Always a Winger: People Person and Unapologetic Marketer with Amy Lewis (1/2)

Nerd Journey: Career Advice for the Technology Professional

Who knew leaving publishing might result in a career as a marketer in the tech industry? Amy Lewis was encouraged to pursue a role at Cisco by a career counselor who recognized her unique strengths. Now Amy refers to herself as an unapologetic marketer and a people person. On the soccer field and in her career, she is always a winger. She is focused more on the assist than scoring the goal.
In episode 301, Amy shares her early career transition from publishing to marketing for Cisco. We’ll discuss what storytelling is and how it can be used with individuals or large groups of people and how product marketing is about finding connective tissue. Amy also weighs in on online marketing, why she enjoys it, and how she learned to communicate with executives. Listen closely to learn about the impact of having good mentors throughout a career.
Original Recording Date: 09-19-2024
Topics – An Intentional Career Change, People Person and Unapologetic Marketer, Social Aspects of Marketing and Storytelling, Skills and Personas, Product Marketing as Connective Tissue, Candid Headlines and Communicating with Executives, Becoming the Interviewer
2:03 – An Intentional Career Change
* Amy Lewis is the director of enterprise marketing at GitHub.
* She is also known as @CommsNinja.
* Amy tells us she majored in English and Political Science in school. After a 10-year career in publishing, she wanted to try a new career and landed in technology.
* “Greatly oversimplified, it started with a Commodore 64, and then we wound up here.” – Amy Lewis
* Has the background in English and Political Science been an advantage since Amy got into the tech industry (i.e. experience in multiple different types of marketing roles)?
* Amy says yes and went to a career counselor at the time she wanted to make a career change out of publishing.
* “You have a really interesting skill set. You’re a storyteller, but you understand technology. You see where the world is going…. Cisco needs people like you. Technology needs people like you, people who can tell stories…. Go get a job there.” – Amy Lewis, feedback she received from a career counselor right before she joined Cisco
* Amy tells us no one in her family worked in technology, and she had no contacts in technology. But after blind applying, she landed a role at Cisco.
* Amy leaned into storytelling and making complex things simpler and understandable for others.
* She did not know certain skills would be so applicable in this kind of career change, but she made the pivot at the suggestion of the career counselor.
* Thinking back, Amy doesn’t remember how she found the career counselor originally.
* What made Amy want to leave publishing as a career?
* Amy has been thinking a lot lately about return to office (or RTO as we might call it) because she has been working remotely for many years. She worked in New York at the company headquarters and then would later move away to start a family and work remotely.
* Amy cites some advice from her mentor Brian Gracely about career limitations when you do not work in the same location as a company’s headquarters.
* While working remotely for the publishing company, Amy saw a number of people get promoted. She felt at the publisher she would not be able to climb or grow any longer and that a new challenge was needed. It seems like she in many ways was out of new things to learn.
* During the time Amy worked for the publisher, AWS was still Amazon.
* At the remote office where Amy worked for the publisher, she was in charge of the server closet. In addition to this, Amy had digitized a number of properties for the publisher.