Hi, everyone. I'm Esther Flammer, chief Marketing Officer at RE I have been in marketing for 20 years uh in nonprofit agency and high growth tech companies. Uh Thank you so much for joining us today.I am very excited uh to chat with you today because we're gonna talk about a topic that I find really quite personal and will go into my whole journey. Um And I actually love sharing about it. I was actually re recently speaking to a company and was asked what's the best compliment that I've ever received? Uh And I had to think about it for a little bit. Um uh it's what came to me wasn't any specific awards or people telling me that it was a great leader or a boss. Uh Actually the best compliment that came to mind um in terms of the best compliment I've ever received is your great mom. Uh which I love to hear. Uh because it truly is the most important thing that I could be doing in my life. Uh raising two amazing humans. Uh Let me tell you who they are. Uh These are my two adorable, smart, sweet, hilarious little boys. They are 10 and almost eight. We love experiencing the world with our kids. We create memories together, we start adventures together, we travel the world together.

Uh So whether we're in a new country or at a neighborhood park, uh, we like to create memories together and they bring, uh, essentially some of the most joy in my life. Um, absolutely. In both the good times and in on the very worst days, they bring me the best joy. Uh And they gave me my most important job title, which is what we're gonna talk about. Uh Because I often get asked, how am I able to juggle both of my job titles at once. I'm a chief marketing officer at Reich. Uh I've been at Reich for um almost two years and our goal is to help people do the best work of our li of their lives. Um But also at the same time, you know, my most important job title is mom. And so the question I often get asked is, is it possible to advance in your career while also prioritizing your family? And while I'm definitely not perfect, I am happy to take you through some of my personal career journey and some of the things that I've learned along the way. Let's start at the beginning, climbing the ladder.

So early on in my career, I was single, I was ambitious, hungry. I was looking to make an impact and climb up the ladder pretty quickly. I, um, actually got my foot in the door at a small tech start up. Uh, and I started out with the most junior person on the marketing team and we had three people on the team. And so I was bottom of the ladder. Uh I quickly realized that especially at a start up, there were a lot of areas to start building. There were some gaps in the organization and I started to look to see what are things that I could help build. And so as the company grew, I was asked to take on kind of first was customer marketing because the company had never really had formal customer marketing before. So I started to think through what are some of the the biggest milestones in a customer life like life cycle. And I started to create out some of the communications to welcome and onboard customers. Then I turned to renewals, which was a big milestone. Uh And what can we start to try and drive from a communication standpoint and a content standpoint to uh drive the value that they received over the last year? Um And why they would want to renew.

And then I went into campaigns and events for customer education and engagement. I was sending a lot of customer customer emails and I realized we weren't maximizing our email platform to its fullest potential. So then I built out a road map to actually scale our full marketing infrastructure, which I ended up presenting to the CEO. And so I found myself building and owning marketing operations, laying the foundation for measuring and tracking marketing performance and for scaling campaign management, which then led to eventually uh actually taking on a team that was responsible for revenue generation and then eventually all life cycle marketing for the largest line of business which accounted for 90% of the company's revenue.

Now that didn't happen overnight. Uh It actually took years and years. There were, there was lots of hard work. There were pivots and leadership changes and company changes. I had some good managers and I had a lot of bad, bad managers uh to be quite frank. I remember getting frustrated for not being able to move out faster for getting overlooked for promotions. Um And finally, when I was getting place, getting to a place where I was ready to get a promotion, um suddenly there would be maybe an orgy structure. I would have, I would have a brand new manager and I have to start all over again and build credibility uh with a brand new boss. Um or sometimes it was me handing all of my hard work over just to my boss so that he could present it and get the credit. And so how was I able to navigate these ups and downs and find success? Well, specifically for me, I was able to tap into my core capabilities and then start to build a reputation around it across the business. And so I found gaps in the organization, as I mentioned and started to actually build solutions for those gaps. We've never had a customer marketing program. I was gonna build one. We never had uh marketing infrastructure. I built one. And I focused on building foundations that could scale as the company grew.

And that reputation actually really helped me because I became known as a person who would deliver. Uh So when the company's number one problem for the year, you know, was churn uh and, and the company and the executives needed someone who could put together a cross functional tiger team to find a solution, build an action plan. I was that person. Um And I was able to help drive that. Looking back at that journey, hindsight is always 2020. Um I realized that understanding and leveraging the unique skill sets that I could bring to the table could make an impact on the organization and it could actually bring value to the company. And that was really, really important, not just for the company and, and what I was able to build for the company, but personally, from my own career path, this was pivotal for my career because I was actually able to gain breadth and depth of experience across a lot of different marketing functions that actually allowed me to become a chief marketing officer now because I've actually built each of those functions.

And so in terms of some of the lessons that I had learned and, and what I really focused on was building my value, understanding, what were my unique capabilities, what could I bring to the table? How could I prove value to the organization and how could I leverage that to then continue to uh advance my skill set as well as move up in the organization? And when you realize the value that you bring and you only have kind of a unique blend of experience and skill sets that you can bring to the table. But as you realize that value uh that then you become more valuable to the company and to your team. And this is really critical because the more mission critical that you become to your organization, the more you can hone and grow that value. But also you can actually utilize that as leverage, you can negotiate, that, utilize it to negotiate for what's important to you. And that's actually really, really important, especially again, juggling those job titles of what you do day to day at work, but also what you do in your personal life because negotiating what's important for you, this is how you start to find some of that balance. So back to my journey, happy to give some specific examples and personal examples. But as I continue to advance in my career, I also prioritized starting a family. It was really important to me. And when I had my first child, I knew that first year was really important.

It's, it's, you know, it's a year you would never get back. It's not something that you can put on hold and I wanted to be there for all the big moments. And so, um, as I built out that reputation for being dependable and for delivering, uh, before remote or hybrid work work was a standard way of working. This was back in the day. Um I was actually able to negotiate a four day work week. So when I came back after Matt leave, I did two days in the office, two days at home and one day off. And that was really important for me because I wanted to continue to drive uh business impact in my job. And in my career, I wanted to feel productive, I wanted to feel like I was gaining um advancement in my career and not putting that fully on hold. But also I wanted to be home um and be with my, my son and, and like I said, experience, all of those amazing uh memorable moments for that first year of his life. Um And many of us I would say have really actually enjoyed what I would say is probably the best thing that has come out of the pandemic, which is that flexible work schedule that allows for a lot of us to be able to better balance work and family.

I'm actually fully remote now in my job. I absolutely love it. Um, you know, it's something where it allows for me to be able to find some of that balance in my day. But again, there is kind of, um, a balance there where while I'm fully remote and I do get kind of the comforts of being at home and being able to be present at home while also working, uh, you know, in back to back zoom calls. You know, there's the balance of when do you unplug or when do you get back online, there's the balance of a lot more travel that happens uh when you're in a remote company because then if you want to do the in person because there's so much value in, in person, how do you make that happen?

Um But again, I bring it back to figuring out what's important for you. Um Maybe that is flexible work schedule, but maybe it's not, maybe it's um or maybe that's nonnegotiable depending on your line of work or depending on your job. Uh But what are some other areas that allow for you to have some of the freedom or the flexibility to be able to not only do your job better but also to be able to be present for your family. And some of those ideas might be maybe asking for more paid time off or unpaid time off. Uh some vacation where you can actually do, but more quality time with your family because you've put in a lot of that effort and it's been a lot of back to backs and a lot of, you know, nights and weekends type of thing. Uh, maybe it is more equitable, equitable pay. Uh That allows for you to find quality childcare that gives you peace of mind. So that while you are working in a, away from your kids, you are, you have that peace of mind, you know that they're in good hands. Um Maybe it's some additional benefits, health care volunteer days so that you can utilize that to go shopper on a field trip for your kids.

It's really important and I stress kind of the first piece which is making sure you're proving your value that you become an asset to the company. Uh And that you, you know, are making an impact and people understand what you bring to the table and then asking for what's important to you because if you don't, if you don't ask, you will never get it. Um And what's important to you today may not actually be what's important tomorrow or in a year from now, every single phase of life, every single person's circumstance is different. So back to my story, when I had my second child, I was actually ready to prioritize upward advancement in my career. So I had a much easier labor, much easier recovery. I had the help of both grandparents nearby and I was ready to take the next step in my career. So I actually decided to cut my mat leave short by a month. I took a new job to step up in my career. It was kind of the next step for me, but I understood the sacrifice that it was going, that I was going to have to make because it was going to give me less, less, less flexibility in my schedule.

It was gonna be a longer commute time and more time in the office. So that meant more time away from the family. But for that time, time in my life, I was willing to make that sacrifice. Um Again, I knew my kids were in good hands. Um I had felt a lot better about recovery. I had felt a lot of uh I felt really good about the bonding time. I had, I was still, I still obviously able to make the time with my kids. But at that time in life, I really wanted to lean into my career. Um And here's another example actually, um getting personal again, uh you know, when I actually continued to move up upward in that trajectory of my career, I became a vice president level and four months, three months into um a new role, I actually found out that I had breast cancer, which was completely surprising.

Um And I had to undergo treatment during really the busiest season of the year uh in the biggest role that I'd ever had in my career. And again, different priorities, different phases of life, different people. But I actually chose to work the entire time. I, I went through treatment and so I would go into a chemo treatment. And two weeks later, I was in London producing a user conference. I'd come home, do another treatment. And then the next week I was in Vegas doing our second annual conference. And then I was going through, after all the chemo treatments, I went through da daily radiation. I would actually take work calls to and from the hospital. And on the second to last treatment, I actually went straight from the hospital. Flew to the or went to the drove to the airport, flew to San Francisco for some, some meetings just for the day, came home that night, completed my last day of radiation. The next morning again, it was a personal choice that I made and partially it was to power me and to distract me from feeling like I was sick and it was something that caused me to focus on something other than being sick or, you know, being a cancer patient. And it actually really, really helped me and drove me. But I also had a ton of support from my family, from my community, from my work from my team. Um And over the next year, I actually went through multiple surgeries. I traveled extensively.

I ended up getting an infection. My body started to shut down and my husband turned to me and said, I think your body is telling you to take a break. Um So again, different phase of life, different time, different people. Um What do you need personally for yourself? So I actually asked uh for a sabbatical. Um I went to my coo I said, look at this, you know, I need to, I need to take some time for myself. I actually planned to completely quit working for a few years. Um And he actually came back and said, we'd love to just give you a paid leave and we'd love for you to come back. And because of what I learned early in my career, because of that reputation and the value that I had established, my company ended up giving me a paid leave for seven months. And when I was ready to come back to work, I negotiated, coming back part time because I knew I would go back too hard, too fast. Um And actually, again, ended up proving myself and, and, and got an even bigger role and an even bigger team that I had had before I left.

So again, building on know your value, build your value in the company, negotiate what's important for you and then prioritize based off of your phase of life because every point in time is different and what you need today is different than maybe what you need 10 years from now.

Your career will be ahead of you. It will always be there for you. There's pros and cons to putting things on hold. Um But also there's pros and cons to being able to be with your family or prior prioritizing your mental health or your physical health. Um You know, a again, everyone's a little bit different. So that's been my really long journey that I've taken you through. Uh So I've been thinking about letters and takeaways that I can leave you with. If there are just a few concepts, I want you to know about protecting that most important job title of being a mom. And the first is this, there's a good old thing by a little band called The Rolling Stones. You can't always get what you want. But if you try, sometimes you get what you need. I love that song. People always talk about having it all and I will tell you you can't have it all all the time, but you can get what you need at certain times. And in certain areas work life balance is the dream at Bright. We've done a study called Dark Matter of Work and our research shows that 62% of employees feel overworked, 70% are generally stressed. Uh It's a pretty sad statistic. Um Everyone is overworking in a lot of, a lot of areas in everyone is trying to find that ideal state of balance but balance really is about giving and taking. Um, give and take can relate to your family and to your career.

So sometimes you do, you want to lean into your career. There are those crazy busy seasons. There are times when you have to travel and be away from your family. There are times when you're working nights and weekends, but figure out where you can find balance. Is it a busy season right now? But then in a month, you fully plan to disconnect during the PTO that you're taking for your family vacation in the summer. Maybe it's balancing your day by unplugging at five and doing dinner and bedtime with your kids and then getting back online to wrap things up when they're in bed. Maybe it's been ok with not having a picture. Perfect, perfectly tidy house all the time because the laundry is piling up and we'll wait until the weekends because you're just too tired at night to clean the kitchen to do laundry, uh you know, taking the kids to their activities. And so the weekends are time for you to start to do that. Maybe it's taking a work sabbatical while the kids are young, fully leaning into your career. Once they're in school, you may sacrifice in some areas for some periods of time, but gain it back later. It also applies to your relationship with your company. What are you giving your company? But also what are you taking for yourself. It can't all be about giving and it can't all be about taking on either part.

If you're not delivering value, if your team and boss can't depend on you, you're unavailable. You're completely mi a when you are remote, no one can get a hold of you. You're not delivering on what you need. It will be very difficult to negotiate and ask for what you want. You want a flexible work schedule, you might not get that, um, or you want to take a vacation and you lead your team completely hanging. They probably won't want to approve that later on. But on the flip side, if you are, if you're providing value, you're overachieving it, you're killing it. Your job, your company values, you, your team values, you set the boundaries you need, uh don't feel bad about taking your vacation time. Your company will want to take and take, it's up to you to help find that balance in terms of number two. the second kind of learning or takeaway, find your voice. This is really important in two areas or aspects. Number one, you need to advocate for yourself. Um No one else is gonna advocate or you can't depend on anyone else to advocate for you. And I've absolutely fallen victim to imposter syndrome not asking because I didn't know better or because I didn't think I deserved it. Not speaking up for fear that I wouldn't say things perfectly. Um I'm very often the only woman executive at the table. I'm very used to being underestimated. Uh But I realized I had a unique perspective. I have subject matter expertise that other people don't have.

And I'm able to provide a perspective and solutions that other people might not even think of. And so this is something that you can do for yourself, speak up, practice, be uncomfortable, make mistakes, make the ask share and celebrate your successes. You are your best advocate.

There's another thing with finding your voice and that is in finding advocates and others, you do need others to champion you and to make sure that if you don't have a seat at the table, if you're not in the room, that they are also being your voice, it's an important part of building your reputation.

Uh And because you won't always have the voice and you need to rely on others. And that kind of brings us to the last point, which is you can't do it alone. Your best advocates and champions are colleagues that you've worked with in the past mentors that you've utilized either executives or bosses. They can be literally anyone. Make sure that you're sharing your experience uh with others that they're sharing with. You, ask questions, learn from each other and you also can't do it alone at home. We all know it takes a village, my husband and I have an equal, equal partnership, a 5050 partnership he is also running a company. He's also a working parent. And so we've had to, we completely figure out what are the schedules, what are the calendars? How do we make sure that we are both in this from a co parenting standpoint? We're splitting the workload at home cleaning. Uh, we are both work working, um, on our careers as well as working on working at home and making sure that we are present and, and being able to maintain sanity as parents. And so those are my biggest takeaways. Hi, Miss. Uh, I just wanna thank you all uh, for listening to my journey and hearing some of the learnings I've heard, feel free to reach out to me if you have any questions, happy to continue to share. Thank you.