If You Can Make It Here - You Can Make It Anywhere

If you can make it here you can make it anywhere

Runner by morning, president of Gatorade by day and wife and mum of the Robb O'Hagans by night. Expert at juggling three kids, two citizenships, and three Series of G!

Everyone loves a success story, particularly when it involves a Kiwi girl on the global stage ranked among Forbes magazine’s Most Powerful Women in Sports.
Chicago-based, Sarah Robb O’Hagan is the president of Gatorade North America and global chief marketing officer for Gatorade – the sports energy supplement that relies on highly visible marketing associations with supreme athletes, including Usain Bolt, Serena Williams and Michael Jordan.

In February Sarah did the long-haul to Queenstown for a sold-out Entrepreneurs' Organisation's conference where she shared her keys to success with 400 influential businesspeople from around the world.  She spoke about how consumer business has changed globally and how big brands have had to adapt – an area she has spent her business life perfecting.
As clichéd as it is, the marketing guru had never intended to have such success in the industry that her sister elected for her. With plans to pursue law or medicine, but lacking the grades to make it happen, Sarah turned to a Bachelor of Arts. However, her sister, Anna Brealey, 10 years her senior and also in marketing, quickly intervened.

“If it wasn’t for my sister, where would I be?” Sarah says. “It’s a scary thought. Maybe a Radio DJ? She told me I needed to be studying commerce, and marketing was the way to go. She picked all my papers at Auckland University and away I went. She had done a BA and got into marketing too but had to navigate her way there. She was looking back at me thinking my generation would be the first to really need a business career. She was trying to help me along to avoid the problems she’d had.”

Today Anna heads up operations for her husband’s business, NZ Strong Construction, and nearly two decades on the marketing industry has exceeded the then ‘20-year-old Sarah’s’ expectations.
“So often when you go to university you don’t really know what you want to do or where these careers will take you. You do the papers, get the degree and see what happens. Getting into the business world was a huge eye opener for me over just how much fun it can be. I had struggled a bit academically but when I got into the workforce I suddenly found all the things I had learned came into clarity once I had the chance to apply them practically.”
Nakita Ardern
www.gatorade.com