Career Growth Advice from Sam Needham, Digital Marketing Leader | Career Tips for Women in Digital Marketing

2B Bolder Podcast – Episode 19
Featuring Sam Needham, with Silicon Valley Bank

Episode Title: #19 Career Podcast Featuring Sam Needham, Head of Marketing Innovation at Silicon Valley Bank – Women In Tech

Host: Mary Killelea
Guest: Sam Needham

Mary Killelea (Host): Hi there. My name is Mary Killelea. Welcome to the To Be Bolder podcast, providing career insights for the next generation of women in business and tech. To Be Bolder was created out of my love for technology and marketing, my desire to bring together like-minded women, and my hope to be a great role model and source of inspiration for my two girls and other young women like you, encouraging you guys to show up and to be bolder and to know that anything you guys dream of, it's totally possible. So, sit back, relax, and enjoy the conversation.

Hi there. Today on the show, my guest is Sam Needham. She is head of marketing innovation at Silicon Valley Bank. She is an accomplished digital marketing leader with experience building web products and driving digital transformation. Her career stretches across companies of all sizes from Dell and PricewaterhouseCoopers to starting her own agency, Webalicious Designs, and she was co-founder of a travel startup earlier in her career. Welcome to the show, Sam. It's great to have you here.

Sam Needham (Guest): Thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Mary Killelea: This is great. I'm getting to meet you the first time through this podcast, and that's what this podcast is all about, bringing women together so that we can share our stories. So let's dive in. Tell me about your current role and everyone else, what you do.

Sam Needham: Sure. So again, very excited to be here. Sam Needham. I have just stepped into a new role as head of marketing innovation at Silicon Valley Bank. And for those that aren't as familiar with SVB, we are a tech and life sciences bank. We bank 50% of all the VC-backed tech and life science companies in the US, although we always talk about where innovation exists around the world. And we also, just like another stat, have banked 69% of all the US VC-backed companies that IPO'd in 2019. And what I'm really excited about here is we're talking about career progression, we're talking about things that I've learned and lessons that I've had and things that I can share with others. And it's very timely because I've just stepped into this new role. I've been in the role about a couple of weeks. And my focus really ties a lot of my background together.

So, I started as a developer. I actually started coding when I was 15. That used to be really exciting for people. They're like, wow, 15, that's so young. And now kids are like, yeah, I started when I was six, right? Like, yeah, what languages do you know? Let's compare notes, right? So I always think about fondly of that time and being in a very privileged place to my dad owned a small web development company. And although I really wanted to go and be a barista or work at Six Flags, he was going to pay me more. So, I started learning code and CodeFusion. And that really evolved. For me at the time, it was very much about, okay, I can create this thing. And that's cool that I can do this. But why? What do people want? What do clients want? Tell me more about the story, right? And so, in school, I had degrees in marketing and psychology because I was absolutely looking for that why. And the awesome thing about my role today is it really touches on so many different aspects. It's within marketing, but it's really about how do you use marketing technology and data, marketing analytics? How do you think about the operations of how the marketing organization aligns really to what our clients need and brings all of that together?

Mary Killelea: That's awesome. You sound so passionate about it. I love your passion. What is it about marketing that gets you so fired up?

Sam Needham: Yeah. I mean, I think it's interesting, right? I'm sort of classically trained to have a marketing degree. But I've always, I think in my heart, been a nerd and a techie. And so, over the years, I've had different dissonance with actually really aligning myself as a marketer and where this beautiful place where it now is it's not about creating products and then getting customers to be interested in them, right? It's really about working within this ecosystem, working with your clients and your customers, really understanding their needs and helping build things that fit those needs and delighting them and building things that they didn't even know they wanted, but is really helping them across that client journey. And for me, the passion really comes from kind of understanding myself and what my North Star is and being able to help show up like that inside of work and outside of work.

Mary Killelea: So keeping up with innovation is challenging. Where do you turn for your learning and education to try to stay on top of things?

Sam Needham: Yeah, I mean, we're living in a digital age where there's so much information out there. For me, everybody is learning constantly, right? And that's something that's really exciting to me as someone that has that growth mindset and loves to learn. And, you know, I go to a lot of different places for learning. I'm one of those people that really likes to consume a lot of information online. But I also have that trusted set of advisors and that people that I've manicured and curated over the years that I really can go to and have those conversations. And it's not necessarily even people that are in the same industry as me, because I think sometimes inspiration at its best comes when you least expect it or comes from different areas. And so for me, I want to be learning every day. I want to be pushing the envelope every day. I want to be excited by new concepts. And also, I sort of reflect back on my early years. And I remember giving assignments like I want to be a webmaster, right? Like, we don't have that role anymore, right? And so what gets me really excited about innovation in general, and then also just the intersections of innovation, marketing and technology, is that like, I want to be working on things that people haven't even heard of. I want to be working on things that also help, you know, evolve us and make us better overall.

Mary Killelea: So, there's a question, which if you had to pick two, or a one between the two, which would you prefer technology or marketing?

Sam Needham: Yeah, I think for me, this is an interesting question. I kind of think of it like my children. I have one son, he's 21. And I think if I had more children, of course, you don't ever want to have favorites. But when you have one, you can sort of have a favorite. I see myself much more in that multidisciplinary side, where there's lots of different areas of interest. So it's hard to pick one, I think what's actually more interesting is where they intersect, and how they evolve together. And then I think that another interesting part about both of these areas is that they are constantly evolving and growing. If you think just about the marketing technology stack, you know, we're at 7,000, 9,000 tools, if you think about the whole stack and the ecosystem. And if you look over the last 10 years, it was like we're adding in the thousands every year, right. And so I think it just overall, it's hard for me to pick one specific area. But I do, I think in my heart of hearts, I'm a technologist that really allows problem solving through that lens of marketing.

Mary Killelea: What's been one of your favorite projects that you've worked on?

Sam Needham: Yeah, I mean, there's been so many. I think what I wake up in the morning with is how do I attack some of the biggest problems? Whether it was when my co-founder and I were thinking about starting a company together and looking at the travel industry and saying at the time 10 years ago, how do you find those local hotspots and really building an application that helped with that discovery? Or if you think about, I'd say for me, when I was at Brinks, this is early on in my career and I was 22. And I remember going to the board and saying, like, we really need an intranet. And they're like, no, I don't know. At the time that we were in like a Lotus Notes database system. And I said, no, because we need a way to connect globally. We were, I think in around 100 countries plus. And it was like we really need to build this intranet. And I was able to pilot a global intranet for them. I'd say recently I've been really excited about agile ways of working and how does that apply to marketing. And so that's been something that I've been moving forward in my current role. And but there's just so many examples. I think I've been really blessed to continue to find the space and advocate to work on really interesting projects at every company that I've been at and been able to help make significant progress forward for them and build new capabilities. I was also thinking about when I was at PwC and helping internally work on a more test and learn culture, right? And so doing user testing on the website. And then it was just so successful. I was able to bring that into future roles, right? And so it's also this idea too about when you have these projects and there's really successful elements of it, like how do you just continue utilizing that knowledge to all your future roles that you have?

Mary Killelea: Work related or personally, tell me one failure you've experienced and what you learned from that. Yeah, failure is really important. I think failure gets a little bit of a bad rap. For me, I earlier on in my career, I was really risk averse and the thought of like, I didn't want to fail. It was almost like I was coming from a place of fear of failure, right? It's like, okay, I need to do everything myself. I need to know all the answers. I'm a smart person. I can figure this out. And so I don't think I stretched myself as much, but even in my internal dialogue, right? I don't think I had as much of the understanding of what failure actually meant. So oftentimes I would go out for roles that weren't, that were definitely a hundred percent within my comfort zone. I wouldn't necessarily raise my hand for projects unless I fully felt like I could own every part of it, right? I wasn't, I was trying to make sure that I was setting myself up for success. And I saw that as in opposition of failure, right? And for me now, as I've kind of been on this journey of myself and thinking about failure, I've actually evolved for me, that personal definition, which is if you're not failing in small ways, then you're not pushing yourself hard enough. And so in that, so you have to really visualize the destination, right? You have to visualize what success looks like, and you have to also understand what failing fast means. And for me personally, how I see that is by taking smaller stretch opportunities or by saying, I don't fully understand this problem, but I'm willing to start to solve it, or I'm willing to put a team around it to start to solve it. Or it could also just mean, I'm willing to have a conversation that might be a little risky and that's okay, right? And then it's also having the heightened awareness that Ooh, this process that we implemented, or this thing is not going in the right direction. And so it's giving the time and space to actually evolve and make it, and instead of just letting it go as it on the path is, okay, let's make some pivots, let's make some adjustments. Let's think about this in a different way.

To just kind of give an example of that, oftentimes, like I find myself in looking at, Hey, there's so many different places that the team could be focused on, right? I mean, we have so much opportunity. And one of the areas that we've been doing a lot of work on is actually on the, on the website, on our SUV.com site. And we've been doing, we've implemented this idea of experimentation, right? When AB testing. And so we've been able to create and drive engagement on what historically was more of a big redesign project and efforts that were more about just kind of overhauling the entire site to know we're going to do smaller experiments. And we might not be right when we come up with a new design, it might not be the winner. And we've been able to build and get a lot of buy-in for, and that's okay, right? And for us, that's what we mean by, by failing fast, right? And they say like, not every experiment that we've tried has been a winner. Instead, we see that instead of a failure, we see that as a learner, right? So if you see failure, not as an end, but as that kind of step into, okay, that's a redirection, right? And that's a lot of background there for, you know, you and the listeners.

But I think whereas earlier in my career, I saw much more like, okay, there's success and failure and I don't see how they necessarily go together. Now I see I'm pushing for failure, but I see failure as redirection and as like an opportunity to grow. And to me that even that mental twist, just, just changing my mentality has allowed me and my team to also take and try and explore in different ways that we might not necessarily have done previously.

Mary Killelea: Yeah, no, that totally makes sense. So how do you quiet the, the voices in your head around self-doubt and, and allow yourself the freedom?

Sam Needham: I think for every person, it's, it's a little different. For one, for me personally, it was about starting to even pay attention to that, right? And to just name it and say, oh, this is a feeling that I have, or oh, this is my reaction. One of the constructs that's been really powerful for me is this idea of story versus fact. And I've done different scenarios with people, but let's just say you're looking at, and, and just kind of visualize this with me, you're looking at a big house, right? And you might look at that and say, okay, what are the stories and what are the facts? And you would say, okay, the fact is that it's two stories. The fact is that it has a front door, right? But the story around this big house might be something like, oh, somebody rich lives there, it must be really expensive. Or it's like what all the, all the additional storytelling and scenarios and biases, that's really like the story. And the fact is just the things that are factual and verbatim that don't have any sort of opinion or bias built in. And so one of the things I started to pay attention to with that voice inside is, okay, first understand it, listen to it, what is it saying? And then start to categorize it. Like, is that a fact, right? Or is that a story? Is that a story I'm telling myself?

And so just with that, and I think that a lot comes into that imposter syndrome of like, okay, you've said something to yourself, who is, especially now that we're, most of us are fully remote, you are with yourself all the time, right? You are your biggest advocate or, you know, the biggest thing holding you back, right? And so you pay attention to that voice inside, and then you start to name it, and you start to categorize it. And that, at least for me, that's how I do it, which is, okay, is that a fact, or is that a story, right? And then you have an opportunity to listen to it. And what I like to tell myself is, that's good information, right? So you've received it, because you don't want to just push it away. So that's good information. And then it allows you to really think about, okay, what's the right, like, next step to take? So, for me, that's how I use that, because I do think that intuition is important, but I also think it's important to, you know, dissect it a little bit more and be aware of the different experiences that you have and how that's going to influence, you know, your actions.

Mary Killelea: I love that. And I love the house analogy. Yeah, I'm going to use that. Tell us about HackOut. What is it, how they get started, and how has it grown?

Sam Needham: Yeah, yeah. So, again, as I mentioned, I've had a very interesting career, worked at lots of sizes of companies, started some of my own, always had passion projects, and been connected to the community in between raising my son. And I think as I've kind of done different things around, one of the things that I've found from a startup standpoint is making sure that you have a good set of mentors, right, as you're a founder. And personally, having experienced being that only, right, so I'm LGBTQ, lesbian, woman, and having that only is hard enough in a circle of friends, in a small team, a leadership table. And then you compound that with being a first time founder or just even a serial founder, there's a lot of things going on. So one of the organizations that I've been involved in for several years is StartOut. And that is an organization that's focused on LGBTQ founders and the innovation ecosystem around them. And we started a few years back an event called HackOut. And HackOut is in a way like a traditional hackathon, in that you have groups come together, they pitch different ideas, oftentimes the first night, we pick a handful ideas as from the crowd, pick their best 10 to 15 companies that they're interested in creating, and then they break up into small groups and over the course of the weekend, build that company. And so, they understand and start to learn concepts of how to validate an idea, how to do client research, how to build an MVP, build a pitch deck, they get coaching from mentors. And you're doing this in a very accelerated path, just to give people a flavor of what are some of those early building blocks for a startup.

And we've been doing this now for a couple years, I'd say, in the other kind of unique part about StartOut, is that when we were coming up with HackOut, we also wanted to make sure we created an experience. So, it was more than just come to the hackathon and work with your team. So we also have several entertainment focus and just like social events around the weekend. And that has been, I think, what a lot of the feedback that we've gotten over the years is that it was really great to work on the team and learn some of those hard skills, but it was even more beneficial just to meet people like myself. And another dimension of this, which has been more important historically, being that we had this in person, is that we would provide scholarships for individuals. So, we would fully pay for them to fly and stay in Austin, Texas, which is where this event has been held. And that was pulling people from Brazil, from Europe, all over. And some of the stories that I would speak with some of the people that attended, and it was just really powerful, because you're learning about the local culture and being a queer person, whether they were out or not, and just some of the differences and being in different countries. And then you try to translate that obviously into starting your own company or, you know, somehow just even being interested in that. So, the event's been going on for a few years now, this year, and we've actually just released the marketing materials on it, but we are going 100% digital. And the neat thing about that is we've historically had to cap the attendee at about 100 people, just because of in-person capacity, but we're actually going to be opening up to several hundreds. And so if you want to get more information, swhackout.org, we just put the application on there, but it's a great event. And I would say from, as someone that has been a mentor, and I've also helped with pitch prep, and then also being on the organizing committee, people tend to really get a lot out of it. And we have a lot of past participants that come back as mentors, or come back to share with us that they were able to actually take that idea further than just the weekend.

Mary Killelea: That's awesome. What was the address again?

Sam Needham: swhackout.org.

Mary Killelea: Cool. All right. When it comes to being a professional businesswoman, what is one of the biggest pieces of advice that you've ever received?

Sam Needham: Yeah, this is a good one. I've gotten a lot of great advice. Thank goodness, right? People really have helped me stay informed and educated. I would say the one statement that I think about, I probably think about this almost every week since I've heard it, is what got you here won't get you there, right? So, the skills that you learned and got you to this point won't get you to the next level, and that you've got to continue to sort of rebrand and build new skills. And I think that just means it has so many different meanings. For me, if I look at my career, I was an individual contributor. In other words, I wasn't managing people for a long time. And I felt very strong about my digital marketing skills. I was up on the latest SEO trends. I absolutely was that overachiever even when you think about like, okay, here are my projects that I'm working on, or here's the digital channels that I'm responsible for, or whatnot like that. Then as you move into people management, you really realize that that was great that you have all of that skill as a subject matter expert, but people management is a whole new discipline, right? And so then it's almost like you kind of utilize what you've learned, but it's really more about the practices of how to learn that you apply into, okay, now I need to learn, what does it mean to be a few-year-old manager? How can I be a really successful people manager? And so that is a big transition because, and I even mentor people on this now, one of the first things that happens to a lot of people that move away from individual contributors to people managers is they say to me, and I remember feeling this, but I'm not doing anything, right? They say like, okay, well, I was used to owning this program or this project or being part of this release or doing this QA work or design or whatever it is, right? And then they're like, but now I just manage people. And it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, we need to break that construct. It's not that you just manage people, right? Because the best managers are able to take a lot of individual people and make them better together, right? And so, again, that takes a lot more almost rededication on what does it take to manage people and what a high performing team needs and how do you coach people versus just do it themselves, right? And so there's a lot of kind of good skills there.

And then for me and my personal career, kind of the next step is, okay, how do you manage managers that manage teams, right? And so like, what does that take, right? And then, you know, what does it take to start influencing the C-suite? What does it take starting a company? It's like, well, starting a startup and being a small business owner, some similar skills, but a lot of different skills, right? And so I would say for me, the best advice, and I really do think about this all the time is the skills that got you to here won't get you to the next point.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. Great summary on that one. Who inspires you? I know you've mentioned during this conversation, you've had a couple mentors.

Sam Needham: Yeah. So I'm kind of interesting in that I feel like I get inspiration from everywhere. And I'm almost like a sponge just constantly absorbing information. And I'm a little bit of a delayed processor too. So sometimes like, I'll go to, right? Like I'll go to something and then it's like, months later, it'll click. And I'm like, oh, where is that? I need to go look at that back up or even things that sometimes I go away from, you know, a conversation. And I was like, oh, that was a really good conversation. But then it's like in the shower, something will click. I'm like, oh, I know how I can apply that. So, I don't know that I have like one person that is like that person of inspiration. I think as I've become a mom, when I was younger, I used to be like, my mom, everyone was like, oh, I look up to my parents. And I was like, I didn't until I became a mom. And then I was like, how did my mother have three kids and have time to have a career too? Like it just, it just blows my mind. Right. I'd say a Brene Brown is actually somebody else that I think a lot about, I see a lot of her content. There's multiple people like that. But one of the things that I recently read that it just really resonated is she said there's lots of cheap seats, right? There's lots of places for people to not be involved in the day to day are really trying to push themselves, but they're telling, giving you feedback, right? They're in the cheap seats and they're just commenting on what you're doing. Right. And she said something, and I'm paraphrasing, but there's lots of cheap seats up there. But when you're down in it, when you're really trying to make change and, and, and change is hard, like you're going to get some bumps and bruises, right? You're going to get some cuts, it's not something where you can just sit, sit up in the cheap seats for. So that's just, that's just one of those metaphors. It's kind of really resonated with me like, oh, today I'm getting some bumps and bruises, but that's okay because you know, I don't want to be in the cheap seats.

So for me, I encourage people to get a mentor and really be proactive. I don't feel like I had when I was in my twenties, I don't feel like I realized the value of mentorship. I heard like get a mentor and I was like, yeah, yeah, it's on my list of priorities, but it was like lower. But I do think now that's actually something that I prioritize. And I think a lot about like, who's an advocate for me, who are my mentors and who are my peers? And I tell people that as well, which is like, who's really got a seat at the table that's advocating for you, like understand that, right? Like what tables do you sit at where you can advocate for people understand that, right? Find mentors, be direct. I actually ask people to be my mentor now. Like I don't sit there and wait for someone to say, oh, you should be part of this mentorship program. Right? So I always encourage people, if your company has a structured mentor program, understand more about that and get involved. If your company doesn't then reach out to people. You might be surprised, right? I've reached out to people and I've never heard from them and that's okay. Right. Because it's like, okay, well, it's not the right time. I don't take it personal. It's just not the right time for them. And then through that process of just reaching out, I've been able to have some great mentors and especially mentors that have are aligned to your North star and are places where like you see yourself because they, they can really help shortcut some of those decisions that you want.

And then I also say like really understand like who you have in your peer circle. And I talk a lot about this too, which is certain things come up and it's like, for me example, I have people that are also in performance marketing and I'm like, Hey, like what do you think about these roles or what, how are you guys structuring this or what's been your biggest problem? Right. And so having those people at your peer level is also really helpful because one, it does help with the imposter syndrome. I'm like, okay, it's not just me. Like not a lot of people have this figured out, but it, but it also just gives you additional opinions and people that you can get advice from. So, I just say kind of a last point on, on inspiration. I didn't name this as well earlier on in my career, but it's not just about the what it's also about the how. And so now one of my sayings is enjoy the journey. And I didn't create that. I don't know where, what the origination of that is, but I, but I really, I really talk about like, okay, yes, there's like a destination, right. And then as soon as there's a destination, there's a new destination. But really it's about how we get there, right? Like what does that journey look like? Are we leading with empathy? Are we being mindful of all the various scenarios that are going on? And especially, I think now that we're working in this new normal, it's really important that, you know, we as leaders and to me, everybody is a leader in their, in their own area, but it's not just about focusing on that what it's also about focusing on the how. And I use my mentor group quite a bit when it comes to the how, right? Like how could we do this differently? And I would say probing questions like is looking for people and mentors and places to get inspiration, not just about the what, but also keeping in mind the how.

Mary Killelea: Yeah. Love it. What is to be bolder mean to you?

Sam Needham: To be bolder. By the way, I love that. I love that we're having this conversation. I think we need to have more conversations. I feel that, I've used this like metaphor before. It's like when you have a candle that's lit, it doesn't take anything. It doesn't take away from the flame to light another candle. Right. And so it's like the more that we can have these really transparent conversations and share the wisdom and, you know, share what worked and didn't work the better. For me, being bolder is really also sitting with what is your North Star and being unrelenting and from in terms of getting it. So we talked a little bit about failure and how I've evolved my position on failure. We talked a little bit about understanding the skills that you need to get to the next level. I think also sometimes asking the right question can be more impactful than knowing the answers. So, it's really just to me, it's being mindful of like, this is what I want. This is what I deserve. I don't necessarily know all the answers on how to get there, but verbalize it. Like don't tell your steering wheel. Don't tell your shower head, right? Like verbalize it to people, start having those conversations and it's not just with your manager, it's with your peers, it's with other people that you're just meeting for the first time on a podcast, right? Like, so just being intentional and trying to socialize like what you want and also giving time and space for those things change over time and you get more information. And so that evolves and that's cool too. I think for me, that's how I internalize the Be Bolders. Just like start the conversations and just like ask for what you want.

Mary Killelea: Last question, what would you tell your 20-year-old self?

Sam Needham: For me personally, when I was 20, I came out, right? So there was a lot going on when I was 20. But you know, I think that, and also when I was 20, a lot different than what 20-year-olds are facing today in many respects. And in many respects, it's similar. But I think for me, I spent way too much time trying to fit in, right? And just try to understand like, okay, well, I'm different and different isn't good. And what I would tell my 20-year-old self is that's actually your superpower. Like what's different is what makes you magical and don't shy away from that. Like really embrace it and have that different opinion and speak out. And I think for me, I was going through a lot personally and also then trying to really establish my professional career. And so I also would say just like build a practice around a mental health routine. Whatever that means for you. Whether it's meditation or yoga or working out or time in the dark or, you know, traveling or whatever that means, whatever your mental health routine is for you, I would have told my 20-year-old self like, establish that now, because not only did I need it then, but you know, it's something that's just good for everybody, like for their entire life. So I would say that.

And then I would say kind of the last piece, like if I think about my 20-year-old self is I have a very non-traditional career, right? So, if a lot of people, they kind of stay in a path, whether they stay in marketing, they stay agency side, or maybe they switch into the client side, or they have kind of, you know, different similar category of companies. I was all over the map, right? I worked at larger tech companies. I worked at smaller software companies. I had my own agencies. I, you know, changed, I was in professional services with, with PwC work, as contracting into PwC, and then there were moments where I didn't necessarily, like understand how it all weaves together. And then when I had the opportunity to go work at SVB, there, it like clicked. It was like, oh, I get to use my digital background. I get to use my marketing skills. I get to use the time that I co-founded a startup. Like I, I get to pull from all of these different areas. And again, it kind of was like, at that point in my career, I was like, oh, I get how my uniqueness is a value add, right? So I would also just tell my 20-year-old self, or really anybody out there that's kind of starting in their career, be intentional, be vocal, and also just understand that enjoy that journey, because no matter if it seems more of a straight shot or twists and turns, it, you know, you just keep putting out there what you want and meeting people and verbalizing it. And not only do you enjoy it in the moment, but it'll build and build and build to that next thing.

Mary Killelea: Thank you. This has been awesome. It's been great getting to know you and meeting you today. I appreciate you being on the show.

Sam Needham: Thanks for having me.

Mary Killelea: Thanks for listening to the episode today. It was really fun chatting with my guests. If you liked our show, please like it and share it with your friends. If you want to learn what we're up to, please go check out our website at 2bbolder.com. That's the number two, little b, bolder.com.