HOW SHE DOES IT Marta Najbert CMO Marketing
HOW SHE DOES IT: Marta Najbert – CMO Marketing & Ecommerce TATUUM
How studying psychology is useful in business, what advice one of her bosses gave her and what she learned from Asians about their approach to work. About her career path MARTA NAJBERT, CMO Marketing & Ecommerce TATUUM, says Alicja Szewczyk.
STUDY – Psychology with a specialization in "Business Psychology"
I chose this major with the idea of working as a therapist, but during my studies I decided that the business path was the one that appealed to me the most. However, psychological knowledge gave me a very powerful methodological workshop. It proved to be a foundation for understanding consumers, their motivations, how and why they process information and what is important in communication both from the content and form side.
2006-2008 UNIVERSUM
Swedish company dealing with employer branding – then a complete novelty on the market. I got into it because of my major and my knowledge of Italian. In the beginning I was to recruit partner universities to participate in research just in the Italian market. However, because of my methodological background, clients soon began to invite me to workshops where we looked for the best strategies for action. I worked with m.in. with Orange, L'Oréal and BREBank Group. I was 22 years old and ran a workshop for the board of directors, which was a great experience for me. I looked like a high school student so my boss told me to wear the most "aged" outfit I could find in my closet. Being able to interact with top managers so early in my career was an express course in working with decision makers. It showed me how to communicate in order to be heard and helped me understand what such people look for in others and… in data. Universum was a very young company, international (half of the team were foreigners), with a classic Scandinavian egalitarian approach based on no hierarchy, respect for others, emphasis on teamwork and a lot of autonomy given to teams. In such an environment, the boss set the framework, asked questions, set the direction, but did not hold anyone's hand or look at anyone's hands. This experience shaped my expectations as to the style and culture of work.
What stuck in my mind the most? Conversation with a global CEO who, after successfully completing a key project, first celebrated with our team until the morning and then sat down with me, congratulated me and said: "Remember Marta that work can never be your whole life. Always ask yourself: what will I do when I am no longer here??"
INTERNSHIP IN THE STATES
When I was working for Universum, my then-boyfriend got an offer to move to the US branch of the company he was working for. My Swedish employer at the time (14 years ago!) to go part-time and work remotely from the States. In order not to sit alone at home, I signed up for an unpaid internship with the HR department of my boyfriend's employer. It was a short, four-month experience, but thanks to it I saw a completely different world – American corporate culture in which what we say and how we say it matters a lot. It was also my first experience with retaile – I saw how procedures connected with running a network look like from the inside and at the same time on the biggest global market.
2008-2009 L'ORÉAL
He was one of my clients at Universum, so it was a great honor for me to be invited to participate in a recruitment for a manager position when I was in my fourth year of college. So I was able to combine a specialised master's degree with a full-time job – it took me 14-16 hours a day. L'Oréal was a jump in the deep end for me and an express course of working in marketing – on the very first day I had three months of overdue projects to catch up on. At L'Oréal, I met great, incredibly talented people who are now very successful creating their own businesses or developing major global brands – it shows how good the recruitment process was at this company. Thanks to working there, I understood how important it is to listen to people with experience, how valuable their advice and perspective on many issues are. That is why I never enter a company to make a revolution or teach others how to live. I believe that in every organization there is knowledge that must first be known and respected. And to be able to create something new, you first need to have a strong foundation from which you can bounce.
2009-2018 PANDORA
The professional adventure of a lifetime that I have "entered". When I found out that Pandora was going to enter our market, I wrote to the head of the Polish branch asking for a meeting. I knew he was a leader with whom the brand had a chance to grow incredibly, although at that time hardly anyone in Poland had heard of him. I convinced him to give me a chance, although my young age was not conducive to that. I was helped by my determination, psychological knowledge, understanding of universal consumer motivations and the workshop I took at L'Oréal.
Pandora became my first child and home for many years. I was given enormous freedom from my boss, but also very ambitious goals to achieve. These 9 years have been incredibly busy, developing dozens of markets, traveling constantly, and finding ways to reach out to partners and customers from different cultures. We started with a 7-person office and one showroom in Poland, and just 4 years later we were present in most cities of Central-Eastern Europe and the Middle East with a chain of concept stores, which revolutionized the approach to buying jewelry. While working for Pandora, I spent a year in Hong Kong. I managed a marketing team and developed a brand in 11 markets in the Asia-Pacific region, and most importantly learned about the fascinating culture there.
What has this job taught me?? Above all, focus on what is most important. In fundamental matters, people have more in common than they do apart, so instead of focusing on insignificant differences, it is worth looking for what is common, i.e. mechanisms that have the greatest chance of success. Which doesn't mean there aren't important differences. The trick is to correctly assess what really matters. Which communication channels have the most impact? Are there design elements particularly desired by clients? What is the main motivation for a purchase? How does our brand fit in, what gaps and challenges does the given competitive market create for us? And finally, success requires a positive, motivated team that looks in one direction, feels good in the place where they spend 8 hours a day and believes in what they do.
2018-2019 OTCF
After giving birth to a daughter it was time for changes. I wanted a job that would not require me to travel so much, but at the same time would allow me to gain experience in areas where I did not have it. I learned this kind of thinking from my Asian co-workers who, when changing jobs, analyze what professional areas they need to pursue their goals in the future. I wanted to learn how to create many parallel product campaigns: from the very concept, through the creation, to the production, which – working previously for global brands – I had limited contact with. During my work at OTCF we set up an internal creative agency, consisting of graphic designers, copywriters and a production team, which developed ideas for comprehensive communication of a wide range of products for both the Polish market and foreign markets, for which we started to create the first dedicated campaigns. This time also allowed me to get to know the fashion industry better from the inside: the possibilities, opportunities, but also the main challenges it faces.
From 2019 TATUUM
Wanting to develop further, I joined the TATUUM team – a brand that I dreamt about as a student. At TATUUM, I found myself in the biggest crisis the fashion industry had ever faced – a pandemic that hit retail, the supply chain, but also, and most importantly, people – us, our employees and our customers – hard. This is undoubtedly the biggest professional test I have faced. We had to take a step back, cut back on various activities, but I'm proud of how we used that time. We have "reworked" the collection, introduced novelties, improved the quality of our products, improved the website. We introduced the soft sport line and TATUUM Home, we launched the SLOWLY platform with local, artisanal products in the spirit of slow. It was not a time strewn with roses and probably each of us felt a mix of challenges and difficult emotions. For me an important lesson for the future was to give myself space in such a moment and start looking for new paths and solutions with an open head. It turns out that a crisis can also be an opportunity.
