Her Story
About Brooke
I've been in my field for about 6 years, and I'm currently a senior manager for a packaging design company called Contempo Card, where I've been for about 2 years. My career started in New York right after I graduated with my MBA from St. Bonaventure University, where I was working for a marketing agency. I was originally a sociology major in college, minoring in marketing, and one of my college professors named Dr. Paul Beretta inspired me to go full-time into marketing and graduate with my MBA. What really drew me to this field was being able to connect the consumer mindset with business practices and tactics, bridging that gap that not a lot of people are able to connect. One of my most notable professional achievements is successfully 360ing industries - I used to work in the healthcare industry doing pharmaceutical marketing, and now I'm in the fashion and jewelry industry. Being able to completely pivot my career from healthcare to a more exciting field in fashion was something I definitely wanted to do, and now that I find myself doing it successfully, I'm very proud of that. In my current role, my main responsibilities involve bridging the gap between the internal and external team, where I'm the face of my company for any external clients. I take any projects they may have for us and communicate to my team. Being a strong communicator and very organized with all these projects that come across my desk is very important, and I help see those projects from concept to completion. The biggest challenge in this field is managing rush timelines while making sure we are executing everything with quality and consistency, ensuring my internal team is moving quickly but also working efficiently.
Her Interview
Ten minutes with Brooke
01What do you attribute your success to?
I think a lot of it has to do with my experience and learning from what I like from my experience. I took the things that I liked from healthcare, which was being client-facing and doing things and being the face of the company, and brought those attributes into the fashion industry. Being an account manager can be very cut and paste, but I make sure that I'm customizing it to the industry that I'm in and being aware of how to do so. That has really contributed to my success.
02What’s the best career advice you’ve ever received?
Some of the best career advice that I've received is to essentially think of yourself in your customer's shoes. How would you deal with these situations? How would you want someone to be communicating to you? How would you want to be updated on the project? Putting yourself in their shoes really allows you to have a full perspective on any project that you might be working on, and also allows you to give a personal touch to the customer experience that you're providing.
03What advice would you give to young women entering your industry?
I would say don't be afraid to have your personality show along with your work, because that's just as important as having a strong work ethic - making sure that you're likable as well. So never be afraid to put your personal touch on things. Especially as women in the workforce, I think a lot of us are a little bit timid to raise our voices in a room or something like that, so I think it's really important to not be afraid to do so.
04What are the biggest challenges or opportunities in your field right now?
I think for this specific field, rush timelines are always a challenge. The biggest challenge is making sure that we are executing everything with quality, but also consistency. So making sure that my internal team is moving quickly, but also still working efficiently is probably the biggest challenge.
05What values are most important to you in your work and personal life?
I think respect is a huge value - making sure you have respect for not only yourself, but the people around you. Empathy is a huge value of mine, where you're able to understand those around you and also yourself. Having empathy for your team members that may have a large workload and you're adding to their workload, I think that's very important in both work and personal life. And then also just leading with kindness. Kindness is a huge value of mine, where you want to make sure that you're not being too aggressive. At the end of the day, everyone wants to lead with kindness, I would hope so. Just making sure that you're doing so is really important.
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