“Have a clear vision,” Kathleen Saxton from Omnicom Group

Meet Kathleen Saxton, Chief Marketing Officer at Omnicom Group, where she’s responsible for marketing the company’s award-winning capabilities and its omni-channel solutions for global enterprise clients. Kathleen brings 25 years of experience in sales, marketing, media, and talent management to her role. In addition to her career in marketing and media, she is a qualified psychotherapist, which influences her leadership approach. A Brit, now residing in NYC, Kathleen has two grown children and a cockapoo, and she plays the flute and piano. 

Kathleen joined Jocelyn Hudak, Director, Content and Digital Marketing and Sophie Anderson, Associate Director, Podcast Sales Marketing for a Pass the Mic interview at Advertising Week New York. Give it a listen, and be prepared to learn a lot (like that Jocelyn and Sophie are fellow flautists).

We know you want tickets to that proposed orchestral concert with Kathleen, Jocelyn, and Sophie on flute (because we sure do). In the meantime, here are some inspiring highlights from this powerful interview.

Have a goal.

Highlight: “To me, leadership is about really having a clear vision that you can express to everybody, so everyone knows what we're heading towards. We have to have a goal. We have to have an end game. How do we then iterate towards that via execution is where the team dynamics truly come in.” - Kathleen Saxton

First impressions are important.

Highlight: “First impressions are important. And therefore, showing up to be the person that you are striving to be, I think, is incredibly important. Bring that energy.” - Kathleen Saxton

Just run it.

Highlight: “There can be so many checks and checking points and gating that people almost lose the muscle of knowing how to just run it—run at something and do well. So, I try and hope that the people that work with me have the boundaries by which we're trying to aim at the vision, but they can bring their own capability and their own personality to how we get that done.” - Kathleen Saxton

All you can do is your best.

Highlight: “My view is when things go really wrong, there are just simply humans behind it. Most of the time, people have not intended things to go wrong or to be difficult. And so, really all you can do is your best. All you can do is to try and cope with what's happening.” - Kathleen Saxton

Think about providing for the future.

Highlight: “I would say, as a woman, one of the most important things is we don't get taught much about money, and we don't like talking about money very much. But I think, as a woman, we need to really understand how to get comfortable with that because it gives us liberation more than anything else. It gives us safety; it gives us choices. And so, we must really think about how we negotiate our way in and out of things, how we think about how we are going to provide for our futures.” - Kathleen Saxton

With Kathleen’s advice on our side, the future's looking brighter. Ready for some more motivation? Check out more Pass the Mic content.