0:00

Good Company is a production of I Heart Radio.

0:03

I like the water just when it's

0:05

right up to my nose and I can breathe. But I've got a

0:07

paddle like hell. You have my full

0:10

focus and attention when I'm like that. Hi,

0:18

I'm Michael Casson. Welcome to Good

0:20

Company, where I'll explore how marketing,

0:22

media, entertainment, and tech are intersecting,

0:25

transforming our lives and the way we do business

0:28

at a breakneck speed. I'll be joined

0:30

by some of the greatest business minds at strongest

0:32

leaders who will share how they build companies from

0:34

the ground up or transform them from the inside

0:37

out. My bed is you'll pick up a lesson

0:39

or two along the way. It's all good.

0:46

This is an extra special pleasure

0:48

for me today to welcome my

0:51

sister. Yes, I consider

0:53

Wendy to be my little sister. I'm

0:56

much older Wendy, as you know, so

0:59

I'm happy to get view that title in

1:01

my life because of the extraordinary

1:03

relationship, friendship, collaboration,

1:07

and partnership that we've really

1:09

forged over I'd like to say

1:11

almost your entire career. But

1:14

for our listeners, it is truly

1:16

an honor to welcome Wendy Clark, the global

1:18

CEO of den SUE for International

1:21

and the chief executive officer

1:23

in that capacity. Wendy joined

1:25

DENSU in September. Just

1:28

by way of background, before that, Wendy

1:31

served as the CEO of DDB Worldwide

1:34

and previous to that, president

1:36

Sparkling Brands and Strategic Marketing

1:38

for the Coca Cola Company North America

1:40

and as well previously where I got first

1:43

the opportunity to meet Wendy actually

1:45

a little before that, as senior Vice

1:47

president of Advertising for A T and T. Not

1:49

only do I consider Wendy to be such

1:52

a special friend, but she has been

1:54

heralded by ad age and so many

1:57

others. Truly is one of the most important

1:59

women in average rising. But I would

2:01

like to just qualify that further

2:03

and say one of the most important people in advertising.

2:06

And those recognitions

2:09

including the Matrix Award she runs,

2:11

an award Advertising Woman of the Year,

2:14

just go on and on, and in addition,

2:17

formally recognized in two thousand

2:19

and seven upon her induction

2:21

into the American Advertising Federations

2:24

Advertising Hall of Achievement. So

2:26

Wendy, as I said, it is a great pleasure

2:29

after that long introduction

2:31

but so well deserved to welcome you to a

2:33

good company today. Well, thank you.

2:35

I feel like I'm in good company and it feels very natural

2:38

to be here with you, Michael Wendy.

2:40

What I'd love to do is have you start by,

2:43

you know, sharing with our listeners a bit about

2:45

your background and kind of how you charted

2:47

this path both personally and professionally

2:50

to reach the true pinnacle of

2:52

our industry as the global

2:54

CEO of DENSU, the senior

2:56

most executive woman in advertising

3:00

full stop, with a well deserved

3:02

seat at that table of global CEOs

3:04

of the advertising holding company. So your

3:07

career started on agency, then

3:10

client and an agency. Talk

3:12

about that journey and how do you feel

3:14

about it now and how did you get here?

3:17

Uh? Well, I don't think you know. You get asked a

3:19

lot of times when you're a kid what did you want to be?

3:21

And I was raised by a single mother, and what

3:24

I do know, or what I did

3:26

know back then, was that I was going to work. I mean,

3:28

my mom had experienced a failed

3:30

marriage and had been

3:33

sort of left in a an alert because

3:35

of that, and the one thing she instilled

3:37

to me was you will be able to take care of

3:39

yourself. You will have a craft

3:41

and you'll be you'll be able to, you know,

3:43

stand on your own two feet should you need to. Um.

3:46

And so that's from my earliest recollections.

3:48

Always that I was going to work, wasn't very

3:51

clear what I was going to be. And then you know,

3:53

just as I went through school and I loved communications

3:55

and uh, you know, I actually

3:58

is a writer. Coming out of college, wanted to write

4:00

advertising, but actually and once

4:03

I was on the ages side, clipping too account service.

4:05

I you know, the one thing I've been important

4:08

always from a female voice, particularly

4:10

to say I'm an ambitious person. I

4:12

you know, a lot of times ambition is held against

4:14

women. Um I. You

4:18

know, I wanted to do more, and you know, as I got

4:20

into work, I really liked it and

4:22

and it could see how I could navigate a path and

4:25

I wanted to live into you know what

4:27

I thought I could do. Um along

4:29

that way, I've always trying to bring people with me.

4:31

It's not solely about me, um

4:34

my. You know, very deeply held mantra is

4:36

lift as you climb and bring others with you.

4:38

And so you know, I always say, if if my narrative

4:41

ends up being just about me. What a massive

4:43

waste that would be. So you know my narrative

4:46

is about creating a week around me and bringing

4:48

other people with me, for sure. Um.

4:50

But yeah, I've loved

4:53

every one of my jobs and the people I got

4:55

to work with. You just went through so many of them. I mean,

4:57

my fondest memories of people at A T and

4:59

T who are still so close to me in my

5:01

life. Um. And of course

5:03

at Coke were spent close to eight years. Uh

5:06

you know, I would say, you know, Coke is is one of

5:08

those definitive places for a marketer.

5:10

There's a wheat and chaff effect at Coke, and

5:13

I really feel like I honed in sharpened

5:15

skills while I was there, and now most

5:17

recently at DDB, a place that

5:19

I genuinely just adored and loved.

5:22

And you know, I think we went on a pretty good run

5:24

there for uh four and a half years.

5:26

And and then Denis who called And I

5:28

wasn't climbing on that phone call. You never planning

5:30

on the phone call. It's never perfectly the right

5:32

time. But the more I got to

5:34

know Tim Andre and the team that were

5:37

assembled and the capabilities that

5:39

were assembled, Uh, it just

5:41

became harder and harder, just look to look

5:43

away from and really believe that, Gosh,

5:46

I think there's something we can do there. So

5:49

so, Wendy, you made that interesting

5:51

transition. Again, you didn't start

5:53

in the agency business, but you ended up in the agency

5:56

business in the nineties. Then you went to

5:58

the client side. I think I have the right My

6:01

recollection is you went from BellSouth to

6:03

an agency to a T and T, and

6:06

so you were on that trajectory

6:08

for many years on the client side, from A T

6:10

and T to Coca Cola, and I well remember

6:13

the conversations that you and I had

6:15

back when you were making the decision to go to

6:17

d dB and leave what some

6:19

would consider a lifetime opportunity

6:22

to be the president of Sparkling Beverages

6:25

at the Coca Cola Corporation. That

6:27

was a transition, and part of the way

6:29

I've described it to people because people have asked

6:32

me because we are known

6:34

to be such good friends, so

6:36

I want to make sure I got it right. I've said,

6:39

Wendy made the decision that

6:41

she wanted to be in the c suite

6:43

in a different way, and whilst

6:46

you were president of Sparkling Brands

6:49

and strategic marketing. Your trajectory

6:51

was a marketing trajectory.

6:54

And I'm not saying that's not an executive, but you

6:56

weren't in the same way responsible

6:59

for the P and L like you are when

7:01

you became CEO of DDB,

7:04

and now that puts you on a different trajectory.

7:06

And I kind of say to people that's

7:09

and I used you as a model for this many times,

7:11

Wendy, that was your transition. You

7:13

wanted to be in a different consideration

7:15

set in your career. And you're

7:18

young enough, and you were then and you still

7:20

are that that transition was critical

7:22

for you. Did I get it right? You

7:25

got it completely right. I'm not gonna say anything else.

7:27

So that was completely right. I mean I wanted

7:29

to extend beyond

7:31

and as you say, I mean I will always be a

7:34

market I call myself a marketer. You know.

7:36

My my lens is that in this

7:38

job, I love getting so I love

7:40

being close to our clients because I love getting into

7:42

their you know, pernicious challenges

7:44

and and trying to figure out the path

7:47

forward. But but certainly I

7:49

do genuinely love this seat

7:51

that I've had two times now where

7:53

you have you know, the broader levers of the business.

7:56

Uh, that you're responsible for. I've I've

7:59

enjoyed that, I've own from it. It's

8:01

pushed me, it's developed me, And that's I'm

8:03

the type of person. And I think, just back to

8:05

sort of owning my ambition earlier on. I

8:08

like to be constantly challenged. I like the

8:10

water just when it's right up

8:12

to my nose and I can breathe, but I got a paddle

8:14

like hell, you have my full focus

8:17

and attention. When I'm like that. When I get

8:19

into something where you know, I'm sort of

8:21

a muscle memory, um, it's harder for me

8:23

to focus. Um. So I love

8:26

you know these roles throw

8:28

constant challenges at you because of the dimension

8:31

of them and the intersectionality with so

8:33

many aspects of the broad business. One

8:35

day is not like the other, and so I truly

8:38

love that to mention of it. So, Wendy,

8:40

I'm gonna let you know in a little secret, I

8:43

gave you credit for this at the beginning, but

8:45

now I've stolen it. But you

8:47

said something to me once about management

8:49

style that really resonated with me,

8:52

and my team will now know where

8:54

I stole it from because I stopped

8:56

giving credit to you publicly, but now I'm

8:58

about to really give you credit publicly.

9:01

You described your management style to me

9:03

once as not being a micro manager,

9:06

but being a micro nowhere, and

9:09

you may not, you may not realize how

9:11

that landed with me, because you described

9:14

yourself, but you described me. I'm

9:16

not a micro manager. I had never

9:19

articulated it that way. But I want

9:21

to know stuff because if I know things,

9:24

those levers then become more available.

9:26

And it's the old adage about bad

9:28

news that you don't share just becomes worst news.

9:31

You know. We've all got those little homilies

9:33

that we've grown up on or considered,

9:36

but that one that you said to me about your

9:38

management style really resonated.

9:40

Could you talk about that a little because it's

9:42

so perfect to describe

9:44

you, but it's such a great management

9:47

lesson. Right. Yeah, So

9:49

I mean I say I don't like to micro manage. I do like

9:51

to micron. That's mine. And

9:54

because I don't think any of us in these jobs like surprises,

9:56

and if you don't micron, you

9:59

can get some real D disease on the surprises.

10:01

Right. So I just think that visibility

10:04

and that ability to understand ed Whittaker

10:06

at A T and T used to say, you've got to inspect

10:08

what you expect um And

10:10

that's sort of the same sort of maunch of just

10:12

having that. Again, it takes

10:15

two, right, you have to be willing to inc You've

10:17

got to be willing to get into the micro no.

10:19

I don't take the decisions ever from the team.

10:22

That's not my style. I like to be in the mix

10:24

with them. I want to know and understand and together will

10:26

make the decision um. But

10:28

I think that's the only way, especially

10:30

on these very scaled enterprises

10:32

and densities hundred forty five countries, forty

10:35

five thousand people, eleven thousand clients.

10:37

You know, I mean the breadth of

10:40

this. If you don't, micro no can creep

10:42

up on you. So you have to have that

10:44

orientation. But at the same time, if

10:47

every decision comes through me, that I

10:49

mean, the thing will come to a grinding home. You simply

10:51

cannot micromanage. So you've gotta have great

10:53

people around you who can take those decisions

10:56

absolutely. And another lesson I learned

10:58

from somebody when I said, well, you should get

11:00

there by consensus, and the person

11:02

looked at me. Early in my career, and said, well,

11:04

consensus is nice to achieve, but

11:07

in management you have to be decisive, and sometimes

11:09

you can't build a consensus and you've got to make the decision

11:12

that might be just more arbitrary.

11:14

But sure, great, if you can build a

11:16

consensus of support, you go for it. But

11:19

at the end of the day, decisiveness

11:21

is what rules. Well, great

11:23

teams always have some some form of tension.

11:26

If if we've recruited our teams properly, we

11:28

don't have homogeneous thinkers. We have very

11:30

dimensional thinkers, and there should be good,

11:33

rigorous discussion and what I would

11:35

call a positive tension. In our business. We

11:37

shouldn't be shy of tension. We should be shy

11:39

of negative tension. But you know where

11:41

that comes in is that sort of great axiom of

11:43

you know, play the ball, not the person. So we'll

11:45

we'll debate rigorously about the

11:47

ball. Once we've had that discussion,

11:50

we're gonna line up and we're gonna go to your

11:52

point. You you can't endlessly discuss

11:54

to try to convert people. You

11:56

discussed to a point where again we've got that micro

11:59

knowledge, we all end stand and then yes,

12:01

it's the legist job to make the decision and make

12:03

sure everyone's lined up around what we're gonna do. So,

12:06

Wendy, you onboarded

12:08

to DENSU in September, in

12:12

the midst of the worst pandemic in a

12:14

generation. That had to be tough. You

12:17

assumed a global role. And

12:19

as I wrote that op ed a few months ago

12:21

about my chief of Stuff, who I hadn't met

12:23

for the first four months, and I wrote

12:26

an op ed that said, how tall

12:28

is Benjamin King? And doesn't really matter because

12:30

I dealt with him for four months hired into

12:32

a highly important position in my

12:35

life. You were there the first day

12:37

that I hired the first Chief of Stuff

12:40

thirteen years ago, so you know the

12:43

importance of that role in my life.

12:45

And here's somebody I put into that role and I never

12:48

met other than like this. And the joke

12:50

was I didn't know how tall he was because I had never seen him

12:52

stand up, and so we made a joke

12:54

out of it. And then lo and behold when I did

12:56

meet him. The great reveal happened in April

12:58

after he joined me four months earlier, and

13:01

I said, you're not allowed to tell me. This is going to be a

13:03

guessing game, And sure enough, I

13:05

meet him before a breakfast and

13:07

I get out of my car in New York and he gets

13:09

there and he's standing there and I had him pegged

13:12

at five night and he's six ft two and it was like,

13:14

what the My

13:16

point is it wasn't important, but it's just part

13:18

of the onboarding during

13:20

a pandemic. How did that work for you?

13:22

You need to do assume the most senior

13:25

role with an organization that you've

13:27

effectively never met. Well,

13:29

I mean it was unthinkable, really, right, I

13:31

mean, and and you know

13:33

I I accepted the job and

13:35

resigned in February.

13:38

Really is this pandemic was just it was this

13:40

thing in China we were hearing about, right,

13:42

it just had And so when I accepted

13:44

the role, I didn't. I wasn't anticipating

13:46

this with how I started. I had some gardening leave

13:49

and so didn't get to start and tell him September

13:51

book. But really, I'll tell you what,

13:53

that summer was one of the hardest summers of my career.

13:56

Not from a working perspective, because I honestly wasn't

13:58

working, but sitting watching this business

14:01

under the pressure of and of course having

14:04

you know, demonstrable impact to the business

14:07

and obviously being able to do nothing about it

14:09

was really really challenging. But I

14:12

started in September. I mean, you know, sort

14:14

of joking, we said, until I started traveling. Lately,

14:17

I've met less than twenty people at the company.

14:20

We have forty five thousand people in Densu

14:22

International, UM. And I mean it's

14:24

just an extraordinary thought. And certainly

14:26

for someone like me who was used to being on a plane

14:28

every week and being in our office and being with our

14:31

clients, and I realized how much

14:33

of my playbook being in person

14:35

with people was. It's very hard and just like

14:37

you recruiting people across the camera. I mean, Fred

14:39

Lavron joined this this year. I mean one, you know,

14:42

one of the biggest highest I'll make as our

14:44

global chief creative officer. Fred

14:46

and I have never met in personal We have now

14:48

we just three weeks ago when he started in

14:50

November one. But you know, imagine

14:53

trying to you know, really bring and persuade

14:56

an executive out of a role through a camera

14:58

and just you know, I mean, I say, like half time, I feel

15:00

like I'm coming through this thing. I'm

15:02

just trying to wild people, uh, to

15:05

to you know, feel how I feel. And

15:07

um, that that was hard. But on

15:09

the other hand, and I give our our comms team

15:12

a tremendous amount of credit, we

15:14

just went on a I was

15:16

just call it a crusade internally around

15:19

communications. If we cannot be together,

15:21

we had to generate the feeling that

15:24

you would feel if we were. And so we

15:26

you know, I mean, every month, I do live

15:28

conversations with the entire organization. They

15:30

can come, they can ask any question they want,

15:33

they can ask it anonymously, and we answer the

15:35

most voted up question. We do that

15:37

every single month. Every single month.

15:39

We also get the top nine leads together in

15:41

a smaller tighter fashion, but again open

15:44

form discussions, really facing

15:46

into the issues, facing into the camera the same

15:48

way you would if you were in an office and able to be

15:50

with people. So we're really trying to recreate

15:52

the feeling of accessibility,

15:55

of care, of togetherness

15:57

for each other and the business by the way,

16:00

I mean, obviously, I think one of the biggest challenges

16:02

coming out of this is the concerns around the mental

16:04

well being of our people. You know, one

16:07

of the things that keeps me up at night. How can

16:09

we create a sense of closeness with our people

16:12

that we'd otherwise be able to observe if

16:14

we were in the hallways, in the bathroom, sitting side

16:16

by side together. We've just really

16:18

had to sort of take that mantle. And again

16:20

it gives credit to the leaders in the company. You had

16:22

to make massive adjustments in the way they worked,

16:25

but in our employee engagement

16:27

surveys through this period, so both

16:29

last year and now we just did. This year's

16:31

our highest scores in the last

16:33

three or four years. I've happened during

16:35

a pandemic, which would be unthinkable, but

16:38

I really believe it's because we've taken

16:40

such an aggressive stance on trying

16:42

to recreate that closeness as much as we could.

16:45

And Wendy, we're on the heels

16:47

of and maybe in the midst of this so called

16:49

great resignation and we're

16:51

seeing it. I think the last month's number was four

16:54

point four million people in the United

16:56

States quit their jobs, and

16:58

the month before was four point re million.

17:00

I mean, it's you're talking about eight million, you know, plus

17:02

or minus almost eight million people. I

17:04

don't think they're permanently leaving the workforce,

17:07

but they're changing jobs. Some of

17:09

that is from that mental health kind of

17:11

I want to change. There's another way. I

17:14

need a balance, whatever it is.

17:16

But that is not icing on

17:18

the cake. It's fuel on the fire

17:21

of a dearth of talent that's

17:23

impacting you know, we see it in our

17:25

day jobs for sure, But go

17:27

to a restaurant, try to get service

17:29

somewhere. There's not enough help,

17:32

there's not enough staff, there's not enough of

17:34

this or that. If you're feeling that our

17:37

clients are feeling. I have clients asking me if

17:39

we can succalm people to them. So it's not I mean,

17:41

we're all feeling this, this pinch.

17:43

But look, I have a lot of feelings about this,

17:46

among other things. Um, you know,

17:48

I think, yes, it's being written as a great resignation.

17:50

I think as leaders we have to take a minute here,

17:52

and I wonder if it isn't indeed the

17:55

great reckoning or the great reappraisal

17:57

on our leadership and are we really effectively

17:59

leading our companies the way that we should be. And

18:02

I do think that there's a generational divide

18:04

that we've got to acknowledge here. Um, I

18:07

quote Fast Company it says in the next

18:09

five years, two thirds of the workforce

18:11

will be millennial and gen Z so

18:13

just think about that for a minute. And that's what

18:16

we're really sensing and feeling, is

18:18

this generational difference

18:20

in what you and I Michael might have done

18:23

to build our careers and what their willingness

18:25

may be for their careers. And so there

18:28

are a few things that I point to very quickly. Number

18:30

One, we of other

18:32

generations have to let go of this rite

18:34

of passage that that so

18:37

we hold out there. And I, you know, I exaggerate

18:39

this to a certain degree, but I can, like you and

18:41

I could recount the stories and the sacrifices

18:44

that we've made to achieve where what we

18:46

have done, you know, perhaps

18:48

most notably, I'll say I've had three

18:50

maternity leaves in total.

18:53

I've taken thirty five weeks out of the business

18:55

with three maternity leads. And they're not triplets,

18:58

right, I mean, it's an extraordinary state. Meant

19:00

to say that when you when you think about that, and you say, that's

19:03

extraordinary. I went back to work each

19:05

time before my close fit. I mean, just think

19:07

about that from it. Now, you and I

19:09

might look at that, and people from our generation and go

19:12

look at her as you went right back in, right they

19:15

if you talk to the next generation. They

19:17

look at me like I'm absurd. They

19:19

see nothing respectable about that. They

19:21

think I made a false choice. And

19:24

so we've got to flip the mindset

19:26

here. So number one, holding our right

19:28

of passage and all the things we did out

19:30

to the next generation not interested and

19:32

they're not going to do it. Number Two, I

19:35

think with companies, we've got to make sure that

19:37

these lovely narratives that we talk about being

19:39

great places to work and how we put people

19:41

first, invest in people, that there's actually

19:43

real actions behind that. Um.

19:46

You know, we we need to really interrogate our parental

19:48

leaves. We really need to interrograte our work

19:50

environments and the policies and that

19:52

we that we engage with our employees on there

19:55

and really make sure the narrative

19:57

and the actions match. Number Three,

19:59

on the agency side, we can't

20:01

make proper progress without partnership

20:03

with clients. We still have clients

20:06

who call last minute and have our

20:08

teams working through the night or working over

20:10

the weekends. And again, you

20:13

know, all of our clients want our best and brightest

20:15

people. We know and understand that implicitly,

20:18

but the best and the brightest from the upcoming

20:20

generations are simply not going to work

20:22

in a way that people on the

20:24

agency side once did. Of course their

20:26

occasional needs and that's fine, but this cannot

20:29

be the way that you work on an ongoing basis.

20:31

We will we will simply not be able

20:33

to attract our town. The final point I

20:35

was going to make of the four, which is about being purpose

20:38

based and as companies and having a

20:40

real you know, mission and purpose

20:43

beyond making money, is going to be important

20:45

to these next generations. Is important. They're

20:47

already advocating it. We

20:49

have to live into our sustainability commitments.

20:52

I mean, there's we have wired

20:54

in advocacy in our organization in

20:58

these Again, millennial gen

21:00

z very very serious about

21:02

our social impact and sustainability. So

21:04

jumping on a plane for lunch is highly

21:07

unacceptable. Then you just don't

21:09

do that just for the planet's sake. If

21:11

nothing like, if you don't care about your personal

21:13

health, care about the planet's health. And so

21:16

again, this is an entire referendum

21:19

and an entire reckoning for us

21:21

as we are seeing the cross generations.

21:23

Now, I love, I will steal from

21:26

you. In addition to micro manage micro

21:28

no, I'm going to steal great recogning

21:31

as opposed to great resignation, because

21:33

I think that's exactly right. You're looking at through

21:35

a different lens, but that's the proper

21:37

lens to look at. Because people are rethinking

21:39

back to that. It's not a badge of honor. I'll

21:42

give you the concept that I have always applied

21:44

it to. I've always thought that Europeans

21:46

had a great idea with the gap year. The

21:48

gap year is actually a brilliant idea.

21:51

For those of you who don't know, that gap

21:53

year was that year after high school, before you went

21:55

to university or whatever your next

21:57

move was. You know, a lot of the folks

21:59

that I know in the UK, particularly,

22:02

gap year was a big concept and

22:04

I used to joke again, badge of honor.

22:07

Yeah, I took a gap I took a gap minute.

22:10

I went from college to law school, to graduate

22:12

school, to married to kids, to work.

22:15

I took a gap minute somewhere. I'm

22:17

not sure I made the right choice that

22:20

gap year. That gap year would

22:22

have been a good thing to do. That gap moment

22:25

was probably not enough for me to reflect

22:27

and make the right choices in my life. And

22:29

thankfully I did more, you know, more

22:32

correct choices than not correct choices,

22:34

but again that that reckoning is

22:36

a reckoning from management, but it's

22:38

also a reckoning of one's priorities.

22:41

So let's connect with two thoughts and

22:44

maybe think that there are people taking a gap

22:47

year at the moment during this great reappraisal,

22:49

a great reckoning, and that we've done

22:51

an opportunity to invite them back by being

22:54

better companies. Absolutely,

22:56

Wendy, as we talk about

22:58

the workforce, it is not a

23:01

secret to anybody that we are at

23:03

a moment of reckoning in terms

23:05

of the diversity issues that we are

23:07

facing as an industry, but as as as

23:09

a world, as a community, not just our

23:11

business, every business is facing

23:13

that same looking through that

23:16

same lens right now. And

23:18

we all understand, and you and I've had this conversation

23:21

for a long time that it is critical

23:23

for us to open the aperture as we

23:25

look at the pools of talent and whatnot.

23:28

My understanding and I may have my

23:31

numbers a little off, but fifty three

23:33

percent of Densus global workforce

23:35

identify as female, and

23:39

of your executive leadership in

23:41

a singular way identify themselves

23:44

as female. Already.

23:46

What about the other side of the diversity and inclusion.

23:49

What about not just gender diversity and

23:51

inclusion, but you know, ethnicity

23:54

and all the things that and I

23:56

don't say all the things like they're

23:58

grouped because they're not. It's

24:00

expensive, right, So I mean this goes

24:02

back to that notion of having really

24:04

dimensional teams and having that lived

24:06

experience. So whether it's your sexuality or

24:08

your ethnicity or your gender ability

24:12

slash disability, right, we want the

24:14

full breadth of lived experiences. I

24:16

think one of the more hidden aspects

24:19

of diversity, certainly for our

24:21

industry, is socioeconomic diversity.

24:24

I think we we we don't recruit

24:26

nearly well at enough out of lower, lower

24:29

socioeconomic talent.

24:31

And that's one of the programs DNS set up with

24:33

the code where we're going into reaching

24:36

teams that are coming out of school

24:39

and or you know, heading into technical school

24:41

and giving them digital capabilities

24:44

and training and skills so they can pour into our

24:46

industry so they're invited into our industry.

24:48

They might not go to college, that's okay,

24:51

we can skill train off a

24:53

base of that sort of sixteen

24:55

eighteen year old command of school. And that's you know,

24:57

that's one of the things we're deliberately doing to bring

25:00

again that dimension and diversity

25:02

to our to our team. So we have

25:04

to think about it in the fullest sense, because

25:07

I mean I don't have to tell anyone on this podcast,

25:09

or certainly you, Michael. Study

25:11

after study after study says the more

25:14

diverse and dimensional team, the better your business

25:16

outcomes. I mean this is this has proven time

25:19

and again. So we all want better business

25:21

outcomes, right and so, and that's going to come

25:23

surprise surprise by people with these

25:25

fully lived lives and experiences that

25:28

they bring into the workplace. And we get into those big,

25:30

rigorous discussions about doing the right thing for

25:32

the brand because we all think about it differently.

25:34

It's brilliants the best thing we can possibly

25:36

do for our businesses. So I have obviously

25:39

a very strong orientation and desire

25:41

to do this. Um you know, we're a global

25:43

company. When I, for instance, when

25:45

I was recruiting Fred, you know, it

25:47

was really important to me to make my best

25:49

effort to not recruit an American.

25:52

I felt that that was really important given that I

25:54

was American and I knew we were going to work together as

25:56

much as we were. It felt like the right

25:58

thing to be reflected off of you

26:01

know, our broader company

26:03

UM. You know also obviously was

26:05

looking for every aspect of diversity

26:08

of anyone who would come into that conversation. But

26:10

you know, notably knew that we wanted a

26:12

global perspective from from that

26:14

role. So I think you've just

26:16

got to be outward about it. I think you've got to state

26:19

it and put it out there and say

26:21

what you will and won't accept, and what

26:23

and what the teams

26:25

most need to look at these teams and really

26:27

have that discussion and debate

26:29

with one another. What's missing here out

26:32

of our collective experiences and knowledge,

26:34

What are we missing? What could what could we take

26:36

advantage of by making sure we invite

26:38

that to our table. So it's uh,

26:40

we've made that that ambition public

26:42

will be utift men and women

26:45

back to the gender point by a

26:48

publicly stayed ambition from my direct

26:50

reports on down every level, not taken

26:52

in aggregate. That's no, that's no use,

26:55

right. We've got to get to layer by layer and make sure

26:57

we're bringing women through the funnel of the business. And

27:00

we have similar BIPOP goals in the

27:02

US to be bipop UM.

27:04

So we're really putting these ambitions

27:07

out and stating them so that number

27:10

one, our teams are very clear, but that

27:12

there's also accountability right sore

27:14

not hidden. Agenda is a very public agenda.

27:16

I've talked about things I've learned from you. I

27:18

hope you've learned from me that

27:21

expression that I use frequently, which is,

27:23

don't read people's lips, watch their feet. And

27:26

what you've just said is just don't listen

27:28

to what I'm saying, watch what I'm doing. And

27:31

you're doing it, and and that speaks volumes

27:33

to who you are as a person. You know, Wendy,

27:36

I had you come and speak to the Media Link annual

27:39

meeting many years ago, and

27:41

you talked about something that that really

27:44

stuck with our team, and I still quote it,

27:46

and that one I still give you credit for all

27:48

the time, just so you know. But you

27:50

talked about when you were at Coca

27:53

Cola Company at that time, and you talked

27:55

about the need that you had

27:57

as a marketer not to see points

27:59

solution, but to see end to end

28:01

solutions. And that was your

28:03

view of life and business, and I

28:05

know that still is your view. You

28:08

need to look at a problem and you don't want to just

28:10

solve this part of it. You want to look at the continuum

28:12

or that end to end solution. You've

28:15

translated that well in your career, But talk

28:17

about that for a moment. In terms of how you look

28:19

at a client's challenges, you've

28:22

been the client. I always feel like

28:24

my advantage in a consultative

28:26

role at Media Link is that I've been

28:28

in the shoes of the people that I'm advising.

28:31

So I'm not somebody who's just looked at it and

28:33

admired a problem. I've actually been in

28:35

the problem. So I've been in quote

28:37

your shoes, You similarly

28:39

have been in the shoes of the clients

28:41

you're serving, you know, in your global CEO

28:44

role. Does that help you

28:46

solve those problems because you understand them

28:48

better and you can relate to them better you've walked

28:50

in their shoes? Yeah? Well, I mean what I mean,

28:53

everyone density that I've had

28:55

the opportunity to work with will know about. I

28:57

sort of have named my alter ego client

29:00

because you know, I really do slip

29:02

into this sort of client alter ego um

29:06

where I'm just looking at what we're

29:08

what we're recommending, or what we're doing, and it is

29:10

of course very easy for me to slip

29:13

right back in that slate and frankly, as I said,

29:15

I describe myself as a marketer. I think once a market,

29:17

are always a marketer. I mean it is my comfort

29:19

level. There's no question of of

29:21

you know, being in that role in that seat.

29:24

So yeah, I mean I think that that has

29:26

been an advantage. I call myself bilingual

29:28

a lot, and I speak client and agency,

29:30

which I think has been helpful. Um. The

29:32

other joke was, you know, whenever you're looking for me,

29:35

it's like she's in her office negotiating

29:37

with herself. That was the when I came from the

29:39

GSTN N to a T and T. That's what Scott

29:41

Parkins said. I was in my office negotiating

29:43

with myself. Um, so you

29:45

know, however you want to phrase it, I think

29:47

for sure, Um, that has been helpful.

29:50

Back to the nature of sort of end to end. I mean,

29:52

look, the point is there

29:54

are more ways to engage a consumer

29:56

than ever before. It's an exponential

29:59

amount of ways to engage a consumer now.

30:02

So it's not a one for one. It's not oh now

30:04

we have you know, such and such platform

30:06

away and and this one goes away. No, there's

30:08

just more um and so if you're a

30:10

client, you find yourself with more and

30:12

more partners, you know, more

30:14

more complex plans by

30:17

the way, probably a constrained budget

30:19

most likely, where you're trying to make good decisions

30:21

around you know, and ever expanding universe

30:24

of ways to reach those consumers. And

30:26

so the notion of being integrated

30:28

and end to end of nature is really critical. And

30:30

that's you know, the course we've set denso

30:32

on. We had a hundred and sixty agencies. We've

30:35

been really clear that's that's not there's

30:37

not an easy user guide coming to use

30:39

DENSU if you've got a hundred and sixty agencies.

30:41

And I always lean on Mark Pritchard in this

30:43

moment, who said, you know, very clearly to

30:45

the agency a few years ago at a speech, your

30:48

complexity should not be my problem.

30:50

And that's how I felt as a client. All

30:53

of this complexity and all of these agencies and

30:55

all these capabilities make it easy for me,

30:57

make it end to end, integrate, show

30:59

me the handoffs, show me how I get some

31:02

benefit by lack of redundancy and duplication

31:05

because you're so seamless and you're so integrated.

31:07

That that was very much my feeling when

31:09

I was a client. You know, you hear it from people

31:12

like Mark and others, and yes, I

31:14

think that's really when I say. And to end,

31:16

it's the seamless handoff and integration

31:19

of all the ways to reach engage

31:22

consumers. And you know that

31:24

is keeping with the ever explaining ecosystem

31:26

of touchpoints. Well, Wendy,

31:29

you know I could spend a day

31:31

or two or longer just you know,

31:34

learning from you and poking

31:36

around, but unfortunately we don't

31:38

have days to do this. These

31:41

good company conversations unfortunately

31:44

have a beginning, of middle and an end. But

31:46

before we get to the end, what I'd love

31:48

to say is here we are on November.

31:53

No one would have expected the eighteen months or

31:55

so we've just come through. If

31:58

you had to make some predictions about out

32:00

how our business will look, you

32:02

know, eighteen months from now or pick

32:05

a time in the future. If you're

32:07

looking around the corner or over the horizon,

32:10

what do you see is there's something that just jumps

32:12

off the page at you as this

32:14

is what what I see or that's what I

32:16

see. And you know, if you could share that with

32:19

us, as as I bid, you would do it.

32:21

Would be a great end to the extraordinary

32:23

conversation. Well, sure,

32:25

thank you for that entree. I mean, I'm I'm

32:27

really bullish on the practice

32:30

of marketing and communications. Again,

32:32

I've been in the business thirty years. I can't imagine

32:35

a time where any client,

32:37

any company doesn't have room for great

32:40

ideas that is going to build their

32:42

business and deliver them the growth that they're looking

32:44

for. And and you know, I always say,

32:46

as a client, whether it comes from an agency

32:48

or a cooperative or a collective or

32:51

you know, we can put all these fancy names on what we're

32:53

doing, great ideas will always

32:55

be welcomed from companies to build their business,

32:57

and that's what we want to do. Um And so

33:00

I believe there's a role for our industry,

33:02

uh and I believe that we're going to live into that.

33:05

I love how we're expanding now. I mean,

33:07

obviously we're growing by

33:09

leaps and bounds in this consumer experience

33:11

management space where double digit growth

33:14

in that space. We're going to continue to make acquisitions

33:16

in that space so that the growth around

33:18

commerce and the growth around Martek

33:21

and cloud solutions, that

33:23

that expansion in our industry is

33:25

fascinating, but it is

33:28

an all of itself, not a solution. So that's where

33:30

we get to that end to end nature because we

33:32

now are doing the data and digital

33:34

transformation consulting. That then

33:36

results in a plan that we go to market and we can

33:38

do the investment plan across meeting, we do

33:40

the execution plan across our creative

33:43

and that's when you get to these really

33:45

you know, expansive solutions for

33:48

businesses. It gets me excited. I think eighteen

33:50

months from now, you know we'll be fully

33:52

into those integrated solutions, no

33:54

no question to me. We're gonna be driving

33:57

further and deeper into the transformation

34:00

aspects and the commerce and the cloud

34:02

based solutions in our business. And I think

34:04

most notably, we've got to acknowledge how important

34:07

sustainability is going to be. There is absolutely

34:10

no question that brands moving

34:12

forward and companies moving forward won't be

34:14

judged by how much big force for good they

34:16

are as well as a force for growth. So

34:18

those would be my three things I would say eighteen months

34:20

from now. Well as always, Wendy,

34:23

spending time with you makes me

34:25

a smarter person and

34:28

I'm certain our audience will share that view.

34:31

It was a great pleasure to have you as Good

34:33

Company because you are extraordinarily good

34:35

company, and Wendy Clark,

34:38

I want to thank you, Thank you, Michael. It's

34:40

delightful to be here and I equally learned from

34:42

you, so good good time we'll spend

34:45

and I enjoyed it. I'm

34:48

Michael Casson, Thanks for listening to Good

34:50

Company. Good

34:53

Company is a production of I Heart Radio.

34:55

Special Thanks to Lena Peterson, Chief Brand

34:57

Officer and Managing Director immediately for

35:00

gen M Good Company, and to Jen Seely, Vice

35:02

President Marketing Communications Immediately for

35:04

programming amazing talent and CONTENTM