MCMP Speaker Event: Molly Peck
On March 20th, MCMP was visited by Molly Peck, Chief Marketing Officer at Global Buick and GMC. Molly got her undergrad degree at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University and got her MBA at Michigan’s Ross School of Business. Molly has been lucky enough to spend her entire 30 year career in sales and marketing at General Motors. She has worked on the brands Buick, Chevrolet, Cadillac, and GMC. Her job has allowed her to live in many places, including Detroit, Bloomington, Hartford, Dubai, and Shanghai. Her hobbies include travel, cooking, podcasts, books, yoga, Soul Cycle, and pilates.
Molly told MCMP members that building out your career can allow you to be able to clearly see your goals and hit your objectives. She has organized her career as follows.
Develop Foundational Skills
Her titles include sales, analyst, assistant manager
2-3 years where you will continue to use marketing skills from the classroom in your career
Build Specialized Skills
This point includes more marketing and advertising roles
This is where her heart lies in advertising, creating campaigns, and ads
Demonstrate Capability and Results
Here she stepped into more leaderships roles like Director of Buick Marketing, Director Chevrolet Advertising, Director Cadillac Advertising
12-15 years into her career is when you have KPIs and deliverables and have a team, hitting sales objectives, being a leader
Enterprise Leadership
She continued her leadership roles for the entire enterprise with CMO Global Buick and GMC, VP Sales and Marketing for Buick China, CMO General Motors Middle East
20 years in is enterprise leadership: more HR, accountable for business results, revenue targets, share and sales goals, team culture
Molly’s early career advice is to think of a career as a chess game. Think of where you want to go and then what skills you need to get there. At one point, she only worked on cars but she knew that she needed to move on to trucks if she wanted to eventually become a leader within the company. Molly emphasized that you need to put yourself in a position where nobody can outmatch your skillset. She was very intentional about going overseas and made these deliberate career moves in order to get where she is now. She also expressed that sometimes you have to ask for a job, which is how she came to be the Global CMO.
Molly also gave MCMP members some marketing principles to keep in mind. First, you must understand your customer and competitive environment better than anyone else. Then, you need to identify and exploit your strategic and competitive advantage with a compelling value proposition. Next, you should build relevant brands with clear and differentiated positioning. This includes crafting marketing goals that connect emotionally and rationally to your target audience. Finally, you should establish KPIs and prove that your plans create demand and build strong brands and drive enterprise ROI.
Molly concluded with some advice that she would give to her 20 year old self. Molly conveyed that you should find something you're really good at and become an expert. Your 20s are integral to working hard in order to establish your career. Building your network is a great asset to have. Lastly, be intentional about your career.
Questions from MCMP members:
How do you speak up and ask for jobs?
“There's a fear of rejection, it's always that way. I say always go to HR and do it right away. Say, “I understand you have this position open and I would like to be considered for it. Here’s where I’m qualified.” Most leaders consider it to be a quality that you are advocating for yourself and your career. You just have to do it and it works. Asking for raises is just as awkward: it’s different, do so at a time where you aren't putting anyone on the spot, say “I believe I am undervalued in my pay because of xyz.” You need to have data, show deliverables and how you have delivered on them. Even if they say no, the next time they review you may get it.”
What advertising campaigns have you worked on?
“My recent favorite is that we launched the GMC Hummer. It is an ad with Lebron James where the vehicle crab walks on the diagonal. It focuses on rational messages. All these crabs are making a pilgrimage to see the hummer. When they get there, Lebron James demonstrates it, it’s very funny. Missy Elliott's music even comes on. In the second ad, the crabs come back asking lebron to show the feature again, he shows something different.”
Advice for preparing for interviews
“You need to rehearse and prepare. Make your thoughts super clear and create a narrative about yourself. Think about what you want them to know about you, what passions you want to highlight, and then back your answers into that. Think about introspection and then write it down; there's only so many questions they can ask you so be clear in your thinking. The typical format to answer is situation/challenge - action you took - results. Practice with your roommate or friend too.”
What was it like to transfer from US markets to international and back?
“Working internationally is a personal growth experience; you’re away from everything that's familiar. Everything is new and foreign and it's exciting and piques curiosity. Working internationally gives a lot of creative energy. There are changes between offices, for example, in Dubai no one started before 9 am. Be able to quickly adapt to cultures. When in leadership, you want to come in and get to know the team and appreciate what they are doing . I highly recommend anyone that has that opportunity or interest to work internationally. China was very different from a culture standpoint. I brought knowledge back to the US and I still get to work with the international teams. The US sets brand expectations and other countries roll it out. Make sure everyone understands the vision and how to go to market with it.”
How have you overcome challenges being a woman in such a male dominated industry?
“20 years ago it was super common being the only woman in the room, it's totally changed. Women network and have dinner together. Companies have their tribes, sometimes it's male vs female. It's our responsibility to bring all the other women with us and be supportive and collaborative. It's better for the company to have that diversity, and they need different races and backgrounds. Having a family and working at the same time has gotten better, it slows down your career but it'll pick back up. If you leave the workforce, it's difficult to get back in.”
What skills have you found most helpful to advance through your career?
“You need to understand what is the vision, what are the strategies, what are the tactics to get you where you need to be. Learning to be strategic is harder than learning to be tactical and you need to be able to do both. Some important soft skills include being a great communicator, emails, speaking, expressing your thoughts, writing, public speaking, communicating ideas, not just one on one communication, and presentations.”
Thank you Molly for joining us!
-Kristina Gurgone, March 2023
