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OhHello - Jami Crist
58 Plays1 year ago
You’ve heard the expression, flattery will get you nowhere. Well, in Jami's experience, optimism has gotten her everywhere. It’s what got her her first job at Under Armour as an Account Coordinator and carved the path 12-years later as the Director of Sports Marketing for the Run and Train division. It’s what got her on the phone with critical investors and partners as the Senior Director of Partnerships and Investor Relations at Super Coffee.
But most importantly, thanks to her unabashed, reckless, and hopeful optimism, it led her to be a mother to a beautiful baby girl after a grueling journey with several pregnancy losses.
With over 15+ years in the sports, CPG, and innovation industry, this "Hellos" specialty is helping brands invigorate their branding and marketing through impactful, strategic, and radical campaigns and partnerships. Some of her favorite impactful campaigns that she's worked on include:
• Global strategy for all things running for Under Armour and revamping its brand image into one of the
top-running brands in the industry.
• Under Armour’s first pregnant athlete, Natasha Hastings, + supporting her training journey for the 2021 Summer Olympics.
• First-ever global teammate resource group for UA female employees, hosted + emceed the first-ever W.I.L.L Summit, with over 200 global employees.
• The Super Coffee + Poo-Pourri Partnership AKA the Most Obvious Collab Ever
• Super Coffee’s ‘Open Source Coffee Code’ campaign against Starbucks’ sugar drinks
On the side, she dedicates her work to championing women as an advisor and mentor for several high-level female networks, as well as a board member for the non-profit organization, &Mother. This passion has also led her to start her own coaching business, The Radical Female in which she coaches women seeking radical transformations in their professional lives.
Linkedin Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamicrist/
IG: https://www.instagram.com/jamicrist/
Mentors along the way:
Recommended
Transcript
Teaching Spin Classes: Energy and Enthusiasm
00:00:11
Speaker
Oh, hello, Jamie. Hello. I feel like I was in my spin days of just teaching spin classes again, where you drop the beat and you're just one on in. As I'm sitting as I'm sitting in my math shorts, and it worked out right before this pot. I feel like I am too. It's great. It's great. I love it. Love the intro.
00:00:33
Speaker
You crushed it with your dance. It was, it was a nice, it was a nice dance. Thank you for, that was a full-time workout that you just gave us. Still got it. Thank you. Still got it. Absolutely.
Meeting Through Barbara Liss
00:00:44
Speaker
So Jamie, I've had the pleasure of getting to know you over the past couple of weeks. Uh, our, our mutual friend Barbara Liss put us in touch and it has been wonderful getting to know you. I know who you are.
00:00:56
Speaker
But why don't you tell our Oh Hello audience, those that are watching, those that are listening, who do I have the pleasure of speaking with? Who are you? Well, Jeremy, first, it's been awesome getting to know you as well. And I feel so fortunate in this path and shout out to Barbara because she made this connection and Barbara is just such a connector and love her energy. And I just, I'm so fortunate that we've met along the way.
00:01:21
Speaker
who
Jamie's Background and Outlook on Life
00:01:22
Speaker
I am. I am a proud mother now, and there's a whole story behind that, but also I am a brand and community builder. I love people. I love connecting people with people and making magic happen with that. I'm a champion for women too. And we'll talk a little bit of my purpose behind the champion behind women obviously being one. But I also, I love just
00:01:45
Speaker
just being an optimist about life. And I think in my story, I've always gone back to optimism and throughout my career, but I've had over 15 years of experience at Under Armour, super coffee. And I'm in this new chapter that I'm excited about. It's also very uncomfortable and I'm meeting some amazing people along the way. So I feel fortunate being here and that's a little bit who I am right now.
00:02:08
Speaker
Amazing, Jamie. Well, I'm excited to at some point hear about just being a mom because you said that there's a story behind that. Do you want to share it now or you can share it next time? You tell us.
Journey to Motherhood
00:02:20
Speaker
I'll make it short. I'm pretty open about this, but yeah, my husband and I, we had four pregnancy losses before we had our daughter, Adlee. I had Adlee. She's going to be a year, July 1st, which blows my mind. I'm not well. I was setting up her first birthday invitations, and I'm tearing up. I'm like, this is weird. What is happening? It's unbelievable. But yeah, we went through quite a journey, and I think, honestly,
00:02:46
Speaker
That journey made me realize a lot about life, a lot about work-life balance, prioritizing feeling like you and I have talked about before, but then also realizing patience is everything, and then the reason why I really fully champion women in different parts of my life. But here we are. We had Adley July 1st of last year, and she's a healthy baby girl and just
00:03:10
Speaker
amazing. So that's where we are. Yeah, amazing. Happy early birthday. That's that's, there's a lot of silver lining to that story. So thank you for sharing that.
Childhood Hardships and Optimism
00:03:21
Speaker
I would think that that helps define you and who you are and just in terms of your personality, professionally and as a mom as a wife as a friend as an advocate for women and advocate for many within the marketing ecosystem. How else would you define yourself?
00:03:41
Speaker
I would say going back to optimism, it's been my whole life. My childhood growing up wasn't the normal having your mom and dad around. My dad passed away when I was much younger. My aunt took legal custody of me when I was younger as well. My journey has always been a little bit different in that path.
00:04:02
Speaker
I look, when you're a kid, you're just like, why me? Why is this happening? Why can I be like the other kids? And even with the pregnancy journey that I went through, there's moments where you're just like, why can it just be normal? Why can I just be like everybody else? But coming on the other side of it, you realize, wow, that has made me a better human.
00:04:22
Speaker
It's made me stronger. It's made me realize all these things about life that a lot of people who don't go through the hardships, they will never realize what other people go through or how beautiful life is or to prioritize the right things and just to open their eyes. And so I look back now and I'm like, I went through those hard things for a reason. And that's what it's made me who I am today. And I feel fortunate in that.
00:04:49
Speaker
You're awesome. I want to give you a hug through the computer. Thanks. You have such a great optimistic personality, and really, really appreciate the way that you reflect back on your experiences and have a positive perspective towards life. So thank you.
Career in Marketing and Networking
00:05:07
Speaker
Turning the page a little bit, just based on your skill set as a marketer, sharing that you are
00:05:15
Speaker
part of your professional identity for so long was building so many components at Under Armour, at Supercoffee, at a bunch of other great spots and just helping so many professionals throughout their career. How would you characterize your skillset that you're going to be sharing with the Oh Hello community? Thank you.
00:05:36
Speaker
I would say in a couple ways. So sports industry, I think, is a big one. Coming out of college, I had zero connections in the sports side of the industry. My family didn't know anything. I'm from a small town in Delaware, so there was no connections happening with the NFL or Under Armour. There was none of that.
00:05:53
Speaker
So I think just really helping connections and networking for others who are trying to get into a particular industry like sports, I can definitely help out. Like I mentioned, I am a love for people. I love connecting good people with good people and making magic happen. So I feel fortunate that the network of people I have, I feel like there's a little bit for everybody. So if somebody wants to approach about a job or a certain brand, I'm always there to help.
00:06:19
Speaker
With that said, too, how to network. I've always found my way. So even starting at Unarmor, I was about to graduate from college. And one thing I did was to be persistent in what I wanted and going up and beyond at times that it wasn't a paid gig or had to work extra hours where it may be. So really giving that navigation of how to get from point A to point B. And then I would say the other two things are it's just
00:06:48
Speaker
Being on Apology, on Apology like you. So thinking about self brands, you know, this is something Jeremy and I, you and I talked about is, you know, a lot of times people just absorb themselves into a brand, right? Like for me, the aha moment was that Under Armour. And I remember probably about five to six years in, I was having a terrible time with the boss. I felt like I had zero control of my career.
00:07:11
Speaker
And I just remember it was like, people refer me as the Under Armour girl. Oh, Jamie's the Under Armour girl. And I realized that, what about Jamie's brand? Under Armour doesn't define who I am.
00:07:24
Speaker
And what is that? What is Jamie's brand? What am I passionate before? And I used to hide a lot of things on the side of what I did at Under Armour because in Baltimore I was teaching spin classes. I was in the yoga community. I've done some retreats and I was so ashamed to bring those things to Under Armour because I was like, oh God, people probably don't think I'm doing my job because I'm doing other things.
00:07:45
Speaker
But what I realized as soon as I kind of like remove that shield, I started bringing these projects to the table or sort of posting online and executives and my teammates would see it. They're like, that's really cool. You're doing that. Tell us more. Like you're in the fitness space. Tell us what the consumer is saying. So I realized it actually contributed a lot to my work there that
00:08:03
Speaker
Jamie became Jamie and who she was there and then you know when I made the move out of from Under Armour just realizing like my self-brand continued on because who I was people knew what I stood for and what I believed in and then the last part is
00:08:20
Speaker
of contributing to the mentorship program is really understanding communities, how to really dive into a community in an authentic, real way.
Engaging with Communities
00:08:30
Speaker
I feel at times brands, especially brand people, they just think you could copy and paste into a community from one point to another. And then you can't do that. So for example, when I was at Under Armour, we worked on the run business. So we were a team sports brand trying to get into the run market.
00:08:47
Speaker
I don't know if you've been that racist, but the team sport athlete is very different at times than the typical runner. Thinking about that process, you have to think about really getting to know the community you're working with, who are the people, how can you just listen? How can you learn from them? Then how can you bring and build that, cultivate that community with that brand in a very authentic way?
00:09:12
Speaker
That's some of my favorite things to do to provide insight to mentor and bring to the table as much as possible. I love that. What a fantastic just answer and just throwing it right back in the sense of just the how you and I were talking earlier about some people the osmosis of what they're working on sometimes becomes their own identity, but to be able to also
00:09:36
Speaker
be vulnerable and transparent and showcase like, no, these are also my interests. And this is who I am. I'm Jeremy, I'm Jamie, I'm listener, I'm viewer. And it takes, you just gotta, you gotta strip that off and just have the self-confidence, but it takes a while to get there for everybody. And I think that's, that's also something that you'll, for sure,
Advice to Younger Self
00:10:01
Speaker
for sure. And that's something that you'll be helping so many people on the platform with.
00:10:06
Speaker
When you look back at telling your younger self, what kind of advice would you give your younger self before, if you look back 10 years ago, 15 years ago? I guess two things real quick.
00:10:21
Speaker
Make the time for your friends and family. I was so focused on my career and it was like travel, whatever, underarm or needed at the time, I would just drop and go, no matter what was going on. So if I could go back and be, you know, it's gonna be okay if you miss an event or if you have to call out for a family emergency or thing, I was so scared to. And I look back that there's some things I missed that I wish I could go back and change, but that's life and you learn, right? Now I know, like now having my own family, I'm like, this is a priority.
00:10:51
Speaker
The second thing is just trusting the process. I feel like I tried to force things so hard, grasping of like, I know this is the plan, this is what I want. Instead of just taking a moment and a breath of being like, if it has to be that hard to make it work, then maybe this is not meant to be. Everything works out. So that's two of the things I would have told myself about 10, 15 years ago. Well said, well said.
00:11:19
Speaker
You told me earlier about your special community, your group of women from Under Armour in your text thread and just the community that you built up and the mentors. We'd love to hear a little bit more about those that have made an impact on you professionally that have helped get you to where you are.
00:11:37
Speaker
Oh my goodness. Damn. I mean, I know. I feel so blessed with the people in my life that
Supportive Network of Women
00:11:45
Speaker
I feel like I never was such a gift because of the people I met there. So Tori Hannah, Shayna Good Savage,
00:11:53
Speaker
I have got Jenna Clemens Bethel up. There's like 10 of us. They're on this. You gave me an amazing list. It's insane. They're incredible women. But we you know, these women were a couple years ahead of me. And some of them became moms during that time I was with them and everything to just seeing them leave to become
00:12:14
Speaker
bigger roles at bigger companies and just always a phone call away no matter what or text away. So that group of women just were everything to me in this journey of navigating life, career, and then even motherhood right now. And then another shout out is to a couple other women in the industry that Patty Hubbard, who we met, I met during my super coffee days, and then Reagan Walsh,
00:12:38
Speaker
we work together at Renegade and she's just been such an amazing mentor and friend to me in this process too. So I just, finding good people, like I said, I just, I have a feel for it and I try to keep those people close. That's amazing. Well, I want to apologize. I jumped in while you were saying someone's name, but we'll make sure to tag all of those people, all of those amazing, innovative, amazing impacts. Yeah.
00:13:08
Speaker
Any other just parting wisdom? I guess there's one other thing that we didn't
Role on the Board of &Mother
00:13:12
Speaker
get to. As you know, within the Oh Hello Platform as a mentor, as an expert, you're gonna be able to donate to between 40 to 50 different charities. What's a cause that's near and dear to your heart, Jamie? I actually, it's crazy. So I just joined the board for AmMother and AmMother is basically a nonprofit. Thank you.
00:13:33
Speaker
that is basically helping professional female athletes not have to choose between motherhood and career. So in track and field when I was in that business, at that time, Alison Felix, Lisa Montano, were basically being told that their contracts were going to be paused and that they were not going to get paid because they were choosing to be a mother.
00:13:51
Speaker
had to rush to recover after giving birth. Allison Felix had a really traumatic delivery. It's unbelievable what these top of the top athletes have of what they're doing, but then get paid nothing or don't have coverage from their associations to just no support.
00:14:11
Speaker
And Mother, what they do is provide childcare services, lactation support, really just standardizing the industry to make sure that they are covered across the board in the industry from their brands and sponsors and making sure that we're elevating that. So, and Mother, if you can check them out, Elisa Matano, she is a former Olympian who started the foundation about three years ago. So I feel fortunate I'm working with them right now.
00:14:34
Speaker
Awesome. Jamie, this was so fun. We appreciate you. Listeners, thank you for listening. Viewers, thank you for watching. Thank you for being a mentor. I know. Hello, Jamie. This was great. This was great. Thanks, everybody. Thank you.