“5 things I wish someone told me before I became a VP” with Wendy Johansson, GVP at Publicis Sapient

An Interview with Phil La Duke

Make sure you are empowered to build the team you choose, rather the team you inherit. When I took over an existing team at my startup, I thought it was a unique challenge since I had built great teams, but never “fixed” a team into greatness. I inherited many people, but they lacked the skills to succeed at scale. It was finally when I hired people with key skills I identified over time, that we saw rapid success.

As a part of my series about powerful women leaders I had the pleasure of interviewing Wney Johansson GVP of Publicis Sapient. Wendy built her 25-year career on leading UX teams as an early employee at successful early-stage startups. She was the first designer at Loopt, Sam Altman’s YC-funded startup that later sold for $43 million. As the UX manager at Ooyala, she helped build the marketing, videography, and UX teams before the company were sold to Telstra for $400M. Wendy also led the global UX team at AppNexus…