Your Career Journey

From Psychology Dreams to Marketing Leader: Emily's Bold Career Pivot

• Emma Graham

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Dive into this inspiring episode where we explore a unique career in marketing and customer insights with Emily Paladino! 

Whether you're just starting out or looking to pivot your path, Emily's journey offers powerful lessons on how curiosity, data, and strategy fuel success.

From aspiring clinical psychologist to CMO and Group Head of Customer Insights, Emily reveals how a love of research led to a dynamic career in marketing and customer insights. Learn how her background in market research, branding, and customer experience shaped her leadership in some of Australia’s top retail brands.

🌟 Discover the skills you need to grow a career in marketing and customer insights, from curiosity and leadership to strategic thinking and data-driven decision-making. 

This episode is packed with insight for marketers, analysts, and career changers alike!

🎧 Topics Covered:
 00:00 Introduction and Welcome
 00:20 Emily's Early Career Aspirations
 01:06 Discovering Market Research
 05:29 Relocating to London and New Opportunities
 07:22 Branding and Strategy Experience
 11:58 Client-Side Contracts and Insights
 17:32 Corporate Role at Target Australia
 21:02 Group Head of Customer Insights
 27:04 The Importance of Data in Marketing
 29:09 Defining Customer Insights
 39:06 The Role of Leadership in Career Growth
 45:39 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

💼 If you're passionate about building a career in marketing and customer insights, this episode will motivate you to embrace your unique path and explore where your curiosity can take you.

🔗 Connect with Emily:
 Website: https://www.emilypaladino.com.au/
 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emilypaladino1

Your host, Emma Graham, Career Coach and ex-recruiter, is here to help you with:

💡 Gain clarity on what’s important to you
💡 Confidently communicate your value
💡 Build a personal brand and a strong network
💡 Take a strategic approach to your next move
💡 Navigate the job market effectively
💡 Build career confidence with a repeatable success blueprint

🌐 Explore my coaching programs and free resources:
Website: https://www.egconsulting.au/
LinkedIn: https://au.linkedin.com/in/emmajgraham
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/emmagrahamcareercoach/

🎁 Free Resources:
📄 CV Development Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/cv-advice
📄 LinkedIn Profile Optimisation Guide: https://www.egconsulting.au/linkedin-profile-guide

📅 Book Your FREE Career Strategy Discovery Call:
https://calendly.com/emmagrahamconsulting/discovery-call

Emma:

Hello and welcome to Your Career Journey, the podcast designed to be your compass through the twists and turns of career development. In this episode, I'm joined by Emily Palladino, who has built her career across market research, insights, brand and customer experience, working with some of Australia's best known brands. Emily shares her career journey to date and the lessons she's learned and taken forward from working across a number of different but complementary disciplines. I'm joined this morning by Emily, Emily Palladino. Welcome. Thank you so much. How are

Emily:

you today?

Emma:

I'm doing well. We were laughing before we pressed record. For those watching the video, we've both got our snuggly jumpers on because it's very cold in Melbourne this morning.

Emily:

It is quite cold.

Emma:

Reflecting back, Emily, do you remember, I guess, what your first kind of thought was, perhaps when you were in school, leaving school, starting to think about what you might want to do with the rest of your life? Do you remember what you thought it was going to look like at at that point

Emily:

Emma, I was going to be a clinical psychologist. I had always really loved trying to understand what makes people tick. The psychology behind human behavior was just something that I was always interested in. I studied psychology and sociology. I did a double major at university and I was on the way to becoming a clinical psychologist. That was what I was going to do. In my third year of the undergraduate degree, I did some voluntary work and that's when I worked out that the clinical part didn't actually excite me as much as I thought it would. And so I spoke to one of the careers counsellors at Monash University, which is where I was studying, and he suggested that I look into a master's degree in applied social research that was actually going to open up the following year. enabled me or would enable me to really anchor in on the psychology behind behaviour, but also zoom out and really learn about the impact that the market and more macro factors have on psychology and human behaviour. And so I signed up for the master's degree. And that was, I guess, my foray into market insights, which was really

Emma:

good

Emily:

fun.

Emma:

Yeah. And beyond the that, what was the, I guess, the path that led you to where you are now? How's it all kind of fitted together?

Emily:

Gosh, it's been such a winding path, I have to say. And I know that we had a quick chat about the sorts of things that we would discuss last week. And it enabled me to, I really loved it because it enabled me to just sit down and really think about, you know, what is the path that I've taken to get me to where I am today? And why did I make the decisions that I made? And were they happy accidents or was there some strategy behind the, you know, the path that I took? And there was some rigor around it. So let me take you on a little bit of a journey. So I was going to be a clinical psychologist, figured out that the clinical part didn't quite work, moved into a Master of Arts in Applied Social Research, which opened me up to opportunities in market research, which was quite exciting. So I started off my career in market research. I worked for a relatively large agency in Melbourne and started up from the around and worked my way up to a data analyst. So what that means is that in the dark ages, before the world of digital, when we used to conduct market research, we would write paper surveys and then interviewers would go and interview consumers either in person or via telephone. And you would actually write the responses in pen and circle things, boxes and tick boxes. And it was all very analog in those days. So I worked my way up from from an interviewer to a data analyst within that agency. working up, working your way up really taught me about the importance of wording questions correctly so that the audience can actually understand the intention behind that question. It taught me about data analysis and working with different data sets and manipulating those different data sets to arrive at different conclusions. But I think what it really taught me was about systematic learning as well. So whilst it wasn't a formal graduate program, they did encourage people to come in at an entry level and then molded them into the market researchers that they wanted to mold them into. So that systematic learning enabled me to learn each part of that skill before you can move on to the next part. So I think that that was a really good foundational training for me to just learn how to learn, which was Yeah.

Emma:

Yeah. And that is a skill in itself, isn't it? That the learning has to learn. Yeah, absolutely.

Emily:

Absolutely. Absolutely. Because then when you become a leader and you are teaching other juniors on how to do their job, I find that a lot of them get quite, maybe a little bit frustrated because they want, you know, they start off here and they want to be over here and it's trying to teach them to be patient and try and teach them to learn each part or each chapter or each part of their role first before they move on to the other role is probably one of the trickiest things. So learning how to learn was brilliant for me. Following that, I relocated to London. And so I worked for an even bigger market research agency there. So I worked in the head office of a global research agency. And so that taught me about the nuances of different markets. It taught me how to manage these really large scale projects. It taught me about how to manage and influence stakeholders, which are skills that are invaluable in any type of role particularly in marketing and it also introduced me to qualitative research and ethnographic with which is you know something that i still use today and it's and it links back to understanding that psychology behind human behavior so i absolutely loved my stay there And then I relocated back to Australia and worked for a number of different agencies. But it's when I moved to a marketing consultancy to get up the market research department that I think reflecting back was a real turning point for me because it enabled me to zoom out from customer insights or market research particularly and try and work out how to connect market research to insights or how to draw insights from market research results and then use those insights to inform the strategy and then use the strategy to actually inform the creative execution solution. So it enabled me to just learn how to put all those pieces together, which was just so invaluable to me. Then I worked out that the part of the marketing ecosystem that I probably enjoyed the most was actually branding. And so I relocated back to Melbourne and headed up the research department for a branding consultancy. So that then exposed me to brand positioning, working on brand differentiation and really fine tuning my experience in branding overall. And so there was a pivotal moment I remember in that particular role where even though I was leading the market research department, I was given an opportunity to actually cut my teeth on brand planning on my own and led my own brand planning project. And it was this global chocolate brand that was relaunching a new bite-sized format into the Australian market and they thought that what they would be able to do is just roll out the same strategy that they had rolled out on a global perspective from a global perspective and in other global markets and when we dissected what that would actually mean and pulled apart what that would mean from a branding and from a communications perspective it became really obvious really quickly that it just wasn't going to work in the Australian market. So from a global perspective, the sort of approach that they had used was highly stylized and I guess a little bit sexy as well. It's quite sensual. I don't know if you've ever seen those ads where, you know, to try and advertise chocolate to a woman, they invariably have all this melted chocolate and the woman looks like she's always almost making love to the chocolate bars, which is just ludicrous because no woman I know eats chocolate that way. So trying to pull apart, well, what is the psychology behind eating chocolate? How do Australian consumers eat, buy and then consume chocolate? But then how do Australian women consume chocolate was really, really interesting. And so it enabled me to work out the strategy behind launching that European chocolate into Australian market, which was So much fun. And

Emma:

it wasn't the super sensual version. No. No, it wasn't at all.

Emily:

And then what did I do after that? So then I... had had market research experience. I had zoomed out and got the experience in the marketing consultancy. I'd cut my teeth on brand strategy and brand planning, which was really fun. And then I wanted to go solo after that. So I launched the first iteration of my solo career where I had a consultancy for nine years called Noesis Research. So whilst we offered market research, we also did brand planning and start planning as well and worked with just a select few customers. So I think I had about five clients over the space of nine years. But what that meant was that I developed really, really strong partnerships and really strong relationships with these clients. And so that enabled me to service them in a way that I wouldn't have been able to service if I worked for or different agencies, which, you know, relationships are still, and developing those relationships are still important. But what's important is, you know, churning through that business as well, a new business development. For me, the new business development side of it wasn't really that exciting, but building those long relationships and embedding myself within the business was really crucial for me. And it opened me up to... The way of working that I still work now, which is really anchored in business partnering. So regardless of, you know, which spectrum of the marketing umbrella I work at, whether it's back of house insight strategy and planning roles or front of house executional roles, for me, the way that I make it work is that I develop really, really strong relationships with key stakeholders, really understand what motivations behind their behaviour are and then make sure that I work towards their objectives. And so everything that I do ladders up to their objectives and the business objectives as well. So I did that for a while and that whilst I was running my consultancy, I had a bit of a happy accident where I was offered a client side contract with census. So I did that for about a year and a half. So I have three contracts in the space of 18 months and I was an insights manager there at census. And so that enabled me to work on and learn about, again, how to develop insights from market research or draw out the insights from market research, but then learn about how those insights are actually used within the business. So at Census, I worked primarily and very, very closely with the sales and marketing teams. So everything that I produced was fed into their strategies, which then opened me up to another contract at Buller. So completely different proposition to Census, obviously, which was the Google before Google. effectively. And there, the insights that I drew from the research programs that I managed was more about feeding into the innovation and product development at Buller. So Buller is a dairy company who work primarily in yogurt and actually more cream and ice cream effectively, but they do have yogurt brands as well in other markets. So two different contracts, but opened me up to, again, drawing out those insights and feeding them into business strategies. I then did a complete pivot to get all 2020 on you. I had always had this hankering to start up my own customer-facing business. So whilst I'd been running the consultancy for a while, I wanted a customer-facing business because I thought that I would be able to learn a lot from it, but it was just one of those bucket list things where I had always loved cooking and food and beverage is still very important to who I am today. But I wanted to open a business where I would be able to offer a different kind of service or put my own spin and my own take on the food and beverage service. So I opened up a cafe with my brother. So we found this little space and created this community for ourselves. So a community within a community. It was in North Fitzroy in Melbourne. It was on Brunswick Street. And the idea there was that we wanted a place where our customers could come home to. And so that's effectively what we did. And what that enabled me to learn was the importance of developing a brand that is authentic to the actual founders and makes sense to the founders, but a brand that resonates with the wider community as well. Creating a community where we could bring together these like-minded souls so that they could also find a place to to hang out with other people that were like them. It enabled me to learn about the importance of, again, really understanding who the customer is, what the motivations behind their behaviour are and trying to meet those expectations.

Emma:

And I think as well, it's that first-hand interaction that you

Emily:

get.

Emma:

Absolutely. is completely different actually in both retail and hospitality. I think it's that same, that one-to-one interaction that you actually have with your customer. It's fascinating.

Emily:

Oh, gosh, yeah. And I've said that so many times, Emma. If you really want to learn about the customer and if you really want to learn about marketing and if you really want to learn about customer experience, get a little bit of experience in a customer facing role and it will blow your mind because that's when you learn about what turns customers on and off, the experiences that they seek and how to service them in a way that not only satisfies them for that time that they're with you, but ensures that when they are primed to buy, you're the brand and you're the experience that comes to mind. So that's what keeps them coming back as well. It was a brilliant experience. We sold the business. So we built up the business over the course of two years and then sold it because even though I you know, we gained so much out of that whole experience. My gosh, being on your feet for all those hours every day is really hard. And it doesn't finish when you go home because that's when you do your bookkeeping and that's when you work on your marketing and that's when you brainstorm different ideas. You know, what was that monthly event going to look like next month and the month after that? And who are the partners that we need to consider partnering with? And what was our agency doing And how do they need to dial up their influencer strategy? And all of the stuff that makes things work is the work that you need to do after hours when you're supposed to be putting your feet up with a glass of wine in hand. So pretty tough work. But after that, I moved into the corporate world again. And I worked client side at Target Australia. And I started off by working as a customer insights manager, which was fantastic because it enabled me to put all of that experience and all of those insights at that I had gained over the years to partner up with different units within the business and ensure that the insights that I fed into them enabled us to really shape the brand and the business strategy and reshape it completely actually and shape the product strategy and shape the retail strategy and the experience that we wanted our customers to have within the business. So that was an amazing opportunity. for me to put all of that learning into practice again. And then following that, I actually moved into a senior marketing position within Target. So from a customer insights manager, I moved into a senior marketing role. And there I managed the team who led and executed on the omnichannel campaigns end to end. And even though they were really adept at running their campaigns and, you know, held a lot more experience than I was at campaigns, what I brought because of my experience in customer insights, my experience in research, my experience of having, you know, played a role at being an entrepreneur is that I was able to get them to understand the customer more, to reshape those campaigns, both brand and product campaigns to be customer led rather than be business led or product led. And, and and also added a lot more rigor into the measurement of those marketing campaigns to make sure that they were working. Are the levers that we're pulling on actually delivering the results that we're intending to deliver? Because marketing isn't just about driving the traffic, but effectively you want that traffic to convert. So are we doing the right things? And then following that, I I moved into a smaller class of brands where I moved into a CMO role, which again probably looks like an interesting step up. I was tasked with leading an incredible multidisciplinary team, so everything from insights to brand comms to creative studio, digital marketing, e-com, PR, events like the whole gamut, which was amazing. But even though it was a fairly well-oiled machine and effectively I was just coming in to conduct the various different teams, the rigor that I brought to that, those different teams met that, again, we were able to reshape the strategy of the three brands that were in our portfolio at that time and ensure that everything that we did led with customer first. So that enabled us to turn around two of those three brands, which was brilliant. The third brand, I didn't have a lot of say over, unfortunately, because the creative director was a little bit interesting, but an amazing opportunity there, which then led me to another role where I moved from a CMO role and an executional side of the marketing umbrella back into a back of house role as the group head of customer insights for Country Road Group. As you know, Country Road Group has five brands within the portfolio and they sit across various categories, primarily anchored in apparel, but also offer accessories and homeware as well. The reason why I took a step back from the executional side of marketing is because it offered me an opportunity to influence the executive leadership team, influence C-suite, and then influence the board as well. So it all, and it also offered me an opportunity to really fine tune the analytical experience, which I thought could use with a little bit of fine tuning. So look, that was an amazing experience as well. And again, the fact that I had worked in back of house and front of house marketing roles meant that I brought a different proposition to that role as well. And, and I could speak the language that I needed to speak with, not only with the executive leadership team, but also other members of the senior leadership team across the various marketing units as well. Which brings me to today, Emma. That was a very, very long-winded journey. And today I am actually working on a fractional basis. So I'm a fractional customer brand and experience leader, which effectively has meant that I've pulled all of the bits that I've loved the most on the journey, very long-winded journey that I've been on. So everything that I do always starts with customer and the consumer. So I offer myself as a customer leader. I love brand and everything to do with brand because if you don't get the brand right, everything else can fall apart as well. So I do brand planning and brand strategy work and experience as well because you can understand who your customer is. You can build beautiful brands. You can build wonderful products and services as well, depending on the industry sector that you're in. But If the experience falls flat, then all of that good work can completely fall apart. And so one of the other experiences that I gained at Country Road Group was in the area of customer experience as well. So I offer that to my clients as well. So the sort of clients that I've been working with are on a growth path and some of them are smaller businesses that don't really have the resources to have a customer insights team or to have a marketing leader, even though they do have smaller marketing teams. But I'm also working with larger businesses as well, who may have really large marketing teams, but don't quite understand how to develop and feed the insights into those marketing strategies. So working with a range of clients, which is working out quite beautifully. So I managed to do that from anywhere I am around the world, as long as Wi-Fi is working, which is wonderful.

Emma:

Yes. The thing I particularly love that a couple of things kept kind of going around in my mind, listening to that one, how

Emily:

I

Emma:

think I have a lot of conversations with people who are very concerned about doing something quote unquote different and how that might impact their career or how will that look on my CV type of thought process. And what I loved about your journey there is that whilst all those things were very complimentary. I could also imagine someone saying that about, oh, well, what happens if I step out of insights into brands or what happens if I step away from market research and go in this slightly different direction? And I think what your experience shows is that the benefits that come from that and that each experience informs the next and the breadth of what you can actually kind of take on expands. And I think also, you You mentioned it there again, is it brings that sort of lens of what problems are we trying to solve? And it takes a bigger picture and not just getting so down in the nuance of, you know, how does the campaign look? Which, yes, that's important. But there's this whole overarching layer of are we driving revenue? Are we actually delivering what the customer wants? And I think that the type of journey that you've had kind of lends itself to that. I guess ultimately more strategic kind of bigger picture thinking. And the other thing that I really liked about it was it kept coming back to that. You used the word a couple of times, rigor, that your sort of market research background had given you and that focus on data to me because I'm English, obviously. Data. Absolutely. It sounds so

Emily:

weird

Emma:

saying data. I can't say it.

Emily:

It's all right. I keep alternating between the two because I lived in the UK for, oh, I don't know why I keep calling it the UK. It makes me sound so cosmopolitan. Because I lived in London for almost four years yeah I used to use data all the time because I remember when I first started working there I would use data because that's what I had used here in Australia and people were looking at me going what's that data so now I just I just keep moving between one and the other so data and data depending on who I'm speaking with so yes data yeah

Emma:

I'd imagine that as you say that rigor and that kind of focus um taking everything back to to data um yeah think historically one of the criticisms that has been leveled at marketing is is sometimes a lack of some of that that rigor and i would imagine that you know going back to that psychology background that marketing research background that just had you in very good stead to have that kind of process oriented mindset and and approach so really interesting absolutely yeah you can absolutely see how it all fits together i love it

Emily:

of course of course and it's just also just how that curiosity as well to understand the why rather than accepting everything that's happening at face value. So why are consumers actually choosing one product over another? Why is that campaign working and a different campaign not working as well? Just that why, that curiosity. And I think that is something that customer insights practitioners all possess, that level of curiosity to understand why things are happening, why some things work better than others, is what propels us to do what we do. And that is, I think, what makes Good marketers, great as well. That ongoing curiosity. Because marketing isn't set and forget. You don't just write the strategy, execute it, and then it's done. You have to keep pushing at it. You have to keep working at it. You have to keep testing and learning. You have to keep tweaking as you go and experimenting and tweaking as you go. So I think that is what makes that connection just so great, I think.

Emma:

Not always a particularly popular question. question why though is it right no why why are we doing this because we've always done it that way exactly but why uh don't ask me why just do it exactly interesting again you mentioned a couple of times customer insights and it is a a I was going to say a phrase, not a phrase, two words, a collection of two words that gets used a lot, gets banded around a lot. I think it's one of those things that a lot of people say. What does it actually mean in its truest form? And I think also, what does it not mean? Yeah,

Emily:

absolutely. Look, because I've worked, I've come to to the marketing umbrella from a market research from market research I had I think I've always taken for granted that everyone knew what and insight actually was. And it wasn't until I moved client side that I realized that that word just gets banded around so many different teams. And it means so many different things to different people within the business. And then it means so many different things across different businesses as well. So every insights team that I've actually walked into has been set up in a completely different way and they produce completely different work. So I think that working out what it isn't is probably the best place to start. Market research results are results. They feed into insights, but they're not actually insights per se. They are results. And data analysis is really important because we try and work out what the relationships are between different variables. But the results that you arrive at when you complete your data analysis aren't actually insights. They're just results. The insights, particularly particularly from a customer perspective, are those hidden truths, those motivations behind the reason why we've arrived at the conclusion or the results that we have actually produced. So it's those hidden truths behind the results. And the way that I often explain it is by using an example from years ago when I was cutting my teeth in brand planning for that branding consultancy. So there was that chocolate brand that I mentioned earlier on. The way that we worked out how we could either reposition the brand, which we didn't end up repositioning, but we completely changed the brand platform for the launch into the Australian market, is that we needed to conduct some quite rigorous market research just to try and understand who the Australian customer was. We knew she was a woman, but to really try and understand who the customer was, how she behaved, what were those triggers for her purchasing the chocolate, how did she actually consume the chocolate? What were the usage occasions? What were those needs that needed to be met? Which brands was she consuming? Why was she choosing one brand over another? What was the format? Was it block? Was it bite size? Was it something else? Did she drink it instead of eating it? You know, we needed to understand all of those things and that produced the amazing results. And so the research agency that we worked with was brilliant at really identifying identifying who the customer was and the relationship that that the customer had with chocolate but it was when we were actually watching the focus groups with the client that I that I worked with that the insight actually became quite clear so Whilst these women were recounting the chocolate confessions, and what I mean by that is that they would talk about, you know, when they consumed chocolate. I tend to consume it, you know, there's usually this 3 p.m. slump where I'll make myself a coffee and reach for a chocolate bar. Or at nighttime, once the kids have all gone to bed, I'll have a glass of wine and reach for a box of chocolates and just treat myself at the end of the day. So as they were going through and recounting all of those stories, there were these little hilarious stories that kept coming out which only women, I think, would get. And it was things like, well, I tend to purchase... fruit and nut chocolate because I know that my partner hates fruit and nut chocolate. And that's a way for me to guarantee that he won't eat it. So I get to eat all of the chocolate on my own. Or I tend to hide my chocolate in the frozen veggie bag and I stuff the frozen veggie bag at the you know, the back of the freezer so that the kids don't ever find my chocolate because otherwise they just eat through all of the chocolate in the house. So that's how I can guarantee that I have my after dinner chocolate all to myself. Like there were just these hilarious little stories. And as we saw, we just sat there and watched them tell these stories. We were like, this is really interesting because as each woman told the story, the other women in the group would invariably just nod and smile and snicker and everything. And we were like, okay. So whilst the behavior is changing and the needs to be met may be slightly nuanced and the triggers behind the consumption, you know, are wide ranging, but they're generally shared. The one thing that was absolutely shared across all of these completely different women was that knowing smile and that each woman had as the other woman recounted her chocolate confession. And that's when we drew out the insight. And the insight was that only women understand the relationship that other women have with chocolate. And that completely changed the whole campaign for us. It completely changed the platform. And it meant that the campaign became this opportunity to share those chocolate confessions as well and share the relationship that women have with chocolate. And it was a bloody fun exercise, but it's the way that I explain the difference between the results, which were great and enabled us to really, really tweak the actual format and tweak the packaging and even tweak the space on shelf. But it was that insight that actually completely changed how we were going to talk to our intended audience. So that is what insights is.

Emma:

Yeah, I'd imagine a lot of businesses, I shouldn't say a lot, I'd imagine some businesses would just take the results and run with that. Oh, this is great. We've got so much data. We know exactly what people are doing. We know who our customer is. off we go and would have missed the the the nuance of of what was actually happening and the probably emotional connection that that insight would provide that would drive a completely different response than than just the data and the results itself it's really interesting example and even as you're telling the story like i'm sitting here with the knowing smile on my face because i could like i could imagine that that happening and and the responses yeah completely different to oh yeah you know that the packaging looks nice or you know there's a nice advert or it's that yeah emotional connection that you've actually managed to to get to or behavioral connection actually probably more more correctly so interesting

Emily:

exactly exactly and that's why I think it makes it really important when you look at a business that democrat democratizes insights across the business because they think that well as long as the whole business has access to the data and it has access to dashboards, for example, across a whole range of different parts of the customer lifecycle, then anyone can draw their own insights. But it's not true. It's because you need to be a skilled practitioner to take those results and then add a whole load of other things attributes and factors into it. You know, what's happening at a market perspective? What are the market dynamics that are actually influencing the way that consumers or customers behave? What are the macro trends? What are those cultural shifts that are actually influencing behaviour? What is happening from a competitive landscape? How are other competitive brands or retailers in that case behaving and what impact is that having on our particular consumer or customer segment. So there are so many factors that actually influence the why. And if you don't actually have the skills to pick all of that apart, and if you don't have the skills to zoom out and really understand and pull away the why, you're never going to arrive at those insights.

Emma:

No, so interesting.

Emily:

And that's why, you know, democratise the data all you like, but you still need... skilled and experienced customer insights practitioners to to to draw those insights which can then be fed into the business strategy the brand strategy the retail strategy the product strategy the experience strategy whatever the strategy is but that's why it's crucial to to have real insights to feed into those

Emma:

yeah yeah absolutely final question emily it's always the final question i know it comes around quick doesn't it you're like are we there already that is what do you know now that you wish you knew then

Emily:

look I think I think I'm happy with the fact that the reason why I've remained open to so many of the opportunities that have have either come my way accidentally or I have sought out more more purposely is because I've always remained curious. So I'm glad that I've always remained curious and to really understand the why and to leave myself open to those opportunities. So I'd say that that is something that I have always known and I would always take into any of my future roles as well. And it's something that I've always shared with my mentees as well, remain curious and remain open. But if there's one thing that I would change, it would be to ensure that I had followed the leader, not just followed the brand and not just followed the actual job itself. And by job, I mean the actual responsibilities or accountabilities of that particular role. because it's incredible the difference that a good leader makes. Not only can you learn a lot from that leader from a hard skills perspective, you know, actually learn how to do your job better, but you also learn from a soft skills perspective because you can shadow their behaviour and learn how to be a better leader from someone who's already done that and achieved that. But what I have learnt and I continue to be taught this lesson is that a good leader can be your advocate and that advocacy can actually open up so many more opportunities. A poor leader who will not be your advocate can actually block you from a lot of opportunities. And so you may be doing your work to the best of your ability, not only meeting but also exceeding your KPIs. You may have incredible, strong relationships across the whole business. You may be influencing the right leaders, the executive leadership team, C-suite, presenting right up to the board and doing your job at the best, best level you can. But if you don't have a leader who will actually back you and open up those other opportunities and open up those doors for you, it just won't work. It won't. So follow the leader would be my recommendation.

Emma:

It's a great piece of advice and it's so interesting because I think it's really... undervalued like so few people that I speak to in my coaching role now and in my previous recruitment roles so few people would would list that as as one of the things that was most important to them and I agree with you I think it's a huge I think it's a huge miss because the impact that that can have in in multiple ways and to your point there about essentially having someone to model being able to to kind of model that behavior I also think think different contexts but I think that is actually one of the problems maybe the wrong word with working from home is that you you lose a lot of that and I think those just the observation of someone you know overhearing a conversation seeing how they approach a certain situation I just think you can learn so so much from that assuming that person is good at what they're doing obviously absolutely but I think it's hugely undervalued yeah

Emily:

It is, it is. And, you know, I mean... I'm sure that as a coach, you will continue to have those work from home debates with a lot of the people that you coach. And, you know, you can't open up LinkedIn without reading another work from home argument or debate, which is kind of ludicrous. And I get the importance of having that flexibility. Absolutely. I mean, as I said earlier on, you know, one of the things that I love about my current fractional role is that I can actually work from anywhere in the world, which is wonderful. So I understand the importance of flexibility particularly for different, I guess, different types of team members as well. You know, it's very important for mums and dad and just parents overall. I think different

Emma:

life stages, it's going to have a different impact. For

Emily:

sure. But it's also important to actually be in the room physically, to be able to listen to those conversations taking place, as you just mentioned, Emma, and then provide you with that opportunity to shadow and mirror that behaviour as well because it's one of the crucial ways that we continue to learn and develop and you just can't do that remotely

Emma:

I'm

Emily:

happy to be proven otherwise but I haven't seen it I

Emma:

think it's one of those things where like so many things actually I think the pendulum needed to swing but I think it has swung too far the other way and I think we've

Emily:

lost

Emma:

again as with a lot of things we've lost the nuance and we've lost the it just becomes a about, you know, the length of your commute or something like that, as opposed to what are actually the benefits of being there face to face? What's the benefit of

Emily:

human

Emma:

connection and, you know, the community that you can actually build with your work colleagues and what you learn

Emily:

and

Emma:

all of these, all of these things, I think, same as you, I work from home, I work for myself. It's very easy for me to say, but I do feel that we've gone too far the other way. I think there's a middle

Emily:

ground. I think so. And then you lose as well, just that opportunity to develop those strong relationships as well. So much harder. And that, camaraderie that actually comes with belonging to a team because that's how you end up developing that trust as well with other people and if you're all working remotely and everyone's too intent on protecting their turf then you're not going to work effectively and the whole team isn't going to work effectively so I agree I think we've swung possibly a little bit too too far the other the other side yeah thank you hopefully we'll reach a happy medium yeah let's hope so he's hoping

Emma:

Thank you so much, Emily. I really appreciate you taking the time. And yeah, just so, so interesting. And as I said earlier, I think it's lovely to hear someone's journey that's multifaceted and not just this kind of, you know, very kind of single track approach. It's lovely to hear that your point around kind of curiosity and how that's led you in different directions. So it's been awesome. Thank you. Wonderful. Thank you so much. Before you go, I've got a quick favour to ask. If you enjoyed this episode or something in it resonated with you, I'd love it if you could leave a quick review or rating on Apple Podcasts. It's one of the best ways to help more people find the show and I love to hear what's landing with you. Just scroll down in the app, tap a star rating and if you've got 30 seconds, leave a few words too. Thanks again for listening. I really appreciate it.

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Emma Graham

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