Jocelyn Johnson (Girl Scouts of the USA) | Learn, Earn and Return

A recurring theme has started to pop up on the CMO podcast, Sustainability. One of our recent guests even incorporated sustainability into his job title. He might not be alone. According to Deloitte's 2023 Global Marketing Trends Report, sustainability continues to be a focus for brands. While some organizations may want to pull back on sustainability initiatives in times of economic uncertainty, consumers continue to stress that a brand's commitment to sustainability is critical to their preferences. However, only 25% of brands that Deloitte surveyed say their focus for 2023 is on urging consumers to take action. Instead, organizations are recognizing that focusing on their own sustainability efforts can have an even more positive impact on the planet and on their business. For more inspiration on how to make this year be your organization's most impactful year yet, check out Deloitte's 2023 Global Marketing Trends Report at Deloitte.com slash Global Marketing Trends. What's the first brand you remember making an impact on you when you were a young girl? My father was big on the cars, my car didn't drive. So, Cadillac's and Lincoln's were the initial ones I remember, but when he got a Mercedes, I could remember sitting in that car and feeling as if my little body was just melting into the seat, the leather was so nice, the high quality of a Mercedes, the engine, the quality of the drive. And I can also remember him looking at me and saying, this thing can turn on a dime, and then showing the mechanics that indeed turn on a dime. And I have to say, even as an adult, I see, I recently saw a C-series commercial that they did where they were just touching things and the colors would change and evolve to this just wonderful visual as they were leaving their house and going out to the car. But Mercedes was definitely one of the initial, initial brands that I remember. Hi, I'm Jim Stengel and I help major brands find their purpose and activate it and the profits followed. For seven years, I was the global marketing officer for Prokker & Gamble, where I oversaw the marketing of hundreds of brands. You may not know it, but the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of all of your favorite brands, are trying to connect you with your favorite products and services through purpose. And on this show, I delve into how they do it. My guest today on the CMO podcast is Jocelyn Johnson, the chief marketing officer of the Girl Scouts of the USA. The Girl Scouts started in 1912 with 18 girls in Savannah, Georgia. They had an incredible vision even back then. Here's a quote which I absolutely love from the Girl Scout Handbook in 1913. The work of today is the history of tomorrow and we are its makers. My guest Jocelyn is a Girl Scout alum, troop 14-11 and is also a lifetime member. Jocelyn has been the CMO of the Girl Scouts since May 2021. Before that, she spent 28 years in various roles at GE and we will talk about that transition. Jocelyn earned an associate's business degree at Howard University and completed her bachelor's at Potomac College in Management Information Systems. This is my conversation about leadership, Girl Scout cookies, bombs and marketing with Jocelyn Johnson. Jocelyn, welcome to the CMO podcast. We are recording the show the day after the Girl Scout World Thinking Day and right smack in the middle of your annual Girl Scout cookie campaign, which by the way, I'm enjoying this year very much. I just bought one of each for one of my neighborhood Girl Scouts. So thank you for being with us in a really busy time of year. And I'd like to start with how did you spend World Thinking Day yesterday? World Thinking Day was an awesome day for us as it is every year. I spent it focused on making some press releases with regards to our new agency. So we are thinking about how we are going to go to market in new and different ways with our creative agency, which is now Venables, Bell and Partners. We had gone through a very detailed and long, well, what seemed long to me, it was probably short on their end, RFP process and worked with about 17 different agencies to start, narrowed it down to 10 that we received the proposals from and then made some, had some pitches here in the New York office and selected that one partner. So VBP, Venables, Bell Partners is our new agency of record. Wow. So that's fresh news yesterday. That's such an interesting process. So many of our listeners go through that. Could you tell us a little bit about what you learned going through that process and maybe at least what you can share about why you chose Venables as the agency for the Girl Scouts of the USA? Well, I learned a great deal about the different ways that agencies today are showing up at these proposals. It was great to go through the whole process and keep narrowing it down so that we were able to really sync up with what we feel is going to be a great partnership. The creative ideas that these agencies showed up to our office with were just amazing. So all these finalists that were able to come and meet with us and guess we gave them some cookies, it was great. We had a fun time with them. It was great to talk to them about the future, about what we're looking for in our partnership and how we want to help grow the brand, grow our membership and just develop some fantastic creative in the future. I mean, you must be such a desired client. You had so many agencies interested by who doesn't want to work with the Girl Scouts, right? We did and several of them would tell us their story. Yeah, there's always the story. Oh, I was a Girl Scout or my sister was a Girl Scout or, you know, oh, I'm not a Girl Scout. I was only a brownie for a short time and we have to correct them because once a Girl Scout, always a Girl Scout and just going through one season of this famous cookie season, it's so much more than just about the cookies for Girl Scouts. It is an opportunity for us to give them entrepreneurial skills, skills that they'll use for the rest of their life, leadership skills, money management skills. They're able to set goals during this time. So these are investments and I know they're tasty investments that people make, but they're investments in the girls. They're investments in their future and the future of our nation. These are our future leaders. Well, we're, as I said, I bought a bunch of cookies from a neighborhood Girl Scout just this weekend about one of each kind. Tell us a little bit about what might surprise our listeners about this yearly Girl Scout campaign, which is so pervasive, so everywhere, so amazing. What might surprise them is that we are only available for maybe three months out of the year. Our cookie season kicks off in January and typically closes out the deliveries made by April timeframe and that we are only second to Oreo cookies. So we're only available three months or is available all year and we think our cookies taste better. So that might be something that the audience doesn't know. The other piece of it though is the local investment that's being made. The dollars that are made from the cookie sales stay in the local communities. So we hear GSUSA, you don't see those dollars. It doesn't come back to us to help pay anybody's salary. This actually stays in the local community and it's used for outdoor activities, STEM activities, leadership skill lessons that we can teach. It truly is investing back into the girl and into their community. I did some research on the Girl Scout cookie campaign. It goes back I think to 1917. Yes. And the girls back then baked the cookies themselves, put them into wax bags. Yeah. Yeah. Now I was thinking is there any campaign I couldn't think of one that is 106 years old and still fresh and innovative and relevant and interesting. So I think it might be interesting to reflect on that for a minute, Jocelyn. We have a lot of marketers listening. What is it about this organization that has kept this campaign? You haven't walked away from it. You come back every year to sell cookies, but we look forward to it. It's successful. It has continued energy. What could others learn about keeping a campaign fresh for over 100 years? Well, I think that the fact that we do keep it for that specific amount of time, it leaves our customers wanting more. And that's what every marketer wants. You want your customers to always want more and to be in demand. And that's part of what keeps us going. The other piece of it is these girls. I mean, they're at the heart of it. They are the goal setters. They are the marketers. They get out there and push the sales. So there's a salesperson. They get to be and have their own business at such a young age. And we bring it back every year because the skills that we're teaching, they're so useful. I love to see how they present themselves when they're selling the cookies. We have Girl Scouts outside our lawns. I want to go to the grocery store. And you can't say no, too. So I keep buying boxes. And then there was a Girl Scout by the beach over the weekend. And she had a big umbrella. She had a table. She had little flags about what all the flavors were. Of course, I bought one of each from her. So I just love to see how they present their marketing campaign, if you will. It's funny. I was shopping this weekend. And I saw some Girl Scouts across the street. And I was with my daughter and I told her, okay, go ahead and check in. I'll be right there. And I went across the street because I had to hear their pitch. And this young lady walk, would you like to buy some girl sets cookies? And I said, of course I would. What can I get? I only have this $5 bill. What can I get? So again, that money management piece. And, you know, she's pointing, you can get this one or this one or this. And I said, Samoa is on my face. I have to get a Samoa. So I gave her the $5. And I went back across the street. I left the cookies in the store for the people there because I have cookies everywhere. And so it's just sharing. I think your salt of caramel is a little bit in demand this year because she was out of stock on that one flavor. So I just bought two of those. Yeah, extremely popular. They came out last year and they are extremely popular. Now, what's what would surprise our listeners about the Girl Scout Organization? The Girl Scout Organization is continuously evolving. And we are an organization that wants to be viewed as not just something to do. There are many extracurricular activities there for girls between the ages of 5 and 18. You can play soccer. You can play an instrument. You can dance. You can go learn how to code. These are things that you do. Girl Scouts is who you are. And it's who you want to become. And that's what we try to focus on is helping to champion that girl ambition. We want our girls to drive at whatever it is their ambition is. If their ambition is, I want to make a new best friend. We want to help them do that. If their ambition is, I want to be an astronaut. We want to help them do that as well. It can be anything that they are striving to do that they want to become. But Girl Scouts is much more about who you are. And that's the difference, I think, that we want to make sure we get the message across in our branding and in our value propositions. As a marketer, our job is to be creative. But what does that mean? I love George Lois' definition of creativity. George is, of course, a famous art director. And he said, creativity can solve almost any problem. The creative act, the defeat of habit by originality overcomes everything. I love it. The way I think about creativity, I love George's definition, but I think of it as fresh and unexpected ways to solve a problem or to discover new opportunities and new approaches. In the world of business, however, creativity can be a scary word, but it doesn't have to be. In the 2023 Global Marketing Trends Report, Deloitte surveyed more than 1,000 top executives from today's top brands to understand how they plan to meet their customers needs this year. Turns out some of these high growth brands are reimagining creativity in their organizations. At a time when we're seeing a shift from creative skills to analytical skills and marketing, these brands are often doing the opposite. And some CMOs are discovering creativity can be their superpower. Are you looking to make a meaningful impact in your organization in the year ahead? Check out Deloitte's 2023 Global Marketing Trends Report today at Deloitte.com slash Global Marketing Trends. Jocelyn, you were a Girl Scout in the Washington, D.C. area, I believe. I was. Did you enjoy this time of year when you were a Scout, the three-month campaign we were selling cookies? Why did you love it? I loved the ability to go around the neighborhood and talk about this movement that I was part of. I didn't realize how big it was at the time. I just knew that I belonged to something, that it was a sisterhood. We grew up in Maryland and Montgomery County, Maryland to be exact. And in the 70s, Montgomery County, Maryland didn't look like me a lot. However, Girl Scouts was a place where I felt like I was belonging to an organization belonging to a group. I belonged to my troop, 1411, and that I could do anything I wanted to do. That there was nothing that stopped me from whatever my dreams and aspirations were. And I was constantly given the tools that I needed based on some of the different projects that we would do. The badges that we would go for, my sister and I were just badge hungry. So, our aunts would work with us to help to qualify for the badges. My mother assisted us with sewing classes during the season, during the regular Girl Scout season. And so, she was helping my entire troop. So, just that togetherness, that opportunity to go around to the neighborhood and bring these treats to folks was so much fun. Of course, it was all paper back in the 70s. I'm very envious now of the digital activity that goes on. My granddaughter actually joined as a Daisy last year. And we were still kind of, you know, iffy about going around the door to door, because it's still a little bit pandemic time. So, she did most of her sales. Almost 90% of her sales were done online. She did her own videos. She had a little coaching from her grandmother. And it's just, it's, I am definitely envious of today's Girl Scout who gets to both be in person and also the digital sales. She's an e-commerce Daisy. I love it. She is. Now, you just went on there about the beautiful impact of being a Girl Scout as you reflect back on it now. Your years passed. I know you're a lifetime member. But how did that time most influence you most define you, most help you, most help you to be the person you are today? I would say that it gave me exactly what the Girl Scout mission is. And that is to help girls build their courage, confidence and character. It is who I am today. It's part of who I am. It definitely has helped me in my setting of goals, my ability to celebrate those goals once I achieve them. Being able to just have confidence in speaking to strangers. I can speak to anyone and I can feel comfortable in any room. It assisted me with that ability. And I've used it throughout my career. I use it every single day. So let's flip into a bit about your role as a CMO of the Girl Scouts of the USA. You're coming up in two years in the job after 28 years in various roles at GE. So that's quite a transition going from 28 years at GE to being the head of marketing at the Girl Scouts. Could you tell us about that transition? What skills did you lean upon to make that transition successful? I would say it was tough, but we were going through tough times. So I made the transition towards the end or at least what we thought was about the end of the pandemic. And the pandemic gave me a lot of time. I was a global value proposition and insights leader at the time. So I had nine different regions around the globe that I was responsible for and about a dozen product lines. And I couldn't travel. I wasn't able to go globe trotting all over the place as I had previously. So there was a great deal of time to reflect and think about what I had done in my career and what I wanted to do next. GE was evolving and transforming a great deal. I think there was about 22 business units when Jack Welster was running the organization when I joined it. It was down to four major business units at this time. And there wasn't as much opportunity. I felt that I had gained a great deal of leadership training and skills that I could apply anywhere. And I had proven through those four different industries that I had worked in that I'm able to move into different industries. I applied the foundational marketing skills and experiences that I have in every industry and that I was ready to make that shift, make that transition. So I thought that moving to a nonprofit was going to mean less work. I was wrong. I thought, oh, this is going to be easy. It's nonprofit. So not as much pressure. No, it's not easier. And because of that mission and the purpose behind what we do every day here, it is actually a little more challenging. You feel the pressure more because you know what you're doing is for our girls. It is to help our girls to deliver on that mission statement, to help make the world a better place. You didn't have that as your mission at any of the GE business units that I worked in. So it does make a huge difference. What I did was I focused though on those leadership skills that I had on how to build my team. My team had been without a CMO for 18 months when I joined. So they had been moved around to different places. And I knew what they needed was to feel there was some stability. That there was some future development that could happen within the marketing organization. That they could build a career here and feel that they had kind of a safety net and someone to assist them with their needs to be that voice at the executive leadership level. So I made sure that I took care of that piece. I also bought in some of the structure. I mean GE is very well known for its processes and putting together metrics. And those were some of the first things that I did as the new CMO here at GSUSA. I have to say that purpose assists so much in the work that we do. Because when we start going away from that, all you have to do is say, well, is this about the girl? And that brings everybody together again to say, okay, let's make sure we're focusing. We can do a thousand different things. But if only these few things are going to be impactful, that's what we got to focus on. You're talking about the purpose of the Girl Scouts. And I was looking at your handbook from 1913. And I found this quote. The work of today is the history of tomorrow and we are its makers. That is so profound. That is my favorite quote. And that's all about your purpose. And that is over 100 years ago, that quote. What is it, Jocelyn, about this organization that's gone through so many leaders and so many changes? I mean, we talk about purpose a lot in the show. And it's all about consistency and action and activation and living it and passion for it and never getting tired of it and continuing to innovate. So what lessons could we learn from the Girl Scouts of staying so true to this? And you brought it up in terms of one of the first things you did. It's how you make decisions, right? It's about the girls. It is that that sisterhood that we have here at Girl Scouts that kind of keeps us together and gives you the hope for the future. I think that the leadership that we continue to build and continue to build within our girls and living in that. So when you look around at the Girl Scouts of the USA organization, it's mainly women leaders. Our executive leadership team is 100% women. We believe in the strength of our girls. We believe that they are our future leaders. The work that we are doing today shows up in the future every time with these young women. Some of our girls actually get to the level of ambassador within Girl Scouts. And those girls often go for what we call a gold award recipient as a gold award recipient. These gold award girls are amazing. Nothing short of amazing. They focus on things like our sustainability. They focus on STEM. They focus on how we can make sure that girls and women continue to grow in these spaces, in these industries. But it's all about us working together and supporting one another that I think is why we've been around for the 111 years that we're celebrating. And that drives us, especially here at GSUSA, so that we can help champion our girls' ambitions. They are definitely our future leaders. When you look at things like Congress and our senators, over 70% of the female senators are Girl Scout alone. There's a reason that that's the case. It is because they are given the tools that they need to be successful. And when Julie Gordon Lowe created that quote, my favorite quote, I think she had some ideas around what it is that we could be in the future. Things have changed significantly since that time. But that was her hope. That was what she believed in. And that is what we continue to consider our North Star. You were a senior marketer at GE when you left. What's most different about working at GE versus the Girl Scouts? Most different, I think, is that purpose, that mission. At GE, we were very focused on our stockholders and making sure that they were happy. They were our biggest concern. And while we wanted to make sure that the products were of quality that we were providing, it was at the end of the day, it was about the numbers. I would have to say at Girl Scouts, it's still numbers, but it's what you do with those dollars. So we're not lining the pocket of a stock holder here. We're helping to invest in girls to change the world. And that's the biggest difference. It's why am I getting up every morning? I'm getting up every morning so that I can make sure that all the girls have an opportunity to meet their ambitions, to strive for whatever future aspirations they have. How do you know you're making progress on that, Jocelyn? I know it when I look at stories like the story I recently read on Evelyn Tulliferro. She is one of our Gold Award Girl Scout recipients, and she focused on girls in her community and the fact that they were not getting opportunities to learn about engineering careers. She made sure that within her report, she talked about her project, she talked about the global issues that we have with under-representation of women in STEM. I believe in it when I see other Gold Award recipients like Kayla Privy, and Kayla's project was focused on people that are homeless, and specifically people in her community. She's making an impact at such a young age, and quite often I sit there and I say, if I was getting these girls today, I would stand a chance. These girls are just well beyond in their thinking and their capabilities. They're generating millions of dollars to help support their projects, and then they're getting special looks when it comes to scholarships, when it comes to college entries. Any of the girls that are Gold Award recipients that go into the military, they go in a rank above because they are Gold Award recipients. So that is one of the biggest ways that I see. I see it personally as well, though. I mentioned that my granddaughter is a Daisy Girl Scout, and she recently went to a concert. We took her to her first concert last Valentine's, and it was a JoJo Siwa concert, and Girl Scouts was sponsoring it, so we had a commercial. All she saw was the Trefoil on the screen, and she said, that's Girl Scouts. I'm a Girl Scout, and it warmed my heart that she already felt that belonging to our movement. She tends to be a little shy at school, but she was pointing, and that's Girl Scouts, that's who I am. That's exactly the message that we want. At six, if you're noticing our brand, our iconic brand already, and saying, then I'm making a difference, then I'm doing my job. You've been head of the Girl Scouts marketing for about 20 months. Could you speak a little bit about what and the job was unfilled for about a year and a half, as you said earlier? What was the remit for you when you came in, and how has that shifted over the 20 months you have been there? Well, I would say that initially it was very, very sad days. I listened a great deal those first few months, because I wanted to understand where my team was. I needed to understand the skills that we had in place, and where do I need to grow or change or in some cases, remove. That's just part of the hard facts of being a leader. I guess something that I picked up very quickly at GE, because that was constantly, you have to assess, where are you? Where's your team? Where do they need development? We had no professional development plans for my team, so that has become something that I require as part of our conversations. The team didn't want to have professional development conversations. They didn't want to have the annual reviews that I was so used to. That was very hard on me, and something that I probably went out of my way while I was at my GE career to make sure. You've got to have the conversations with your team. You've got to make sure that they understand where you see them, and that you understand where they want to go, and you work together to get them there. That was probably the first three to six months, based on those conversations, I made some organizational changes, made some shifts in where we had resources, identified areas where we had gaps, and was able to fill those gaps, and also assist it with where are we going to focus? Where are we going to? We can't just be the kinkles deluxe. Give us an order from all the different departments, and we just go do it. We needed to set ourselves up to be more strategic in the work that we were doing, and to make sure that the value of our organization was understood and felt. Where, if you could say, where did you and your team decide where to focus, and how did you make that decision? That is just a... I was in a CMO job as you are. Things are coming at you every day. You could react and fill up your days, but shifting that conversation and choosing where you can have the largest impact is really tough and really important. How did you make that decision with your team, and where did you decide to focus? Well, I felt that the first thing we needed to do was understand where we were. What types of marketing were we doing? Where were we spending our time? Some of the stories were of course anecdotal, but in the places where I could actually have some data to support, okay, here's what we're doing. We did this particular campaign. We do it every year. What are the results? Actually having that conversation of what are the results? What were the KPIs? What were the key performance indicators? What were the objectives that we had for the work that we were doing? We're doing all this work running like a hamster. We go, but what's the output? What is the outcome? Based on those conversations and what I saw as the deliverables, we had data then that when we got that Kinko's order thrown over the fence, we could say, hey, wait a second. We did this last year and we didn't see the results. Why would we want to do this again? We want to either do it in a different way, or perhaps this isn't a high priority. Prioritizing has become essential. It is a conversation as opposed to orders coming into the marketing team. We have the departments that we're working with actually help with the prioritization. We give our two cents as well. That wasn't always the case. We decide, okay, here's what we need. Here's the resources that we have to work on this. Here's the timing that it can be done because we can't do all of the things within the first month of the year. That is how we go about prioritizing and tracking. Tracking was also an area that we didn't have a strong stand, so we've changed that as well. But being able to track the objectives, track the results and determine this worked. Do we need to do something different? Based on the market, is there any changes that we need to make? Our girls continue to evolve with the world. The girls of the 1913s are not the same as the girls of the 1950s or the girls, even 2015. I have some data that I was given, the market data on Girl Scouts and where we were in 2015. I was told I should use that data to come up with my strategy. It was that 2015 was before the pandemic, right? It was eight years ago. Also delivering a message about the importance of market research and how we need to continuously look at where our girls today and meet them where they are. We decided that we were going to definitely invest on social media because social media is where our girls are. We have made some significant changes and improvements there with resources as well as we work with an agency, crafting commerce for our day-to-day activities and any major events on social media. We have actually won awards. We won a shorty award last May, which is I'm told the Emmys of social media. We're very proud of the fact that we said this is where we're going to place our bets, made that bet, and it's coming up very well. You talked about professional development as a priority for your team. What area of professional development do you believe is most important, maybe for your team and also for marketing at large? I think it depends on the level of the individual. Some of the professional development is more tactical, just making sure that they're staying up to speed on the latest and greatest web dynamics and social media placements and how you can go about any video, those types of tactical. I honestly think, and I've really focused at first on my leadership team, that there's a need for more strategic marketing professional development. That is where I have truly placed a great deal of investment on a professional side. Also, just the opportunities that you might get from meeting other marketers, as I did at Northwestern and the opportunity to meet people like yourself, Tim, like Alicia Tillman's. Having those opportunities and networking with other marketers who have walked in your shoes, who can say, oh, I had that issue once, here's what I had to do about it. That's a development that you can't actually put a price on. What are you most proud of in the nearly two years you've been with the Girl Scouts? I'm most proud of my team, the fact that many of them stayed through the times when they did not have a CMO, when they were being bounced around, yet they remain in place and they remain dedicated to the mission that we have at Girl Scouts of the USA. I believe that's why most of them have stayed, because I'm sure it was very challenging times. Not having leadership in place, not having a voice at the table, but also in their creativity and their desire to help with the mission that we have and focus on the girl. They catch things that others of us just don't think of. They say, but what about the girl is always at the center of their attention. I'm extremely pleased with their creative minds, with their desire to deliver and to win and the fact that they have stayed with us and continue to believe in the marketing organization and in Girl Scouts of the USA. I want to talk a bit about your career path and it's more and more unusual. You stayed 28 years with one company. I was 25 years at PNG. That is becoming really rare. Why did that work so well for you? The reason that GE was able to keep me is the movement that I made. I was able to move across four different industries in those 28 years. It wasn't as if I stayed at one business and just that was all I did. They quickly gave me opportunities that I just loved. I was able to work initially in customer quality and I was placed on a cross-functional team, GE's famous for its cross-functional teams. At that cross-functional meeting, I saw the marketer. I got to meet the marketer. We talked about all of the different roles that we had and what we needed to do in order to deliver new products. When I saw what the marketing leader was doing, I said, I think I want to do that. I had proven myself as a strong player, as a person that had a business degree but wanted to grow. They gave me a shot. They gave me an entry-level marketing analyst position. I took that and I ran with each opportunity, be it in industry marketing. I was in marketing communications. I actually changed the name of one of the businesses. I got the planned experience on a global level. The beauty of GE was it had the global as well as the local. I could do U.S. focused activities. I could do global focused activities within a span of a few years. Towards the end of my career, I actually worked with Purpose Link Consulting with a wonderful person named Elena Loves. She helped me to articulate my passion archetypes. They are Transformer, Builder, and Altruist. I realized this is how GE has kept me here all this time. They've given me so many opportunities to transform, so many opportunities to build, and the Altruist piece I was able to live throughout my GE Women's Network activities, my African American forum, a leadership. That was how the organization was able to keep me engaged. They kept giving me these wonderful opportunities to work in different spaces. Your archetype, by the way, is perfect for your role now. It is. Transformer, Builder, Altruist. It's just perfect. It really is. You are a leader. I mean, from studying your background and meeting your last year and getting to know you a bit, you are a leader who makes the extra effort to continue your development. You earned an MBA from the Jack Wells, you earned an MBA from the Jack Wells Management Institute, you completed the Kellogg CMO Executive Program, you're a member of CHIEF, you know, a private network of senior women executives. Could you speak a bit about why this helps you be a more effective leader and how you make the time in your busy life to do this self-development, which so many leaders put on the back burner. And I think it's a very, it's a very bad choice when you're not investing in yourself. It is. You are absolutely right. I think from a very early age, my parents instilled in me this learn, earn, and return. I'm always supposed to be learning, consistently learning, and continuously learning. I desire the learning and I try and use that in my interactions with my teams, with my family. I'm constantly wanting to learn. You know, someone has a depth of knowledge in a certain space. I want to tap into that at least. I want to see how I might be able to apply it to my work. So learning education was always extremely important to myself and my siblings. My parents definitely drilled that into me. They always made sure I knew I needed to earn, I needed to go out and make the money that I wanted to make. And I needed to ask for what I wanted. It's not a matter of just taking what people are willing to give you. You actually have to go out and ask. At GSUSA, I focus a great deal on gender parity. And fair play equal pay is our motto here. We want to make sure that the world is ready for these girls that we're giving the courage, confidence, and character, so that when they get out into the workplace, they're able to earn the same dollars for the work that they're doing and get that equal pay. So earning, obviously, is very important as well in asking for what you want. And then the return, I think, is the other reason that I have been able to be successful. The professional development that I talked about before, making sure that others get what they need, making sure that I'm pulling up other women and minorities so that I can assist them with getting to a better place, getting them opportunities where we're underrepresented. These are things that have always been very important. But as I mentioned before, what you get from these opportunities, such as the CMO program, the Jack Welsh Management Institute, these are opportunities and venues where networking becomes just exponential and the opportunities therefore become exponential. Joss, and I want to flip into the creative brief. We are recording this episode during Black History Month. How is this month different for you than other months of the year? Black History Month is the 28 days that we get a spotlight on our African-American community. It doesn't stop there for me, though. Black History Month is just where I get to see and share even more about my people and the wonderful accomplishments that we have made over the years. And ventures are areas that I focus on, but I also like to focus on those younger people that I know are going to be our future leaders. But as I mentioned, I try and mention Black and Brown people all year long. So it's just one of the 12 months where we get a little bit of extra push. What's the first brand you remember making an impact on you when you were a young girl? You know, I listened to many of your podcasts because ever since you introduced them to me last year at the Northwestern Kellogg program, I've been just a fan, huge fan. And I've noticed that many of the guests you have refer back to their childhood. And apparently their parents had a great deal of influence on that brand that they remember. So I picked two. My mother really pushed Coca-Cola. It was her favorite drink. We always had it in the house, but Coca-Cola was always just a fantastic brand. I loved their commercials, the dancing that they, it was like a probably production when they did their dancing and have a cook and a smile is just nailed in my head. And jingles always get me. We were always exposed to music and dancing. And my mother was the bigger influence of that. So Coca-Cola is the brand that I would say was one of the first that I realized. The second from my father, my father was big on the cars. What car did he drive? So Cadillac and Lincoln's were the initial ones I remember. But when he got a Mercedes, I could remember sitting in that car and feeling as if my little body was just melting into the seat. The leather was so nice. The high quality of a Mercedes, the engine, the quality of the drive. And I can also remember him looking at me and saying, this thing can turn on a dime. And then showing me that it could indeed turn on a dime. And I have to say, even as an adult, I recently saw a C-series commercial that they did where they were just touching things and the colors would change and evolve to this just wonderful visual as they were leaving their house and going out to the car. But Mercedes was definitely one of the initial brands that I remember. Is it true you ride a motorcycle on weekends to relax? During the summer, once it gets below 50, I don't get out much. But as long as it's 50 and above, I'll jump on my motorcycle and I have a Honda CBR. It's a very small bike. It's a starter bike. I do have my eyes on a BMW, but I enjoy it. It's freeing. And I don't go on long trips. It's typically right around the neighborhood. There's a lovely park with some hills, rolling hills that I can ride on. And yes, I love riding my motorcycle. Who inspired you to ride? My daughter. My daughter got a motorcycle out of college when she got out of college. I've always wanted one of those. And how long did it take for you to get that? It was like a weekend course. And I did it. I did it at 50. That's inspiration. What else do you do to recharge and renew? I do like to listen to Audible. I use the Audible app quite a bit. So it's easier for me than reading. I do it during long drives or train rides or any time that I can find. Before the pandemic, I traveled quite a bit. So my favorite travel spot is Maldives. And I like the warmer spots, which you couldn't tell from all the moves that I made at GE. But I do like warm climates, beaches. That's what I work hard for. What's your favorite kind of Girl Scout cookie? Samalas. Since I was seven. Samalas. That's a long-term commitment. And they haven't changed much, right? They really haven't. And I had the pleasure, thanks to my CMO role, of going to one of her bakers and actually tasting three of their cookies right off the line. Yeah. The general manager actually went and picked them off the line and handed them. The perks of a job, Jocelyn. That was all I needed. I was like, and it's still my favorite. Who's been the most influential business mentor in your life? You know, I think back, it would have to be my GE days. Beth Comstock is by far one of my most influential, very strong, just a fantastic creative mind. She was placed in the role of CMO at a point where we still had a great deal of men. And you could tell there was quite a bit of positioning and posturing when she took the reins. She had the challenge of getting us past the jingle of, we bring good things to life, which I didn't think would ever go away. But she came strong with imagination of work. And she had both Jack Welsh's approval, Jeff ML. She was just a very strong leader. I have to say Linda Boff, who took her place once she left, is also just someone that I truly look up to. And I can tell you both of them. I felt like I was just this little junior marketer. And yeah, I might have a CMO title here and there, or GM title, but they would get on the phone with you after hours and just talk about new innovative ways that we could go to market. And what do you think about this agency? And we're looking at this for some of our other businesses. And they were just so down to earth and would pick up the phone and talk to you with no hesitation. But they had some serious challenges that they had to face and things that they had to work through. And I admire them a great deal through that time. My last business, GE Healthcare, I did have the opportunity to work with Karim Karte, who was a PNG alum. And Glenn Thomas, and of course Nick Confences. Nick is how I got a Girl Scouts. Oh, really? I worked for Nick at Healthcare. We stayed good friends over the years. He moved over to Northwestern Kellogg after he retired from GE. And he called the Girl Scouts CEO and offered for a spot on the CMO program. And she told him, I don't have any CMO right now. I'm looking for a CMO. Please let me know if you know anyone. And Nick and I have been in conversations. He knew I was already interviewing, ready to leave from GE. And he sent me a note saying, would you be interested in talking to the Girl Scout CEO? He said, sure, I'm a Girl Scout alum, of course I'll talk to the Girl Scout CEO. And I taught to him within 30 days, I was hired as the CMO for Girl Scouts at the USA. What a great story. It's a great story. It's a great story about networking and Nick is just a phenomenal guy. I love it. I love it. So good. Who's been the most inspiring person in your life? Most inspiring, I'd have to say is my mom. My mother grew up in Mississippi. And she went to college. She met my father in Chicago and they moved us to the East Coast where she didn't have any family. She was a homemaker for most of my life. But the words of wisdom, the commitment to our family, just the sacrifices that she made over the years. But always instilling that learn, earn, and return was she was the main one. They are day in, day out teaching us that, teaching my siblings and I that and just making sure that we had everything we needed and supported us. She supported me when my daughter was in her final year of high school. She moved up to Connecticut so that I could take a job with the appliances division and Louisville. And she would stay with her during the through the week and I would come back on weekends. So yeah, my mom is the most inspirational. Always has been always will be learn, earn, and return from your mom. I think this last hour with you has been a big return for me and for our listeners, Jocelyn. Thank you for this full of warmth, full of inspiration. And I think our headline for this one needs to be learn, earn, and return. That was my conversation with Jocelyn Johnson. Three takeaways from this one for your business brand and life. What we have to start with this one, learn, earn, and return. This is really, I would say a life slogan, a life philosophy for Jocelyn that began with her mother. And it's just a beautiful, beautiful articulation of a fabulous way to go through life. You're always learning a portion of the earth, a living, and you're returning to society and to the people around you and your communities. Second takeaway, networking. Jocelyn is very intentional about networking. She's very intentional about her continued professional development. In fact, the reason she got the wonderful CMO job at the Girl Scouts is through networking. We all need to be doing more of that. We had Antonio Lucio on this show a few weeks back and he talked about how he did not do enough networking when he was in his career. And that is one of his learnings and one of his regrets. Third takeaway, the power of purpose. We talk a lot about purpose on this show. Girl Scouts of the USA has had basically the same purpose since early 1900s. They stay true to it. They make decisions based on it. They recruit for it. They attract great talent and they bring it to life all they do and wow the impact they have made on girls in America and actually across the world. That's it for this episode of the CMO podcast. If you found this helpful and entertaining, I would be so grateful if you could share our show with your friends and I would be super happy if you subscribe so you can be updated as we publish new episodes. And if you really want to help, leave us a five-star rating and a positive review on Apple podcasts or wherever you listen. The CMO podcast is a gallery media group original production.