Data, emotion, and design: Walmart’s private brand playbook

Holly: Welcome back, everybody, to Brand Enabled. I’m so happy to be introducing our amazing guest today. Someone I consider a friend, a compatriot, a co-conspirator in the exciting world of brands – Courtney Carlson. Hooray!

Courtney is the Senior Vice President of Private Brands and General Merchandise at Walmart. Just a little brand in case, you know, you haven’t heard of Walmart, look it up. So fabulous to have you! Courtney and I actually met each other through the Brand 50, which is a wonderful community that we both joined. Actually, Courtney was at Under Armour at the time. So Courtney’s been at Under Armour, at Target, now at Walmart, and that’s just scratching the surface of all of her experience and everything she’s done in her career.

Welcome, Courtney, we’re thrilled to have you.

Courtney: Thank you.

Holly: And as always, you’ve got your co-hosts Holly Osborne and Gabe Cohen. Thanks so much for joining us today for what I think will be a very, very fascinating conversation.

So Courtney, first of all, I’ve got to ask you about this latest role that you’re in. Gabe, in fact, is going to have a bunch of questions for you because he has dabbled a lot in private label and inside the world of private brands. But first, I am very curious if you would talk us through what the transition was like in your mind, taking off the marketing hat… now, you can never fully take it off, you probably just sort of slid it to the back, and you put on an additional hat focused on private brands, general merchandise… what’s it been like making that transition and how has your mindset had to shift day to day?

Courtney: Sure. Well, first off, thanks for having me. And it’s so great to be back with you, Holly, and Gabe and I have gotten to know each other as well.

You know, as you said, I think it has been a transition certainly, but it is also a role that feels really familiar to me from my time in retail. So, as you noted, I was at Under Armour prior to this, and then Target, and have spent almost 25 years in retail. And I think what I’ve learned is, you know, when you work at really customer-led companies, which all three are, when they are loving their brands, and what they offer to their customers, the ability for me to transition through merchandising roles and marketing roles has felt really centralizing on, “What am I solving for our customer? What do we want to do to really compel and propel the brand?” And while a marketer, I was creating marketing comms and content. As a merchant, I’m creating product and experiences. But both things are measurable back to the business – How are we growing customers? How are we growing our brand equity? And are we growing our revenue and our market share?

And so for me, it’s been an opportunity to really probably use different impacts that I can make, different solutions that we can create. But a lot of the thinking, because I’ve been privileged to be at such customer-led and brand-led companies, the transition has felt familiar and really an exciting way to just use more tools in a toolkit.

Holly: That familiarity that you mentioned, did it help you because you had been at companies that you mentioned had such a strong brand identity? And Target certainly is really a high performer in terms of its own private label and private brands. I’m sure that experience really kind of built up your toolkit as you walked into this role.

Courtney: It did. It did. And I think starting my career there, you know, to be honest, I didn’t… I was a marketing and finance major by education, I really honestly did not know what I was going to do with that. But I knew that I wasn’t going to be solely in finance. It just didn’t have as much like dynamic kind of customer and ethos of emotion and motivation for me. But I love the aspects of finance and being able to really analytically prove that you’ve made a difference.

So being able to combine those two things… you know, I honestly stumbled into an internship at Target. I went to the University of Minnesota. They came to campus. I mean, Minneapolis is Target land, it’s hard to almost shop anywhere else than Target. So I had really grown up as a shopper of the brand, a guest of the brand. And I loved the internship. I loved the level of entrepreneurship and independence that you felt, even just so young in your career. I mean, I was 20, 21 at the time, and you owned a P&L.

The first role I had there was cosmetics. I was an inventory analyst for brands like Revlon and Maybelline. And I remember thinking, “I just spent $2 million this week, and they let me do it.” So just the level of, right off the bat, independence that you got. And of course you had training and you had a mentor.

But I fell in love with being so close to the customer, so close to the data. And again, in a retail environment, you own that 1P data. And so you can see trends immediately. And I really enjoyed that. And I think then stepping into a brand like Target – the master brand is so strong. The brand inside of the building, how we created love and allegiance for Target, and what we were all doing together to be really purposeful, and solve an opportunity for our customers – I think immediately satisfied my marketing heart also.

I think that ability, through my career now, to lead, whether it’s a merchant designing private brands or a marketer working on private brands and/or the master brand, that element of brand building has been really a familiar tool throughout my career.

Holly: Well, something you mentioned, and I want to let Gabe jump in because he’s got really probably juicier questions about private brands, but one thing I’m really curious about is your love for the data and being able to demonstrate impact back to the business.

I want to take a quick detour and peek into any moments of frustration or difficulty you’ve had where you were doing something for the brand that wasn’t as measurable. And that’s the interesting sort of part of playing with brand – much of what we can do for brands, especially at retail, is measurable, sometimes we’re doing things for brands that aren’t as measurable. How did you reconcile those moments as someone who was really committed to data? Or did you always find a way to push through and say, “I know we can measure this somehow”?

Courtney: Yeah. Yeah, it’s a great question. So, I think, committed to data, but knowing that data doesn’t always measure everything. And frankly, it’s hard for data to measure emotion accurately. And, to me, loving a brand is so emotional that I could easily, as a simple concept in common sense, accept that not everything is going to be measurable. And over what time horizon can it be measurable? And so what I would say is, absolutely.

The places of frustration that maybe came in is when I think about internal partners that maybe I needed to prove something to, or I needed in a financial investment or a resource investment in order to make a change. And I knew I wasn’t going to be able to prove it with as much concrete ability as I knew that individual would require. Most often, those are my finance partners. Our finance partners wanting to really understand, what’s the ROI on the business?

As all modern marketers, we know that even our best to have like great marketing… even our best measurements are also flawed. So when you think about last touch attribution, when you’re working on MMM, it can over credit or under credit any marketing vehicles. So often what I do then is just lean on common sense and even social. Social being such a huge way customers are inspired today, the way customers shop. We’ve even found in our analytics that we don’t think it actually gives social as much credit perhaps as we think it deserves in how it changes perceptions and how it drives commerce and revenue. And so that’s where you have to kind of weigh on a common sense to say, but every customer’s in it.

When I’m then working with my partners, a lot of times it can be coming back and telling simple stories. Or, if I’m working, for example, with my finance partners, “Put yourself in your shoes. How are you influenced? Or tell me a story about a time were you bought something, you hadn’t well researched it, but you were inspired by it because maybe it was an influencer that you trusted… that you bought it.”

So I think it’s both a factor of being able to prove it with analytics, but also leverage personal human stories and kind of common sense logic as well.

Holly: That’s such a beautiful reminder to people.

Gabriel: It’s such an interesting example. There’s a CMO of a large health system who as part of their sponsorship strategy wanted to do the shirt sponsor of an MLS team. And the CFO just really wasn’t on board. He then went and had a trip in Europe with his kids and went to a European football game. And it completely changed his perception. So sometimes it’s like a mix of you need to have a bit of patience and you need to be a little bit lucky, but it really connects to your point around trying to put them in their shoes.

Courtney: Have them remember that they’re customers too, right? And put them in the customer shoes.

Gabriel: Well, and that’s one things that the new CMO of Audi, when he came in… what he saw was that you could get a company car if you were an executive at Audi, but you signed a form, and then you got the car. He changed it so that any new employee, when they went to do a car, they had to go through the buying process. They had to go through the journey of going through a dealer to do that forcing function of having to go through the customer journey.

Holly: Yeah, there’s something that… Courtney, did you ever measure… that’s one of the things that I loved about the Brand Asset Valuator, a tool that I used at Landor but it’s kind of WPP wide, and one of the four pillars is esteem. And I loved that one because that measured sort of the energy and vibrancy of a brand. Like it’s brand pulsing right now. So how do you kind of think about that at Walmart?

Courtney: Yeah, so we absolutely look at that, and I think across the brands that I’ve been at. So BAV has been one that we’ve used. I think we’re also, I mean, we’re looking at like social sentiment. What are we seeing? What are we trending? What do we have for social mentions? And I think about that because that’s where conversation is. And it’s not just one dimension for us to look at, so we can look at a slice of consumers and what are they really saying? And so we can look at that in social listening.

We then have brand tracker scores that we track. Typically every six months, but sometimes we’re doing that even more frequently to understand consideration, to understand recommendation, to understand questions like is it a brand that I feel knows me. So something that we often… and is it a brand that I would recommend. So looking at net promoter score could be another way to frame some of those.

So a lot of dimensions of the way that we’re looking at the brand in order to determine how much is it resonating with our customers. And doing that can be both saying it back to us through more formal surveys, but then also what are they maybe engaging with and saying in their actual daily activity.

Holly: Yeah, and in store you get all kinds of… it’s that moment of truth, either whether it’s an online store or in an actual physical store. A lot of times that data, like you said, doesn’t end up predicting that behavior at that moment of truth, right? So how do you learn now, particularly in this role focused on private brands and merchandise – what are you doing to sort of be in that moment with them?

Courtney: Well, I think a couple of things are, it’s really leveraging all the P’s, right? Definitely like, how are we placing the product? How are we talking about the product through marketing? How are we pricing it? And then, I mean, what are we offering and does it have the highest relevance to our customers? So we’re an omnivore retailer, but we know that shopping happens, it’s happening digitally in our site and in our app, it’s happening in our stores, and it can be happening through social.

And, you know, I think we’re measuring and looking at every single touchpoint that we have with our customer and how are we showing up, and what are the diagnostics that can tell us if we’re doing a good job or not.

So, you know, easily and digital in our apps, we are measuring what is our total traffic, then what is our traffic as we navigate even to private brand products. Are we showing up in search results in the page? And, you know, we have our own SEO on our site or in our app. So what are our product pages saying about our products? The reviews and ratings, how we describe it, how good are the pictures. It gets that detailed for us that my team in Private Brands is really focused on how good are our product pages so that we’re earning the SEO searches, but that we can also be right away working to conversion. So we’re looking at traffic, then we’re looking at conversion. That can tell us how well we’re doing, and how inspired the customer feels about the product, and how informed they’re getting about the product.

Now, when you go to store environment, we don’t have a lot of that data, right? But we can be measuring sales per square foot and understanding the turns, obviously. And then in social, you know, it can be similar metrics to what I described as digital, but we then have an opportunity to even have, you know, our influencers talking about our private brand products.

What we’ve done quite a bit, and this is when I was in marketing here too, is we’ll invite influencers to engage with our product. We hosted… we actually took over a home in the Northwest Arkansas area, entirely outfitted it with Walmart product. Everything from the forks, to the planters, to the mirrors, to the rugs, to the grill in the backyard, to the bikes we put in the backyard. And we invited 30 influencers to come to Northwest Arkansas, be in the house, see what the house looked like. We invited them over to our corporate headquarters to see where we’re at in product development. Really immerse them both in the Walmart brand but got their feedback, and they walked away so impressed with the quality and the design that we were building. So I think that’s just another way that we try to engage with that community, both to learn from them and they can learn from us. In addition to the more traditional campaigns that you would do in social.

Gabriel: So I’d love us to get into this topic in a more macro way around the evolution of private label brands because it’s not a topic we’ve covered yet in our conversations. I’d love you to talk about how you feel the category has evolved, especially as you contrast kind of when you came in, and Target, and kind of where private label is today, and where Walmart is as part of that strategy. Because it feels like there’s a lot more sophistication.

In the early days it was, “Great. Let’s create our own brand. Let’s create the same colors as what the leading national brand is. And we’re just going to price it 30% cheaper.” I’ve always associated it more traditionally, where it started, with grocery. Archer Farms and Target, obviously you’ve got Trader Joe’s which is almost 100% private label, or a Kirkland at a Costco. But it feels like it’s expanded in categories and it’s become a lot more sophisticated.

Give us your perspective of how that’s evolved through your career journey.

Courtney: Yeah, well, I think at its simplest form, there’s probably two models. You’re either a branded house or a house of brands. A Trader Joe’s, I would say, is a branded house. It’s on the front.

Gabriel: And it’s very rare.

Courtney: Yeah, it’s very rare. But in some ways, I think as sophisticated, in my opinion, that private brands are becoming, it can be hard sometimes to even determine a private brand from a brand. And that’s our goal.

And I think when I was at Target, so this was the early 2000s, the work that we were doing there was truly building brands. Having a very… What’s the brand’s positioning? What’s the brand’s personality? What’s the brand’s belief system? Who’s the customer? Give a positioning two by two matrix to make sure we’re pulling our brands apart enough.

So you mentioned two food brands, Archer Farms was more of the culinary line, Market Pantry was more of the national brand equivalent. And I think, as you remarked, a lot of private brands is so almost synonymous with the food and consumable space that at times they get passed over too quickly, being thought of as a national brand equivalent.

The spaces I lead today are the general merchandise, which there are national brands, of course, but I can’t think of a brand that we’re really building here that we’re saying is a national brand equivalent. I think our goal is that we’re creating brands that our customers love. You know, Target had that mindset.

I think when I was at Under Armour – a brand that was the exact same DNA that was driving the company – it’s we’re here to make athletes perform better and we’re here to make athletes great. And we do that through high performance technology fabrics. And we’re not going to rest, like we’re here about athletes. Anyone can wear us, but we’re about high performing athletes. So if you’re designing to that high performing athlete, everyone else is going to be satisfied, right?

I think that same type of allegiance is what we bring here, and what I will bring here, and continue to lead the team on. You know, who are these brands for? And what are we solving for them? What’s the brand personality and the positioning? And then hire and recruit a great team.

So I think that’s the other difference, a lot of these brands are now being created by internal design teams, internal product development teams. As opposed to, maybe in the past it would have been created by a supplier who would have had some of that talent or that team. Now, they can be talented, but they don’t work to the same allegiance as you do when you’re inside of a Walmart, creating a brand that’s only yours.

I think the other distinction of why it continues to be a strong strategic playbook is it becomes a “why I come to Walmart”, not “while I’m at Walmart”. The more that we do a great job and our customers fall in love with our brand, they’ll return to us because they know that they can only get the Mainstays brand at Walmart, for example, the Hyper Tough brand at Walmart, the On brand at Walmart. So those product categories. And Better Goods, Better Goods we just launched in grocery.

We have so many plans in our playbook right now. It’s so exciting and you know each day I’m seeing progress and inventiveness that the team is having. The future is just really bright.

Gabriel: What about then the influence, the connection with the Walmart brand overall? Like how much of that plays a role when you’re developing or managing one of the private brands?

Courtney: I would say… so because we’ve decided that we are a branded house as opposed to maybe even… like our sister brand, Sam’s Club, they have one, their Member’s Mark. And for them, that’s the right playbook – that they are one brand in totality, and they choose the best items, the best products so that the Member’s Mark is standing for those key items. We then at Walmart, we don’t tether it to the master brand, but what I will say, that always guides us, is we know that we serve America.

We know that 90% of America lives within 10 miles of a Walmart. Even, increasingly, close to five. And with the Walmart in your pocket, we can be to a lot of communities, even up to 85 to 90% of communities, within 30 minutes for a delivery at your door. So our speed of delivery, the proximity of our stores, we serve everyone.

What we want to make sure though is, as we’re building those brands, that we’re thoughtful of the price point hierarchy of where they need to sit for where we see the most customer demand. We also design for what solutions we know that our customers are enthusiasts about. But again, because we serve a lot of America, we know that we have so many opportunities.

And then also aesthetically. We also think about how do we want to make sure that we’re capitalizing on trending aesthetics. And then maybe some foundational aesthetics, some core basics that will always carry our customer through. So maybe thinking in common principles like “good, better, best”, and core “must have fashion” brands and thinking about how they sit within that.

Looking at the portfolio and making sure that we have the right balance for where we’re seeing the spend happen in the marketplace and also at Walmart, are probably the ways that we right-size the portfolio more than thinking about exactly how it tethers back to the total brand. Because our total brand is very inclusive on that.

Gabriel: It feels like, from a like a brand management learning standpoint… you know, people want to go and work for some big brands… it sounds like often that going to work for a private label brand is like the ultimate brand management experience because you get to create.

Courtney: Totally.

Gabriel: And I imagine you get to influence a lot of even the product development and innovation.

Courtney: Absolutely. Well, my team does all the product development and innovation, right? So today my team holds… we have a brand management function, so think traditional CPG. I have brand managers that are managing those brands, they’re doing the positioning, they’re doing our values, the personality, they’re saying what materials are in and out of the brand – we work really closely with our marketing and creative partners. The creative team is then doing that brand identity. We’re developing that. And then I have a product development team, I have a quality team, I have a packaging team, and we’re working them back with marketing to bring all of the brands to market.

So I couldn’t agree more. I’ve loved my time in retail. One of the biggest changes for me was when I went to Under Armour, because I wanted to make a change in my playbook and say, “Okay, what if I worked for a brand? What will that feel like?” Versus working for Target, that was a very strong brand, but I was working on multiple brands, national and private at the time. But when I went to Under Armour, I remember feeling like, “Oh, I only have one brand to work with.” That’s way different, right? When you’re in a retailer, depending again on economic changes, depending on aesthetic changes, depending on quality changes, you have a whole tool of brands that then you can put into your playbook differently.

I think what’s at Under Armour though is we had a lot of technologies that we could do that with, right? So that to me is a little bit of the different tilt – that in a brand, you might have different technologies or different formulations and that’s where, you’re all in one brand, but that becomes your toolkit to then be responsive to the customer.

Gabriel: So technology from a product ingredient standpoint at Under Armour.

Courtney: That’s right. That’s right.

Gabriel: So maybe talk about that. Because I think, when we were having our prep call, what seemed amazing at the time was it felt almost unfathomable that a new entrant could come in, in such a competitive category, against Nike, Adidas and others. And not only come in and compete, but actually compete at a premium price point.

Talk about the Under Armour brand – maybe talk about the technology, the platform brands and your experience there.

Courtney: Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think I have so much respect for the brand and the founding spirit of it. I mean, it was born on a football field and it was born from a real customer problem. So, you know, our founder, Kevin was wearing basically, you know, tees… flannel tees underneath his football gear, and they didn’t breathe, they didn’t sweat well. And he went to an incredible amount of textile to find the right fabric. And he made a t-shirt, he sold it from his trunk, and it started to take off.

And I think from that… like whenever you start from a core insight, which he had, and whenever you have a relentless pursuit of performance and excellence, which he had, you’re going to hit a market, and you’re going to hit at a fan base and an enthusiast, and that’s what spreads a brand.

This is my opinion, but I think that there are spaces where people then… I mean, they want to be in what’s new and next, right? And so then there’s adoption and, “What’s this logo that people are wearing?”, and you’re going up against what everybody else has… but now here I am. And think about it even in the athletic space, you want your edge. So as even in the minds of an athlete, of like now there’s some athletes that are getting an edge, and then it spread.

Again, it comes down to you’ve got to have a good product. And at that time there wasn’t a ton of marketing, necessarily. But if you have a good product, you will get the right following. And then you build, and you do need to build for that growth. Then the marketing engine and the brand engine, and I think that ethos and that spirit.

I think I’ve had the privilege… in even Walmart being a very founder-led company, and the stories of Sam that still are told today, and the founding principles… you know, at Under Armour you walk the halls and Kevin’s leading the team and leading the company. And so you feel why we’re in the business every day. And I think that that again kept the growth and kept the energy for that team.

Holly: How do you do that on a day-to-day basis with your team? Especially if it’s a company that’s not fortunate enough to have their founder walking the halls. What can people do to take from that playbook and try to instill that attachment to purpose?

Courtney: Well, I think you’re right. And I think you don’t have to a founder. Target didn’t have their founders walk in the hall. I haven’t been at Walmart while Sam has walked the halls. When I look back across the three companies that have really been able to instill the bran… and I think another thing why that’s important is I think your brand has to start from the inside out. And the job of the brand is not only marketing’s to hold.

Every product has to live up to that brand principle. Every associate or employee or team member or teammate that you come across, they have to uphold that brand. And so I think a couple things that the brands have done is just the environment. How do you surround the team in an environment that feels like the brand?

At Under Armour we had a gym on campus. We had quotes on the wall that were really important things that Kevin has said over time. We have that at Walmart as well. At Walmart, some of the things that are really culturally enabled with us are, you know, we have pins. A lot of associates in our stores and at headquarters… I’ve taken my badge off now so that I don’t have it on camera… but we have pins that’ll decorate. That can be a pin you got at a meeting. It can be a pin that says you’re a superstar. It can be a pin that’s your local store. We have a whole wall in the building, that I have downstairs, littered with pins.

So there’s just ways that you bring in like cultural rituals and those surrounded the environment. I think another one is, what are those rituals? For Under Armour, as an athletic company, guess what we did on work trips? We went to the gym together. Whenever we had our big meetings, where we welcome our global associates, we always had a workout that we could do together.

That was kind of an adjustment for me to work out with my coworkers, but I came to love it. You didn’t have to be good. It didn’t have to be the best on the floor, but you are always working out. And that was a component of it. And why? You’re trying the gear too.

So I think that’s the last part of it – how are you walking like an associate? And you’re all equal associates every day. And, you know, for us, we really celebrate our associates here. We celebrate long-term associates. We have a number of company meetings each year that we celebrate our long tenured associates… whether that be our fleet drivers and our truck drivers, our associates in the store. It is an honor and they get to tell us then stories. So they are recalling their own experiences so that everyone is in a continual cycle of learning. And that also, I think, tells heritage stories of the brand.

The other thing that both Under Armour and Walmart had…and we didn’t have it at Target, but maybe they would… is we actually have a company cheer. So we open all of our meetings with a Walmart cheer. We did that at Under Armour too. And so there’s a sense of, I think, camaraderie that brings that together. And again, also ensures that the team’s really working together, and that you’re celebrating successes, and you’re getting ready to gear up together. No better way to start that than a cheer.

Holly: That’s powerful, are you going to do it for us?

Courtney: I’m not gonna do that for you. There is a squiggle.

Holly: I mean, we can do it with you.

Gabriel: We’ll do it with you.

Holly: Gabe, you can squiggle.

Gabriel: Teach us.

Courtney: All right, give me a W. Give me an A. Give me an L. Give me a squiggle. Give me an M. Give me an A. Give me an R. Give me a T. What’s that spell?

Holly: Courtney!

Courtney: Walmart! Well, whose Walmart is? It’s my Walmart. Who’s number one? The customer, always..

Holly: I’ve got a burning question and it’s about Amazon. I’m thinking about how much the purpose matters and how much this founder vision and this culture matters. And then you’ve got a competitor like Amazon. Where there… I mean, I haven’t looked at the numbers, but I have to argue that there is not a sense of love and loyalty. When we are shopping Amazon, we’re shopping for convenience. We’re shopping to, you know, bundle and get it at the door quickly.

How do you even look at them as a competitor? You’re such different companies. It’s a tale of two founders, honestly. Is it ever tempting… even from the highest levels, either your board or your shareholders, where they’re pushing to see that kind of volume, that kind of growth, but at the loss of what? At the loss of this beautiful ethos that you’re describing. So how do you kind of ever wrestle with that, or who wrestles with that at the company?

Courtney: Yeah, yeah. Well, I think you hit it. I think we are so people-led. We have so many associates that touch our customer every day in a really rich way of being in their community. And so I think we feel like we’re closer to the customer than anyone, and we take a lot of responsibility in that.

I think for us, our physical footprint is a huge advantage to being in those communities. But I also remarked to you that we can deliver in under 30 minutes to over 80% of the households in the U.S. because of our speed.

You know, I think the best way that you win, even though the world is an infinite game, is really focused on the customer first. So for us, I think, we would say we’re a people-led, tech-powered, omnichannel retailer that is here to help our customers save more money and live a better life. And those that save money and live better, it’s straight from Sam, as he received the Presidential Honor of Freedom. And we take that purpose – so rich and so much to heart – and it leads in everything we do.

Holly: How do you inspire your team to keep thinking in a fresh way? Because the brand has such a strong heritage, right? So it’s important, always, for that connection back to your history and all your evolution is so special, you don’t want to leave any of it behind. And yet you’re also pushing through to the future and contending with TikTok and, you know, just all of these new behaviors for brands. So how do you guys stay inspired and thinking fresh?

Courtney: One, giving them freedom to be in culture, to be really curious, and setting that expectation that they should be. And it even can come back to some of these rituals, right? I make sure as a leader, I’m making less statements, but asking more questions, in order to really compel that curiosity… P.S. because I’m curious.

But then also putting that in the team, so like, “You are all such high experts in what you do. And you do a job that no one else does.” Right? And fill in the blank. That can be my head of brand. That can be my head of product marketing. That might be my head of Walmart Plus membership. It can be my head of express marketing. It can be any of those, but they are the most expert person on that topic. And making sure that they feel the freedom and the accountability to do that. And then I’m asking more questions of them because I want them to teach me.

I think that’s also another ritual that keeps them, I hope, inspired because they’re looking at the market, and they’re looking at customers, they’re looking at culture of what’s happening. And plus, I think that the work is just fun. You know, when I think about what else we could be doing… and actually when I was at Under Armour, one of my teammates there, she made us all stickers and it says “Marketing is fun”, and we would just have that on our computers or tablets. And when you’re in one of those days… cause sometimes it’s hard, right? But you know, we always thought about like, we could be doing like really different jobs. Like marketing is fun. Making products and building brands, like that’s fun. And so I think the other thing is just keeping it light and keeping them inspired because they are doing work that really is making a big impact. You’re at a Fortune One company, it’s making a big impact, and it’s fun to work together.

Holly: That’s so neat. Well, in a company whose heart is in the right place, I think that’s a really beautiful thing. You see, you know, just in everyday people, the way that it touches their lives.

Gabriel: I wanted to build on a couple of these final questions related to you, and your leadership style, and what’s important to you. You just kind of give us a bit of a hint of that. Can you talk about how you have shaped yourself as a leader? Like who’s impacted you? What are some of your corporates when you talk about curiosity and asking questions? You know, open that up a bit more for us.

Courtney: Sure, I think my leadership style has been shaped… now in retrospect, of course, not knowing it was happening at the time… just through my family, you know, growing up. I think through some leaders that I worked for in my early career and those… some good, mostly all good. And some others where I said, “I don’t want to take on that trait”, right? And so I think when I look across all of those aspects, I think it’s put me in a place where I try to be a very humble leader.

I know I don’t know all the answers. And if I did, that would be so boring, I wouldn’t be learning. And so I really want to make sure that I lead with humility because it’s truthful and it’s authentic.

I want to make sure too, that I create an environment where people really truly do feel like they can be their best self. And what I mean by that is being able to set high expectations, but never do so at the expense of having it cost someone a personal risk. And I think that it has become far too common, when I think of kind of a COVID and a post-COVID work world, I think the notion of where work ends and stops has become really, really blurred. And so I want to make sure that my team always feels like they’re taking care of themselves and their families first. And they’re at their best here when they’re doing that.

The last component, I think, is just making sure that people feel like they know they’re making an impact. And it can be very small ways of thanking them in a meeting, but even being more specific. It doesn’t take a far time to be specific, to say, “Thank you. I learned this and this today, and I wouldn’t have known that without you.”

I think one other thing I learned from a leader, early in her career, and it’s just simple – always naming names and naming people. Letting people know you. I think, as my teams grow, letting people know I know their name is really, really important. And I think as all of us are leading bigger and bigger teams, addressing people by name, that goes so far as well. And I think that’s something that little things can make such a big difference.

So acknowledging what someone contributed, making sure they feel the freedom to be themselves while they’re also contributing, and making sure they feel valued, I think are the things that sit at the center of my leadership.

Gabriel: Love that.

Final question. You and Holly met at Brand 50. Talk about, as you’ve now gotten to where you are, the importance of those trusted relationships. Where do you make connections and learning? Are you part of communities, networks, groups? Talk about if that’s important to you, and where you get that.

Courtney: It is, it’s really important to me, although I’d say I don’t spend as much time on it as it brings me joy, if you will, because sometimes it just doesn’t feel like there’s enough hours in the day. But the World 50 Community, which was the Brand 50 Community Holly and I were in, I’m a part of and I keep that one very sacred. It is because there’s thinkers… and I was going to say like-minded thinkers… there are like-minded professions, but not always like-minded thinkers, and that’s what I enjoy. Meaning different areas of scope and responsibility, and I have really enjoyed that network, and plus the curriculum there really pushes you in places that you wouldn’t get in your normal day-to-day marketing discipline even.

They did a great job of drawing parallels to parallel industries, parallel… like one of my favorite kind of experiences, we’ve had screenwriters come in and talk or talent managers. So the talent manager for Janice Joplin came one time and spoke to us and I’m like, “You’re creating brands all over the place with these people” and goodness, like that was exciting to see.

I also really make an effort to keep in touch with leaders I’ve worked with in the past or teams that have reported to me in the past. Make those connections – it can be easy things, text check-ins, quick phone calls, LinkedIn comments, but be able to really be in touch there.

And then I also do non-profit work. So I’m on the board of the Boys and Girls Club locally. And again, there’s a wealth of really dynamic professionals that sit on that board that are also great thought partners. And I lead a few committees and it’s fun to like do other work that’s really advancing our children in our local communities. And so that also fills me up.

Gabriel: Courtney, thank you so much. It’s been a wonderful conversation.

Courtney: I’ve enjoyed it. Thank you guys.

Holly: Courtney, I wanna work for you now. You keep me in mind when you have your next…

Courtney: Always, always.

Holly: I just love how you describe your leadership ethos. That’s beautiful. Thank you so, so much.