Erin Pryor - Chief Marketing & Experience Officer at First Horizon Bank

Erin Pryor, Chief Marketing & Experience Officer at First Horizon Bank, sits down with Ryan to walk through her career, discuss her perspective on marketing, and her approach to hiring and being hired.

Connect with Erin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/erinpryor/

Episode Transcript

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[MUSIC]

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Welcome to the GoodFit Careers podcast where we explore perspectives on work that fits.
I'm Ryan Dickerson, your host.
Today's guest is Erin Pryor.
Erin is the Chief Marketing and Experience Officer of First Horizon Bank.
First Horizon is a publicly traded financial services firm and a member of the Fortune
500.
First Horizon employs roughly 7,500 people and has $88 billion in assets under management.

(00:29):
Erin started her career with The New York Times as a news assistant and held her first
marketing role with Matt of War Media's Volleyball Magazine.
In 2020, Erin joined First Horizon Bank.
Erin, thank you for being here.
Yeah, thanks for having me, Ryan.
That's a delight to have you on.
So to get this all started, would you begin by telling us a little bit about what your

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job is like today, what you actually do, and then we'll go back to your early life?
As you mentioned, I am the Chief Marketing Experience Officer for First Horizon.
I am responsible for really three areas, marketing, which is a lot of what it sounds like.
So the brand line of business, really tying together the marketing objectives to the business

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objectives.
I also have client experience and omni-channel enablement.
So how we show up and connect a lot of the channels together that really are the totality
of the client experience.
Every day is different, which is part of what I love, but it's really been a pleasure.
I've been in the role for a little over three years.

(01:37):
That's awesome.
And it sounds like it's much more broad than one might assume a chief marketing and experience
officer might be.
You cover a lot of ground.
Yeah.
I think the role today is evolving.
Marketing can mean so many things.
I'm actually sincere, but I always kind of kid around people.
I'm like, everybody's a marketer because everybody's got some experience in the space.

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There's a quantitative component and a qualitative component.
It's the art and the science.
There's some of it is about opinion and belief, and a lot of it is about fact and moving things
forward.
Here, I feel really fortunate to have the client experience and insights component because marketing

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and the omni-channel, the CRM site as well, because marketing's role is really to bring
the client into every conversation.
How are we also doing what's right for the business and how are we doing what's right
for the client and how are we communicating and how are we bringing all the great work
that the sales teams are out there doing every day into all of the other channels and connecting

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them into some of the online channels to create the offline online experience.
There's just a lot there.
I think it's an exciting time to be in the space.
Indeed, to set the stage and to help the audience get to know who you are as a person
and not just a professional, would you bring us back to perhaps what you were like as a
kid and tell us a little bit about what you wanted to be when you grew up?

(03:09):
I feel like that's a trick question.
I feel like there's been so many different things.
I was a collegiate athlete.
I've been playing sports my entire life.
I come from a family of athletes.
I think there's always been a healthy bit of competition in my bloodstream.
Just always looking to do something different.

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I probably was a little bit of a tomboy.
My parents and I were joking about this recently.
I have always had a little bit of a type A piece too.
I have a weird right brain left brain thing.
I used to organize my closet by color even as a teenager.
I remember people being like, "Who are you?"

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I grew up in Austin, Texas.
I was born and raised there.
My young adult, I guess, life there.
As you get older and you start to say things like, "My young adult life," it's like, "What?"
Who am I?
I had a really wonderful childhood.

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I still have great friends from growing up and we stayed in touch.
I went from, like I said, Round Rock, Texas and I played volleyball at SMU in Dallas,
Southern Methodist University.
I graduated from SMU with a degree in journalism and a minor, which, not very many people know,

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in Spanish.
Then, from there, I just kind of rolled with what was next.
Did you early on have a sense that marketing was going to be your path?
No.
When I was a kid, I wanted to be all kinds of different things.

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I went through the phase of, "I'm going to be a teacher."
My mom was a teacher.
She was loved what she did.
She was also, ironically, a volleyball coach.
She was my volleyball coach.
You'll always like, "How was that?"
It actually worked out.
I went through that.
I went through, I always really liked science.

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I wanted to be an astronaut and then I wanted to be a biologist.
Then I was convinced I was going to be a doctor.
I actually went to college.
I started off at SMU pre-med.
I've always had an interest in the science and the English side of things, the literature

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piece too.
That's awesome.
When you were in school, was there a moment where a phase of your education, where it
became clear what path you wanted to follow?
You know, you have these weird memories where you're like, "I couldn't remember all of

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yesterday, but you have these moments where you're like, 'I remember sitting in the dorm
room and another one of my teammates was actually pre-med.'
She was talking about all these things.
I think it was one of the chemistry classes and I was like, "I am not doing this."
Then I was like, "Maybe medicine isn't my purpose."

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Part of it was, "Aye, I didn't know if I wanted to continue taking the chemistry courses."
I also had a, I feel like there's something else for me.
I contemplated taking a drastic pivot into art.
I loved art history and painting and all those things.

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My parents, again, I talked to my dad actually this time and he was like, "You might want
to think about what are you going to do with that and how is that long term?
You're enjoying it now."
Because it was one of the electives.
I had taken a couple of elective courses at that point.
I was in art in various areas of art.
Then I was like, "Well, maybe not."
I was like, "Maybe I should look.

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I looked at business and I looked at journalism and I had always had a love for reading and
writing and all of the different things."
I took a course in journalism and I really enjoyed it.
I decided to go for an arts, like a BA, a Bachelor of Arts with an emphasis in journalism.
Ideally, I would have liked to at that point how to minor in business, but it was my sophomore

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year and I had gotten a little too far.
I'd ask them you at the time.
I'm not sure what it is now.
The credits needed to get a minor in business were almost as many to get a double major.
I wanted to finish on time.
I was like, "Oh, I'll go into Spanish."
I figured Spanish would be a useful language at the growing population.

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I went that way.
That's where I ended up.
Makes a lot of sense.
Now, bring this along to transitioning from education to your first full-time job.
What was it actually like to go through that hiring process and where did you start to
work?
I felt prepared for my first full-time job because at SMU as part of the athletic program

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and some of the other programs, I was involved in it in a few different areas while at the
university.
I did some internships.
I think those are incredibly valuable.
One of them was one of my first ones.
I did promotional stuff for Gatorade.
Anything else here?
Do your the boots on the ground.

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Then I did a few others.
I did a PR internship for the Dallas Cowboys.
I did one summer I worked at an advertising agency.
Then during one of my junior senior years, I think it was a summer before my senior year,
I did an internship at WJLA, which is the television station in Washington, D.C.

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I think all of that really helped to prepare me so I wasn't super surprised.
I had the opportunity coming out of college to play professional volleyball overseas.
I told my parents that I had always wanted to live in New York.
I had been to New York a few times on trips with the family.

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I was like, "You know what?
I really want to live in New York."
Whatever happens, I am going to either sell my car and move to New York or if my contract
for volleyball comes through, then I will go play.
I had gone on a full scholarship for volleyball to SMU.

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My parents had my sophomore or junior year.
They had given me a car.
I found an apartment through a family, a friend of a family friend, one of those really random
things that needed a subletter in New York.
I was like, "All right, we're doing this."
I sold my car and I told them, "I think I have enough money to make it six months."

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I will either figure this out or I will see you in about six months back on your door.
I'm probably asking for a place to stay.
I went to New York without a job and I just started applying.
It's so crazy how you realize your network has tentacles.
My volleyball network, ironically, I ran into a woman that I had played club volleyball

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with her sister.
Then she introduced me to people who introduced me to people who introduced me to people.
Eventually, I ended up getting a job at the New York Times as a news assistant.
I worked on all of the little things, the little blurbs.
I did the 2000 Olympic pages.

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I did the 2000 election pages, which was pretty interesting too.
It was a really great experience for living in New York.
I did not make a lot of money.
It was also, you learn how to make it work, but that was my first job.
It was awesome.
It was hard, but it was great.
I bet.

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Starting at the ground level, that's exciting.
Being at the New York Times during the millennium, that must have been fascinating.
It was awesome.
What did you learn about yourself going from being a collegiate athlete and almost going
pro to being an employee and working at a company?
It's a transition.
It wasn't an overnight transition.

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It took time.
I had to really understand who Erin, the college graduate, the not associated with the athletics,
the moving far away from home, not having the network that you grew up with.

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Everybody's always there.
Everybody's a foam call away, a plane away, a drive away.
Really just figuring out who I was.
That was hard.
It took some adjustments and you learn part of that through your work.
At the New York Times, it was meeting a bunch of different people from different backgrounds.

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Then I moved on.
I did some PR coordinator work at CBS.
That was a little more rigor, I guess, or structured.
It's probably the better way to say that.
When you're working on the newspaper, you could be doing a shift in the middle of the
night.
You could be there in the middle of the afternoon.
It's not every day.
It was very fluid.

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That role as the PR coordinator really, I think, was my first true entry into the corporate
world.
You learn a lot about yourself every day.
I still learn a lot about myself on a regular basis.
It's been an evolution for sure.
As it is for everyone, those first few jobs, the New York Times, Sports Illustrated and

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then CBS, is there anything that you carried with you from those early jobs that you still
put to use today?
How could I forget Sports Illustrated?
That's still one of my favorite jobs.
I skipped right over it.
I think Sports Illustrated is probably the role that I really felt a lot of growth in.

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It was a fun environment, wonderful people.
I was the assistant to the editor in chief of...
I was the editorial assistant to the editor in chief about the time.
They had a Sports Illustrated Women's Magazine.
I just learned a lot.
Her name was Sandy Bailey.
She was super accomplished.

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She was just really amazing.
Learning from her and from all the other individuals there and then meeting so many great people
that I still talk to today.
As I'm thinking about this, I talked to a handful from Sports Illustrated.
I talked to...
I'm still pretty close with one of the individuals I met at CBS.

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I think you just learn a lot through yourself at the same time.
You're learning how to be a career person or how to work in the real world and there's
something that is bonding about that.
That's wonderful.
It looks like after that you had a long, healthy stretch with volleyball magazine and Mattivore
Media and it seems like, at least from the outside, this is when marketing really started

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to click.
Was there a moment for you when it became very clear that marketing was going to be your
path?
It's interesting.
I didn't start with Mattivore Media in marketing.
Originally, when I was working as the PR coordinator at CBS for King World, I started freelancing
because I just missed journalism.

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When I came out of college, I actually had a broadcast journalism degree and I had some
interviews set up with ESPN and I had a conversation with a very well-known ESPN broadcaster that
was, again, one of those random connections, somebody knew somebody who knew somebody who
was this person's girlfriend.
And they were like, "You should talk to him."

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And I did and he gave me really great advice and he said, "Erin, you seem young and full
of energy."
I mean, at the time, I was like 21, 22, maybe.
Here's all the things you're coming out and trying to get into the things out of ESPN.
You'd be moving to Connecticut and all the things.
So I really went the different direction with the New York Times and then fell into sports

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illustrated all the things.
So I still enjoyed.
I still got a lot of the things I liked with the sports.
But I missed a little bit of that, just the creative, the written piece of it.
And so I was freelancing, just kind of on the side.
Like I said, I was in entry-level positions and one of the most expensive, if not the
most expensive city in the US at that time.

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And I was just trying to make a little extra money.
And the company that I was freelancing for purchased a volleyball magazine and they were
like, "Hey, didn't you play?
I was doing a lot of writing on basketball."
And they were like, "Didn't you play?"
And I was like, "Yeah."
And then they were like, "Well, can we have a conversation?"
And then they did some research and they were like, "Oh, you were pretty good."
And so they asked me if I would be interested in coming on board and being an editor for

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the volleyball magazine.
And so that's really how it started.
And so then I went, I was working from home before working from home was a thing.
I was 24, maybe 25.
It kind of started from there.
So I became the editor of volleyball magazine and then things change and they asked me if
I would move out to California and I was like, "Okay, I don't know anybody there either,

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but let's do this."
So there is a theme here, apparently.
I'm like, "Okay, let's just go."
And so I booped out there and while I was out there, they had decided to make a change
in some of the advertising marketing areas.
And they said, "Hey, a lot of our sponsors and advertisers really like talking to you
and working with you.

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Would you be open to trying marketing?"
And I was like, "I don't know, I guess."
And so that's how it happened.
How cool.
What a fun journey.
One of our past guests described that phase as being young and indestructible and it's
just like, "I like it.
It is.
It is."
Just going with it.
When you moved into marketing, what were some of the things that you needed to learn

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or perhaps set a different way?
What are some of the things that were challenging for you to master, to become proficient in
your field?
I don't think I really became proficient until later, to be honest.
When I was doing marketing for the publication and they had multiple publications, it was
very targeted.

(17:48):
It was very different.
It was a lot of boots on the ground.
The interesting part for me as we look back, and I honestly hadn't thought about this
maybe ever, is even then I knew instinctively how to segment and how to look at parts of
the business.
I think it's so important to tie marketing to the business because marketing at times

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tends to be thought of as a very creative and squishy area.
I think that's changing a lot because of just where we are in today's world.
But back then, I was looking at new segments.
The juniors, all the high school club volleyball was such an opportunity.
Now, it's even bigger here in the States.

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I did a lot of things there.
I was able to make good progress by, I had the editorial background by working with that
group to help align the content to who the demographic was, and then also just introducing
into new spaces.
I was honestly just winging it.
I have no other better way to say it.

(18:56):
That's all right.
Was there anything that was particularly challenging, a specific skill or capability that you found
hard to really get a grasp of?
I think a lot of it.
It's not hard, but it's a thing.
I think it's still a thing.
I actually spoke on a panel here yesterday and talked about this.
It's about building your network and the relationships.

(19:20):
Whether it's with the internal partners or the external partners or at that point in
my career, it was with some of our vendors and advertisers and all the different people,
but you got to really get out there.
It can be hard.
It can be tiring.
Sometimes it can be a bit deflating.
It's sales.
I mean, I was selling for the magazine.

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I think everybody who has done sales at one point or another can attest.
There's a lot there and you're trying so hard to move the needle.
Sometimes without resource, I didn't have resource.
It was me.
I was it.
I think that was challenging, but it also made me realize I do have some grit.

(20:02):
I'll get out there and I'll do it.
I even did one story.
They asked me to do a thing about training a professional volleyball player and they
connected me with one of the AVP players who, by the way, after the story is still today,
one of my closest friends.
I stayed with her for a week, ate like her, trained with her, all the things.

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I literally thought I was going to die.
At that point, I had been out of volleyball for a really long time, at least four or five
years.
I was in the same shape.
It's funny.
You just roll with it.
That's awesome.
What fun.
Thinking a little bit more from a broader perspective, maybe a little bit more philosophically here.

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What does your work mean to you today?
That's such a great question.
There's a couple of different things here.
I have been really lucky in my career and I do call it luck.
It's a mix of opportunity and luck.
I think a lot of things are.
I have worked under some incredible individuals who are incredibly accomplished and they taught

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me so many things and have given me so much advice and still, many, all of them are in
what I call my kitchen cabinet.
I feel a sense of responsibility to continue to pay that forward.
I want to continue my own development, but it's very important to me to continue the

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development of my team and those around me.
I think that is one part.
The other part is people always ask, "Well, you're in bank marketing."
If you would have asked me 10, 12 years ago, probably I got it, two or 12 years ago, if
I would have worked in banking, I would have laughed.
I would have been like, "What?
No way."

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Not because it was bad.
I was just like, "Why would I do that?"
There's such a sense of fulfillment in that because it's not boring.
We all have financial needs that are tied to where we are in our life.
It's really about helping people.
I know this sounds so cheesy, but it is what it is.

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It's helping people reach their goal.
What do they want to do?
They all have different goals.
You might be saving up to buy a car.
You might be looking to pay all of your employees in your business, grow your business, buy
a house, retire, whatever it is.
We're all trying to do something.
Go on a trip next week, whatever.
We have the fiduciary responsibility as a bank to help get you there.

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We all have to have money to do the things, to have some of the basic principles of life
and to also our basic needs of life and to also do the things that we want.
I do find a lot of passion in that, in looking at different ways that we can enhance and
delight the client experience to add value and provide air cover to our sales associates

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who are awesome and are out there every day working directly with the clients.
I think between those two things, those really fill it up for me.
Well said.
Let's talk a little bit about your current job.
I think you've done a really nice job of segwaying into it.
First, can you tell us a little bit about where you fit within the company as the chief

(23:30):
marketing and experience officer and then walk us through a little bit more detail about
the work that you actually do?
Yes.
I am on the executive management team.
I mentioned the group of individual or the three groups I have in terms of function as
marketing, omni-channel enablement and client experience.

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When I came to the organization, it was an interesting time.
I came to the organization from USAA.
So I had been in banking.
I had come from a startup bank into kind of a wealth management fintech and then into
USAA and then to here.
I came in, I started in December of 2020 and it was in the middle of the pandemic.

(24:14):
The organization was out of market for a number of reasons because it was the pandemic and
everybody was kind of out of market.
It was going, the organization was going through a merger of equals.
So it was growing from a 40 something billion dollar institution to where we are today, an
80 something billion dollar institution.

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There was an opportunity to take the company to market as a new collective institution.
The company had transitioned from it was previously First Tennessee.
It had top of market in Tennessee.
It had expanded into the Carolinas.

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So when they expanded into the Carolinas, they couldn't be First Tennessee in all the
other states.
So I went through Rand in 2019 to be first horizon.
So it's been a pretty awesome experience.
There was a lot of support when I came in.
I've been able to build an incredible team, which I tell everybody, I can't do it without

(25:20):
the team.
I really truly believe in surrounding myself with people smarter than me.
And I believe in challenging one another so that we can constantly continue to evolve.
That was kind of the state of the state of the union, I guess, or state of the organization
when I came in.

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And so today it's interesting in the evolution when I started we were building.
We were building, I flattened some of the organization.
I hired in certain functions like ahead of digital marketing, head of analytics, and
some of the areas that we didn't have necessarily a lot of subject matter expertise and then

(26:04):
have continued to evolve.
So we today, I've got, like I said, incredible leaders.
We've built out the team.
We've built out the technology I mentioned earlier that marketing is today really an intersection
of the art component with the science, which is the data and technology.
And so built out the capabilities and we are leading in some categories in our industry

(26:32):
as a mid-size institution.
So it's been pretty great.
It's been awesome.
I've enjoyed it.
But there's a lot to still do.
Beautiful.
Would you educate us just a little bit on the terminology here?
Any channel marketing assumption that you mentioned early on, what does that mean?
Omnichannel marketing is all the ways we interact with things.

(26:52):
So it's the human to human, the in-person.
It is you might pick up the phone.
I mean, the phone today is also a personal computer and little device that you can get
on and search anything you want.
So it's social media.
It's the website.
It is just any way you're going to interact with the brand, pulling all of that together,

(27:15):
interact with the organization.
I'm pulling that together so that we can meet you where you are, when you want us to be
there.
Understood.
Thank you for clarifying.
Joining a company as a C-suite executive is a pretty rare experience.
What did you expect it to be like and what was it like in reality?

(27:37):
I didn't know what to expect if I'm being honest.
I was nervous.
I am very open about this.
It was important to me as an individual that it was, this was my first C-level executive
role, C-level role.
And I was very important to me to stay authentic to myself.

(28:00):
I didn't want as I grew into the role to change who I was or how I approached things or even
things that sound so trivial.
I was like, I wear sneakers to work and all the things.
Not all the time.
I do mix it up.
But just things like that.
I just wanted to stay authentic to myself.

(28:20):
Yeah, good for you.
That part has been relatively easy.
I'm very direct.
You can ask me anything.
I'm an open book.
I do not believe in, I try not to play.
There's a quote from Indra Nui, the CEO PepsiCo, that says, it's one of my favorites.
I hope she would be at my, if I could have dinner with 10 people, she would be one of

(28:43):
my 10.
I have so many questions.
But she has a quote that says, understand the politics in your organization, but don't
play them.
And I really do try to, not that our organization is rife with that.
I feel very lucky.
The executive team is a wonderful group of people who work very well together.
But when I came in, I had written that down.

(29:04):
I was like, okay, I don't want to get involved in that.
I haven't had to because it doesn't really have it here.
But I do think that's important.
And so that's been something for me personally is who did I want to be in the role?
As you talked about earlier, what was I like as a kid?
How do you evolve over life?
So I wanted to, what was this, what was this Erin going to be?

(29:25):
And so that was part of it.
The other part was understanding I wanted to make a difference and be able to add value
to the organization and the executive leadership and all the things.
And so finding that stride, it took a bit.

(29:47):
You have to do a lot of listening, a lot of listening.
And I did over 100 one to one conversations within my first 90 days.
Most of them via Zoom because it was the pandemic.
But I just tried to learn and listen to about where was the opportunities,
what were we doing well?
Who did I really connect with and need and want to partner with throughout the organization?

(30:14):
And I don't think you can have this is going to sound super strange,
but I don't think you can.
It's best to go in without expectation, make the experience.
Because I think when you have expectation, you're putting your wants and perspective
because you're projecting them onto things that you don't know anything about.

(30:36):
And I didn't know enough to really have an expectation, I think.
And so learning once after I'd been in a few months and listened and understood a little
better the state, the internet, somebody once told me and I actually do believe this.
Your first three months, you're listening and then at six months, you're like, oh my

(30:57):
gosh, what is happening?
And then maybe around eight months, you're like, okay, I got this.
And that was kind of true.
And so I think it's important, you know, just to go in open minded.
I was open minded about the whole thing.
Oh, that's beautiful.
Let it be an adventure and kind of take it as it comes.

(31:18):
We'll get back to the conversation shortly, but I wanted to tell you about how I can help
you find your fit.
I offer one on one career coaching services for experienced professionals who are preparing
to find and land their next role.
If you're a director, vice president or C-suite executive and you're ready to explore new
opportunities, please go to GoodFitCareers.com to apply for a free consultation.

(31:41):
I also occasionally send a newsletter which includes stories from professionals who have
found their fit, strategies and insights that might be helpful in your job search and content
that I found particularly useful or interesting.
If you'd like to learn more, check out GoodFitCareers.com and follow me on LinkedIn.
Now back to the conversation.
Let's transition over into you teaching us a little bit about your expertise.

(32:06):
Something that I always find interesting is hearing it from people who've made it to the
top of their professional world.
Would you walk us through or teach us something that you have found to be particularly useful
or high impact in your work?
I think there are two things that I would highly recommend.
I talked to some of the up and coming leaders, high potential, high performers on my team

(32:29):
as well about this.
I believe I was able to move rather quickly.
I started in bank marketing 10 years ago and was able to move, 11 years ago and was able
to move into a C-level executive at a mid-size and $88 billion institution within a relatively
shorter window of time.

(32:50):
I'm not saying 10 or 12 years short, but part of that was a big part of that was carrying
things I'd learned from my other areas and roles forward.
Part of that was being open to coaching.
Letting people show me how to do things and learning from them, those who have this great

(33:13):
experience, I still learn a lot every day from the people I work with.
The third is, and this is what I really emphasize, when I was at the startup, Opus Bank, I started
there, I was offered an opportunity as a management trainee to rotate underneath the various lines
of business and then I ended up rotating under the individual.

(33:35):
His name was Brad Davis.
He had been the CMO of Washington Mutual well before it went into the final days.
He had come in to consult and then had decided to stay and I rotated under him and it was
like lightning in a bottle.
During that period of time, I learned the business because I had rotated underneath the
areas of business.

(33:55):
I understood at least to a point how the business is operated.
In that startup, I did everything at his marketing.
He was Brad and I really, building that brand and we went from a $750 million institution
to a $6 billion institution in a four or five year period and really got to do a little

(34:18):
of everything.
The advertising, they did the line of business, so like your integrated marketing, working
with your lines of business to understand the business, to listen to them what their
needs are, the field marketing, the digital, all of it.
I had that exposure to everything and that enabled me to move forward.

(34:38):
Same thing when I went to the FinTech.
I wasn't looking for a role.
It was United Capital which ultimately sold to Goldman Sachs which we became part of,
I think it was its Goldman Sachs personal wealth management or something like that is
what they turned it into.
There, I also ran integrated marketing which ultimately was really the client experience
component, the journeys and I worked heavily with the product teams and the technology

(35:01):
teams.
I got exposure to those different things and then USA A came along and I'm using these
as examples because I'm picking these up as I go along.
Whether you're in your same institution for a long period of time or over time you pick
up things in different places, USA A came along and a couple of my mentors said we think
you need big brand experience.

(35:22):
You should do this.
I said okay and I picked up and I moved to San Antonio.
I was in Southern California at the time.
Moved to San Antonio and I was very interested in USA A because it was digital before digital
was a thing.
It was top of the mark in PS scores and customer satisfaction and all those pieces and I wanted

(35:43):
to understand how it ticked.
So I went and I did the retail brand marketing and there and then that brought me here.
So what I think is critical is understanding how everything works together.
I've had a couple of people when I asked them what do you want to do and they say I want

(36:04):
your job.
I said to Brad Davis when I sat in his role and he said what do you want to do?
I said I want to be, I want your seat and he was like you're hired.
I feel the same way.
And so I tell anybody who says I want your job.
I'm like you're in.
But in order to get that I needed to have that experience exposure to all the different
points because today marketing is, you know, there's so many different facets and it is

(36:31):
how do you bring that together to tell the story, to tell the story to the brand and
to the client and to the associates.
How do you pull the brand?
Great brands are operational.
They are built internally.
How do you build that internally with your partners to the in the projected outside?
And then also how do you tie it to the business?
There are growth goals like you are a business and you are a partner.

(36:55):
You are a shared service organization within the greater company.
And so I know that sounds like a lot.
I'm not saying not everybody is going to have to do everything.
Like I have never run a full paid media team, but I know how to do it and I have been exposed
to that so that you just got to keep learning to understand the different facets because

(37:18):
in my role, my role is to pull it all together to, you know, communicate to the board, to
the executive team, what we are doing, how we are adding value to the business, why we
need to do it and what value are we adding to the customers and also the shareholders.
And that's what it really pulls up to.

(37:39):
Wow.
And so if I'm hearing you correctly, it sounds like to become an effective marketer and to
lead a business, the connection between a business and all of its consumers, that broad
exposure being open without assumptions to go into all these different roles and all
these different capacities, that composite, you know, portfolio of experience lets you

(38:00):
do your job well.
Is that about right?
Yeah.
And I think there's something to be said, I was chatting with my CFO earlier.
Like this was a couple of days ago, we were talking about something else.
And she said, she goes, you know, we're talking, I think we're talking about mentorship.
And she goes, I tell a lot of my mentors that are at certain points in their career, if
you have been in your role for two to three years and you're in your, you need to move

(38:23):
to do something else, if you have aspiration to continue to evolve within an organization
or within a specific craft.
And I wholeheartedly agree with that.
And I'm not saying you have to move jobs every two years.
It's just saying, are you expanding?
Have you gotten an additional responsibility?
Are you asking for the order?

(38:44):
You know, are you saying, raising your hand, like, hey, I want to do something a little
more or I'm curious and interested in this because I don't understand how it works.
Can I get a little exposure to that?
I think it's so important to have the curiosity to get the breadth if you are looking to continue
to move up because you, as you move up, you manage more.

(39:06):
And as a manager of managers and an executive leaves, leads very large teams, can you teach
us a little bit about how you, I don't know, kind of coach your team leaders to encourage
the vital many, the people on their teams to rotate around.
I think the example that I might give is that if as a manager, you have this outstanding,

(39:27):
fantastic team member who does their job so beautifully and it's been a couple of years
and it'll be best for them in their career to grow and learn and change, but you're
going to lose that team member who does such a great job on that work.
How do you coach your managers through that?
What can be a painful but necessary process?
It's hard, you know, I'll give an example, even on my directs.

(39:49):
I recently, I have an individual super strong, came in, I hired him in a little after I started
from a really great organization, another company and he came in to run digital marketing.
He had heavy, amazing paid media experience, helped to do a huge web relaunch redesign,

(40:10):
which was no small feat.
He and that team crushed it, just did, has done excellent work.
And I recently asked him to, I said, this is going to be a stretch, but I would love
for you to come run consumer marketing.
I know you don't have that business necessarily, the business background.
You know, he was not in banking prior to joining this organization, but I think it would be

(40:36):
a great stretch.
And in my perspective, it leaves a hole, right?
It leaves a hole in one area because he's a great team and what he has done well is
trained his team well to be able to continue to execute as he moves into another area and
we refill that spot.

(40:59):
Same thing for my teams.
It's the same thing for them.
It's like you as leaders, it is our job to continue to push the growth of our associates.
And so if there is someone who can take on more or would be better suited for another
area, it's our responsibility to set them up for success because that will ultimately

(41:20):
set us all up for success.
And so I highly encourage if there's places people want to lean or if there's opportunity
for people to advance and develop, we need to do that.
Yeah, that's great.
I'm going to put you on the spot here.
I'd love for you to pick out one of your favorite projects that you've been able to

(41:40):
work on at any point in your career.
And what I'm looking for is kind of how the project evolved and came to be and actually
played out.
Would you bring us through one of those?
Yeah, there's a lot of things.
I am also, like I mentioned, when I say I come from being an athlete, it's competitive,
but it's also competitive with myself.

(42:01):
So sometimes I have a hard time being like, "Oh, I don't know.
Was that great?"
You know, I think the Opus Bank, the startup bank was a really awesome experience to be
able to build.
I don't know if I'll ever have that again in my career.
To build something from nothing, be a part of it before it was actually approved by the
regulators and see that.
Oh, wow, was that really?

(42:21):
Yeah.
I got in a little before they had regulatory approval, and then so I got to be part of
kind of the planning.
That was pretty cool.
But from just the straight up marketing, at USAA, I ran a campaign, I pitched a campaign.
USAA has amazing brand, has great branding.

(42:41):
It's a wonderful organization with a fantastic mission and value.
And there was an initiative we needed to focus on a certain segment, and they had it for
the bank, and it had never really run a full funnel campaign.
So pulling all the sponsorships and brand commercials and things like that, the brand

(43:05):
work down fully into the business.
I'm sorry to interrupt, but what does a full funnel campaign mean for folks who might
not be familiar?
Yeah.
So it's pulling, like I mentioned, all the brand and sponsorships, some of that top of
the awareness type marketing, all the way down into product or whatever, to the business.

(43:27):
Because a lot of times, I think it's becoming less, but typically it's brand and then it's
line of business.
And so there is more of a handoff today because of how the pandemic really changed, how people
shop and people interact.
So I think things are continuing to evolve.
But so we ran a campaign.

(43:49):
We sponsored Chris Young, who is a country music artist.
We did a heavy up in five, meaning heavy up, meaning extra paid media, extra billboards,
all the things in five markets.
One was San Diego, one was outside of Atlanta, a couple in the Northeast.
And I really, it was a test to see, well, from the bank, not the brand, USAA as a brand

(44:12):
is very well known, but the bank at the time was not as well known, even within that military
target that they, that's who they serve.
And so we did this campaign and we did the whole thing pulling from the, we did the paid
media, all the brand work, the sponsorship of that tour.
We did lead generation and experience components and pulled it all the way down into product

(44:40):
from a measurement perspective.
And we spent, I mean, not, it wasn't a huge spend.
And in the results we saw were incredible.
And it was a huge testament to my team and my partners there.
Because when I first started pitching it, everybody was like, you're really going to
do that?
Like, what do you mean?

(45:00):
It just seems hard.
It's a little complicated, but we were able to make so much progress and to show the
result.
And I'm just really proud of that team and that work.
It's a small, it's a small example, but it was just a way, I guess, marketing is a shared
service and you've got to get, and there's multiple components to marketing.
So you've got to get all your internal partners and your external partners and everybody at

(45:24):
the table in the line and moving.
And I don't know, I'm just, I'm really proud of that work still today.
And, and here we have, we've built, we've built a lot from scratch and there are times
here at first horizon where the team and I will look and I'm like, I can't believe,
I mean, the fact that we've been having, we'll be having a conversation about something
relatively complex.

(45:45):
I'm like, I can't even believe we're having this conversation in such a short period of
time.
So, you know, we've built the capabilities and then technology to really do some things,
some things that, you know, a lot of times institutions of our size may not be capable
to do.
And so I'm really, again, but it's, it's not me, it's the team too.

(46:06):
And you know, the leaders, you get leadership support and all the things.
So it's been, it's been fun.
That's wonderful.
As we think about perceptions and perhaps misconceptions, misperceptions, how do you
believe that the world sees chief marketing officers?
Oh, that's a loaded question.

(46:26):
When people think of marketing, there's so many different areas.
I think you can get it so many different answers.
I think those who are doing marketing and have figured out ways to, to story tell around
the qualitative and pull into the quantitative, I think are seeing more long-term success.

(46:47):
I do think the role is evolving because, you know, marketing and sales work best together.
Marketing is, you know, an extension of sales in or vice versa.
And so you've got to have that really close partnership.
So I think it's evolving.
I think it's positive, or at least in my experience, has been positive.
But I think it's evolving into what it is.

(47:08):
But I think, I think it's, it's kind of a mix and it depends on what the company is looking
to do.
But I will definitely say if you do not have, as if you do not have the CMO or the equivalent
at the strategic table, it is a miss and that will net you will not be successful in the
space if marketing is not at the strategic table.

(47:28):
Not meaning, not being not successful at the business, but the function will not be able
to see the success as readily if they're not involved in the conversation.
Are there assumptions or perhaps misconceptions that people have about your work or being
a C-suite executive or working in banking?
Oh, that's also a good, you've got some good questions, Ryan.

(47:50):
In terms of marketing, again, I think it's changing what I think people a lot of times
focus on the art, not the science.
And it's a lot about, oh, can you fix this flyer?
Can your team make this poster?
Well, they sure can, but there's a lot of other things they can do too.
And I think, so I think that, though I do believe that dynamic is shifting.

(48:11):
In terms of the executive space is, I don't know, I probably had this to a point too.
It's like, oh, they must have all the answers.
I don't have all the answers.
And even in my role, I don't have all the answers.
That's why we are a team and a collective.

(48:31):
And then in banking, I think I said it earlier, I think just some people have this perception
that banking is boring.
And it really isn't.
It's fascinating.
It's fascinating.
Just in general around the economics, the business side of it, the economy component, the
behavioral side of our clients, meaning how people interact and what they want from their

(48:53):
institution, it's fascinating.
So I think that would be it.
If you were to set expectations for someone who is going to embark on a similar journey
and begin to move into marketing with the destination being your job, what sort of expectations
would you set for them?
I didn't have expectations into my own job.
Careers are not linear.
Some people are.

(49:14):
Some people are and some careers, for instance, I'm going to take it back to if I had stayed
and gone to medical school, I'd become a doctor.
That's a pretty linear career.
But there's a lot.
I think it's be open to what's next.
And if you really want to continue to, if your goal is to continue to move up and advance

(49:36):
your career, find mentors and sponsors externally and internally within your company.
I had huge advocates at Opus at USAA here, just in my career who have United Capital.
They've all that I found and really helped when I'm not at the table, they would be the

(50:01):
voice and say, "She's got it."
I have the same, I do try to do the same thing for others.
But it's like you have to build that relationship with the individual so that they know that's
what you want to do and that you're interested.
And I do really believe good work speaks for itself.
Do great work.
And you're not always going to be successful in things.

(50:23):
I had a former manager tell me once, "You just haven't failed enough."
And I was like, "What do you mean?"
I was like, "That just sounds weird."
I was kind of offended, to be honest.
And then now looking back, I get it.
And not everything's going to work.
Your plans aren't always going to be straight.

(50:45):
They may, the plans, what do they say, as soon as the plan is written, it's wrong.
But if you fall, fall forward and learn from whatever, whether failure is a strong word,
I'm not saying it's like fail, I'm getting fired.
It's just like something may not have worked.
I may have done something wrong, I may have made a misstep.
You know, we're all humans.

(51:07):
Make sure you take it, learn from it, move it forward and keep pushing.
But I really think finding those mentors and advocates is critical.
And being, just being kind of, like I said, fluid, being open to it's, you can't control
it.
There's things that are always going to be out of your control.
So take care of what you can and try not to stress about what you can't.

(51:32):
That's great.
We're going to talk briefly about being hired and how you approach hiring.
And we'll talk about the future and then we'll wrap this conversation up.
When you think about hiring for your own team, how do you like to approach it?
You know, when it comes to hiring, I have a policy of we all have to, we all have to
get along and be respectful.

(51:53):
And we want to be around people that we enjoy being around for the better part, right?
You spend most of your time at work or asleep.
So why be miserable?
And so when it comes to the hiring, I think this also comes back from my athletic background.
You don't always have to be best friends with everybody on your team, but you all need to
be aligned to the goal and you all need to know the role that you're playing and how

(52:14):
do you play it together because you're dependent on one another.
And so I look for team players.
I look for team players with great expertise and what the need is, but that are also open
to learning other things and are asking questions.
I do find it a little bit of a maybe yellowish red flag.
If you come to an interview and it's like, is there anything you want to ask?

(52:38):
And people are like, no, I think I'm good.
You know, it's like, okay, so you don't want to know anything.
Like even if it is the, you know, it's like, even if it's like, hey, you know, is there
some are good to go to lunch around the office?
That's still a question.
It's you're curious and you want to better understand.
And so I'm not saying to just ask to ask, but I do think it shows a lot about the interest

(53:01):
level of the other person.
Makes sense.
Do you have an ideal hiring process or what you believe is the right workflow to get and
evaluate new new people for your team?
I don't know if it's the right or ideal, but so far it's been okay.
You know, we, for my direct hires, I involve my leaders.

(53:24):
I involve my, I involve my, some of my directs.
I also involve outside, outside perspective from some of my partners or areas where I know
this role will need to heavily interact with because I want those areas to also have a
say, right?
They don't have necessarily a final say, but if they're going to be interacting with this

(53:44):
person regularly, I need to make sure that they feel that they're competent.
And then, you know, I work there so far.
I feel like we've, I have, I have a great team and I'm very proud of the team we've built
here.
As it goes down from the second line and third line, you know, I really don't get in the
weeds.
It's not, I can't have my hand on every hire.

(54:04):
So I trust that my team is, is doing their due diligence and, and having the right conversation.
So I think it's a little bit of, I think there's a little, again, mix of you got to go with
your intuition.
I think at the, the paper tells you so much that to me, the resume will get you kind of
your foot in the door and you have to get yourself the job and the resume or the relationship.

(54:31):
And so I think it's about, you know, kind of, it depends on the role, but I do think there's
a, there's a, a component around just compatibility with the organization.
Do I think the person is going to be compatible?
Yeah.
It's got to be a good fit.
Next question on hiring, what might compel you to take a chance on a candidate?

(54:53):
Somebody who's hungry and driven.
I will, I will hire those people all day long.
Like I said, you come to me and if you're like second, third line, meaning down my org
and you're like, yeah, I want to be, I want your job one day done.
You're in, you're in, because it's, it's, it's, it's that type of mentality in, in just

(55:16):
innate sense of drive is how I think it is just the type of person that generally that
gets in there and they will help you move things forward.
It's individuals who say, what do you, what do I need to do?
Like I will, you know, if, if Brian Jordan, our CEO says, Hey, Erin, I need you to do
this and it might be something I've never done.

(55:36):
I'll be like, okay, you know, like, okay, well, let me figure it out.
And I'll go do it.
I want, I, I, I love that mentality and the drive and that.
And so, all right, that was a pretty quick reaction, but I was like, yeah, it's that.
Now it's perfect.
That's great.
In the last couple of questions here, what are you excited about for the future, be it
broadly within banking and finance within marketing?

(55:59):
What are you looking forward to?
I'm excited about where my current organization is headed.
We've had some interesting years and I, I think a lot of companies, my assumption is
there are quite a few companies who feel this way in an, in the industry and outside
of it between the, we had the merger of equals, we had another potential acquisition thing

(56:22):
and then we ended up, you know, you had a bunch of economic cycle, just inconsistencies,
if you will.
And I think that we are now at a point where we are operating as first horizon for the
foreseeable future.
We are building, we are growing and the people here are just amazing.
Like I love the people I work with.

(56:43):
They're just fantastic and it, it's throughout the, it's throughout the entire organization.
So I'm really excited about, you know, kind of where we're headed as an institution.
I think in terms of just in general, I think there's a lot of unknown.
I think we're in a really a period of unknown.

(57:03):
I don't know.
Like I said, you got it like when I said it with the, with the role and how do you evolve
in your role, you got to be a little open minded and fluid.
So that's how I'm approaching.
That's how I'm approaching everything at this point.
Yeah.
Let's see where it goes.
Erin, thank you so much for being so generous with your perspective and your time.
Is there anything that you'd like to promote or anything that you'd like, you know, the

(57:25):
stage here to talk about or anything that we skipped over?
I want to say thank you and this is not a paid promotional ad.
I want to say thank you to you because I don't know if Ryan will air this or not.
I'm going to say it anyway.
You know, I was debating on what's next and I had this was a few years ago and I had been

(57:50):
told by again, by a mentor to always keep irons in the fire and that you always never,
you never want to be flat footed.
And so I was, I had mentioned my time at USA.
I loved my time at USA, but I was like, you know, I've done some new things here and I
really need to update my resume.
And I need somebody to help me write my LinkedIn.

(58:12):
And I did the search on LinkedIn for somebody like resume writing and Ryan, there's some
popped up and Ryan really helped me rewrite my career story into a palatable way that
was also very searchable.

(58:32):
And I started to get hits from recruiters, one of which was a recruiter who brought me
to first horizon.
So I just really appreciate and I fully endorse Ryan's career coaching work and really appreciate
all the things you do, Ryan, for not just myself, but I know you do that for a lot of
people and I think it's really important to help people kind of move through.

(58:55):
Thank you so much.
You are far too kind.
I am so very grateful to have you as a client.
I'm so proud to see where you've been able to go and what you've been able to make of
your career.
It's truly incredible.
Oh, thank you.
Erin, thank you again so much.
Yep, thank you.
Our next episode is with Travis Peace, president of Novum Home Loans.

(59:15):
I'm always looking for curious people because curious people are the ones you're going to
find the root cause of problems.
They're not just going to solve symptoms of the problems.
If you enjoyed this episode, make sure to subscribe for new episodes, leave a review
and tell a friend.
GoodFit Careers is hosted by me, Ryan Dickerson, and is produced and edited by Melo-Vox Productions.

(59:37):
Marketing is by StoryAngled and our theme music is by Surftronica with additional music
from Andrew Espronceda.
I'd like to express my gratitude to all of our guests for sharing their time, stories
and perspectives with us.
And finally, thank you to all of our listeners.
If you have any recommendations on future guests, questions or comments, please send

(59:58):
us an email at [e-mail].
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