Senior VP of Digital & Marketing at a Global Agency on how to make a “digital pivot.”

#TwelveDaysofISDI: Career advice, interviewing tips, and Silicon Valley secrets to make your 2018 the best it can be.

We’ve arrived at the end of the week and at Day Eight of #TwelveDaysofISDI. We feature one of our truly favorite digital experts — Kriselle Laran, Senior Vice President of Digital & Global Marketing at Zeno Group, of the Daniel J. Edelman family — our eight maids a-milking.

Kriselle helps global companies build compelling brands and has led a wide variety of go-to-market strategies and digital marketing initiatives including employee engagement, influencer engagement, content development and data analysis. Her strategic expertise is supported by nearly two decades of team and project management. She brings this expertise to ISDI as a mentor in the MIB program, and now she wants to share her knowledge with you on how to make the “digital pivot” and what tools every digital marketer needs.

What are the top five favorite digital tools that you can’t live without — and why?

There are quite a few tools I use on a daily basis that I just couldn’t imagine being without. My role and responsibilities span a wide range within the communications space, so I’m constantly using tools that allow me to collaborate, create, measure, publish, and develop.

• Messages: Probably the most used application I have, Messages allows me to send and receive texts on my laptop. It completely frees me from my mobile devices, and during work hours this is essential. Yes, I use Slack, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat, and pretty much every other messaging app out there, but Messages is where I’m connected to the widest variety of people that I may need to communicate with in an instant. A lot of people ask me how I respond to text messages so quickly — the answer is that I can type out my responses with a real, full-size keyboard at full typing speed. Using Messages on my laptop allows me to respond to messages and return to my work or other activities with little disruption.
• Google Drive:I love the freedom from version management that using Google Drive affords me. I don’t have to name things based on the date that it was last updated, I don’t have to append my initials to document to show that I reviewed it, and I don’t have to worry that something is wrong with an attachment when I send or receive it. There are a few quirks with designing in Slides or managing formulas in Sheets, but for everything I need to be successful with my role, I’m set with Google Drive.
• Adobe Creative Cloud: It’s possible that I’m cheating a little bit by saying Creative Cloud as opposed to picking just one, but I use multiple Adobe apps a day including Photoshop, Illustrator, and InDesign. Each of the apps are so different from each other but have such separately essential functions in designing content.
• Wordpress: Most of the web clients I’ve had have Wordpress incorporated into their owned web properties in some way. Whether using it for a corporate site or a separate blog or microsite, Wordpress and similar systems empower my clients to manage their content on their own without having to worry that they’ll break it in some way. With Wordpress, I can take care of the coding and development on the back end, and they can focus on telling their story.
• Invision: When it comes to creating quick prototypes, there really aren’t many better tools than Invision. In my role, I work on a lot of project proposals for both prospective and current clients. Being able to create a visual representation of what my teams plan to develop, and present them in a place where collaboration and feedback can happen in real time, has made my designs — and me — more effective.

Have you always been in digital? How did you make the pivot into digital?

I’ve been digitally-minded since middle school. I remember the day I learned how to use Hypercard — it amazed me that I could create a box and then make clicking on it work to bring you to something entirely different.

Although I wanted to go into traditional journalism as a career, different experiences in college drew me to digital. Because I was willing to experiment with it, I found opportunities to create websites for various clubs and organizations starting in middle school through college. Once I changed my minor to magazine rather than reporting and editing, I took more classes in design and learned how to use various tools like PageMaker and Photoshop.

Then, social platforms like Xanga and MySpace started taking off. From there, it was just one happy accident to another until I learned enough to be dangerous. I kept up with self-education and eventually started consulting for small businesses and startups until my skills and experience built up enough to really build my career.

The great thing about this space is that it’s relatively easy to get started. You just have to be open to learning something new, and applying new tools and concepts to traditional business.

What are top qualities you look for when hiring?

Whether it is someone who works for me, or someone on the team in general, there are specific qualities I look for in a new team member. The responsibilities for the role of course dictate some of the particulars — if I need an Account Director, they have to understand how to manage a project, proactively communicate, and analyze opportunities to create strategies. However, these really are table stakes when it comes to hiring for a specific role.

What’s just as important are the soft skills that people have. I want to know about their work ethic and their ability to not just know how to do a job but also know what needs to be done. I want to have someone working with me that is nimble, and able to understand when a shift needs to happen and how to make that shift successful. And, for people who report to me, I need to understand if they are good both with a team as well as on their own.

What is your favorite question to ask in an interview?

I wish I could say that I have those super lofty, creative questions where people have to tell me something like what kind of tree they are. The truth is, those kinds of questions don’t really help me understand what it would be like to work with someone. Instead, my go-to question is: “How can I help make sure you’re successful in your role?”

What can an agency do for a business that may be difficult to do in-house? Does it change for a digital business?

The best thing about working at an agency is that I’m always working on something different. Each day brings me a new challenge, and allows me the opportunity to discover or learn new ideas. Part of what makes this possible is that I’m working on multiple pieces of business — and no two businesses are the same.

If two clients have similar programs, the resulting work is still never the same. We can be setting up a social content or influencer strategy, for example, but the approach is different because it is based on business objectives — not implementation tactics.

Having exposure to different ways of doing things gives my clients the benefit of having someone on their team that can bring outside perspective while being fully knowledgeable about their own brand.

We’re offering a FREE Webinar on “Careers in the Digital Age” with Steve Cadigan, former VP of Talent at LinkedIn and Cofounder of ISDI Digital University.

RSVP Your Spot.

Day 1: Former VP of Talent at LinkedIn and a Partridge in a Pear Tree
Day 2: Director of Digital and Social of the 49ers and Two Turtle Doves
Day 3: Three-time Author @britopian and Three French Hens
Day 4: Research Director of Google Cloud and Four Calling Birds
Day 5: CEO of Charlotte Russe and Five Golden Rings
Day 6: Founder of Adobe Analytics Consulting Group and Six Geese A-Laying
Day 7: VP of Marketing at Box and Seven Swans A-Swimming

To learn more about ISDI Digital University and the 9-month master’s degree in digital business program, visit us at www.isdidigital.university.