Latest / Leading By Example: Executives Making An Impact / Leading with Humanity: Jessica Jensen, Chief Marketing Officer, LinkedIn

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Leading with Humanity: Jessica Jensen, Chief Marketing Officer, LinkedIn · Leading By Example: Executives Making An Impact

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: There is a bit of a myth about the death
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: of the entry level job. In a world of AI,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: new roles and jobs will emerge, but who you know
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: and your network is going to be particularly important to
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: your career progress. If I am a twenty four year
• 0:18
  Speaker 1: old and I have a profile on LinkedIn, I am
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: sharing my experience and my learnings and what I'm building
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, and I have a network of people that
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: know me and will vouch for me that is authentic
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: and human and cannot be done by a robot.
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: AI is rapidly changing the way we work, but if
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: there's one thing that it cannot replace, it's the power
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: of human connection. Hi everyone, I'm Jessica Chen, host of
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: Leading by Example. I'm also an Emmy Award winning journalist
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: and the author of Smart Not Loud, How to Get
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: Noticed at Work For all the Rights, We're doing something
• 1:02
  Speaker 2: different on today's episode, I'm tossing the mic over to
• 1:05
  Speaker 2: Connell Byrne, the CEO of iHeartMedia's Digital Audio Group, for
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: a conversation with one of the sharpest marketing leaders in
• 1:14
  Speaker 2: the game. Jessica Jensen has previously led teams at Apple
• 1:18
  Speaker 2: Meta Open Table and Indeed now She is the Chief
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Marketing Officer at LinkedIn, where she and her team are
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: reshaping the future of work. LinkedIn recently released two key reports,
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: one on the status of the job market and the
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: other on entrepreneurship, and together they paint a picture of
• 1:38
  Speaker 2: a workforce that's changing rapidly, but maybe not in the
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: way people think. We're in a period of reinvention where creativity, adaptability,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: trust and relationships will become even more valuable. As AI
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: enters the chat, Jessica offers a perspective that's both practical
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: and optimistic. She explains how the leaders who stand out
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: will be the ones who lean hardest into the things
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: machines can't replicate, things like human interactions, empathy, and authenticity.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: Now let's hear Connell's conversation with Jessica Jensen, CMO of LinkedIn.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: Jessica Jensen, CMO and so many other things, but we'll
• 2:28
  Speaker 3: start with the CMO of LinkedIn.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: Thank you so much for being with us today.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: Thank you, colonel, it is a pleasure. I've been looking
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: forward to it.
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: Your role at LinkedIn chief Marketing officer, but you have
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: a long journey to that role. A lot of things
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: stand out in it. You've had key, strategic, important, marketing
• 2:47
  Speaker 3: and product roles at many of the major tech companies
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: that to some extent run our world today. So it's
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: interesting to me, Like where Jessica Jensen chooses to show
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: up and work and spend your time every day, feels
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: very intentional to me. You've sort of chosen this place
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: called LinkedIn to work. What brought you here and what
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: made you make that choice?
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, along and winding road. I am in my mid
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: fifties and I have been working on internet and digital
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: based businesses since nineteen ninety eight. So I started in
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: management consulting at the Boston Consulting Group and we were
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: in the process of taking companies from the offline world
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: to the online world. And I have fallen in love
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: with all things digital and driven my bus through a
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: winding road of companies Yahoo, Apple, Facebook, Booking Holdings, et cetera,
• 3:40
  Speaker 1: and learning so much along the way, and then so
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: overjoyed and lucky to get to steer the ship a
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: bit at LinkedIn. LinkedIn is one of the lighthouses in
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: the world of work and human connection. It's our mission
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: as a company to help people find opportunity. So you know,
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: seventy million businesses and organizations on LinkedIn one point three
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: billion people. Trying to connect them all to greater and
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: bigger things in a time of incredible upheaval and tumult
• 4:16
  Speaker 1: is the challenge and a joy of a lifetime.
• 4:20
  Speaker 4: So now I'm going to go way back.
• 4:22
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm interested in where Jessica as a young kid,
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: thinking about what she wanted to do as an adult.
• 4:29
  Speaker 4: What happened then? As a kid? I wanted to be
• 4:32
  Speaker 4: how would you fill the sentence?
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: Well, I think so, I'm from Kansas City, Yeah, and
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: my father is a painter, and he became a creative
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: director in advertising to pay the bills, and my mom
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: was a speech and communications teacher, and so at the
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: dinner table as a child, we wrote jingles and ads,
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: and my dad would pitch his campaign to me and
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: mom and we'd be like, I don't know if your
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: audience insight on that is quite spot on. And then
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: I decided I wanted to study Japanese and be a diplomat,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: and I went to international relations grad school, and I
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: lived in Japan for a long time. And so I mean,
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: I literally laugh with my parents today. I found my
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: way back to the family business through the strangest path.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: You could not make up a weirder path, but I
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: think that. You know, after BCG, I pursued a bunch
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: of different business jobs that were more kind of in
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: the GM arena. And then at Facebook, bizarrely they hired
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: me to do a marketing job. And I was like,
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: I don't know if you know what I do, but
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: let's see how it goes. And then in that role,
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh my gosh, I get to be
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: an artist and a mathematician. That may be a little
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: bit of an overstatement, but you know, it's the fusion.
• 5:53
  Speaker 1: I call it. A painter with an avocus, right, like
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: you are able to interweave narrative and storytelling and with
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: driving business growth and straddling those two worlds and weaving
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: them together. Nothing could be more exciting and challenging. And
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: now I'm in the position of I'm a marketer for LinkedIn,
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: and I market marketing to marketers. Yeah, I know, which
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: is very analogous to your world too, right, And so
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: it's endlessly fascinating.
• 6:26
  Speaker 4: How long were you in Japan.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: I was in Japan for four years. I studied Japanese
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: in high school, college and undergrad and then did a
• 6:34
  Speaker 1: year of undergrad in Japan, and then worked there for
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: about three and a half years after school.
• 6:39
  Speaker 4: Wow.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: So my first adventure after college. My dad worked for
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: a Japanese company and he gave me as a graduation
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: present an open ended ticket to Tokyo and a phone
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: number of a colleague. And so I got my college
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: degree and got on a plane and went to Tokyo
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: and I called his colleague.
• 7:02
  Speaker 4: I went to his house.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: I slept on a six to Tommy Matt office for
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: like three four months, and I got a job teaching
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: English no way. Yeah, And every day, every day I
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: would wake up teach English for three or four hours
• 7:14
  Speaker 3: to everybody from elementary school kids to Boston.
• 7:18
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and then wander Tokyo.
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: Awesome.
• 7:21
  Speaker 4: And I had this was before phones, So I had
• 7:23
  Speaker 4: these small disposable cameras.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: Ye, me too.
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: And I came home with maybe twenty five disposable cameras
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: full of four months later, full of Tokyo. That's amazing,
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: and developed these photos that are now across my house,
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: and every now and then my kids would be like,
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: what are these pictures exactly?
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: Which I raised to audio cassette tapes and send them
• 7:47
  Speaker 1: home to my family.
• 7:48
  Speaker 4: Of you just sort of narrating where you're at.
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, we didn't have phone, you had nothing.
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you really went places. Then maybe once a week
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: you'd be like, I'm still alive. This call is costed, Okay, I.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: Got aside for you. So I did live in Osaka
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: for six months. Do you remember there was a giant
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: earthquake in nineteen ninety five, Yes, and it was horrific,
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: like six thousand people died in Kobe. I lived right
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: outside of that area and I was, I mean evacuated
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: from my apartment, lived in a high school gym for
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: a week, and the phones were cut.
• 8:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: So miraculously, four thirty in the morning, this earthquake happens.
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: I get thrown out a bad For some reason in
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: my brain, I was like, my parents are going to
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: hear about this and wig out. I picked up the
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: phone in my apartment and left them a voicemail and
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: I had no access to a phone for a week
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: after that, but my parents got the message that I
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: was alive.
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: It's nuts to think of what would that look like
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: today given the technology and connectivity we have so different.
• 8:49
  Speaker 3: Were you're tracking locations on your kids you know, exactly
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: six miles a way to make sure they're on their
• 8:54
  Speaker 3: way home and it's still even fifty nine. Yeah, it's
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: a different world. It's a totally different world speaking of tech.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: So I come from a place where a couple sons
• 9:03
  Speaker 3: who are about nineteen and twenty, they're in college, but
• 9:05
  Speaker 3: they're about to enter a workforce that if you just
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: accept what I think is a little bit of an
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: overstatement and maybe a mythology, they're going to have to
• 9:14
  Speaker 3: compete more than anything with AI. LinkedIn came out with
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: a lot of research, deep research, good faith, just like, hey,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: I'm not sure that's what this is kind of research,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: and it changed a lot of what I thought where
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: it was like, yes, global hiring is twenty percent below
• 9:32
  Speaker 3: pre pandemic levels, Yes, job transitions are at a ten
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: year low, but the slowdown that's real may not be
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: driven by AI. You have more applicants per job than
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: any time since COVID. I think of on the side
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: by the way as my kids, especially my two older sons,
• 9:52
  Speaker 3: having gone through at least the beginnings of high school
• 9:55
  Speaker 3: in COVID and now hitting a job market that's complicated.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: To say that lead I do really feel for them,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: So we'll put that aside for a second.
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: Well, but let's feel for all workers. It's not a
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: young person dynamic.
• 10:09
  Speaker 4: You guys found.
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So to do a little bit of myth busting,
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: there's been all this media narrative about entry level jobs,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: young people's jobs getting crushed. Our data shows that that's
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: not entirely true, and that entry level jobs have not
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: declined out of step with any other types of jobs.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: So I'm not saying it's easy or good, but there
• 10:37
  Speaker 1: is a bit of a myth about the death of
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: the entry level job. Now our job's changing and evolving. Certainly, Yes,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: does everybody need to know AI skills to be in
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: this workforce. That's true whether you're entering the workforce or
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: you're forty or fifty or sixty. So I think we
• 10:55
  Speaker 1: are very focused on people building the skills and the
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: agency that will allow them to reimagine career paths, which
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: are not linear anymore. Once upon a time, you could
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: be twenty two and get an entry level finance job
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: and march of the penguins along through the ladder. Over time,
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: that is radically changing. Yeah, people are going to have
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: more jobs, They're going to do gig and contractor and
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: solopreneur and some full time, and you know, people will
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: have a portfolio of jobs. But the idea that like
• 11:29
  Speaker 1: entry level or low level jobs don't exist is actually
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: not true. Now things are changing incredibly rapidly. Like will
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: that be the case in a year, I don't know,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: but that's what we're seeing now.
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: That sort of tracks like I think two years ago,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: even I would have panicked as a dad, and maybe
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: as a youngster, and I would have believed a lot
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: of this stuff without digging even just a little deeper
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: into it. But I think it tracks with how now
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: I'm seeing my own kids, but also my observation of
• 12:01
  Speaker 3: the entry workforce and iHeartMedia right starting to realize like, oh,
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: it's not necessarily the jobs not there. I just might
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: need slightly different skill sets in order to do that
• 12:10
  Speaker 3: job and be competitive. And you guys have some stats
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: and some of the stuff you put out that AI
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: is actually there is tangible evidence that it's creating jobs,
• 12:18
  Speaker 3: already creating new jobs that weren't there before. Yes, there
• 12:21
  Speaker 3: is a flip side of this that I also love,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: though I think there was a stat in one of
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: your pieces says candidates are three point six times more
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: likely to get hired if they have a connection. Yes, So,
• 12:32
  Speaker 3: amidst all this great research and I think new mythbusting
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: stats around AI and its effect in the job market,
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: you still have these pockets of but man, it still
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: helps to know a guy well.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I think the power of connections and network is getting
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: more important.
• 12:49
  Speaker 4: Talk to me about that. Why do you think that?
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: Because in a world of AI, a lot of you know, quotes,
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: basic jobs or things that you used to need humans
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: to do will evolve or disappear. New roles and jobs
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: will emerge. But who you know and your network is
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: going to be more important to your career progress, particularly
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: because you will have more of a portfolio set of jobs.
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: Over time, people will change jobs and add jobs more frequently,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: and so connections are key to that. And also, let's
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: be honest. In the world of AI hiring, there's a
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: lot of junk and a lot of falsehood out there.
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: So if I am a twenty four year old looking
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: for jobs in these arenas and I have a profile
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: on LinkedIn, I am sharing my experience and my learnings
• 13:45
  Speaker 1: and what I'm building on LinkedIn, and I have a
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: network of people that know me and will vouch for
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: me that is authentic and human and cannot be done
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: by a robot.
• 13:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah, we have this.
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: We lean into this hard at iHeart, in full transparency
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: where I didn't know that the stuff that we do
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: that we just sort of called our standard operating procedure,
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: a way to run our company, namely like a thousand
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: humans on microphones having conversations like this one, a little
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: bit organized, a little bit messy, a little bit of everything.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: I didn't know that that was going to become a differentiator. Yes,
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: that that human element of doing a thing, of having
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: just an organic, normal conversation was going to be differentiated
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: in an age of AI. It's not to say that
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: our company is not to a large extent operationally helped
• 14:34
  Speaker 3: by AI ours, but it is now a differentiator of ours.
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: To brand partners, whe were like, hey, we're guaranteed human,
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: and it's interesting, Like when I think of your guys world,
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: it feels similar. It's like, yes, AI is a thing
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: you need to upskill or reskill, but also you need
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: to be connected to other humans or you won't have
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: the leg up that you definitely need like you always needed.
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: Maybe now more than ever. That's really interesting to me.
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: I think so too, like human judgment, your ability to
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: emotionally move people and connect with people humor, fun right,
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: like these are what made people thrive. It's what makes
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: people attracted to companies. It's what makes people go above
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: and beyond in their work. We better lean real hard
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: into all of that.
• 15:27
  Speaker 4: I have an extreme example of this.
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: I was in New York on a trip about a
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: week ago, and I'm in the lobby and turns out
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: to be a grandmother is sitting there checking at the
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: same hotel, and she sort of approaches me and says, oh,
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: what do you do for a living?
• 15:40
  Speaker 4: Very talkative older woman.
• 15:42
  Speaker 3: Was it me.
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: Not you?
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, I work at iHeartMedia. We do this,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: that and the other, and long story short, we shared
• 15:51
  Speaker 3: an elevator together. She takes my email down. She says,
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: I'm going to give your information to my granddaughter who's
• 15:57
  Speaker 3: about to graduate from college and she's looking for a job.
• 16:00
  Speaker 3: Two weeks later, I get an email from her granddaughter,
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: who's now I truly believe will end up with her
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: first paid internship at iHeartMedia.
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: That's so awesome.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: When I got on the phone with her granddaughter and said, hey,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: your grandmother was lovely. What can I do to help?
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: She talked all about her AI skills. She's like, well,
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: I just graduated from college. It was a really interesting
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: time to be in college. I'm a graphic designer and
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: I started out college when AI had not exploded, and
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: now that's all we're talking about, and I want to
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: talk to you about my skill sets.
• 16:29
  Speaker 4: It was just this really.
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Interesting journey in and out of new high falutint artificial
• 16:35
  Speaker 3: intelligence skills, but also grounded in this very she introduced
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: us that I couldn't make up if I tried totally.
• 16:43
  Speaker 4: It was incredible.
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: People will write a post on LinkedIn and I'll comment
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: on it. I don't know these people, some woman in Geneva,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: you know, and I'll write a note and be like,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: that was so awesome what you shared about your personal journey,
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: and thank you for bringing your humanity and your emotion
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: to your stuff on LinkedIn. I was moved by it.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: And then the next thing I know, I'm meeting with them.
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: I'm having coffee. They're maybe pitching me work, maybe I'm
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: hiring people, Like that's the magic unlock that people are
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: going to need one hundred times more in three years.
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: Part of the research you guys have done too is
• 17:40
  Speaker 3: the Entrepreneurship Report and the fact that entrepreneurship is becoming
• 17:45
  Speaker 3: multi threaded. That seventy three percent of gen z founders
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: have multiple income streams. We're really just like collapsing all
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: these words of founder, creator, and it's all sort of
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: morphing into this what I think LinkedIn calls this sort
• 18:01
  Speaker 3: of new collar era.
• 18:03
  Speaker 4: Yeah, talk us through it a little bit.
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that the multi hyphenate or multi threaded
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: worker is exploding in the world in a really positive way.
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: Maybe I should use the word blossoming right, Like, it
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: has never been easier to start a business because of AI.
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: The things that used to be laborious and time consuming
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: and expensive about starting a business you can do from
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: your desk in five hours. That's incredible. And so people
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: are becoming a small business founder and a creator and
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: working a part time job and studying an entirely new field.
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: So the LinkedIn economics team rolls up to me. There's
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: a guy on that team who is a data scientist
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: and court all of the economic research that you're referring to. Sure,
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: he has a giant creator following on TikTok, Instagram and LinkedIn.
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: He is an exceptional content creator and a data scientist
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: at LinkedIn, and those two things are totally in tandem
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: and wonderful. Now people have full time jobs and they
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: need to treat them, course of course, But right I
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: think that the landscape of what is possible now for
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: people who choose to embrace the agency that they have
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: and the voice that they have and the AI tools
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: that they can use is boundless. There's so much creative
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: potential for businesses, for brands, for people, and I think
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: we're just scratching the surface on that. But the creator
• 19:44
  Speaker 1: landscape on LinkedIn is expanding so.
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: Fast any talk to me.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean we have doubled the number of creators
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: on LinkedIn in the last few years. We have a
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: program called brand Link where we pair brands and creator content.
• 20:00
  Speaker 4: Oh wow.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: And so it's the nexus of business in, creativity and
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: celebrity all in one delicious package.
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: It's cool because I feel like in the creator economy,
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: when you give creators tools to do more good stuff,
• 20:14
  Speaker 3: they will do that. Yeah.
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: I mean it's interesting. I do think people have had
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: kind of a bifurcated mind, like I use LinkedIn to
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: find business contacts or to you know, market my product,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: but I may creator over here. No, no, no, it's
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: all the same soup. If you want to reach workers
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: and business people, this is the place. Bring your voice,
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: bring your creativity. Like people are building massive businesses here
• 20:46
  Speaker 1: as creators.
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: You don't have to compartmentalize. No, And when a founder
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: is a creator, is this new sort of new caller?
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: They all ask each other.
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, everything's everywhere, and it's funny. I mean I think
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: back of like a younger Connell or a younger Jessica
• 21:02
  Speaker 3: walking around Japan. I thought it would be very compartmentalized.
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: I'll just do this and that'll be my life and
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: that'll be my business card. And I think about the
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: job that I wanted to do, and it waffled. Sometimes
• 21:15
  Speaker 3: I wanted to be a rock star, sometimes I wanted
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: to be a corporate guy. I wasn't sure. Part of
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: the reason I was in Japan figuring it out. But
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: I never thought it would be multi threaded. I really
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: never thought that you could have your cake and eat
• 21:29
  Speaker 3: it too, whatever the expression you want to use. I
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: thought that you picked a lane and stuck with it.
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: I think that that is really.
• 21:36
  Speaker 4: It's blown up.
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: You know sometimes when you're talking to friends, you're like,
• 21:38
  Speaker 3: what do you tell your kids these days? And I
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: think the only thing I got right in my career,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: the only thing I actually got right, was just open mindedness. Yeah, oh,
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: let's see where this goes. Try it that approach, Let's
• 21:51
  Speaker 3: see where this goes. It's how I got into digital media.
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: It's how I got into podcasting, It's how I got ato. iHeartMedia.
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: You're never stuck. Yeah, try it. I started a startup,
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: and the amount of effort that we had to put
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: into building that web business and the marketing and the
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: sales and the accounting and the HR it was so
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: overwhelming and so arduous, and we ran that business into
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: the home equity crisis in two thousand and eight. It
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: was a giant failure. It is the biggest failure of
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: my career. I tried it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: Didn't screw up my career. You just keep trying things,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: and today it is so much easier to do that.
• 22:33
  Speaker 4: You have a daughter, what do you talk to her
• 22:35
  Speaker 4: about this stuff?
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah, she's fifteen. She is a painter. She is obsessed
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: with documentary, film and history. And she's a journalist and
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: she's a volleyball player. And so I'm like, you are
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: a renaissance teenager. Bless do it all, do everything. Two
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: years from now, You'll love some of it, you'll hate
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: some of it. Start a business, be a creator or not.
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: Don't be intimidated, don't be scared. You can try anything
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: and then change your course.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: Your daughter and my son are having this conversation in five, ten,
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: twenty years out.
• 23:11
  Speaker 4: Just talk a little bit about it.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: I definitely am not going to take a bot on twenty.
• 23:17
  Speaker 4: Where are we?
• 23:18
  Speaker 3: I mean, does all marketing become influencer marketing? Do all
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: jobs become hyper multi threaded? The more I think about
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: you and LinkedIn, It's like you guys are a little
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: bit of the.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Authority on where this might be going. But I'll still
• 23:32
  Speaker 4: give you a pass.
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: Well, I'm definitely in the opining zone. I would say
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: in marketing, we are going to have multiple channels for
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: a very long time. So I think that multi threaded
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: marketing and multi threaded marketers will continue and win. I
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: do think we will see the collapse of roles. I
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: think that we will have brand strategists who are copywriters
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: and video creators and campaign optimizers. You look at a
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: small business today, right The person running marketing at a
• 24:11
  Speaker 1: small business has the insights, does the research, writes the brief,
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: makes the ad traffics the ad optimizes and measures. I
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: think everyone in marketing in a large company should start
• 24:25
  Speaker 1: thinking like that. The separation of roles will erode. Then
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: for workers and people entering the world of work, the
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: only thing that's going to matter is your agility, your creativity,
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: your willingness to try new things and fail and learn.
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: Because what the world of work will be in five years,
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: none of us can say yeah, but I guarantee it
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: will require more flexibility, more creativity, personal connections and networks,
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: and I think the ability to communicate effectively and to
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: ask great questions, and to write and think clearly and
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: make good arguments. Like those things are not changing.
• 25:19
  Speaker 3: I hear all the stuff you're saying, and it's like
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: I would wrap all that up in a word humanity,
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: And it sounds cheesy and hackneyed and whatever, but it's
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: like in a world where AI, of course will become
• 25:29
  Speaker 3: more important and of course will operationally at least drive
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: more and more things, bringing your humanity to work will
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: be more more and more important too. I want to
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: talk about your work around women in the workplace and
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: the advancement and support of women, especially leadership and executives
• 25:45
  Speaker 3: in the workplace.
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: Talk us through that.
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: I know it's been a through line and is mission
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: critical important to you as it should be.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: Thank you, tell us what you got going on and
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: maybe how we can help.
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I was raised by feminists, my father and my mother,
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: and I believe at the fair core of my being
• 26:01
  Speaker 1: that work needs women and women need to win in
• 26:05
  Speaker 1: the world of work, and that women make amazing leaders
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and all of the research shows that diverse teams perform
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: the best drive the best business performance. So I have
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: dedicated a lot of my time and effort to ensuring
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: that women feel supported and welcome in the world of
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: work and that women rise through the senior ranks. We
• 26:27
  Speaker 1: have a sad reality going on now, which is that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: women are forty three percent of the workforce but thirty
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: percent of senior leadership globally in companies, and we are
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: seeing a backside now on women entering senior roles has
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: dropped from thirty six percent to thirty three percent in
• 26:48
  Speaker 1: the last few years. So I am ringing the bell,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: pressing the alarm. Weird weird alert alert. We are not
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: making progress and that is unacted. That should be unacceptable
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: to every board, to every CEO, to every government. And
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: I enlist all men, women and people to support women
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: to rise and thrive in work, because it is perilous if.
• 27:16
  Speaker 3: We do not. Have you seen across your own career
• 27:19
  Speaker 3: good years and bad years for those kinds of trends.
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I would. I mean like I started in
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: management consulting in nineteen ninety eight and I was the
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: only woman in a CEO meeting time and time again,
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: and I had to wear pantyhose. So those days are
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: long gone, and let's say hallelujah to that. So great
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: progress in some regards, but we have not won the battle.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Right until we have full parody in the c suite
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: of women and men and frankly all walks of people
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: and life, we have not won.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: And I think that that's the hard part.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: It's like when you're having this conversation with somebody, it's
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: sort of like, no, I'm not trying to be difficult here,
• 28:04
  Speaker 3: but until it's fixed, it's not fixed.
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: That is a great way to sit to tell you, Yeah,
• 28:08
  Speaker 1: it's a great way to say that. Yeah, flexibility in
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: the workplace matters. Yeah, women getting put up for stretch
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: assignments and leadership roles, women demanding equal pay. Women are
• 28:21
  Speaker 1: not taught to be negotiators. They're not good at asking
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: for their value. Women have got to learn to ask,
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: and men have got to learn to say to women,
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: you deserve to be paid what you deserve to be
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: paid to do this role. And by the way, I'm
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: going to put you in this role that you think
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: you're not ready for, and you are right.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Last questions here. That's true to the nature of the show.
• 28:45
  Speaker 3: Leading by example. Talk to us a little bit about
• 28:48
  Speaker 3: how you lead by example with your own team through
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: the good the bad.
• 28:52
  Speaker 4: What's that like?
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: Treat others how you want to be treated is a
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: management mantra and a life mantra. And so I really
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: try to be flexible, honest, transparent. I try to celebrate
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: and thank people for little things and big things. I
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: think that if we don't have fun at work, we
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: will curl up in a ball and cry on the floor.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: So I'm trying to hold a high bar for performance
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: and work and growing our business. But also share joy
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: with people, share sadness with people.
• 29:32
  Speaker 4: Sure.
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I think my greatest aspiration is that people feel comfortable
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: about the good, the bad, and the ugly, and that
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: they can share them in a real and secure way.
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: And I will tell my team like, I'm overwhelmed, or
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I've got some stuff going on with my teenager or
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: my old parents that is really weighing me down, and
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: I'm having trouble focusing outside of those challenges. But also
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: we're doing amazing work, and we're growing this business and
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: we're changing hearts and minds, and bless you for your
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: awesome innovation and creativity and what you're bringing to the
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: people of this company and to the outside world. But
• 30:15
  Speaker 1: that all of those things are part of the soup,
• 30:18
  Speaker 1: and that is what being a human being is. I
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: think that the more we can connect as humans and
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: share the pain and share the joy, yeah, it makes
• 30:29
  Speaker 1: work a lot more worth doing.
• 30:32
  Speaker 3: Jessica Jensen, the CMO of LinkedIn, I cannot thank you enough.
• 30:35
  Speaker 3: You guys are doing awesome work at LinkedIn, and concretely,
• 30:37
  Speaker 3: some of the research you guys are putting out there
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: is surprising, it's thought provoking, it's super cool.
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: So I really appreciate you talking to us.
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: About Oh that means the world to us. Thank you.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much to Connell Burn, CEO of iHeartMedia's digital
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: Audio group, for jumping into this conversation with LinkedIn CMO
• 30:59
  Speaker 2: Jessica Juhensen. And as I was listening to this conversation,
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: I kept thinking about this theme of what it means
• 31:05
  Speaker 2: to lead by example right now. So the first takeaway
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: was this the landscape of what is possible is now boundless.
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: You know, they were talking about the nature of work
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: and how that has changed. And I don't mean it
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: as just remote work or flexible hours. I mean the
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: entire architecture of what it means to build your career.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: There's no longer this expectation that you have to have
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: a full time job. You stay in your lane and
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: that's your whole professional identity. That model is gone. In fact,
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: LinkedIn just released its newest Entrepreneurship report and found that
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: seventy three percent of gen z founders today have multiple
• 31:48
  Speaker 2: income streams where success is being redefined from just trying
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: to make money to finding freedom and growth. And what
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: I love about this is it really honors the complexity
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: of who we are as people. We have multiple interests,
• 32:04
  Speaker 2: multiple skills, multiple callings, and the world is finally starting
• 32:09
  Speaker 2: to embrace that. But what I find especially encouraging is
• 32:13
  Speaker 2: that even large corporations are leaning into this. I mean,
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: you heard from leaders at LinkedIn and iHeartMedia, which is
• 32:20
  Speaker 2: signaling this kind of open mindedness that I think all
• 32:23
  Speaker 2: of us should take seriously. Here's a second takeaway. Failure
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: is not necessarily failure, it's data. So this moment was
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: a brief mention, But Jessica said that at some point
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: in her career she started her own company and in
• 32:40
  Speaker 2: the end it didn't succeed. The two thousand and eight
• 32:44
  Speaker 2: crisis hit and her entire business collapsed. She called it
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: the biggest failure of her career. She also said she
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: wouldn't trade it for anything. And I'll tell you why
• 32:55
  Speaker 2: this part really stuck with me. Whether you've been laid off,
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: a venture didn't work out, or maybe you are just
• 33:02
  Speaker 2: feeling a bit stuck in your career figuring out what
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: your passion is. I want you to know that none
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: of this time moving forward is ever time wasted. Maybe
• 33:14
  Speaker 2: you made a mistake, maybe you feel that you chose
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: the wrong profession, and you're thinking things might not work out.
• 33:20
  Speaker 2: But hearing Jessica, who is now the CMO of LinkedIn,
• 33:24
  Speaker 2: having her speak about her failure and her saying that
• 33:28
  Speaker 2: actually none of it is time wasted, that meant a lot.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: Because what's most important if something fails, trusting that there
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: will always be something waiting for you on the other
• 33:38
  Speaker 2: side as long as you keep moving forward. And here's
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: a third takeaway. Human skills are the competitive edge for
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: the future. This third takeaway came from a point that
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: Connell made and it really deeply resonated with the work
• 33:53
  Speaker 2: I've been doing for years. He talked about this concept
• 33:56
  Speaker 2: of humanity, specifically how being created, being open minded, and
• 34:01
  Speaker 2: communications are not soft skills. They are the skills of
• 34:06
  Speaker 2: the future. I can't reiterate that enough. And that is
• 34:09
  Speaker 2: what's going to set you apart in the age of AI.
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: If you're leading a team right now, it's getting them
• 34:14
  Speaker 2: to start to think about how can they use these
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: skills where they have to think outside the box. But
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: more importantly, as a leader, how do you create room
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: for it?
• 34:24
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: Creating that space and talking about it. Thank you so
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: much for listening to this episode. I thought it was
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: such a great conversation. I learned a lot, including these takeaways,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: and I want to say for all of you listening,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: if you enjoyed this episode, or you have feedback on
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: what you want to hear and guess you would like
• 34:45
  Speaker 2: to hear from, please rate and review Leading by Example.
• 34:48
  Speaker 1: Every review, every rating. It really does help.
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: Us reach more people and make this show the best
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: it can be. I'm Jessica Chen, the author of the
• 34:57
  Speaker 2: book Smart Not Loud, How to Get Noticed at Work
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: for All the Right Reasons, and the CEO of soulcast Media,
• 35:04
  Speaker 2: a communications training company. For more information about me and
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: what I do, head over to Solcastmedia dot com or
• 35:12
  Speaker 2: add me on LinkedIn and Instagram. A huge thank you
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: to our production team at Ruby Studio, especially Kelly Kyle,
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: Matt Stillo, and Sierra Spring. We'll be back in two
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: weeks with another episode of Leading by Example. I will
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: see you then.