How I Grew This Branch

Ben Weiss has built a career with an attention to detail and quality specifically around the mobile customer journey from offline into digital. As an intern at Walgreens in 2007, he pitched the then CEO about creating a mobile app in the first place. Long story short, they listened. Over the course of the next decade, Ben rose the ranks, starting from the bottom as an intern and exiting at the top as the Director of Product Management for Mobile. Today, he oversees the global digital product management teams for mobile at Hyatt. His new mission: Rethink what the hotel experience could look and feel like in this new era of Covid-19.

More on Ben’s story including how he’s bridging the gap between physical and digital through employee education, how to build an app for an older demographic, and his observations of digital adoption more broadly. All this and more on this episode of How I Grew This. Listen now on Apple Podcasts Spotify, Google Podcast, Stitcher and more.

Carman Wenkoff is the EVP & Chief Information Officer at Dollar General. In this role, Carman has led the company’s digital transformation, implementing technology advancements to enhance the brick-and-mortar retailer’s offerings and elevate the overall customer experience.

Throughout Carman’s career—from working in construction to practicing law, founding a tech company and now as the CIO of a major retailer—he has always addressed challenges head-on. In this episode, Carman shares the secrets to successfully leading a company through digital transformation, and explores how staying true to his purpose and focusing on making a difference in people’s lives have been the most important driving factors behind his success.

Our next guest Matthew Moore started his career at GE before going back to school for management consulting to grow as a leader. He realized that growth during his time working for the Boston Consulting Group.

Matt's journey into driving mobile growth kicked off when he became the first Chief Customer Officer of Yum! Brands where he oversaw Pizza Hut for Europe and UK, and he also launched Pizza Hut Digital Ventures. During his time at YUM Brands, he pivoted the culture towards building digital in-house as most of Pizza Hut's business was online already.

After that, he returned to his motherland, Canada, to lead digital for the iconic Canadian brand, Tim Hortons. Under Matthew’s leadership, they have shifted heavily to mobile through various strategies, including mobile ordering, loyalty programs, guest personalization, and more. Loyalty programs have arguably been one of their biggest wins during Matt's time at Tim Hortons. Tim Horton's initially achieved a 30% adoption rate and eventually 50% once the program was fully launched.

Hear this and how Matt used to travel 300 days out of the year, his philosophy on why you need to find purpose in your work, and his experience working all over the world on this episode of How I Grew This.

In this episode of How I Grew This podcast, Kar Paramasivam talks about the growth strategy at Blue Apron, a direct-to-consumer, chef-designed meal kit company.

Starting his career as a banker, Kar shifted his focus to startups, where he got his first opportunity to lead a growth team at Shipt.

From this point, Kar made his way through companies like Spacious.com (acquired by WeWork), Nutrafol, and CUUP, to his current role as a VP of Growth at Blue Apron.

Kar shares some successful campaigns and approaches his team adopted to leverage Blue Apron's app and increase user retention and engagement.

In this episode of How I Grew This, Mada Seghete is joined by Kristen Banks, Vice President of Marketing and Digital Products at Ultimate Fighting Championship. They dive into the exciting world of fan-centric entertainment brands and explore the various marketing strategies involved in building a loyal fanbase.

Kristen offers valuable insights into how to connect with fans, acquire audiences, and develop long-lasting relationships throughout the customer journey and funnel. Whether you're in the sports industry or any other fan-centric industry, this episode is a must-listen for marketers looking to grow and engage with their audiences.

Kristen Banks is a data-driven marketing leader with more than fifteen years of experience. Her current position at UFC involves overseeing the digital licensing business, which encompasses the creation, promotion, and forecasting of video games, mobile games, digital objects, and NFTs. Before joining UFC, Kristen held senior positions at Universal Orlando Resort, NBCUniversal Media, and Landers & Partners.

Greg Shelly is the VP of Enterprise Digital Marketing at Canadian Tire. Greg is, admittedly, obsessed with attribution and performance, and he cares about organizations needing to understand how their investments are driving customer outcomes. Before joining Canadian Tire, Greg led the business insights and marketing analytics organization at McDonald's and spent eight years at Dell in e-commerce and digital marketing.

Being in sales and on the front lines of business lets you truly understand the customer’s perspective. It is a sensible, logical start to a career in digital marketing. People who can hack together data-driven solutions can help companies understand their customers in a concrete way that gives them confidence in their marketing decisions. Pushing your comfort zone in your career is necessary to challenge yourself. After a few years, you will start appreciating those struggles for helping you grow professionally and at a personal level.

A loyalty program sets the foundation of digital growth by helping companies collect data to better understand their customers. The customer ceases to be a mystery when you have data to understand them.

Without a mobile-first approach, you cannot build a close relationship with your customer on a web browser. Being on someone’s phone means you have created value in their lives, and you have to make efforts to stay installed on their phones.

Action-ready, non-siloed data is the key to better digital marketing regardless of the business use case. Having the right people, the right data, and the right tech makes business growth possible through digital marketing.

Personalization is about being customer-centric and talking about the things that matter to them.