Today on Memorable Marketing Bart is speaking to Niki Harrold continuing with a discussion about decision-making, the organization of the marketing departments within broader corporates, and the importance of network in marketing careers.

Nikki is a marketing leader whose experience spans countries and industries. Over 20 years she has focused on multiple European and North American markets, with highlights including working in highly-regulated financial sectors such as life insurance firm Transamerica.

Bart and Nikki focus on how decision making works in marketing departments and the broader organisations they form part of, with Nikki stressing the importance of sourcing as much information as possible before making a decision. This triggers a discussion of the merits and trade-offs of centralised, dictatorial control over decision making and its advantages in terms of efficiency, versus making decisions by consensus as part of a group or committee.

Next, Nikki talks about marketing career paths, with a strong emphasis on the relative trade-offs between international experience and building a local network. Highly international careers with frequent industry switches bring obvious advantages in terms of breadth of experience and dealing with unexpected situations, but Bart and Nikki exchange ideas on balancing this with building a strong local network; something that normally requires long stints in one location.

Memorable Marketing by MediaGroup is a series of interview podcasts with leading senior marketers, holding free-ranging conversations on their careers, outlook and interests. If you want to discuss your business's marketing strategies with MediaGroup, feel free to contact us at: [email protected].