Marketing & Communications Leader Series ep.2: Emma Hill

Welcome back to EMR's Marketing and Communications Leader Series, where we dive deep into the journeys of exceptional senior marketing and communication practitioners. Join us as we take a closer look as to how they got started in marketing and the strategies that led them to success in their industries. 

In this episode, EMR's MD Tom Brockton interviews Emma Hill, Group Brand and Marketing Director at Cardano. Tune in to hear more about Emma's career journey and insights.

What inspired you to pursue a career in marketing? 

That's a great question. And one I've been reflecting on since we agreed to have this conversation. I actually fell into marketing by accident, wanted to...work in TV production and actually realised that I could work in the sort of heady world of media and television, but earn potentially quite a good crust through the marketing route. So I found myself at FlexTech Television, which is now owned by I think Virgin Media, and worked on a sort of junior role, but getting stuck into absolutely everything across the full marketing mix. And that sort of ignited my love for marketing and I took things from there.

What would you say are the three most critical factors that you would personally put forward as a senior leader within wider marketing communications? 

That's a great question. I've sort of distilled it into three broad areas, but commerciality. So understanding the numbers, at the end of the day, we're here to make the company a success by delivering brilliant products and services for our clients and a brilliant client experience. So understanding that vision and being able to talk the sort of language of the boardroom at that commercial level. Creativity, you know, we are usually quite well placed as a function within the organisation to bring a bit of spark of creativity to...businesses that may really benefit, I guess, from slightly different sort of thinking. And then also communication skills. So whether that's with internal stakeholders or with customers and clients or through managing your team, managing agency and supplier relationships, you know, communication is a crucial sort of part of the role.  

What would you identify as some of the key challenges that you have faced now operating at this level?

In terms of changes in the economic outlook, you know, the economy breathes in and breathes out and marketing budgets and resource often follow suit. And, you know, you sometimes have to make quite tough decisions. So that's...parking perhaps a really exciting project that people have got behind, potentially motivating teams during a downturn. You want to keep people engaged and excited and that's your role as a leader to do that. So yeah, I think that's probably been one of the toughest things I've experienced a few times over the years. And then also, I suppose, managing multiple projects. You're usually lent on, particularly in sort of small medium enterprises, quite heavily and so being able to prioritise and work smartly under pressure, that can be quite tough as well. 

What skills or experiences do you feel that you've taken from your past experiences into this role?

You'll have seen it all over LinkedIn, various memes and things, it's kind of in your role. You know, learn or earn or ideally both. And that's something I guess I've lived by. And I think I've tried to take every opportunity that's been given to me, even if secretly I was thinking, I don't know if I can do this. But you know, just sort of throw yourself in, I think and just having the confidence to have a go is probably one of the most important things that I've taken from my career so far. 

What advice would you give to aspiring Heads of and Directors of Marketing or young professionals looking to advance their careers within wider marketing and communications? 

Yeah, I mean it builds on the last point really but just jump at every opportunity and maybe don't overthink it. I used to try and plan my career every step at the beginning and would worry about was this the most appropriate next move, did it make sense from a linear point of view. Careers aren't linear anymore, you know, there are things like squiggly careers etc, podcast and book. So I think don't overthink it. Don't try and second guess yourself and have more faith in yourself just to have a go and get started. And I think the other thing would be to make sure, I hate the word "network" because it sounds very formal and I think it's quite off-putting for some people, but it is about building key relationships with people who maybe have more experience than you or lateral experience to you and making sure you've got some safe sounding boards and voices in your kind of career world that you can turn to when you need to. 

Listen to the full interview above and follow EMR to hear the next episode in this series. 

If you missed the previous episode with Bee Patel, Global Director of Brand & Communications at AlphaSights listen here.