Harvard in Tech Spotlight: Colleen O’Brien, Chief Marketing Officer at M12, Microsoft’s venture fund
I spoke with Colleen O’Brien, Chief Marketing Officer at M12, Microsoft’s venture fund. Colleen studied visual and environmental studies at Harvard. Initially, Colleen was interested in working in the entertainment industry, but after going on the Harvardwood trip a few months before graduation, she was disappointed to learn from alums that connections and capital were a necessity. Without either, Colleen needed to think more broadly about her career.
A Harvard ’11 classmate and friend had interned at Microsoft the summer before his senior year, and he encouraged her to apply to the company. Colleen joined Microsoft after graduation, working first on the advertising team as an policy analyst, monitoring which ads could run in the marketplace. While she appreciated the exposure to the advertising industry, she wanted to do something that was more aligned with her creative interests in storytelling. She moved into a marketing role at Microsoft and has stayed in the function ever since, managing marketing communications for Outlook and Windows, and leading communications for the head of Microsoft Azure — all before joining M12 as Chief Marketing Officer.
Colleen shared her advice for storytelling, brand building, content creation, career growth, and wellness.
Leverage emotionally-driven storytelling. Oftentimes in pitches and conversations, founders focus first on their technology, getting deep into the weeds on the intricacies of their product. But doing so is like starting a story at the crescendo rather than at the beginning. Start instead at the problem you are trying to address. What is wrong with the world such that your company had to be created? Viscerally, what is the pain that your customer feels? Answer these questions first to emotionally connect with your audience and authentically engage their attention in your pitch or conversation.
Build your brand vigilantly. Brand building is an incredibly rigorous process and can look very different depending on the age and stage of your company. Brand building can range from logo creation and slide development to website building and copywriting, or partnerships and co-marketing. Especially if you’re working in a people-driven business, it’s necessary to equip your team members with the right talking points and collateral they need to be great stewards of the brand. Oftentimes, maintenance of your brand expression can feel excessive. While each detail may seem insignificant, they all come together to create your reputation and earn customer and community trust.
Focus on preemptive risk management. Brand trust is earned in drops, but it’s lost in buckets: while you earn your brand equity through tiny changes, it can disappear instantly if you don’t mitigate risk. In the early days of your company, articulate your brand pillars and principles. Identify the risks that can undermine these core values and determine how you constantly monitor their health to ameliorate future brand risks. For example, if your product mission is to provide faster network access, any slowdowns can be detrimental to your brand. Preemptively creating a plan of action to ameliorate potential network speed snafus is crucial to ensuring the continued strength of your brand.
Make your content work harder for you. So much time, effort, and energy goes into content creation, but surprisingly little goes into promoting that content after its creation. Spend time thinking about how to extract all the value out of the content you produce. What audio one-liners can you pull out of a podcast? How many different tweets can you extract from a longform blog? Colleen uses Lately AI and has been taking a class called The Content Lab to learn more about content strategy and how to make individual assets work harder.
Art majors can be business leaders. As a visual and environmental studies major, Colleen did not initially think business would be a fit for her. During college, she did mostly local internships and did not apply to opportunities at startups or larger companies. Looking back, she would have tapped into her potential as a business operator and leader earlier.
Prioritize mental health. When asked about advice for her younger self, Colleen underscores the importance of mental health. In hindsight, she would have experimented with meditation sooner. Meditation has been a critical grounding force, shifting her mindset toward positivity and promoting more calm in the rush of everyday life.
