there is a little bit different than the traditional marketer. I actually got my college degree in psychology and forensic science. I grew up with my mom as a homicide detective as a kid, and so I was really interested in all of that, and my college internships included doing autopsies and diagnostic testing and psychology. But I decided that wasn't the career path that I wanted to go down. And so post college I ended up working as an intern with DaimlerChrysler in their marketing research department. At the end of my internship was the economic downturn in Detroit in 2000 and six, And so when I had started and had kind of been given the idea that at the end of my internship there would be a position for me. Turns out that there wasn't Tyler. Chrysler was splitting, and there just weren't any jobs in Detroit at the time, which brought me over to Chicago with that all going on, I ended up going actually into restaurant hospitality. It paid the bills that runs a lot of jobs out there at the time, got me where I wanted to be by allowing me the opportunity to freelance and marketing on the side, wait for the economy to recover a little bit and then make that transition back into marketing. And I moved into starting with the field marketing and more generalised position before I had the opportunity to start getting involved in Martek and therefore marketing operations, and from there started to build out my skills in that level. Um, from a more technical side, which brought me into where I am now is a subject matter expert and marcato experts at an agency and doing a consulting side of Martyak.

so I'm very fortunate at the company that I work for. My company is quite flexible with work from home, although we do have an office located in downtown Chicago. I commute from the suburbs to the city, so I've got a little bit longer of a commute than many of my colleagues. But having the ability to work from home when I like is wonderful. My office is a true 95. So if you're there before, about 8 45 in the morning, there's no one there. And if you're there at 5 15 there's maybe two other people still house. People start to wait for the train schedule, which is really great. It it helps create that boundary and that separation between worse work 10 and personal time that my company is very supportive of. From my role, I'm one of the leaders. I actually lead the entire operations marketing operations side of the organization, so I'm responsible for everything that happens underneath of me. I'm also the primary contact for any of our clients that need subject matter expertise, and so I'm often making the types of decisions around what more tech platforms should be involved whose job responsibilities, or how will these clients be out located? But workloads air where and then when I'm actually doing the work myself for some of the more deeper content. Um, I'm the one diving in and deciding how to architect or structure of these connections between systems from a marketing automation Teoh a crm to a CMS to other platforms that are out there. What should that look like? And how does that best fit the client organisation? So I've got a lot of different hats that I wear within the organization. Um, but I have a great time doing it.

I think the biggest challenge that comes with working in a role like mine is I interact with so many different people in in varying levels of an organization, varying roles, varying skill sets on. A lot of that is done in a way that is remote. Many of my clients may not be located in Chicago or even in the same time zone. So being able to flex around a style that works for both parties, whether that's face to face video tracks like we're having now, whether that's through email or a chap platform like Slack or Microsoft teens, sometimes a lot of that work could be done through a project management software like Trela or Monday or base Camp. Something like that. So the understanding and a way in which how to communicate with all of these different people, um, one of the other very difficult things sometimes can be taking a very complex topic or subject around marketing operations and trying to communicate and demonstrate in need. Just someone that may not be operationally minded. Um, maybe that's a CFO. Maybe that's, you know, a c M o r. A marketing leader that isn't a technical person but helping them understand why that peace within the tech platform is so important to their operations and often times is worthy of spending money or making an investment on that could be a very big budget line item.