Interview with Andrea Malone, White and Williams LLP

For this year’s International Women’s Day, our team at Slice is proud to celebrate women across the marketing and communications industry through an interview series. Follow along throughout the week leading up to International Women’s Day to read about these inspiring women and their stories.

This interview is with Andrea Malone, the Chief Marketing Officer for White and Williams LLP, a global-reaching, multi-practice law firm with 200 lawyers in 10 offices.

How do you define your leadership?

I’m team-oriented and autonomous, which may sound like an oxymoron, but I trust my team to manage their time and job duties individually and encourage collaboration. Each member of a team brings a different skillset, point of view, and experience, so I believe that by collaborating we can learn from one another, find new and different ways of doing things, and be a stronger team. I’m also big on explaining “the why” behind what we’re doing. That allows us to create the necessary buy-in to take ownership of whatever the particular project may be.

How has your leadership changed over the years you’ve been working?

Delegation was something I struggled with early on as a manager. It wasn’t that I didn’t trust someone else to do what I was doing, but it’s that old trap of “I can get this done in the amount of time it would take me to explain it.” It was counter to how I wanted to manage and help my team learn and grow, so I had to let go and delegate more.

What role do you think marketing communications should play in the future of your organization or industry?

Marketing communications is critical in promoting the vision and mission of any organization. Now, more than ever, organizations are trying to connect with consumers across a wide variety of market channels. The ability to customize messaging, not only for various target audiences but for different communication platforms, is key to reaching consumers and growing business. Marketing communications teams must generate more content to accommodate multiple channels while balancing a consistent voice of the brand.

What do you think young women entering the marketing communications field should know? What advice do you have for them?

Always be curious and learning. Explore the various types of roles marketing offers so you can find what you enjoy most. Marketing trends change rapidly so read blogs and articles and attend conferences to stay on top of things, not only in your industry but in other industries, to bring a different perspective. Also, build a strong professional network. Having a group of people that you can learn from and bounce ideas off of is invaluable.

Interested in more? Check out the full interview series here.