“Relationships matter,” Stephanie Sherman with DraftKings

Meet Stephanie Sherman, Chief Marketing Officer at DraftKings, where she oversees all integrated marketing efforts spanning brands and agency campaigns, media buying, database marketing, and influencer strategy. Stephanie was one of the company's first 15 employees and previously served as SVP of Marketing for DraftKings where she focused on customer acquisition and direct response marketing globally. 

Stephanie sat down for a conversation with Laura Fernandez, Sales VP, Travel & Tourism, where she discussed the importance of fostering relationships, finding a balance between leader and learner, and how she builds trust in her roles. 

Tune in to the full interview below then check out some highlights from the conversation. 

Relationships matter.

Highlight: “Relationships matter, period. Internally, within internal teams, peers, the team that you manage. With external partners, really carving out, creating space and time to build those relationships. Certainly in the moment it might feel, ‘Hey, might be more productive not doing that’, but I think when things get hard, particularly in those hard moments, that's where relationships certainly pay off dividends to drive to the right solutions or the right outcomes.” - Stephanie Sherman

Find your allies.

Highlight: “I found the most successful thing has been having a table of mentors, allies. And that, in some cases, could be peers, it could even be some folks on the team, it could be the more traditional mentor set up. But ultimately knowing what you don't know, knowing who you might be able to reach out to for additional perspectives, diverse perspectives, the right experience, and having folks around the table to reach out to has certainly been helpful through the ups and downs.” - Stephanie Sherman

Take a step back.

Highlight: “We were going through a potential acquisition conversation. In that moment, there were a lot of different outcomes that could have happened for myself, for folks on my team, for how a different organization could come together to drive the best growth. And while filled with uncertainty, questions that didn't have answers, taking a step back and thinking about, ‘Okay, this is actually an opportunity for myself, for the company, for my team to understand, where are their strengths? Where are there opportunities, where are our gaps?’ Really finding the positive in that, which was, ‘What do I want to be doing? How can the company be better?’ And really leaning into that, turned this moment of uncertainty into a positive.” - Stephanie Sherman

Watch and listen.

Highlight: “There's so much you can learn and pick up by watching and listening. The most effective folks that I've observed really excel at striking that balance between strong point of view, but with that openness and that curiosity for different and diverse points of view. And not only that openness for diverse points of view, but creating that space for that dialogue. Those are the leaders and the moments that drive the best outcomes.” - Stephanie Sherman

Take accountability.

Highlight: “We talk a lot about accountability, and that's something that I've observed that really helps build trust in organizations, particularly in cross-functional organizational dynamics. Where things will happen, mistakes will be made, but it's how you understand and have that accountability to give confidence that, whatever it was, it won't happen again. On the other side of it, really understanding the culture and understanding what drives effective conversation. Understanding the language or dialogue of how to drive confidence in decisions through the right language or dialogue or foundation or business cases, depending on the organization and the culture, is critical.” - Stephanie Sherman

Follow the customer.

Highlight: “When in doubt, follow the customer. Customer-first thinking is often the strongest north star I've found for strong decision making judgment, particularly as a marketer. When you come at problems, challenges, following the customer and having that mindset, you typically can't go wrong.” - Stephanie Sherman

Like Stephanie said, relationships are important. And fostering connections in the workplace is what makes good leaders great. For more inspiring content like this, check out the Pass the Mic page.