Sarah M. Manley

I've been a marketer since 1998, which means I've been doing this for 28 years now. I started out with a master's degree in communication, really looking to get into training and development, but my first role out of grad school was at a marketing agency on the account management side. I figured if I jumped in there, I could eventually move over into training and development if a role opened up. This was right before the dot-com boom, and I ended up switching organizations to get more project management skills on the tech side. After the boom and bust, I was tired of the whole quarterly metrics scramble, so I went to a private company that manufactured global playground equipment. Throughout my career, I've marketed products, I've marketed services in healthcare like what doctors and orthopedics bring to the table, and now for the last 13 years, I've marketed companies and culture. One of my proudest accomplishments was when I worked at Custom HBC from 2005 through 2009. When I started there, we were less than a million dollars in sales, and my title was marketing manager, but looking back, it was woefully inaccurate because I was the entire marketing department. I did everything a CMO does. We grew from $1 million in sales to over $9 million in sales in three years, and I launched over 500 new products from 2007 to 2008. That included sourcing them, selecting them, writing a 250-page catalog with all the descriptions, prepping them for photography, and handling all the approvals, colors, and options. I was so proud of that catalog I wanted to put it on my fridge, but 250 pages don't fit. I was also featured in the New York Times in 2012 in an article about marketing during the recession and how I was tightening my belt in troubled times. I've been in recruitment marketing now, starting with UnitedHealth Group where I worked for 7 years, then I was the first Director of Recruitment Marketing at FoundEver, and now I'm currently at Wells Fargo as VP in Recruitment Marketing and Media for just over 2 years. What I do today is work with various vendors to make sure the roles at Wells Fargo are visible and attractive to candidates, helping them through the beginning stages of discovering Wells Fargo and eventually getting to the point where they apply for a role. I work with vendors like Glassdoor, Indeed, job boards, and various agencies on different programs and initiatives to get our creative out there in the public's view. The theme of my career has really been about being a trailblazer and not being afraid to step out and try things, because what happens if you fail? Nothing really, as long as you stay employed. I've been laid off more than once, I feel like I have a five-timer's jacket with that, but it's about how you persevere, how you look at your story and identify the common themes and threads, and how you pivot and find what more you need to learn and what organization needs those skills.