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OhHello - Olivia Kory
45 Plays1 year ago
OhHello!!
It's episode 57 of the OhHello.io 🌞☕️ vod and pod. I'm stoked to have this close pal raise her hand to be one of the first "Hellos" on the OhHello.io platform!
Disclaimer: since recording this episode, I met Olivia’s beautiful daughter, had a meal w/ the fam (including her awesome hubs, Josh Berkley), it got a wee bit colder, and her company Haus raised their Series A!
She is one of the most forward thinking, versatile, measurement-obsessed "let's test it" leaders in the game! This Publicis (Starcom), TubeMogul, Inc., Netflix, Quibi, Sonos, Inc. alum is currently building Haus, and she is known as being a Swiss Army Knife everywhere she goes!
In this episode, she talks about the impact that these mentors made on her:
Tom Riordan - the fundamentals and principles of measurement and advertising
Juan B. - very direct, very smart - she is a proud alum of the "Juan Bongiovoni school of growth”
Ambereen Toubassy - bad-ass leader- the kind of leader this "Hello" wants to be and looks up to
Sharon Kory - powerhouse mom! Hi Sharon!
Words of wisdom from this "Hello":
💡“Step back and appreciate the journey while you’re on it”
💡“Don’t be afraid to fail; one of the best professional experiences I had was building Quibi. It failed but that was a great experience.”
Thank you, Olivia Kory! We're so excited to have you on our platform when we launch v2.0 of OhHello.io in the coming 2-weeks!
#workingmoms #startups #mentorship #careerguidance
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Transcript
Weather and Friendship Reunion
00:00:13
Speaker
Oh, hello, Olivia. Oh, hello, Jeremy. Olivia, how are you? I'm doing great, 75 degrees and sunny here in Michigan, so. You brought that Los Angeles weather back to Detroit. Amazing, amazing. I have the pleasure of knowing you quite well.
Career Introduction and Path
00:00:37
Speaker
We've known each other for a long time. You are a very good friend.
00:00:42
Speaker
I love your husband. I'm looking forward to finally meeting your daughter extremely soon. I know who you are. Why don't you tell her, oh, hello audience, who I have the pleasure of speaking with right now and who they're listening to. For sure. So, uh, my name is Olivia Corey. I, uh, I started my career in the advertising industry in Chicago media agency called star com in the, in the publicist family. And then I joined you, Jeremy, at, at two mogul.
00:01:10
Speaker
Before moving out to LA, where I was in the growth marketing world at Netflix, at Quibi, at Sonos, and then I left last August to join my kind of longtime business partner, Zach, on building out seed stage startup and really like the marketing incrementality platform that we wished we could have recommended.
00:01:37
Speaker
to folks. And what's that startup? What is that startup called? Called house house. And then also a new mom. Not to forget that part. Here and an almost one year old puppy as well. Amazing, amazing.
Transitioning Roles and Balancing Family
00:01:55
Speaker
And you've you as you mentioned, you've worked across some amazing spots between tube
00:02:01
Speaker
than going to Netflix and Quibi and Sonos and some fantastic experiences that led you to now be a co-founder and builder of House. With that said, what defines you? Tell us a little bit more about who you are and just the skill set that you're going to be sharing with the Oh, hello community. Yeah, so functional expertise, growth marketing kind of through and through anything in that world. But I think from a mentorship perspective,
00:02:31
Speaker
I've kind of weaved in between startups and big companies. So anyone kind of looking to make that transition, I think I can be helpful in talking that through. And then also the transition
00:02:45
Speaker
from brand side to sales side. I've done both, started on the agency side, but actually became a vendor and then hopped over to the brand side and now I'm back on the sales side. So anyone trying to make a transition, I feel like I've seen a lot of different organizations at this point and could probably share some advice on what that looks like. Well said, well said for sure.
00:03:12
Speaker
You've mastered a lot of different skills at this point and you've, between CS operations, marketing, sales, revenue driving, analytics, measurement, there's a lot that you're gonna be able to offer and sizes of companies. So I'm glad that you pointed that out. What excites you about mentorship? What excites you about what Oh, Hello is going to be driving and supporting and building over time to mentees within the tech ecosystem?
00:03:38
Speaker
Yeah, I think what's interesting is I think about lately what I've been talking to folks about. The most common question I get is being a working mother and kind of what that looks like. And I think I found myself always
00:03:59
Speaker
unsure and wanting permission to have a career that I felt excited about and also have a family. And I think that's just something that comes up every day now and I'm living through it. And I think it's really important to talk to folks about that. And in that way, that's just most recently, I feel like what I've been really valuing in my conversations with my mentors and my family and what hopefully I can bring.
00:04:29
Speaker
And there's just a lot of things that I... You ask this question often, like, what do you wish you could tell your 25-year-old self? There's so much. So I'm excited to actually share some of those stories with the community.
Mentorship Influence and Leadership
00:04:45
Speaker
As a new mom and as someone who's building a seed stage startup that is absolutely going up and to the right and making waves within the ecosystem,
00:04:59
Speaker
It's a lot, it's daunting. Having a puppy, having a toddler, you had a newborn, between newborn and infant stage when you first joined house, would your words of quick encouragement be just an advice just to other young moms, to other young dads? Just go for it, just take one day at a time, just remember it's a marathon, it's not a sprint.
00:05:26
Speaker
Yeah, I got the advice when I was considering joining house like, you know, you shouldn't have to choose like you really shouldn't have to choose between a family and a career that you want and a career that you love. And once I got like once I gave myself that permission, and I made that decision,
00:05:43
Speaker
it all kind of falls into place. But I found for for many years, I was like, Oh, well, at this stage in my life, I'm going to need to settle down so that we can have a family. And it's just not how it works. And I've been talking to like, just some really badass female executives, like I'm not the first person who's gone through this. And folks about it has been really reassuring. And like, I by no means have it figured out. But day to day, we're making it work. And like, that's,
00:06:12
Speaker
That's what I wish that I kind of knew going in is that you don't have to plan this stuff so perfectly and that you can have a career that you're excited about and be a parent. Amazing. Great words of wisdom, my friend. Who are some of your top mentors personally and professionally that have made an impact on you? I've had so many former bosses who are awesome. I feel incredibly fortunate and lucky to have had the mentors that I've had over the years
00:06:41
Speaker
Just starting off like you and Tom Reardon at Tube Mobile. Thank you. Of like what it means to lead with empathy and get the most out of your team without being an asshole. Like that was I think really important seeing that early on in my career. Thank you. Tom, of course, Tom from a, from a like what it, what it really means to be a good smart media buyer and really kind of taught me a lot of the functional
00:07:12
Speaker
fundamentals and kind of principles that I've taken with me for a while. And then in the kind of LA chapter, Juan Bon Giovanni was my boss at Netflix and at Quibi running the growth team. And he's super unique leader, very direct, very smart.
00:07:34
Speaker
He, everybody who's worked with Juan says like, I came up and I studied at the Juan Bongiovanni School of Growth. It's like everybody who's worked on his team has said like, that was one of the best professional experiences of their life. And so that's, you know, I think I'm so lucky to have worked with him. And then- You've told me about him. Yeah, yeah. I'm excited to one day meet him.
00:08:02
Speaker
And then, well, he's in Berlin now, so, so good luck. Hi Juan, if you're out there listening. But more recently, like I said, I think some of the, the female leaders in my life I've been talking to more. Ambrian Tubasi was the CFO at Quibi. Badass leaders, super smart and who I try to model kind of myself off of when I'm thinking about what kind of leader I want to be. Uh, and then.
00:08:29
Speaker
Last but not certainly not least, I think my mom who is sharing Corey, Aaron Corey is a just powerhouse, like had three kids, working mother, incredibly successful business and continues to, to, to run that. She continues to run self-employed. So I've just had so many people that I look up to. And I think a lot of the Netflix folks also, um,
00:08:57
Speaker
kind of model their leadership style off of rehasting. So I'll throw that one in there is like the the lesser known tech CEO, who doesn't really seek out the spotlight, but who all of us have just kind of modeled ourselves off of over the years. That's badass. That's well, thank you for
Connecting Mentors and Supporting Causes
00:09:16
Speaker
mentioning me. I sincerely appreciate that. I love our friendship. And it's been so fun watching you just
00:09:23
Speaker
crush it professionally and personally because I care about the personal aspect as much as I care about the profile. I actually care about the personal part more than the professional part, but nonetheless, thank you and thanks for mentioning them. I'm sure all of your mentors are going to be able to appreciate that because that's that sense of altruism. It's part of why we are building Oh Hello to be able to provide access to everybody, to be able to
00:09:49
Speaker
pick and choose who you wanna be able to speak with because of their level of expertise. And then after the session, the mentor, the hello, gets to donate to a cause that's near and dear to their heart. So anywhere between one to 100% of the fees can go to that. So with that said Olivia, what are some charitable or philanthropic causes that are close to your heart? Yeah, one I'll focus on is every town for gun safety.
00:10:19
Speaker
I think they're the largest gun violence prevention organization really trying to demand action from elected officials. I'm also open-minded to learning more about what else can be done in this space.
00:10:34
Speaker
I'm eager to make an impact. And so in that way, I'm excited to see what other folks are doing in terms of charitable organizations and ways to make an impact. And I know you're passionate about this one too, Jeremy. I am. I am. I appreciate you calling that out.
Embracing Work Moments and Overcoming Failure
00:10:53
Speaker
Any other parting words of wisdom, advice, guidance that you want to give to the, oh, hello audience. The folks are gonna be watching this on LinkedIn, on YouTube, listening, wherever they listen to their podcasts, so on and so forth.
00:11:08
Speaker
Yeah, like try to step back and appreciate the journey while you're on it. Like so many times in almost every role I've been in, like it's that office quote where it's like, you don't realize you're in the good old days until you've left them. Where it's like the further away it gets in the rear view mirror, the more I'm like, that was such an awesome team. And I should have told them when we were in it together how awesome it really was. And like at house right now, things are crazy.
00:11:37
Speaker
But I've, I think now I've had enough experiences where I'm like, you know, these are all good things. These are customers wanting more from you. And we're going to look back on this and say like, this was definitely the good old days. And yeah, I think in, in that way, you know, don't be
00:11:57
Speaker
Don't be afraid to fail. Like the other big kind of piece of advice that I would give myself is like, one of the best professional experiences that I've had is working at Quibi, which was a failed streaming startup shut down six months after, after launching. And like, again, we look back on that now, like years later and say, that was one of the most important, I think experiences that we could have ever had. So afraid to fail.
00:12:25
Speaker
Yeah, don't be afraid to fail. Well, I'm happy that you brought both of those aspects up. Thank you, Olivia. Thank you, everybody, for listening. Really appreciate it. This was fun. Thanks, Olivia. Bye, everybody.