Susan Hammes McBride

I attribute much of my success to lessons I learned early in life and to the people who reinforced them along the way. My mom taught me some of the principles I still live by today: “Do it right or don’t do it at all,” “Put your best foot forward,” and “Do unto others.” She taught me to work hard, treat everyone with respect, and have fun along the way.

Growing up in a big family also taught me how to collaborate, compromise, learn from others, and support the people around me. Playing lacrosse in high school and college reinforced many of those same lessons—the importance of teamwork, preparation, resilience, and working hard toward a shared goal.

Professionally, I’ve also been fortunate to learn from exceptional leaders. Nancy Smith, one of my leaders at American Express, taught me not to settle for the expected and to continually push for innovation. She also taught me to start with why a brand exists and make sure the marketing brings that purpose to life. Whether it’s a campaign, partnership, or sponsorship, there should be genuine value for everyone involved—the brand, the partner, and most importantly, the customer.

Ultimately, I think my success comes from a combination of working hard, staying curious, caring about the people around me, and continually asking how something can be made better.

The best career advice I’ve received is to “work like you don’t need the job.” To me, that doesn’t mean taking your work for granted. It means having the confidence to speak up, challenge conventional thinking, take smart risks, and advocate for what you believe is right rather than making decisions out of fear.

I’ve also learned how important it is to have both mentors and sponsors throughout your career. Mentors help you learn and grow; sponsors advocate for you and create opportunities, often when you’re not even in the room. I’ve benefited enormously from both, and it’s something I try to pay forward by supporting and advocating for others.

Find mentors, especially women whose careers and leadership styles you admire. Be curious, ask questions, and try a lot of different things early in your career. Don’t be afraid to move on from a company or role when you’ve stopped learning or growing, but when you find a place you love where you’re still being challenged, embrace it.

Most importantly, never stop learning. Marketing changes constantly from new technology, new platforms, new customer behaviors, and now AI are continually reshaping how we work. The people who stay curious, keep experimenting, and are willing to learn new things are the ones who continue to grow with the industry.

I think the biggest challenge, and opportunity, in marketing right now is making sure we don’t lose the human element as technology becomes more powerful. We have incredible tools, data, automation, and AI that allow us to understand customers, personalize experiences, and make better decisions. But somewhere along the way, I think we’ve started to confuse better technology with better marketing.

There has also been tremendous pressure to pursue growth at all costs—to optimize the next click, conversion, or quarter sometimes without asking what value we are actually creating for the customer. Great marketing should do more than generate revenue. It should give people a reason to care, build trust, create a relationship, and ultimately strengthen the brand.

The same is true inside organizations. Technology should make marketers and teams smarter and more effective, not replace the collaboration, creativity, empathy, and judgment that come from people working with people.

The opportunity is to use all of these incredible new capabilities while keeping people at the center—both the customers we serve and the people doing the work.

The values that matter most to me are passion, compassion, empathy, authenticity, and making a meaningful impact. I believe in bringing genuine enthusiasm to what I do while treating people with empathy and respect, whether I’m leading a team, collaborating with colleagues, or spending time with family and my community. Transparency is also important to me as I want to be genuine rather than performative and create an environment where people can be honest with one another. Ultimately, I’m most fulfilled when the work I’m doing makes a real difference, which is why I’m particularly drawn to organizations and causes with a meaningful mission.