Early in her career, Jennifer Staretorp had an intern who quietly believed Jennifer hated her. Not because of anything she’d said, but because of how she’d said it: short, efficient messages, no emojis, no warmth. Jennifer didn’t find out until much later. When she did, it landed like a cold bucket of water dumped on her. She’d learned in college, and again in business school, that professional communication was supposed to be stripped of emotion: formal, efficient, all business. That advice turned out to be wrong, or at least incomplete, and it took an intimidated intern to prove it. In this episode of Conversations with Peacock Voices, Margaret sits down with Jennifer, a marketer who’s built her career across startups and, more recently, a Fortune 500 tech company, to talk about what it takes to keep your voice landing the way you mean it to, especially when the room, the company, or your own life keeps changing around you. About Jennifer Jennifer Staretorp has spent most of her career in startups, learning to build marketing programs from scratch and make them work with whatever she had. She’s been through two acquisitions, and at one point sat on an executive team reporting straight to the board. These days she’s in marketing at a Fortune 500 tech company, which meant relearning almost everything about how to get a message across. What struck Margaret talking to her is that none of this happened because Jennifer set out to master corporate communication. It happened because she had to, one difficult room at a time. What we talk about - The jump from scrappy startup communication to Fortune 500 succinctness, where you might only get one bullet point to make your case - Preparing to be heard: how Jennifer curates decks and docs, narrates alongside visuals, and practices out loud before it counts - The added weight of walking into male-dominated rooms with less time and more pressure to make it count - The physical toll of presenting through pregnancy: compressed lungs, shorter sentences, mid-meeting breathing breaks - Why she still loves marketing after all these years, and the human-centered principle she returns to again and again - Navigating an acquisition: when to conform to a new system, and when to teach a larger company how to reach the audience it’s missing - The intern story that changed how she communicates, and finding herself now on the other side of that exact frustration A few moments worth sitting with “Best case scenario, you may only get one or two words in at a meeting, or you get a bullet point. So you have to be even more thoughtful about what it is you’re sharing and the impact of that and how it will be used by someone else.” “I need to make sure that my voice is heard in arenas where women don’t often get the opportunity to speak.” “I eventually learned that she thought I hated her. She was intimidated by me because I didn’t use emojis in my communications to her... and that was really like having a cold bucket of water dumped on me.” Takeaways - Prepare like the room won’t give you a second chance. Curate what you share, and practice saying it out loud, before it counts. - Read the room’s constraints, not just the room. A five-word inbox and a five-minute meeting both call for a different version of you. - How you say it can undo what you meant. A message stripped of warmth can read as coldness you never intended. - Adaptability is a skill, not a compromise. Looking through someone else’s eyes first is what makes your message land. Jennifer closes the episode by naming Michelle and Barack Obama as her favorite voices, citing their warmth, richness, and calm. It’s a fitting choice from someone who’s spent her career learning that how you say something can matter as much as what you say. Listen to the full conversation on the podcast, or watch it on YouTube. Ready to bring more intention to how you speak? Explore Peacock Voices’ coaching and workshops at peacockvoices.com. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit peacockvoices.substack.com
