Interview With A Marketer: VP, Global Marketing, The Coca-Cola Company
Have you ever wondered what skills the head of a marketing department looks for when hiring or where marketing leaders turn to for the latest industry trends?
Interview with a Marketer is a featured blog series brought you by Marketing Talent Inc. to provide current and prospective marketers with career insights from passionate marketing leaders. We ask them direct questions related to their career & personal life – giving you an inside perspective to the lives of successful marketing leaders.
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1. Have you always wanted to be a Marketer? Please tell me a little bit about your early career transitions and specific roles where you gained meaningful experience.
I always wanted an international career and I was very lucky to gain on the job experience at one of the best global marketing companies in the world. I actually started at Coca-Cola as an intern because I, like many people, had someone take a chance on me, and gave me that first break. The rest, as they say, is history.
I worked in the global team based in the USA for 5 years and then took my first role outside of the United States in Chile for 2 years. I then moved to Australia for 1 year and then France for 5 years. I returned to the USA in 2006.
2. As a global brand leader for one of the most widely recognized and iconic brands (on this earth), can you provide 3 leadership characteristics that you think have attributed to your success?
Collaboration, Curiosity & Courage! I believe in pushing decision making down into the organization, I believe in continuous collaboration, I believe we are never done learning and I believe in the courage of my convictions and will stand by them (probably to a fault sometimes!)
3. What marketing roles (new or existing) are you anticipating an increased demand for within the next couple of years?
I believe there will be increased demand for an evolved type of marketer, vs specific roles. I believe we are going to increasingly see Marketers who may be great specialists but who understand the horizontal nature of their work as much as the vertical nature. I think these will be marketers who will rise to the top. I think as we become more specialized we need to understand how to become more unified.
It took decades to perfect the job called Brand Manager and we are creating new roles and jobs in days not decades now. It makes it exciting and nimble and definitely iterative, we are learning as we go.
4. In your opinion, do you think marketing departments at tier one organizations value different skills and traits than smaller organizations?
This ties to the prior point. I think a company of our size, breadth and scale is privileged to have a breath of specialists and generalists. I think we need to look at people for what they know and what they know how to do. Certainly we need skills in gaming, music, social media, etc but our ability to be nimble, to work cross functionally, to bring people together, to be curious, to think holistically and to collaborate are harder to teach and make a world of difference.
5. If you had the chance to go back in time and visit the 21 year old Rebecca Messina, what advice would you give?
Do many horizontal roles – demonstrate your runway to touch the business from many angles. Learn everything you can from everyone you can. Differentiate yourself thru language, skill, or will. Burn no bridges – your next boss could be a current or past colleague, agency partner etc. Have fun!
Your Thoughts & Comments:
What did you find most surprising about Rebecca’s responses? Would you disagree with any of her perspectives?
Rebecca Messina: 40, started her career at The Coca-Cola Company in Atlanta in 1994 with the Worldwide Media Department before beginning her overseas career with the company, including marketing assignments in Chile, Australia and France. In February 2006, she was appointed to the newly created role of Global Director, The CC Way of Marketing and thus, transferred to Atlanta from Paris. This role has since expanded and now includes creating and advancing global marketing thought leadership with codified practices and methods and scalable knowledge, the development of the 3000+ global marketing associates through a global marketing curriculum, global agency management operations and the development and delivery of integrated marketing communication programs, and numerous cross functional initiatives.
