Best Buy has hired Lisa Valentino as president of its advertising arm Best Buy Ads—a move that signals how retailers are increasingly looking to hire execs with strong relationships with advertisers to steer their retail media businesses.

Valentino had been executive vice president of client and addressable sales and solutions at Disney since April 2019, leading the media giant’s streaming ad sales and adtech development. Prior to Disney, Valentino served as chief revenue officer for industry and agency at publisher Condé Nast for nearly five years, and as senior vp of multimedia partnerships at ESPN for over nine years.

At Best Buy, she will oversee retail media sales, product development, and reporting for Best Buy Ads. Valentino fills the role as leader of Best Buy’s ad business that has been open since last year when Keith Bryan, a longtime Best Buy exec who launched the ad business in 2010, stepped down from the role. Bryan cofounded a retail media consultancy called Colosseum Strategy last year.

Valentino’s hire is indicative of a larger trend in retail media. As retailers grow their advertising ambitions, they’re hiring execs with backgrounds in traditional media like Valentino. For example, Amazon hired former NBCUniversal ad exec Krishan Bhatia in April to lead Prime Video’s ad business.

Expanding the electronic retailer’s ad business

Retail media is a surging sector, with eMarketer estimating that ad spending will reach $140 billion globally this year. Econsultancy pegs the number of retail media networks at 216 globally.

After launching its initial ad business in 2010, Best Buy rebranded its ad business to be called Best Buy Ads in January 2022. In March 2023, the electronics retailer rolled out a self-serve advertising platform called My Ads that gives advertisers real-time information about their campaigns.

Best Buy Ads took another step forward in April, combining its ad inventory with that of tech publisher CNET, which allows advertisers to buy across Best Buy’s ad properties and CNET’s editorial coverage.

Berta de Pablos-Barbier is choosing bling, joining jewelry manufacturer and retailer Pandora as its new chief marketing officer (CMO).

She succeeds Mary Carmen Gasco-Buisson, who is returning to Unilever, where she worked prior to sitting in the top marketer seat at Pandora. Gasco-Buisson is rejoining to take on the role of executive (CEO) at Unilever Prestige, the CPG’s luxury beauty arm.

De Pablos-Barbier brings over three decades of executive experience with global luxury and consumer goods brands, most recently serving as president and CEO of LVMH’s champagne brands including Moët & Chandon, Dom Perignon, and Mercier.

Before that, she was chief growth officer at Mars Wrigley and CMO at Lacoste. De Pablos-Barbier also gained jewelry industry experience from a stint as vp of marketing and communications at Kering-owned jeweler Boucheron.

Pandora’s growth journey

Pandora began implementing its “Phoenix” growth strategy in 2021 to help it expand beyond the bracelets and charms it had long become associated with.

The initiative focuses on four pillars: investing in brand perception; incorporating consumer insights into its product design; personalizing customer experience; and investing in its core markets.

Business of Fashion reported that the increased use of lab-grown diamonds represented a key component of this plan. Its investments in product and brand are already paying off with the company posting over $4 billion in revenues in 2023, up 8% year-over-year.

The Copenhagen, Denmark-based business said it now sells its jewelry through 6,700 points of sale in more than 100 countries, including over 2,600 concept stores.

“Pandora stands out as an iconic global brand on an impressive growth journey with sustainability at the forefront,” de Pablos-Barbier said in a statement. “The brand is undergoing an incredible transformation, and I can’t wait to join the talented team and skilled craftsmen to help elevate Pandora even further.”

Gasco-Buisson joined Pandora in October 2022 as CMO and executive vp of global business units after serving as worldwide brand leader and profit-and-loss owner for Axe/Lynx at Unilever.

On her new role, she wrote in a LinkedIn post: “Unilever Prestige is a portfolio of 10 beautiful brands across skin, hair, and color cosmetics, built over the last 10 years by [predecessor] Vasiliki Petrou—a leader I know and respect enormously.”

Strength and cardio interval training workout provider Barry’s added some strength to its C-suite with the hiring of Jackie Lamping as chief marketing officer.

At Barry’s, Lamping will develop and drive the company’s overall global marketing strategy, overseeing digital marketing efforts and in-studio community marketing initiatives. The company said the goal is for her to optimize the full life cycle of a Barry’s client.

The CMO will report to Barry’s co-CEOs, Joey Gonzalez and Jonathan (JJ) Gantt, and be based in Miami. She is a longtime client of the company, having completed more than 1,600 of its classes.

“Not only does Jackie bring a wealth of experience to this role, but she also has an invaluable perspective as a Barry’s client and a passion for our community, mission, and values,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “We look forward to the impact Jackie will make in shaping our marketing efforts and driving the customer lifecycle forward.”

Lamping brings experience from both Fortune 500 companies and high-growth startups, and she is the founder and general partner at Ava Partners, which she launched in October 2021.

She is also a member of the CMO Council.

“Like many other clients, I originally came to Barry’s for the cardio and strength workout, but I found myself coming back for the social, mental, and emotional health benefits,” Lamping said. “The community at Barry’s is so welcoming and infused with motivational energy, and I am thrilled to be stepping into this role where I can help build a tailored marketing approach that reaches new audiences wherever they may be in their fitness journey.”

Barry’s debuted its original high-energy cardio and strength interval training workout in Los Angeles in 1998, and it has since expanded into fuel bars, retail offerings, and over 88 studios in 14 countries.

Eminent CMO Linda Boff‘s departure from General Electric in April made news for two reasons. First, it marked the end of a tenure that included GE shedding its appliance brands and then splitting into three industrial companies. Second, though Boff could arguably have written her ticket to any marketing suite in corporate America, she decided to join an ad agency instead.

In June, Boff became CEO of Said Differently, a shop that’s upended the traditional agency model by eschewing a large, full-time staff in favor of a “global talent network” of designers, analysts, and digital strategists.

Crossing over to the agency side has given Boff the opportunity to look at marketing and advertising from a dual perspective, recognizing the places where both CMOs and agencies frequently fall short. In conversation with ADWEEK’s chief brand and community officer Jenny Rooney at the Brandweek summit in Phoenix, Ariz., Boff shared an informed perspective on how brands and agencies should adjust their thinking to create smoother relationships—and better work.

Agencies get the clients they deserve

Having earned her stripes at Citigroup before moving to GE in 2003, Boff has sat through many a pitch meeting—and watched agencies make the same mistakes over and over. “Agencies get the clients they deserve,” she said. “What I mean by that is, if you as an agency are showing up to sell work and to win work, and you’re not there to figure out a brand’s needs, it’s not the formula for a great relationship.”

Take the CMO blinders off

Some of the most valuable experience a marketer can get lays outside of the marketing department. At GE, “I spent most of my time with other people in the C-suite,” Boff said. “The ability to talk to the CFO, talk to the head of IR [investor relations], to the chief people officer and the CEO was an important part of my journey.”

During the years of work required to section the corporation into three publicly traded brands (GE Aerospace, GE HealthCare and energy company GE Vernova), Boff was able to play her role because she understood the roles of others. “I don’t think I could have been successful if I had the marketing blinders on,” she said.

Put the right people in the right jobs

One of the problems with how traditional agencies match creatives with brands, Boff said, is taking a one-size-fits-all approach. At Said Differently, by drawing from a pool of thousands of creative specialists, “we take a look at any business, any problem, any challenge, and we cast the right team of people to work on that,” she said.

The team selected for one client won’t be repeated for another. According to Boff, agencies should remember that “no two clients are alike; no two problems are alike.”

Quit pretending you know everything

“No agency, no matter how good they are, walks in the same shoes as the client,” Boff said. A big mistake she’s seen creative shops making—especially those with a long history and a lengthy list of brand clients—is assuming that they know everything. They don’t. “The role of the agency as a partner is to understand the business problem or to hear the business problem, and then to take that fresh lens and apply it,” she said.

Shut up and listen

When brands meet with agencies, Boff said, the conversation is all too often transactional, especially on the creative side. “The advice that I give our team all the time is: You have two ears and one mouth—listen hard,” she said.

While it’s natural that a seasoned agency will come into a meeting and immediately begin showing off their past work, what it really needs to do is clam up. The successful agency, she said, will practice the fine art of “listening hard versus selling hard.”

Green Goblin and Spider-Man. The Montagues and the Capulets. The CEO and their top marketer.

Peaceful coexistence might seem like a pipe dream, but at least there’s a viable path forward for C-suite execs. Speaking at ADWEEK’s annual Brandweek conference in Phoenix, Ariz. on Tuesday, Nespresso’s North America CEO Alfonso Gonzalez Loeschen and vp of U.S. marketing Jessica Padula broke down the challenges they faced in making their relationship thrive—and how they overcame them.

Complicating the dynamic is Loeschen’s deep experience as a top marketer himself: He was Nespresso’s global CMO before stepping into its top spot in North America four years ago.

Before Padula started, she and Loeschen had to level-set on what the expectations of the job would be, Loeschen said. This was pivotal in starting the relationship, as Loeschen was able to lay out the hard and soft skills he valued most in a marketing leader.

“At that point in time, Jess was viewing the role in a way where it was more marketing-focused and marketing-oriented only,” Loeschen said.

He emphasized that since Padula would be sitting on the board of Nespresso North America, she’d have broader influence across the entire organization. She would, for instance, need to sway other colleagues in the C-suite, he said. The job also demanded the need to recognize when and how to be a right hand to the sales unit, Padula added.

Padula had to branch out within the Nespresso organization. For instance, no one had ever walked her, line-by-line, through Nespresso’s full profit and loss statement, she said, even though she was familiar with the marketing team’s P&L. Padula recalled going to the CFO and asking for someone to take her through the whole thing. 

If a marketer thinks of themselves as the only person who’s in charge of the brand, that’s going to be an issue from day one.

Jessica Padula, vp of U.S. marketing, Nespresso

“It’s not because I’m ever going to own it, but I need to be able to talk to [the CFO] about how he thinks,” she said. The need for curiosity and willingness to learn from colleagues become more relevant the higher someone ascends in an organization, she said. 

Meanwhile, Padula also needed Loeschen’s assurance that he would trust her enough to leave her alone enough so she could do her job.

“Can you let go enough to trust me to do this job now that I’m in that seat? But also, can I trust that I can bring you ideas and thoughts and have you engage with me?” she said.

As a former CMO, that aspect was harder for Loeschen, who said he had to make a “conscientious decision,” once he became a CEO, to walk away from a lot of marketing responsibilities. “Being an ex-CMO, the biggest pitfall is that I still want to be a marketer,” he said, adding: “But you need to take a step back.”  

Padula also needed to let go. As a younger marketer, she focused mostly on social and digital media, but now that she was working with the Nespresso brass, she had to realize that multiple people at the corporation have a say in how the brand is represented. 

“If a marketer thinks of themselves as the only person who’s in charge of the brand, that’s going to be an issue from day one,” she said. 

She understood that she would not be in every discussion where the Nespresso brand was represented, and had to trust that Loeschen would also make sure the brand would always be “thoughtfully considered.”

As marketers grow in their career, it’s important to have the counsel of the top executives beyond their main discipline. 

“It’s kind of lonely at the top,” Padula said. “And you don’t have a lot of marketers to share ideas with. Your team is relying on you to set that vision for the marketing strategy. And yet, I can go to my CEO, as long as you build that working relationship.”

Paramount Global began its second phase of workforce reductions Tuesday, saying that 90% of its layoffs will be completed by the end of the day, according to The Hollywood Reporter.

Phase one of the entertainment and media conglomerate’s initiative to slash 15% of its U.S. workforce, which took place last month, resulted in the closure of its Paramount Television Studios division, with all current PTVS and development projects moving to CBS Studios. Several PTVS staffers were impacted, including longtime president Nicole Clemens.

Paramount Global did not specify which parts of the company would be impacted, but the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers indicated that CBS News was hard hit, saying in a statement shared by THR, “IBEW members have been producing CBS broadcasts since before the invention of television, and these layoffs are a hard pill to swallow.”

A third wave of layoffs is expected before the end of September.

Co-CEOs George Cheeks, Chris McCarthy, and Brian Robbins wrote in a memo to staffers, obtained by THR, “Like the entire media industry, we are working to accelerate streaming profitability, while at the same time adjusting to the evolving landscape in our traditional businesses. In order to set Paramount up for continued success, we are taking these actions, and after today, 90% of these reductions will be complete.”

Paramount Global agreed to be acquired by Skydance Media in July, and the $8 billion transaction is expected to close in 2025.

The “go-shop” window enabling Paramount Global to seek other third-party suitors expired in late August.

While the company reported a profit for its direct-to-consumer service for the first time in its second-quarter earnings release in August, its top-line, TV, and film revenues were all down compared with the same period in 2023.

Jenny Rooney has been promoted to the newly created role of chief brand and community officer at ADWEEK.

Rooney joined ADWEEK as chief experience officer in August 2022 from marketing consultancy Black Glass, where she served as managing director and co-founded membership-only CMO advisory platform CMO House.

CMOs are a common theme in her career. Before Black Glass, Rooney spent 10 years with Forbes as assistant managing editor, communities director, and chair of its CMO Network.

Her two decades-plus of covering the advertising, marketing and media industry also include editorial roles at Ad Age, Business 2.0, Chief Executive, and Sales & Marketing Management.

In her new role, Rooney will be responsible for driving ADWEEK’s brand and business growth across audience, community, and experiences, leading the brand’s overall positioning and spearheading initiatives, including the expansion of Marketing Vanguard and other communities and networks, continuing to serve as an editorial contributor, and overseeing partnerships with organizations such as associations, business schools, nonprofits and research firms.

ADWEEK CEO Will Lee said in a statement, “Jenny Rooney has been at the forefront of the marketing industry for more than two decades, reporting on and shaping trends and insights, as well as convening executives at the highest levels.” He added that in her new role, she’ll be “driving business growth across every dimension in the ADWEEK continuum—audience, community, experience—and help us unlock new revenue streams, as well as magnifying our position as the most essential and vibrant media property in this industry, and beyond.”

And Rooney said in a statement, “I’m thrilled to be moving into a role that will help propel ADWEEK forward as the de facto resource for anyone in this incredibly exciting and dynamic industry. I deeply believe in ADWEEK’s history, legacy, credibility, and license to be and do more for the people at the center of the advertising, marketing, and media world. The incredible ADWEEK team is committed to delivering an exceptional product and experience for our audiences, and I’m eager to work with my colleagues to deepen our relationships in this industry, build on our accomplishments, and take ADWEEK to the next level.”

John Donahoe’s bumpy run as president and CEO of footwear and athletic apparel colossus Nike will reach its end on Oct. 13, with the company announcing Thursday that his retirement makes way for a familiar face.

Elliott Hill, who retired from the post of president of consumer and marketplace in 2020, will succeed Donahoe on Oct. 14, with the latter staying on as an advisor through Jan. 31 to help smooth the transition.

Hill joined Nike as an intern in 1988, working his way across 19 different roles in Europe and North America. He had been leading all commercial and marketing operations for Nike and Jordan Brand before his retirement.

When Donahue took the helm at Nike in January 2020, after nearly three years as president and CEO of cloud-based platform ServiceNow, one of his moves was emphasizing limited-edition sneakers, which caused the company to lose market share to competitors such as Adidas and New Balance, according to reporting from the Wall Street Journal.

But it was the philosophies Donahue brought from his seven-plus-year tenure as president and CEO of ecommerce giant eBay that ended up rocking the boat at Nike, according to previous ADWEEK reporting.

Nike cut partnerships with major retail outlets including DSW, Foot Locker, and Macy’s to focus on the brand’s own ecommerce channels. But as the pandemic-fueled boom in ecommerce began to fizzle out and customers returned to shopping in brick-and-mortar stores, the strategy proved unsound, per the Journal’s report.

Reshuffles in Nike’s marketing division

Former Nike marketers, as well as current and past agency partners, told ADWEEK’s Brittaney Kiefer and Rebecca Stewart in July that Nike invested heavily in performance marketing and programmatic ads to drive traffic to Nike.com and its apps in its attempt to have digital sales make up one-half of its 2022 revenue, at the expense of brand marketing.

Then-senior brand director Massimo Giunco, who left the company after 22 years in June 2022, lamented the changes that resulted in Nike’s culture.

Giunco told Kiefer and Stewart, “There was this shift in attention to any digital player while neglecting the great things we were doing. Nike became a machine to produce content to feed this digital ecosystem. It was all resources that took away from brand-building. The main objective was to drive people to Nike.com, not to resonate with or inspire people to play sport.”

Nike’s fourth-quarter and fiscal-year earnings report in June came with some more bad news, as the company reported declines of 2% in total revenue (to $12.6 billion), 7% in its direct business, and 10% in digital, causing its share price to drop on the news and resulting in a cost-cutting initiative that has claimed roughly 740 jobs to date this year.

The company would not specify how many marketing roles were impacted, but in early August, Kiefer and Stewart were able to confirm several changes as part of a major strategy shift, which began with Nicole Hubbard Graham’s return to Nike last November as chief marketing officer.

After combining its brand design and storytelling units in 2020, they are now two distinct teams again, marking the company’s renewed focus on telling the story of its brand.

Enrico Balleri, a 20-year Nike veteran who was shifted to a regional role in Milan, Italy, in 2021, returned to corporate headquarters in Beaverton, Ore., as vice president and creative director of global brand voice, with the mandate of elevating storytelling across the brand.

And another longtime Nike executive and 2020 retiree, Tom Peddle, returned to the fold in July as vp of marketplace partners, seeking to rekindle the retail relationships that were severed.

Nothing can really prepare you for motherhood or a career in corporate.

But what if being a mother helped you thrive as a manager? And what if your career instilled the soft skills to motivate your children?

For the president of entertainment and brand ad agency Mocean, Erica Coates, the demanding nature of both roles has equipped her with the skillset to become a leader in the ad agency that saw a 250% increase in its consumer brand business since 2019. Coates’ promotion from chief operating officer to president in 2023 was part of a major leadership shift in 2023 after the company experienced rapid business growth. Before Mocean, Coates worked in production within the entertainment landscape.

Coates sat down with ADWEEK to discuss what a day in the life of a C-suite exec and working mom looks like, the importance of working for a company that respects home life and why there is no such thing as a perfect work-life balance.

Her words have been edited for length and clarity.

A day in the life

I usually start my day at about 6 AM and I start with a spiritual devotional. That’s what keeps me grounded and fuels my inner being. At about 6:15 or 6:20, I check emails to see if any clients on the East Coast need my attention on anything or if there are any overnight developments. Then I switch into mom mode and make breakfast and lunch for my daughter. While she’s eating breakfast, I’ll drink my coffee and I’ll ask her what she’s anticipating for her day, and we talk through that. Then I drop her off at school; depending on what my schedule looks like that day, it’s probably between 8 and 9 AM. I try to get a workout in. And then I start my official workday between 9 or 9:30.

I start that by reading the trades—ADWEEK, Campaign, Little Black Book, Variety, Fast Company—not just in advertising, but business and tech and innovation as well. My official meetings start at about 10 AM. I try to save the lunch hour for business development and networking. In the afternoon, I review scopes from the team pitch proposals, provide feedback, and then answer a few more calls. Take a few more meetings. But I aim to create blocks of 15 to 30 minutes throughout the day so that I can just focus. You need to collect your thoughts, and it’s hard to do when you’re going from meeting to meeting or call to call.

Then I officially sign off between 6 and 6:30 to have dinner with my family. That’s important to me, especially [because] my daughter’s still in elementary school, so this is a young, formative time for her. Then I help her with her homework—I also share this duty with my husband.

I sign back on after my daughter goes to bed, usually about 8:30 or 9PM, to respond to any immediate needs that come in after six. I’ll draft presentations. That’s usually the quiet time when I’m uninterrupted, and I can build presentations or draft contracts, answer emails, etc. I will use this Outlook feature that has the ‘Time Send’ feature, which is excellent because I want to model balance; I want that for my team. If they get an email from me at 9:30 or 10 PM, they may feel inclined to answer it. But I can set that [email] to hit their inbox at 9 AM the next morning, so that I’m not interrupting their evening. I usually go to bed at about 11 unless there’s a major pitch or other deadline that needs my attention. But that’s usually my day.

I’m most effective when I’m organized. I’ll start to feel burnout. So being organized is very important. When I start slipping in that area, I realize that I’m not being as effective as I can be.

Family and career: it’s complicated

I feel overwhelmed when I start to compare. [For example] Should I be spending more time at home? Like that stay-at-home mom who makes fresh bread for her family, and they never eat out? Or that working mom who never misses a game?

If I let myself indulge in those kinds of thoughts, it can be crippling. Truth be told, the only obstacle is in my head. They say, ‘Comparison is the thief of joy,’ and it truly is. You have to prioritize what you need in your career and find a role that aligns with that; only you can determine what’s non-negotiable for your family and set those boundaries.

I could have been a mom in my 20s, but I intentionally chose to wait until both [my husband and my] careers were more established. We had more money. We were a little bit more settled. But I did contemplate that.

Women who were 10 or 15 years older, who I was witnessing in my 20s when I was entering the workplace—I saw sacrifice. And [I thought]—maybe I do need to take a break and find something else or take a break from the workforce [to start a family]. But then I saw that those same women also had a tremendously difficult time reentering the workforce.

I’ve benefited from the sacrifices of the generations before [me]. I was fortunate to work in some environments where there was an expectation that a healthy employee is a person who can contribute in a positive way in all aspects of their life. As an agency, you are your people. You’re not able to retain people because you’ve got high burnout. And dads need time off too. They want to spend time with their family. They need that flexibility as well.

Motherhood, the school of hard knocks

I had several interviews with the agency [Mocean]. And one of my last interviews was with the owner, Craig Murray. He saw that I had a wedding ring on and he said, ”Oh, do you have a family?” At first, I kind of hesitated to even answer the question because I’d had some not-so-positive experiences with that same question. And I said [to myself], if it’s going to be a problem, I’d rather know now. So, I shared with him (at the time I had a four-year-old daughter), and he said, “Well, she needs you, so we need to make sure we get you support so that you can be there for her when she needs you. And you can do the stellar job for us that I know you can.” I nearly cried in his office.

Organizations may sometimes shy away from being direct about what’s needed from a particular role. The employee will sense that and won’t understand where the flexibility may lie. And so, everybody’s holding their cards up, not out of deceit but from not understanding what’s expected or what’s desired. When you have these really transparent conversations, when you figure out giving Friday off actually isn’t helpful and [they] would rather start at noon and work until 8 PM—we [the company] can accommodate that. We’ll let the team know and make sure that we have you covered so clients don’t see a drop-off in service or things of that nature.

[The biggest misconception about working moms is] that women will underperform men, especially moms. I became the best delegator and multitasker out of necessity after becoming a mom, but also from having high standards and being competitive. I want to win that pitch. I want to get that new business. It also drove me to try to find paths toward excellence that allowed me to satisfy all my roles.

You can’t pick your kid’s personality and [in the workplace] you often can’t either, especially if you inherit a team. You have to figure out what motivates them. You know how to set boundaries for them. And hopefully, you don’t have to get to performance issues. But if you have a performance issue, help them course-correct.

Being a 30-something mom versus a 20-something mom helped prepare me because I had that experience of managing other people. Building patience. Having empathy for other new moms in the workplace—hopefully, my experience will help them carve their path. My path can’t be their path, but hopefully [it] gives them some insights into how to architect a life for themselves.

[There is] no such thing as perfect work-life balance. You’ll always have moments when you’re sacrificing one thing for another, but the art is making sure that you define a life that is fulfilling to you and meets your obligations. For me, it’s feeling as if I’ve given my all to attain the strategic goals of Mocean as its president, which includes happy clients and repeat clients, and that my daughter and husband know that they are my priorities.

The beating heart of the creative services industry is people.

Human capital is the greatest asset of any creative service company. However, as an industry, we are seeing average agency turnover rates that hover around 30%. Staff costs represent the single largest expense area on an agency P&L, so staffing and team-building represent a significant opportunity for agencies. Here are a few considerations that are paramount when building teams and structuring talent operations.

Prioritize fit over talent

Every company wants the best talent. But it’s important to understand the difference between finding great talent and finding the right talent who is also the right fit.

Fit is about talent that can seamlessly integrate into your organization. These individuals should share your values, complement other individuals in the building and, most importantly, be aligned with the opportunity and expectations in the role.

Fit is more important than talent. Good fits tend to stay longer, are happier, act as guardians of the culture, and self-regulate to ensure that standards are kept high. The best way to find great fits is to create a process for hiring. The process should focus on who conducts the interviews, how many rounds of interviews, and what sort of questions are you looking to get answered from each interview.

Investing the time into this process will repeatedly provide a return on investment.

Faster hiring can lead to suboptimal outcomes

So often the mandate to the talent team is to try to fill open roles as quickly as possible. Without speaking in absolutes, hiring faster leads to higher turnover versus sticking to your established process.

There are many reasons a company may feel pressure to fill an open role quickly; a new client win, organically growing business, investing in a new discipline. Businesses of all sizes have been in this position before. When you hire fast, the standards that would normally be in place tend to buckle a bit.

Filling the role becomes more important than filling the role with the right person. Hiring the wrong person creates a potential domino effect. It can create different situations that take up time and money and risks alienating others on the team. Sticking to the formula you’ve created is going to pay for itself in spades over the long run.

Be wary of promoting the wrong skill sets

In our industry, promotions are often based on individual success. Being great at what you do is very important. But, being a skilled writer, art director, strategist, account person, etc., does not necessarily translate into being a great manager. The world is full of examples of talented individuals who have struggled to translate those skills into being great managers.

Wayne Gretzky is the greatest hockey player of all time, but he was not a very good head coach. Phil Jackson was an NBA role player who averaged 6.7 points per game as a player but is arguably one of the greatest coaches of all time. High individual achievers can struggle to understand why others around them can’t just do what they do. This leads to frustration and employee dissatisfaction.

Sometimes those who may be good or even very good are better able to translate the experiences from having had a slightly different path into being an incredible mentor or coach. As an industry, too much focus has been placed on the outcome of the work, and not enough time or resources have been put into prepping talent with the requisite skills to be great leaders.

Consider internal growth versus looking externally

I have no data to support this assertion, but it represents a belief of mine: Companies that have low turnover, great culture, and are continuously growing are companies that prioritize promoting from within (especially with roles and opportunities that are more senior).

Promoting from within sends so many positive signals to your team. It shows that hard work will be rewarded, acknowledges that the people in the building are the ones who have helped build and grow a company, and it also represents continuity within the organization. As a manager, I’ve prioritized trying to build teams from the bottom up. Finding great talent, working with them, investing in them, and getting them to a place where they are ready to be promoted. When they are promoted, hiring someone underneath them to allow for management experience and keeps a high standard in place.

Talent is one of the biggest differentiators for how businesses grow. Finding the right fits, putting those people in the right roles, and creating an atmosphere that will allow them to thrive. If you can do that, you’ll be multiple steps ahead of the competition and well-positioned to grow your business. You’ll save money by not having to rehire and retrain, and that saved money can be invested in other areas that will continue to accelerate your growth.