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.”

Sarah remembers companies like Fletcher Challenge, Mobil, BP, Air New Zealand and Qantas visiting her university campus inviting a selected number of commerce graduates to participate in training programmes.
“I applied for all of them – I think we all did – we just wanted to get a job! I was especially gunning for the job at Air New Zealand as I was interested in travelling and Air New Zealand provided a great opportunity to do that. I was selected to do some capability tests at which I did terribly… and I knew it!”
Having done the work to attain a Bachelor of Commerce in Marketing and a Diploma in Direct Marketing from the New Zealand Direct Marketing Association, the rejection only fuelled her, a determination she says comes from being the youngest of four.

She spent the next few weeks convincing Air New Zealand they needed her and luckily, after some persuasion, they agreed – an opportunity Sarah will be forever grateful for.
“It was an extraordinary experience for a number of reasons,” she tells. “I met a very solid business grounding that I needed to work in any corporate environment, but more importantly, at the time I joined Air New Zealand the economy was going through a dramatic change with these big state-owned companies being privatised, allowing more competition into the marketplace. For someone like me at the bottom of the ranks seeing this dramatic shift was an incredible learning opportunity.”

The airline was largely privatised in 1989 and was able to adapt quickly to compete with overseas competitors. After her first year of training on the bottom rung she landed in the loyalty marketing department. This was before the days of airpoints and frequent flyer programmes in New Zealand, and the company quickly realised it was giving their competitor’s an advantage, and to stay current they needed to affect this; not only making it work, but making it innovative enough to be better than the rest.

“They say necessity is the mother of all invention, and because things were having to shift so quickly they were open and willing to try new ideas,” Sarah says. “I was on a crack assault team trying to figure out how to put a loyalty programme into the marketplace. It was so beneficial to be there at the time when they were willing to take such bold and different moves. It seems commonplace to have these things now, but at that time it was a huge financial risk.”

After three years working her way up the ladder Sarah’s big break came in a posting to the Los Angeles sector of the company. Having achieved her goal of working overseas she quickly set her sights on her next charge – working for two global powerhouses: Virgin Airlines and Nike.
“It was absolutely a strategic career move,” she reveals. “From the start I had plans for how I was to navigate this.”

Unfortunately the door at Nike stayed closed for some time but the transition from Air New Zealand to Virgin was quite doable. After another three years at Air New Zealand, Sarah jumped ship (or plane rather) to Virgin – taking on a promotions manager role.
She remembers turning up on her triumphant first day to find her superior fired and her role dubious!
“The day I arrived to start my new job, having moved across to New York and spending every dollar to my name setting myself up in Manhattan, I turn up to find the woman who hired me had been fired. I remember thinking ‘This isn’t good – nobody knows who I am’. Luckily the HR people knew there was a commitment behind me. I quickly took this as an opportunity to do more than the role I was hired for.”

Within a few months the driven 25-year-old became director of marketing and oversaw the airline’s adoption of the Virgin ‘Shaglantic’ promotional campaign that enabled its illustrious vendor, Sir Richard Branson to establish his airline’s edgy difference. “We’re not the type of airline that bangs on the toilet doors,” he said.
Sarah was invincible. The New York life brought all the things the young woman dreamed of and after landing her third big role she couldn’t go wrong.

“Frank Sinatra got it right when he said ‘If you can make it here you can make it anywhere’. It’s tough, it’s expensive, people aren’t particularly forgiving – you have to fight to survive.”
Then Sarah's life came crashing down. After becoming a top marketing executive with US-based global entertainment and video-game producer Atari, she was just short of 30 when the company, struggling with new acquisitions and a flagging performance, laid her off.
“At the time it was one of the worst things that could have happened to me,” recalls Sarah, the youngest of four children of former All Black John Buxton, who played two tests as a loose forward, including the opening game against the 1956 Springboks won by New Zealand 10-6.
“But it was by far the biggest learning experience of my life. I look back at it fondly now. If you’re not making mistakes you’re not learning and improving.”

Facing the imminent loss of her employer-sponsored right to work in the US, Sarah was looking at a forced return to New Zealand and the end of her long-held aspirations to build a career within corporate America. But with three months left, fate stepped in allowing her to tick off her second ‘dream job’ with Nike, and for the next six years she held various marketing and general management roles within the US region. Highlights under Sarah’s leadership include: overseeing the Air Max 360 launch – the largest commercial footwear launch for Nike at the time; leading Nike’s US move into the fitness dance business; the development of the Nike Run Hit Wonder tour; and the development of Nike’s fledgling Action Sports business in Southern California. Sarah also participated in the launch of the Lance Armstrong Live Strong campaign and the joint venture with Apple to create Nike+.

To be successful Sarah advocates having an absolute deep desire to be curious at all times.
“That means constantly pushing yourself to try things outside your comfort zone. A big component of this is social media. There are too many people who are too scared to try it, which is creating a big generation gap between people my age and those coming through in their 20s.

“I am constantly trying to explore and experience things personally and professionally that inspire me to look at business differently. When I first started innovation didn’t happen at the pace it does now. Technology hadn’t established itself and the Internet was just getting started. Now the consumer’s demand for change has become the most challenging aspect of marketing. Consumers are so open to try new things that any company that isn’t pushing the boundaries will quickly find themselves in trouble.”
The 39-year-old says it is surprising how many companies don’t have a unified goal.

“I’m a big believer in simplifying for the team what you want to achieve then releasing the hounds. If the whole team has the same goal then you don’t have so many issues with diversity of thought. Empower them to push the boundaries and get the job done.”
Sarah joined PepsiCo in June 2008 as chief marketing officer for one of the world’s most iconic sports brands, Gatorade. Under Sarah’s leadership Gatorade embarked on a transformative journey from sports-drink company to sports-performance innovator, led by the launch of the G Series. This new approach to sports nutrition is based on the latest science, developed with the world’s greatest athletes to deliver fuel, fluid and nutrients to athletes before, during and after physical activity.

In January 2011, Sarah assumed the role of Gatorade President North America and Global Chief Marketing Officer, sports nutrition for Pepsico. In this role she has responsibility for the entire Gatorade business in North America and leads the development of the brand on a global scale, including the launch of Gatorade’s G Series in several markets in 2011.

Beyond the interest of Gatorade, Sarah supports the advancement of women’s sports and leadership worldwide through her involvement as a trustee of the Women’s Sports Foundation. As an active member of the World Class New Zealand Network, Sarah also remains committed to helping New Zealand’s development, international competitiveness and economic growth.

Throughout her career Sarah has been recognised for her numerous achievements. Her most recent honours include being named in the top 40 Under 40 lists by the Sports Business Journal (2009 and 2011), Sports Goods Business (2010) and Crain’s Chicago Business (2010). She was also named among Forbes Magazine’s “Most Powerful Women in Sports” (2009), Ad Age magazine’s Women to Watch (2010) and most recently was named in the 40 under 40 list for 2012 by the Sports Business Journal.
Yet when asked what her proudest moment has been she fondly reflects on the previous weekend when she took her children away to a skill hill in Wisconsin.
“Seeing them having the exhilaration of achieving something like the basics of skiing – I can’t put into words how good that feels.”

Today Sarah and her husband, former Queenstowner, Liam Robb O’Hagan and their three children Sam, 7, Joe, 5, Gabby, 3 are based in Wrigleyville, Chicago – the home of the famous Wrigley Field baseball stadium. “I’ve now lived in four states throughout the US, and other than the brutal weather it is a fantastic city. It reminds me of home in that it has a big city feel, but because it’s the mid-west people are very down to earth and friendly.” With her main focus being Latin America, Chicago forms a good base especially with the bulk of her time spent in New York and Los Angeles.

“I was shocked to find when I did my taxes that I spent 50 percent of my time out of Chicago.
It’s more difficult to take the family along with her oldest child now in school. “I’m a big believer in them seeing the world like my parents did with us. I’m very lucky to have grown up in a family where my parents moved from New Zealand to London with four kids under the age of 10 when I was three-months-old. My parents were very courageous people who explored and I love that we were raised that way. It never occurred to me not to venture overseas. I definitely would encourage young New Zealanders to do the same. It gives you a broader perspective.”

Sarah “couldn’t do it without” Liam, who worked previously as an internet producer for foxsoccer.com, holding down the fort as a stay-at-home dad.
“I lived in the States for 10 years without finding an exotic man from overseas. Then I come back here for a wedding and there he was. Raising kids with a Kiwi makes things so much easier – having the same values, etc.”

Seventeen years later Sarah proudly retains her ‘Kiwi’ accent, although now that her children have begun ‘correcting’ her she is beginning to pick up the twang a lot more.
“As much as I am an American citizen I will always be a Kiwi, but it’s hard to imagine living in New Zealand given the breadth of my career. I would love to come back here one day but I don’t see it happening in the next 10-15 years. There are people who do these international lifestyles but I think it’s too taxing – especially with raising a family. I don’t think I could balance the career and the life I have now if I lived here.”

Nakita Ardern
www.gatorade.com