stacked differently now for marketers, the game board
is stacked differently for brands. So can we play the
game the same way that we played it fifteen twenty
(15:37):
years ago? Not a chance we won't be successful. You know,
if the old measure was reach and frequency, that totally
undermined the power of incredible creative at least at at
and T we are really leaning into how do we
make sure that the quality of our creative is the
absolute best in industry, and how do we make sure
(15:57):
that the media and sponsorships that we're engaging with are
the absolute premium.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
Moral Math and Magic. Right after this quick break, welcome
back to Math and Magic. Let's hear more from my
conversation with Kellen Kenny. I want to step back in
time a little bit. I want to put you in context,
tell us where you grew up, and paint a picture
(16:25):
of that time and place.
Speaker 2 (16:27):
I grew up in a town called Brewster, New York.
It was the last stop on the Harlem line of
Metro North, so there were absolutely friends of mine whose
parents commuted into this city. The city was a place
that I went once or twice a year. Went to
Brewster High School, where my graduating class was one hundred
(16:47):
and eighty. I was a big time athlete, and as
you appropriately called out an athlete, I had fourteen varsity
letters by the time I graduated. So I come from
a law online of athletes, and I was always taught
that you got to work really hard, and if you
work hard enough, practice long enough, you can be successful.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
So how often did you eat at Red Rooster?
Speaker 2 (17:16):
Okay, not only did I eat self served ice cream
at Red Rooster in Brewster, but I also went mini
golfing at the Red Rooster. Have you ever gone mini
golfing there?
Speaker 3 (17:25):
I have. I have when my oldest son was a
little kid. And by the way, with a little kid,
you've got to stop at Red Rooster. Just the drive
was how far to Red Rooster, not how far is
it to where we're going.
Speaker 2 (17:38):
Well, I got to tell you I never took off
as a golfer, and I blame the mini golf course
at the Red Rooster because that windmill obstacle. It got
me every time.
Speaker 3 (17:49):
So talk a little bit about your parents. You mentioned
them earlier. What impact did they have on you?
Speaker 2 (17:54):
Well, my parents were definitely my heroes growing up. They
were both incredibly kind, loving, supportive, but they set a
really high bar for their one and only child. I
threw my hat into the ring for everything class president,
you know, varsity sports, varsity society, national honor society, if
(18:15):
there was a club, I wanted to raise my hand
and be a part of it. But my mom, she
started her career as a nurse. She then went on
to lead out patient services for one of the largest
hospitals in the state of New York. It was White
Plains Hospital. At the time, she had an organization of
a thousand people, and every once in a while, and
(18:36):
I would have a day off from school, she'd bring
me into the office and I would do administrative task
like filing and I remember thinking, Wow, the people in
the hospital, they really respect my mom. She was kind
to everyone. Everybody greeted her with a smile, but you
could also tell that she meant business. She was tough,
(18:56):
but a huge inspiration. And then my father, who I
had mentioned, worked at Bell Labs. He actually worked at
Bell Labs after his stint with the Boston Red Sox,
so he was a professional pitcher in the Major Leagues
for the Red Sox. And his nickname when he was
pitching for the Red Sox was college Boy, because at
(19:17):
the time, a lot of professional baseball players actually didn't
go to college. And not only did he go to college,
but he was getting his master's degree at the University
of Southern cal in the off season, so obviously he
really valued education. He went on to work at Bell
Labs and then he went on to become a teacher.
(19:37):
But he was always my number one coach. So every
sport I ever played, my personal coach was my dad.
He just loved sport, he loved competition, and he was
an incredible motivating factor all throughout my life.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
So let's talk about college. You went to college at Colgate,
Why there and what did you study?
Speaker 2 (19:58):
So I started off as a math major. I then
migrated over to computer science. I ended up minoring in
computer science but really falling in love with economics, so
I majored in economics. And one of the coolest things
I did when I was at Colgate was I went
on the London Economics Study Group and we got to
do incredible programs with the London School of Economics. We
(20:19):
had economists for her Magistry's Treasury coming in and doing
independent study with us.
Speaker 3 (20:24):
You went on to be a tech consultant, then went
to Northwestern for business school. What foundations did those experience
give you?
Speaker 2 (20:33):
I had an important realization that I wanted to be
closer to the customer. While I loved the work that
I was doing as a technology consultant, I loved the
intellectual rigor of it, what I missed was the feeling
that I was impacting something directly. And I would say
as a pretty young professional, I began to form my
(20:54):
values as an individual. And I always say that the
eyes of Kellen are I want to have an impact.
I want to drive real innovation, and I want to
do all of that with integrity. My personal motto is
that the view is better from the high road. Then
I went on to Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, where
the program was famous for being student led, and I
(21:17):
didn't really know what that meant before I got there,
But what I realized was they expected you to form
your committees. They expected you and your co students to
run every one of those committees, to decide on the strategy,
to define the execution, plan, to operate to raise the funds.
(21:38):
We really were self governed, and that was so important
because for the first time in my career, I was
working with people who had very, very different backgrounds from me.
And what I originally thought when I went into business
school is this is taking longer we have to We're
wasting all this time figuring out how we want to
work together. That was sort of my going in assumption
(21:59):
for the first two three weeks at business school, I'll
just do it, it'll go faster. And then within four
or five weeks I realized, Kellen, you idiot. The collective
wisdom of this group of four or five or seven
people is truly transformative. And one thing that I kind
of beat myself up about was I had always played
(22:21):
team sports, I had always played softball, I had always
been on basketball teams growing up. Why did it take
me so long to figure out that the working world,
the professional world, was a team sport too.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
You know, it's interesting. We talked to a lot of
people in mathem Magic, and I think that's probably one
of the common elements that comes through is teams when
people don't and the people who build great teams are
the big, big winners here. It's interesting looking at your
career and you know it's going through the research. I
was sort of fascinated by the fact that, you know,
and Microsoft, cap One Uber you were building had extra money.
(22:58):
They have plenty of money to put at it. And
then at Hilton you were dealing with a situation that
had big cutbacks and heag count and spending. Yet you
won there as well. So clearly it wasn't how BIG's
my budget? How many people do I have? What was
common about those challenges you had?
Speaker 2 (23:18):
Well, one of the most galvanizing conversations I had related
to Hilton happened before I joined. I was sitting down
with Christmasta, the CEO, and he was passionately speaking to
the power of brand. He said the last two remaining
(23:40):
loose ends that he wanted to tie up was around
technology and brand, and he said, how is Hilton going
to achieve its full potential? How is Hilton going to
leave the legacy that it deserves if you're a franchise
company and you don't have world class technology and you
don't have world class brand and marketing. And so I
could see even before I started. Frankly, we were just
(24:03):
having a conversation. I wasn't even applying for the job,
but I could see that he was dead serious about
investing in Hilton's future, and he had incredible natural instincts
about where to take marketing and where to take the brand.
The ambition inside the company was really inspiring. And one
of the things that I found inside of Hilton that
(24:26):
was such a secret weapon was the culture of hospitality,
the customer focus, and the entrepreneurial spirit of making sure
that every single customer's stay was a type of momentum
that I was able to leverage coming in and doing marketing.
That was another example of a company where we needed
to define the purpose. It was another example of the
(24:47):
company where we had an incredible, rich legacy. We were
able to, again through experimentation and learning agendas, get to
a place where we were much more efficient.
Speaker 3 (24:59):
You've got a pretty high perch in the world of business.
How should we think about companies' responsibilities and even imperative
to help the world be a better place? And what
should we do and what should we not do.
Speaker 2 (25:11):
One of the things that's been inspiring to me about
AT and T is that the company has a legacy
of doing the right thing, stepping up when we recognize that, hey,
there is a digital divide forming in society. The kids
who have access to computers can do their homework, and
the kids who don't can't do their homework. And so
(25:32):
I would say so many of the lessons that I've
learned throughout my career in terms of doing the right
thing the responsibility of businesses have really been epitomized by
the stances that AT and T is taking. I absolutely
believe that companies need to do good in the world,
and that doing good in the world is motivating to employees.
(25:53):
It attracts customers to you, it attracts investors to you.
Over the course of the past three years, we've deployed
over two billion dollars to help close that gap, and
we identify the gap as people who either don't have
access to it because they're in a community that is
so rural that it's underserved, or to people who technically
(26:16):
they do have access, but it's not affordable to them.
And AT and T is trying to fight the pressures
on both ends because we recognize that if we want
to have a brighter future as a society and as
a country, we need our children the leaders of tomorrow.
We need those students to have access to technologies so
(26:37):
that they can do their homework, that they can continue
to learn.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
I will give AT and T a nod. In Hattiesburg, Mississippi,
when I was elementary school, AT and T brought things
to our elementary school assembly and I still remember them
bringing in I guess it was in the air of Sputnik.
They brought in was at the Vanguard satellite or brought
in some presentation, little model of it and showed it
(27:02):
to these kids in this little town. And I was
a science kid, and it was like changed my life.
And I'm sure at that moment it was the same thing.
It was that sort of continuing community outreach and trying
to build the next generation. So let me move back
to you. You've had great successes people who know you well,
(27:22):
friends of ours. The one word everybody uses is humble.
How do you keep your ego in check when you've
had all these successes?
Speaker 2 (27:30):
First of all, being described as humble is a real compliment,
So thank you for passing that along. I appreciate it.
I truly want to be seen as somebody who is
both humble and confident. And part of where my humility
comes from is if you're surrounded by extraordinary people, extraordinary
(27:52):
friends and extraordinary family, extraordinary coworkers, it is humbling. Every
time I'm in a relationship with a coworker or a mentor,
I am tracking all of the things that they do
that really impress me, and I want to be more
like them. And so there's rarely a person that I
(28:12):
come across that I don't think X, Y, and Z
are the things I admire about that person, and I
wish I could be more like that. And so I'm
constantly thinking about where I want to go, not what
I've accomplished. I'm constantly thinking about what I can do
to be better, not what I've done that makes me good.
And by the way, that's probably a byproduct of being
(28:34):
raised by parents who had an incredibly high bar that
kept on rising. So I just focus on where the
bar is rising, not the bars that I've already leaped over.
Speaker 3 (28:45):
I think it probably goes back to that mini golf
course at Red Rooster, that humbling experience of the windmill.
Let's talk about work life balance. Any advice on that.
You got a family, You obviously have a rich mosaic,
a friend ships. How do you make that work?
Speaker 2 (29:02):
That is a question that keeps me humble. My family
is an incredible priority for me. I was asked a
question the other day and they said, how do you
stay grounded? I'm like, well, if you have an eleven
year old daughter, she's going to keep you grounded. She's
going to put you right in your place every day.
Same thing with my eight year old daughter. But no
(29:22):
balance for me is making sure that I'm there at
the school concerts, making sure that I'm there to help
with homework, making sure that I'm there to cheer them
on when they're starring in an production of The Jungle
Book or Cat and the Hat. We talked about this earlier.
I'm not someone who can cook. I don't get home
(29:42):
and whip up a meal. I outsource that, but I
do try to be present when I'm home. I do
try to make sure that the weekends are as sacred
as humanly possible for family. I do try to make
it home to tuck the kids into bed every night.
I used to sing them lullabies almost every night, but
I was told by my eleven year old that that
(30:02):
is totally uncool and now unacceptable. But yeah, it's just
making time for the moments that really matter, prioritizing time
on vacation and then with work. I'll be honest, I'm
not the best at not letting it encroach on life
outside of work, but at least when the kids are awake,
I try to be with them. It's after they go
(30:23):
to bed that I hop back on the phone or
the iPad or the computer and bang out work or
even take work calls. The one thing I will say
as a leader that I am very proud and think
I've done well, is I really honor my team members
their time with their families. I don't ever, unless it
is a true emergency, I don't ever send them a
(30:44):
text or an email on the weekend. I always am
very respectful about things they're doing in the evening, and
so I think modeling it with your direct reports. Making
sure that people on your team know that you really
respect their time is another way.
Speaker 3 (31:01):
Do you think that that experience you had with your mom,
where you went to work with her and saw her
working and participated in her work helped you understand that
sort of work life integration that families have.
Speaker 2 (31:16):
Oh? Absolutely, so. I saw a woman who was the
epitome of work hard, play hard. There was no one
more diligent. There was no one more focused on making
sure her patients had excellent, excellent care. There was no
one more focused on making sure that when she had
(31:37):
her state reviews that she came back and got a
perfect score again, because that was a reflection of the
type of care that they were offering their patients. But
also she was a wonderful leader. But it didn't end there.
She was an incredible mother. She came to all my
softball games, tennis matches, ski races. She literally would bundle up,
walk up the side of mountains, you know, in the
(31:58):
middle of a blizzard if it meant importing me. So
she was an incredible example. But not only that, she
had a rich life. She had wonderful friends, She played
tennis herself, and she competed. So I saw a woman
who worked incredibly hard but led a very rich life
with family and friends. She was an incredible example to me.
Speaker 3 (32:21):
So let me ask one more personal question. If you
could go back in time and give your twenty one
year old self some advice, what would that advice be.
Speaker 2 (32:30):
Believe in yourself and continue to challenge the status quo.
Don't accept that because somebody has tried it before and
it's not been successful, that it can't work out for you.
Be the type of person that other people want to
be around. Be the type of leader that brings out
(32:51):
the very best in those around you. Extend trust, create
a psychologically safe environment for everyone you work with, because
that's when people do their absolute best work.
Speaker 3 (33:03):
We end each episode of Math and Magic with a
shout out to the greats on both ends of the
spectrum of marketing. The math folks, those who use the
analytics as their secret weapon, and the magicians, those who
use that sort of raw creativity and showmanship, who get
your shout out for each So my.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Shout out on the math and science side Adam Grant.
I actually had the opportunity to interview him at a
marketing town Hall a couple of years ago, right after
he had written the book Think Again, and in my
humble opinion, it is the best business book of our generation.
He systematically and scientifically illustrated the difference between companies and
(33:47):
individuals that approach their work like scientists, with humility, curiosity,
a bias for learning. They challenge their assumptions versus the
people who are trapped in that over confidence cycle of
hubris and arrogant and confirmation bias. And I read that
book and I thought, oh my gosh, everybody needs to
read this.
Speaker 3 (34:07):
Okay, on the magician side, who gets it?
Speaker 2 (34:09):
Okay, I'm going to give it up to my girl,
Reese Witherspoon.
Speaker 3 (34:12):
Wow, I know so.
Speaker 2 (34:14):
A couple of months ago, I had an opportunity to
interview Reese and Jennifer Garner and Mindy Kayling at the
inaugural Shine Away connected by AT and T event in
La and Reese really does have that magic touch. In
addition to being a brilliant business woman with an insatiable
(34:35):
appetite for books, it seems that every project she touches
turns to gold. Her formula of championing the creative work
of women is producing staggering results. I know this because
I prepared for the interview, but at the time, over
sixty of Reese's book clubs picks had landed on the
New York Times bestseller List. She had fifteen wins. I
(34:56):
believe it was across Emmy's SAG and Golden globes. Not
to mention, you know some of my very favorite content
of the year and over the past few years. My
shout out goes to Reese Weatherspoon.
Speaker 3 (35:07):
Wow. That's great, Kellen. Really a great conversation, and sadly
we just scratched the surface. But thanks for the insights,
stories and advice, and most of all, congrats on your
amazing successes.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
Well, thank you so much. It is an incredible honor
to be interviewed by you.
Speaker 3 (35:30):
Here are a few things I picked up from my
conversation with Kellen. One, get on the ground. You need
to know your consumer to know what they want, but
you never will unless you meet them head on. Get
out from behind your desk and seek out experience as
you usually wouldn't be in be in the focus room,
get on the retail floor, our visit customers' homes with
(35:51):
technicians like Kellen did. The more you know, the better
your product will be. Two, your brand is whether you're
a startup or an iconic company like AT and T,
the most important thing to do as a marketer is
to build a strong brand identity. Make sure the public
knows who you are and what your brand stands for.
(36:14):
That familiarity will bring trust, and trust will bring a
loyal consumer base. Three. Work as a team sport in business.
Your greatest tool is the people around you. When a
team really works together, their diversity of experience will bring
about more creative solutions and build something unique. I'm Bob Pittman.
(36:35):
Thanks for listening.
Speaker 1 (36:47):
That's it for today's episode. Thanks so much for listening
to Math and Magic, a production of iHeart Podcasts. The
show is hosted by Bob Pittman. Special thanks to Sidney
Rosenblut for booking and wrangling our wonderful talent. Small Feet
Mathematics producers are Emily Meronoth and Jessica Crimechich. It is
mixed and mastered by Bahed Fraser. Our executive producers are
(37:09):
Nikki Etoor and Ali Perry, and of course a big
thanks to Gail Raoul, Eric Angel Noel and everyone who
helped bring this show to your ears until next time.
Host
Bob Pittman
Popular Podcasts
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
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