ORGANON CCO, Wendy Lund on Merging Passion and Purpose with Your Career

08/12/22 • 29 min

Wendy Lund is a women’s health advocate, adviser, and activist with more than 30 years of experience in marketing and communications. After working at Planned Parenthood, the National League of Nursing, and some of the country’s leading healthcare communications firms, Wendy joined Organon, the largest women’s health company of its kind. As Chief Communications Officer, she’s working to change how women’s health is approached, treated, shaped, and especially talked about.

In this conversation with Lippe Taylor CEO Paul Dyer, Wendy gets into her career history, how to merge your passion and purpose with your career, and how the movie Erin Brockovich inspired her approach to leadership.

Here are some key takeaways from this conversation with Wendy.

Listen. When they were launching, Organon initiated a comprehensive listening tour where they spoke to women everywhere about their unmet healthcare needs. This is rare for healthcare companies, who usually focus on doctors, but Organon's mission is to serve their female patient base as intently as possible, which is why they focused on listening from the day they launched in 140 markets and then made major decisions based on what they found out.

Take it personally. Wendy cites the movie and true story of Erin Brockovitch as inspiring her approach to bridging her passion with her profession. There's a line where Erin is told she is taking things too personally, to which she replies: "Not personal? That is my time, my sweat, and my time away from my kids—If that's not personal, I don't know what Is." This stuck with Wendy and inspired her approach to her work. Wendy takes her work personally because she takes the mission of helping women across the world personally. Taking it personally has made the difference in pushing through difficulties and complications because, for Wendy, it's a matter of mission. It's cliche, but when your heart is in something, you will naturally work harder and move mountains to achieve it. Finding and, better yet, creating those causes and missions within your career will make all the difference towards your overall impact.

Just go for it. Wendy cites a tendency for a lot of young professionals to wait for the perfect moment to take the leap, be more ambitious, take on bigger projects, etc. Wendy's advice: just go for it. Regardless of your perceived credentials or qualifications, taking big projects on head-first, regardless of feeling ready, can actually be the catalyst that gives you those very qualifications you want.

Thanks for listening! Don't forget to subscribe, and to learn more about Lippe Taylor, check us out at Lippetaylor.com.

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Produced by Simpler Media

Here are some key takeaways from this conversation with Wendy.

Listen. When they were launching, Organon initiated a comprehensive listening tour where they spoke to women everywhere about their unmet healthcare needs. This is rare for healthcare companies, who usually focus on doctors, but Organon's mission is to serve their female patient base as intently as possible, which is why they focused on listening from the day they launched in 140 markets and then made major decisions based on what they found out.

Take it personally. Wendy cites the movie and true story of Erin Brockovitch as inspiring her approach to bridging her passion with her profession. There's a line where Erin is told she is taking things too personally, to which she replies: "Not personal? That is my time, my sweat, and my time away from my kids—If that's not personal, I don't know what Is." This stuck with Wendy and inspired her approach to her work. Wendy takes her work personally because she takes the mission of helping women across the world personally. Taking it personally has made the difference in pushing through difficulties and complications because, for Wendy, it's a matter of mission. It's cliche, but when your heart is in something, you will naturally work harder and move mountains to achieve it. Finding and, better yet, creating those causes and missions within your career will make all the difference towards your overall impact.

Just go for it. Wendy cites a tendency for a lot of young professionals to wait for the perfect moment to take the leap, be more ambitious, take on bigger projects, etc. Wendy's advice: just go for it. Regardless of your perceived credentials or qualifications, taking big projects on head-first, regardless of feeling ready, can actually be the catalyst that gives you those very qualifications you want.

Thanks for listening! Don't forget to subscribe, and to learn more about Lippe Taylor, check us out at Lippetaylor.com.

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Produced by Simpler Media

Previous Episode

MCDONALD’S CCO, Michael Gonda on Why Legacy Brands Must Fight Harder for Relevance

Michael Gonda is the Chief Communications Officer of McDonald's, a position he's held for the past 8 months.

Michael is responsible for setting integrated communications strategies that advance the message of the brand and drive business impact in more than 100 markets around the world. He oversees corporate communications, including media relations and financial communications; global public affairs and public policy; issues and crisis management; internal and strategic communications and communications for McDonald’s International Operated Markets and International Development Licensee Markets.

Prior to joining McDonald’s, Michael had previous stints at Chobani and Weber Shandwick, and Michael was recently added to PRWeek's 2022 Power List.

In this conversation with Lippe Taylor CEO Paul Dyer, Michael gets into why legacy brands need to fight harder for relevance, details about his meteoric leadership rise, and fun anecdotes around the recent McDonald's Indiana sign war.

Thank you as always for listening, don't forget to subscribe.

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Produced by Simpler Media

Next Episode

FORD CCO, Mark Truby on 21st-Century Brand Storytelling

Mark Truby is chief communications officer at the Ford Motor Company where he leads all global communications and public relations activities. This includes building the company’s reputation globally and helping to lead communications that reach Ford’s external and internal audiences, including customers, employees, dealers, suppliers, news media, communities, governments, and policymakers. He reports directly to Ford CEO Jim Farley.

Mark is also the proud father of 3 boys and was named to the 2022 PRWeek Power List.

Prior to joining Ford, Mark was an award-winning reporter and editor at The Detroit News, which is a big part of Mark's executive origin story. Mark's journalism background gave him a much more story-centric approach to comms, which is evident in a lot of Ford's marketing.

Mark dives deep into this, his career history, and tells us a great story about the months-long process of getting to President Joe Biden to drive the Ford F-150 at a recent launch. Without further ado, here is Ford CCO Mark Truby in conversation with Lippe Taylor CEO Paul Dyer.

Here are some key takeaways from this conversation with Mark.

1. Learn journalism. Many comms leaders have stated that journalism is the most useful form of writing to learn. As a form, it teaches conciseness and the inverse pyramid concept of stating the facts up front and then expanding as you move forward, which structurally applies to just about anything. In Mark's case, his journalism background was the foundation that he built his comms career on because he not only learned all about Ford but understood journalists and how to reach them because he was one himself. This proved to be a fruitful point of leverage in his PR career because, overall, being a journalist taught Mark to always look for the story, which is what editors are always trying to uncover in every article and every pitch. More on this in the next point.

2. Make art, not ads. A lot of Ford's approach to marketing under Mark's leadership has been very story-centric and leaned more into entertainment than marketing. Ford launched a fascinating podcast series all about what happened to the Bronco, a long and elaborate story that could only be told on a long-form medium like podcasting. Ford also put out multiple documentaries, none of which felt like advertising but worked beautifully as engaging stories that elegantly showcased the brand. The benefit of creating this kind of content is that it never goes away - unlike news cycles, the documentaries and podcasts keep streaming and remain indelible.

3. Connect the past with the future. A big challenge for heritage brands is leveraging their legacy while remaining relevant. In Mark's case, he's well aware that Ford will never seem as new and cutting-edge as Tesla, and that's ok - Tesla will never have the 100+ year history that Ford has. In bridging the gap between your brand's legacy and relevance, Mark says it's a matter of connecting the past with the future, embracing where your brand has been but, most importantly, articulating where it's going in a concise narrative.

Thanks for listening! To learn more about our agency, visit us at www.lippetaylor.com.

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Produced by Simpler Media