This Is Working with Daniel Roth

It could be that the best person for a tough job is the one who thinks she isn't. That's what people like Google CEO Eric Schmidt and YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki thought when they prodded their founding EMEA marketing head, Lorraine Twohill, to be a big fish in a big pond: Cross the pond to become Chief Marketing Officer.

More than two decades later, the matter is settled. 

It wasn't the first time Twohill wasn't entirely sure about a Google gig. The first time she didn't even know what the job was until she got through 22 interviews. "A lot of people at the time thought I was nuts," she said, "What is this Google thing? It was a small company at the time, but, of course that was a really exciting time to join."

It got a lot more interesting, of course.

Listen in on this edition of This is Working to see how one of the longest-lasting senior women executives in Big Tech thinks about EQ, IQs what AI can and can't do.

On this week's rapid fire Q&A, Google CMO Lorraine Twohill shares about career paths and what she’s learned from Gen Z colleagues — and what they should learn from her, the importance of trying a few roles on for size — “Life and places like Google are more like a jungle gym than a career ladder" — and why it really is OK to nap at work. 

We’re offering a little something different for anyone seeking inspiration at the new year - a bonus episode featuring LinkedIn Editor in Chief Dan Roth on Suzy Welch’s new podcast, Becoming You. If you’ve ever been curious about how exactly Dan landed at LinkedIn, this is the episode for you. And if you’re pursuing your own career pivot, check out Becoming You wherever you get your podcasts.

The whole This is Working team wishes you a bright 2025. We’ll be back soon with more great advice from top leaders.

As we wind down 2024, the This is Working team is starting to dream big for 2025. Of course that means we have AI on our minds. And we’re not alone. AI has more than one spot on LinkedIn’s recent Big Ideas list. Who better to learn from than Fei-Fei Li, AI pioneer? Dr. Li is an AI researcher and professor at Stanford University and serves as Co-Director of Stanford’s Human-Centered AI Institute.

In this conversation with LinkedIn Editor in Chief Daniel Roth, Dr. Li shares her vision for a collaborative future with our advancing artificial intelligence.

To meet 2025 head on, subscribe to Dan’s This is Working newsletter. You’ll get top takeaways from today’s leaders, direct to your inbox.

On this week's rapid fire Q&A, Bridgewater Founder and Chief Investment Officer Ray Dalio advises starters in the finance industry to just dive in — "know what you don't know" — wants Gen Z to know that pain plus reflection equals progress (and why everyone should meditate), the gigantic early career error that made him stronger, and much more.

When Ynon Kreiz took over as CEO of Mattel, he became the company's fourth chief executive in four years. His three predecessors had all resigned. The storied, 80-year-old toy company was still a top brand, but it was fraying at the edges and it needed a fresh start, some new ideas, and someone who was willing to take some risks.

Already a board member and a three-time CEO "drawn to perhaps maybe more complicated, more challenging situations," Kreiz had a brainstorm: Customers aren't really customers — they're fans. If you have enough of them, you have an audience. And playing to an audience is very different from manufacturing widgets. 

So he took his big gamble. "The company should transition from being a toy manufacturing company that was making items and become an IP company that is managing franchises," Kreiz told Dan Roth on the latest edition of This is Working.

Perhaps the Barbie movie is the most visible manifestation of Kreiz's vision for Mattel. But there is so much more in Dan Roth's interview for This is Working: How he hires, fires and reassigns, and his three chief management principles: collaboration, innovation, and execution

On this week's rapid fire Q&A, Uncle Nearest founder Fawn Weaver tells LinkedIn Editor-in-Chief Dan Roth why she completely unplugs — without fail — for 24 hours every week, why her mentors are all "old dead white guys," and why you should always — always — go with your gut.

Fawn Weaver had a story to tell — and then she became the story. It started as a passion project, to make sure that the story of the first known African-American master distiller would no longer be lost to time. But while righting that historical wrong the serial entrepreneur got an idea so crazy that it just might've worked.

It did.

Her plan to make sure that Nathan “Nearest” Green would finally be celebrated took a new, serendipitous and daunting turn: Weaver decided that she could create a whisky brand named for Green. With no background in the industry. In an industry that is insular and decidedly male. No biggie.

Weaver didn't just create a niche brand that she could tell her grandchildren all about. In eight years she built, from scratch, a billion-dollar business. In this edition of This is Working the author of Love & Whiskey tells LinkedIn Editor-in-Chief Dan Roth about the power of relentless determination — how she learned to leverage being habitually underestimated into a strategic advantage and why patience is not only a virtue, but profitable.

On this week's rapid fire Q&A, Taco Bell CEO Sean Tresvant tells LinkedIn Editor-in Chief Dan Roth why he considers his employees' work/life balance "mandatory," how art appreciation helps him get unstuck, how to decide how to upskill, and how observing his customers customized their orders changed his "go-to" meal.

Brand awareness is one thing. Brand nostalgia is quite another. Creating is hard enough. Maintaining it may be even harder. But it's second nature to Sean Tresvant, the brand-new CEO of Taco Bell, who cut his teeth in key marketing positions at Nike, Sports Illustrated and PepsiCo. That said, there is nothing ordinary about the challenge of nurturing and maturing this 60-year-old brand. It takes respect for the past and a willingness to charge into the future. "We have a DNA of feeding curiosity for the unconventional," Tresvant told me for the latest edition of This is Working. "We believe that's what Glenn Bell was trying to do 60, 62 years ago when he kind of introduced tacos to the mainstream of the U.S. And we try to carry that DNA for 62 years and 62 years beyond that."

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