I recently got an opportunity where i would be setting up a Marketing team from scratch.

I recently got an opportunity where i would be setting up a Marketing team from scratch. I want to ask FGB community, preferable females in leadership position, how is it like to work at senior management level and what all we need to do succeed in the role, how much patience we need to keep to make things work and how long should it take? I am looking at a long-term stint of 5 years at least.

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4 Comments

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  1. Janet Granger

    Congratulations! I'm happy to chat with you about this. I'm a marketing career mentor and coach and have been managing marketing teams for the past 10 years.

  2. Anonymous

    Hey Janet, Super happy about your response. How do I reach you?

  3. Barb Hansen

    You don't mention if this is your first senior management role, but if it is, allow time for your own growth and take management classes (LinkedIn, podcasts, YouTube, books).

    Managing a team takes time and being in senior management comes along with different responsibilities outside of managing your team. Don't underload your schedule. You need time on your schedule for meeting with your team's managers and individual team members (assuming you have a structured team - team members who report to managers, who report to Sr. Managers or Directors, who then report to you). You'll need to have time to drop in meetings, problem solving, HR issues, meeting with other senior management, business decisions, and more.

    Find some time each week (if possible) to keep your "fingers on the keyboard" and do some marketing work or learn and use new software or platform. Even though you lead a team so it's there job to do the work, and you have less time to do the actual work, I think it's important for all of us in technical or para-technical jobs to stay current.

    And, take a business finance class (doesn't need to be a university-level class, LinkedIn has plenty of good classes). The higher up the management ladder you climb the more likely you are to be making larger financial decisions for the company. If you're not managing a budget now or sitting around the table discussing the profit and loss numbers of a quarter, it could happen (quickly) and it's best to be prepared. The LinkedIn classes aren't that daunting. You don't need to be a CPA but familiarity with financials is great!

    Congrats and good luck!

  4. Roma Maheshwari

    Thanks for this detailed post. Yes, it's my first senior management role and I still don't have a team. It's my responsibility to go and set up team there.

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