What I'd tell my younger marketing self

Your first job probably won't be what you think. Recently, as a judge for the Australian Marketing Institute Awards, I was asked what advice I would give to marketers starting out in their careers. It's a question that made me smile because, like many graduates, I was pretty confident I had marketing largely figured out when I left university. It turns out graduating is less the end of your education and more the beginning of it.

My journey into marketing wasn’t exactly a straight line.

I started university studying accountancy before transferring into a business and marketing degree. When I arrived in Australia, my first role with Carlton & United Breweries was not launching brands, developing campaigns or sitting in creative workshops. Like many graduates, I imagined I was only a few short steps away from becoming a Marketing Manager. The workplace, and a clever leader who I have valued throughout my carer, had other ideas. Instead, I found myself working as a data analyst. For the first 18 months, the most exciting marketing activity I could claim was colour-coding spreadsheets in Excel.

At the time, it felt a long way from the career I thought I was building. Looking back, it was one of the most important foundations I could have received.

Don’t Skip the Foundations Those early years taught me how businesses operate. I learned how sales teams think. How commercial decisions get made. How budgets work. How to analyse data. How to spot trends. How to tell a story using numbers. Eventually that role led me into sales and then into marketing. What I didn’t realise at the time was that many of the skills I was developing would become more valuable as my career progressed, not less. Today, marketers are expected to demonstrate value, justify investment, secure budgets and prove impact. The ability to connect marketing activity to business outcomes is one of the most important leadership skills you can develop.

That’s why I often tell younger marketers not to rush through the early stages of their careers. The roles that seem the least glamorous are often the ones teaching you the skills you’ll rely on most later.

Marketing Is More Than Campaigns One of the biggest misconceptions about marketing is that it’s primarily about creativity. Creativity absolutely matters. But great marketing also requires commercial thinking, financial literacy, analytical skills and an understanding of human behaviour. Throughout my career, whether launching a behaviour change-led approach with Containers for Change in Western Australia, leading national community activation programs or helping organisations solve complex challenges, I’ve found the same thing to be true:

The best marketing decisions sit at the intersection of customer insight, commercial reality and strategic thinking. That’s why understanding the numbers matters. Marketing leaders need to be able to explain not only what they want to do, but why it matters and what value it will create.

Stay Curious If there’s one quality I’ve consistently seen in great marketers, it’s curiosity.

The channels will change.
The technology will change.
AI will continue to reshape how we work.

But understanding people, understanding behaviour and understanding what drives decision-making remains at the heart of great marketing. The marketers who build successful long-term careers are the ones who never stop learning.

They ask questions.
They seek different perspectives.
They get interested in how businesses work, not just how campaigns work.

My Advice to Graduates

Earn your stripes.
Learn the business.
Value every role, even the ones that don’t feel exciting at the time. The spreadsheet you are working on today may not feel particularly glamorous, but the skills you’re developing could become the foundation of your future leadership career.

And one final piece of advice: If you don’t have a calculator on your desk as a marketer, you’re probably missing a trick.