My guest on the podcast today is Ty Shay, the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Norton/LifeLock. Well regarded for his expertise, marketing is not the career path Ty originally set out on. After working tirelessly to get a job as an investment banker at Dean Witter Morgan Stanley, Ty quickly realized that it wasn’t a career he was interested in pursuing.
“Investment banking was…kind of like medicine: it didn’t taste good. But I learned a lot of skills doing that. One thing I realized was that I didn’t want to be in the service industry, I actually wanted to build something and grow something; be associated with a company or a product…I thought it would be a good to have an area of expertise…What interested me about marketing was, ultimately, marketing comes down to individual people making decisions.”
Leveraging alumni networks to their fullest, Ty made the jump from banking to marketing, and has had a dynamic and diverse career: he’s worked for household names like Proctor and Gamble, Clorox, Esurance, Hotwire, and Squaretrade. By the time LifeLock came calling Ty was well versed in how to develop talent and lead teams to get a brand’s story out into the world. Even though Ty only spent a few years at each company, he prides himself on making his position “a little less important each day” to his teams, whom he allows to organically grow into leadership roles.
Join us as we discuss Ty’s journey from banking to marketing, the risks of being “invaluable” to a company, and how Ty knows when it’s time to move on.
Listen to the episode in the player above, or download and enjoy it on iTunes. If you’re so inclined, please leave us a review!
Takeaways from this episode:
- Sometimes, even if we’ve worked really hard to get to the position that we’ve obtained, it’s not the right place for us to be.
- Ty went to business school, and then took a job at Proctor and Gamble to gain experience, despite others not thinking the job was prestigious. By being willing to step backward, Ty was able to slingshot himself forward to other opportunities that really paid off.
- Leverage your alumni networks! Many jobs are obtained by “knowing someone.” Don’t be afraid to reach out and use those contacts.
- Hire people that are smarter than you; empower them to do their job. This builds great teams.
- Keep evolving, keep learning, and don’t be afraid to jump!
Links Mentioned in this Episode:
- Ty Shay – Twitter | LinkedIn
- Disrupt Yourself Podcast – Episode 49: Alison Levine
- LifeLock
- Mindset: The New Psychology of Success by Carol Dweck
- Disrupt Yourself Podcast – Episode 84: Diane Dietz
- Disrupt Yourself Podcast – Episode 102: Liz Wiseman
- Build an A-Team: Play to Their Strengths and Lead Them Up the Learning Curve by Whitney Johnson
- Download a free chapter from Build an A-Team
