Q: It’s been a little over a year since you were named Golin’s sole CEO. How have you grown, both professionally and personally, since?
A: Has it only been a year? For some reason it feels like longer! In 2020 I had to try and temper my natural enthusiasm that everything will work itself out. I’m a natural optimist, however the impact of this pandemic, especially in the late spring was unprecedented in my lifetime. It was simply unrealistic to predict what would happen next or to be able to make all the assurances I wanted to.
I also solicited more purposefully the expert counsel of our senior leadership team. At heart I’m a conviction kind of person but this crisis underlined the incredible value of problem solving together. Building on this, a vital element of our success was for me to let go and trust individual leaders of the agency to see through a strategy with their own sense of ownership and identity.