Career Rocket Episode #8: Amber Sundell
To future women leaders:
“Don’t be afraid to ask--ask for the role, ask for a challenge, ask for the money, ask for feedback” - Amber Sundell
The goal for my Career Rocket series is to make an impact on people’s careers by sharing wisdom from successful folks with high integrity. You can also listen to the podcast of this post hosted in collaboration between DURMC and Empathetic Machines which dives deeper into the topics covered here.
Target audience for this episode: aspiring professionals in marketing
Today’s guest: We are really excited to have Amber Sundell for this episode who is the Director of Marketing at Watson Health, Simpler Consulting, an IBM Company. She has such an upbeat attitude, fun career journey, and shared lots of tangible career advice. I enjoyed our conversation and hope our readers will be able to take away some career impacting action items.
Professional & personal background and highlights
I was born in the suburbs of Minneapolis, started college when I was in high school and then went to Loyola Chicago and graduated in marketing. My very first job out of college was running customer service and small group sales for a tourist dining cruise company. I hated it and moved back to my mom’s house, had to share a room with my 15 year old sister, and found a position at United Healthcare that really led to my current career trajectory. It was my boss and I on the team, and we implemented the first Campaign Automation tool at UHG, and from that point until a year ago, my focus was almost solely on Marketing technology with side interests in CX and Innovation.
I also love a good side hustle or even options for a creative side project. Sometimes that has been having an art studio in Minneapolis and running an Etsy shop. Other times I have worked at a boutique as a stylist. I am usually up to something at night and on the weekends to always keep my creative side churning.
Currently, I run the strategy and direction of all marketing programs for Simpler, a company acquired by IBM. This includes four customer segments and six consulting products. It’s a bit of an interesting role- to the Simpler consulting and leadership team I am essentially their CMO. But I report into Watson Health and IBM Marketing, so I am overseeing one group in a much larger portfolio.
I have worn a ton of hats at IBM--product/offering owner, SME, sales, consulting, marketing. My job went from being a marketing services consultant to marketing for a services consulting team. My boss often jokes that parts of IBM would crumble if I left because it is hard to untangle all that I have done.
In the past I have worked for IBM for 7 years. 5.5 of those were as the global marketing SME for marketing technology. Before that I worked for a smaller consulting companies Covalent Consulting and Pinpoint Services. I also spent a little over a year in Australia working at Suncorp, running campaign marketing (and special projects) for their insurance department. Also a fun career tidbit- I spent about6 months at Target (as a Minnesotan it is THE PLACE to be a marketer), and I worked on the team that not only was part of the “Target knew a teen was pregnant before her parents did”, but also helped develop very early prototypes and beta testing of what turned into their Cartwheel app and couponing systems. Target was not the right culture for me, but I did take a lot away from the experience.
One of my hobbies is exercise. I have been training in powerlifting, I make a mean charcuterie board, cooking and I recently have been teaching myself to paint and make digital artwork.
I live in Chicago with my boyfriend Dustin and our cat Lady.
How are you and your loved ones doing in the midst of all the craziness?
Great. We recently converted our garage into a gym, and it has been a real saver for my mental health. My boyfriend, Dustin, runs a brewery so it has been odd going back to him being at work a lot after us both being home for so long.
However, we have been cooking A LOT, and that has been a lot of fun. We have a food Instagram account @famous_food_kitchen, and added a lot of content to that.
How many people have you managed (includes direct reports and their teams) over your career?
Actually the only team of direct reports that I had was in Australia where I had 5 people reporting to me. With consulting, I couldn’t tell you how many people reported to me on projects. Our current structure is that I run strategy, but campaign and content team members that support me are on different teams.
I think I have found a lot of interesting one person roles at IBM. We are hoping to build out my team more now, but it’s also an interesting time trying to get additional resources.
For each career stage, please share the most important characteristics for success.
Entry level: 1-3 years
The top characteristic: Be open and willing to learn
Some others: I respect people taking risks during this time. I have written a lot of recommendation letters for people that worked with me on projects
I also love when people are willing to take on a challenge. I used to start every project asking everyone what they wanted to accomplish. And I still do this with my dotted line team members- what’s your goal this quarter or year. It blows my mind how often people say this is the first time someone asked that.
Mid-career: 3-7 years
The top characteristic: Ask and look for challenges. I listened to other episodes of this podcast and I liked that someone said ”fearlessness”. When I was in this phase I decided to move to Australia to take on this very interesting role, and my mentor sat me down and said “you know more than you think you do, just go and do your thing”
Some others: I think it is also important to be able to pivot and truly take guidance, feedback, and criticism.
Manager/Director
The top characteristic: Humble and Empathetic
Some others: I saw a great quote that said, “Today’s biggest communication problem is that we don’t listen to understand, we listen to reply.”
Continuing to expand your skills, finding mentors, and working on your own leadership
Looking back, please share what you feel have been your biggest drivers to a successful career?
Great mentors. Having a good mix of being left and right brained, I can be very analytical, but also creative. Do not be afraid to ask someone to be a mentor. Have some variety in hierarchy levels. Be inquisitive
I generally never say no to a challenge.
If there was one thing you would like to tell someone earlier on in their career that you wish someone had told you, what would it be?
Find a mentor sooner and you have more potential than you think you do. It’s also OK to not have it all figured out right away.
When I mentor people early on in their career I talk about how a role or job is a lot like dating. You are building a relationship with your manager and the company. Interviews are your chance to ask questions to learn if this is a good fit.
Looking ahead, where do you think are the upcoming hot spots in careers around your discipline?
I don’t think this is a new trend but furthering data and analytics to drive marketing decisions. It never ceases to amaze me how many marketing organizations I have walked into and it is really held together by excel spreadsheets and duct tape. Even taking this latest role, I had to make a lot of decisions on direction, strategy, and budget with very little data to go on.
Also, I think there’s been a growing shift in B2B marketing and looking at it as B2E(veryone), but I think now that everyone is remote it is going to shift even more. How do you get the attention of someone at home? Shift in lead generation time.
What are the interesting challenges you anticipate will be coming up in your discipline in the coming years?
Right now we are hit so hard with the changes affecting current events. We are really having to shift how we acquire leads.
It really was interesting to see what innovation would come from the remote work and what might pop up in B2B, but I haven’t been blown away yet. Two months ago I would have said maybe podcasts are going to grow as an opportunity, but even I find myself having less and less time to listen to them. So how do we get the attention of senior decision makers?
The more I research and reflect, the more obvious it is that we have diversity issues amongst leadership in companies across the US. What are the challenges you have seen or faced to make this a reality in the near future?
This is such an interesting question. We are now meeting about this bi-weekly with my exec team. A year ago we were proud to have a 60% female exec team, but now we know that is not enough.
We have already started to change hiring policies and how we report on diversity.
Do you have anything in particular you would like to tell future women leaders?
Find a strong female mentor. Having strong women around me, and absorbing what they were telling me has helped me grow by leaps and bounds.
Don’t be afraid to ask--ask for the role, ask for a challenge, ask for the money, ask for feedback. Find someone more experienced to see how to ask.
Not only do you have a successful professional career, you seem to be genuinely grounded and happy. What does living abundantly mean to you and how have you carried it out?
When I was in Australia they had a great motto- “Tomorrow is another day.” I was dumbfounded that my team would always be out the door by 5pm. There are occasional exceptions, but I find it to be key to create and ask for the balance I want or need. If I don’t set my own boundaries, I can let responsibilities consume me. I also find it so important to have my own creative outlet--it has changed and shifted throughout the years, but I can feel my happiness shift when I don’t take that time.
Set aside time on a regular basis to reassess what makes you happy.
If you want to hear the in-depth dialogue of this post, check out the full conversation on the podcast !
Check out our full list of Career Rocket guests here
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