GS: Well, let's get in just a little background, so they do have context. Listen, you've got a long history of very strong brand companies. So Procter & Gamble, Samsung, right? What else was in that there?
MCM: Vertu.
GS: Yeah, exactly. Okay, good. And I'm just kind of curious, since your accent doesn't sound like you're from Miami, how did you get... I'm guessing...
MCM: I'm not, I'm Scottish.
GS: How did you get from there? Which I know. To Puerto Rico maybe to... I don't know, you give us any direct, I'm curious.
MCM: I'll keep this story short. I started in IT supply chain for five years. I see someone one out there, IT, and after five years I met a Puerto Rican general manager in beauty care in P&G. And she says, what are you doing in IT? You're either sales or marketing, I don't know. Marketing for you. So then I moved to-
GS: Wait, your husband stepped in and said, you need to be in a different field?
MCM: No, no, no. This is a general manager.
GS: Oh, a general — GM said, okay, okay, got it.
MCM: And I'm dating this Puerto Rican, I meet this other Puerto Rican. I'm like, I think my worlds are colliding here. And so after a couple of years in IT, working in Germany, working in the UK, I relocate to Switzerland and I start my journey in the marketing world and I worked in Olay for a couple of years and Olay was really important because it's a classic brand building school. Great. Fabulous. Thank you very much. Tick that box.
Then I moved into our prestige business, which had just acquired a bunch of brands and at that time, entrepreneurial, very little data, working with celebrities, stakeholders, fashion designers. And that opened up a world for me, which really plays on my superpower, which is instinctive marketing, leveraging the best of data, but being instinctive and managing all those complex stakeholders, being able to navigate the world of celebrities.
And guess what? Fast-forward, years later, I'm in beauty care again. And let me tell you, I was just with Charlotte Tilbury yesterday. I just with all these founders and it all co mes flooding back, all the things that we used to do in that P&G world.
So it was a long journey to get here, but let me tell you, everything that got me here was important. And I say that's really important for all the people that are thinking about their next moves. Not only have I worked in IT supply chain, I've been a brand manager, I've also ran innovation for Samsung and I also ran corporate strategy and transformation. So when I sit in a boardroom, I actually can talk with real experience about robotics in a DC right through to innovating and designing a product five years out. And I think that gives marketers a stronger voice. So do the best you can to acquire as much of that operational experience.
GS: A hundred percent agree. I have twin daughters who just started working and I've told them, I says, just try to be as competent in as many things as you can. Try to learn it all, have a career plan, but trust me, you will not have any idea how you got to where you did. It just is going to happen.
MCM: Oh, that's brilliant.
GS: Isn't that right?
MCM: Great advice.
GS: It's funny too, I've spent a lot of time in P&G, a lot of time working on P&G business with agencies where — best client I ever had. I love working with them. The experience is just unbelievable. And the relationships go on forever.
MCM: They do. They do. I see my P&G family here. [cheers from audience] So we can stay together and we, yeah...
GS: Okay.
MCM: We help each other.
GS: I think we're...
MCM: I get goosebumps. Gosh, I'm getting goosebumps.
GS: I don't know if the listeners can tell, but there's a rowdy crowd in the front. We might have to have removed by security here soon.