Reading non-fiction is like going on a treasure hunt for me, and I’m always on the lookout for authors who push me to expand my perspectives. In 2023, I read Think Again: The Power of Knowing What You Don’t Know, in which Adam Grant introduces the concept of mental flexibility when it comes to questioning your opinions and updating your beliefs. Grant encourages readers to adopt the mindset of a scientist, where beliefs are hypotheses to be tested rather than truths to be defended. This perspective shift—and new focus on and openness to admitting what I don't know—has been a powerful catalyst for my personal and professional growth and success.

I have always been pretty outgoing, an “I” on the DiSC, a cheerleader of all things. Networking has come easy to me. I actually seek out opportunities for human connection. You want to have coffee – name the place! I am there ready to make a new friend.

There is a wonderful culture of comradery at Gibson and as we launched our rebrand in 2020, the tagline Own Your Edge arose. It’s not just lip service either. Gibson provides the team an assortment of tools that dig into your own personal leadership style, mentoring, and development. Finding and owning your edge had now become something bigger to me—I was on a mission to dig in even deeper. Allowing the phrase, we worked so hard to establish, to guide my personal and professional decisions. So, the journey began.

Rebranding is a company strategy.

It is not just a marketing strategy. It takes buy-in from everyone within an organization to launch a successful rebrand. Your brand identity is just as much internal, as it is external. At Gibson we have more than 150 brand advocates and we (the entire company) must make sure we are telling our truth and portraying ourselves in a way that not only we can be proud of, but that our clients can be proud of.

As a marketing professional, I have been on both sides of the same equation. As a corporate leader for a global company, I made decisions to ensure our local community was supported by making charitable contributions to worthy nonprofits.  Later, when I worked for the nonprofit Kelly Cares Foundation, this arrangement flipped. I was the one asking corporate executives for charitable contributions to my nonprofit. Now, as the Director of Marketing at Gibson, seeing both sides of the equation and matching those experiences with our own set of priorities has me seeing the whole arrangement from a new vantage point.

As soon as I joined the Gibson team, I asked myself: Are we fully embracing corporate giving? I knew right away, Gibson is an incredibly generous company. It’s very clear we have a culture of servant leadership from the top down and our donations and time prove this. But what difference is it making? Should we have a plan for giving, just like we have a plan for every other part of our company? Of course, the answer is yes.

Research shows nearly 90% of consumers say they’re more likely to buy from a company that supports activities to improve the community. With a statistic like that, do employers really have a choice when it comes to giving and their social reputation? I can enthusiastically say no! But this doesn’t mean throwing together a disjointed giving program that exists outside the bounds of your company’s primary goals.