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Robert Berkeley  0:06  

Hello, and welcome to Inside jobs, the podcast where we get to meet creative leaders find out how they got to where they are and try to understand what drives them. Inside jobs is brought to you by I have the in house agency forum and express KCS content production partner to in house agencies who want to focus on their ideas, but not their production. Right after the I have conference in November, I went for a short walk from the revere hotel to meet up with Kim McNeil downs, the head of the green.in house agency for Deloitte two years into her job there. And after almost 20 years at Fidelity Investments, she's learned that a long tenure at a single place does not prevent the creative sparks from flying. It was good to start though, knowing that Kim was a keen listener to the podcast came you know the format of the inside jobs podcast. Let's go back, tell us where it all began.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  1:03  

I'm from seekonk, Massachusetts, where seekonk it's actually on the border of Rhode Island and Massachusetts. Okay. I'm one of five kids are married my mom and dad Nancy and Leo. Leo didn't go to college. Nancy spent a year in college and I was the first of of the kids to go to college. Okay, I went I was always been passionate about art and design. I was I grew up drawing and went to art school. I went to Rhode Island School of Design and

 

Robert Berkeley  1:39  

and studying fine art. Oh, yeah, I

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  1:41  

started I actually wanted I thought commercial because a commercial acts i wanted i want to i definitely knew that I needed to be in a in a business type. structure because I really get my energy from other people. So

 

Robert Berkeley  1:55  

I thought we living in a Garret in Paris.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  1:56  

No, no, no, no, no, I knew that. That wouldn't work for me because I'm not good all by myself. So I thought, Oh, I'm going to be an illustrator. Right? So illustrators get paid and they can go work somewhere, and, and then realised about my junior year. Oh my god. Graphic Designers decide when to use illustrators. I'm in trouble

 

2:18  

winning and

 

Robert Berkeley  2:22  

crisis in year one.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  2:23  

I Yeah, I did. I did. And when I got and then I said, Well, I think I might like to paint and my father said to me, you're not gonna do that because you're not gonna make any money. And I had an art school teacher who was the creative director for a small design firm. And he asked me to come and freelance for him and project management traffic,

 

Robert Berkeley  2:50  

traffic. Project Management in traffic. Say something about your level of talent.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  2:56  

Yeah, pretty much. Yeah. Cuz I was I'm very drawing come and be a project. Yeah, exactly. It was not conceptual. I'm not I'm I’m I’m so not conceptual. And, but I loved being around other creatives I was, I always in college, I was

 

  3:11  

the one who kind of organised everything I was president, the student board, I definitely, you know, if there was a, if there was a, you know, a dance or any kind of organisation going on, I was usually in the mix of that and really enjoyed it. And realise that creatives kind of needed it, you know, to, to create to give them the space to create, they often had needed other people around them to help organise things so they could really focus on their creative. So

 

Robert Berkeley  3:35  

So you'd mind the work of your fellow students? Oh, my God. Yeah. And I appreciated that as well. But then you wanted to organise them into you run the exhibition.

 

 3:42  

Exactly, exactly, exactly. I know. And, and I always knew that I go back to painting some day. But it was okay. That as long as I was around creatives, that I would be happy. So as I said, I worked for I started my career, right out of college, it was 19 8084. So in a deep recession at that point, and so there were really not a lot of jobs. So that freelance gig that I had lasted six weeks. And so then I was what am I going to do next? I just pounded the pavement and found out

 

Robert Berkeley  4:19  

Did you did you get a degree or?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  4:21  

No, I graduated? Oh, God, yeah, yeah, BFA in illustration from rusty, right. Okay. And then I went to, I basically pounded the pavement to find, you know, to find other roles, I liked the the organisational factors that I experienced in that little, that little design firm and went to work for, you know, a more of a manufacturing organisation that had creative involved in it. And so I went there and was your production assistant.

 

Robert Berkeley  4:48  

So now you're at at a graphic finishing company. Right. So is this related to the printing business? So

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  4:54  

I kind of sort of the finishing business die cutting. Yeah, you know, it was it was really it was very much back end of things, right? There were creatives there. And I was I was hired as a production assistant. So really focused on the actual, what once something has been designed, how do you get it? produced and delivered?

 

Robert Berkeley  5:13  

You've learned a bit about this college as well. Yes, exactly. This is this is Yeah. So this is sort of technical process. Yeah. But it would have been leading up to printing. What else would it have been, I guess,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  5:22  

exactly. And lasted there a couple years, learned a lot and realised I really wanted to be more upstream in the development of things and ended up in small agencies, moved from small agencies until a very well kept management project. Mostly, it was mostly project management, traffic and production at that time.

 

Robert Berkeley  5:43  

Facing even

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  5:45  

a little bit, not much, right, it was really more in the organisation of things, how to get things done helping people get things done, right. That was all opposed all about that. Yeah. And worked in a bunch of different agencies at the time it all in the Boston area, and realised in as I was working in these agencies that I didn't understand why we were doing what we're doing, you know, well, one of the one of the things when you're working with a bunch of different clients, it's not, it's really hard to get really in deep as to understanding why we were

 

Robert Berkeley  6:22  

trying to see the bigger picture, exactly. And There's a benefit to seeing the bigger picture

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  6:26  

picture, Oh my God, because you get more invested in what you're doing. And you're more focused on doing. You know, it's not just about the aesthetics of it, it's about whether it will work or not.

 

Robert Berkeley  6:36  

Yes, it's Yeah, I mean, to my mind, getting to know the bigger picture is about being able to make decisions on the job in hand based upon a much greater set of inputs and understanding of general overall goal and direction, right. And I guess, cultural approach and all those other things. But when you're the siloed working very narrowly, here's the brief, where's the output?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  6:58  

Yeah, I've got no context. Not really, you I I I think if I, you know, stayed in external agencies, I would have worked my way into more account management roles, more strategy roles to get closer to that, because it was a burning desire of mine. But in before I got there, I got offered a role at a cable television.

 

Robert Berkeley  7:17  

This is in your LinkedIn profile. I know.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  7:21  

So many years ago, and cottonelle Cablevision, which was at the time, the number three cable company in the country and and at that time, cable television was sexy. It was a cool product, people, everybody, if you had to have cape, it was really about the product. Right? It was what the watching, right? It was about having HBO is about watching sports on demand and all that. So I was I joined their small mighty in house agency. I didn't know it was an in house agency at the time.

 

What did you think you were doing? I thought it was joining, you know, doing production. And I'm going to be a TV producer.

 

I did think I might do the same with radio.

 

Robert Berkeley  8:01  

presenter editing behind the scenes.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  8:03  

There was there was one writer, one designer and me. And then there were a bunch of marketers around us. And we and we we manage all the acquisition, direct marketing, all of all of the promotional work. We used to ride the cable trucks to meet the customers. It was awesome. And I loved it.

 

Robert Berkeley  8:25  

So you were getting the big picture, then

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  8:26  

I was totally getting the big picture and really enjoyed that and stay there for quite a long time and grew with that company and into in more of an operational undoubtedly a career in television back then, it was very sexy. Yeah. So

 

Robert Berkeley  8:41  

something Something must have happened.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  8:43  

And at that time, you know, about seven years in I had a friend who actually went to a financial services company and said, Kim, you need to come over here because we were we were we were small and mighty, right? We're at continental, there was there was just one, one or two of us doing what we're doing. What you're doing at continental, there are fewer 30 people doing what you're doing. And I'm like, wow, that would be great to be with other people who did the role that I did. I want to go there. And I went there and stayed a really long this was Fidelity Investments. I was at Fidelity Investments for 23 years. And I started in production and project management and ascended into operations of fidelity's internal advertising,

 

Robert Berkeley  9:27  

and what we understand as today's in house agency, how far was it when you started from today's conventional model of in house agents,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  9:35  

it was it was fairly, very much production, media and production. And it was really about getting to market fast timing the market, you know, having the legal person behind the designer as they were editing the ad that needed to at six o'clock at night to get into the into the FedEx packet to ship that night so that it would show up in the New York Times the next day. That was it. Who was very reactive? Very, very quick? And were they also working with traditional agency as well?

 

Robert Berkeley  10:07  

A number of traditionally agency, but they weren't quick enough for it was the

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  10:11  

it was really important. It was really important to, at that time and originally, as I recall, and again, yeah, I'm sure if you asked someone else, they'd give you a different answer relatively Junior, when you can, very junior. And the it was really about being able to buy the media directly.

 

Robert Berkeley  10:28  

And so that was about money.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  10:32  

And it was risk averse, it basically being have control over because, you know, financial services had a lot of disclosure, and a lot of a lot of legal review required. didn't want to be too promissory in your, in what you were saying. And we wanted to get to market fast. So it was really, we were a machine. It was a production machine, but very tactical in what we were doing. And over the 23 years I was there it evolved. And it became, eventually as what it is today is the agency of record for fidelity.

 

Robert Berkeley  11:03  

And how did that evolution what drove that evolution,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  11:05  

it was really in matching the agency was matching its its offerings to the needs of the business. That was all.

 

Robert Berkeley  11:14  

So whoever was controlling that in house agency was tuned into marketing needs. Yeah,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  11:21  

Yeah you had to be entirely plugged in now. And there were there were hiccups along the way. But for the most part, that trajectory was always what is the business need from us? Who how do we need to show up for the business?

 

Robert Berkeley  11:35  

So it raised its own game? The way and how did it do that through recruiting better and better people,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  11:42  

it was a combination of basically people growing up with the organisation in maturing into, and raising the bar for themselves and also reorienting making sure we were bringing in talent that could deliver on a higher play hard

 

Robert Berkeley  11:58  

Hard to to to to to improve oneself. Beyond the level of what one thinks is acceptable. It you either have to have someone on the sidelines who's got this amazing vision and keep setting a high bar for you. Yeah, or as you say, you need to be bringing people in. But yeah, otherwise things will just your status quo sets in very quickly.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  12:19  

I think that that's the that's that's the secret, you definitely have to have a vision, right a vision of what you want the organisation to be, and that vision needs to be entirely tapped in to what your company wants you to be. And that your organisation to people is Oh, it's not indentured servitude. It's it's these are tours of duty that people have that the movement is a good thing, right, having a good mix of people with tenure, who have really understand how the organisation operates, and it can help Sherpa other people through it. And then bringing in those outside perspectives through new hires in a mix of talent and diverse talent really is the perfect combination, and it can't stay stagnant. It's got you always have to have a bit of constant movement and in the in the in the mix to ensure that you are raising the bar and tightly wound to what your business needs you to be.

 

Robert Berkeley  13:17  

You mentioned earlier on about the fact that in fact, you put the first reason you gave as to why it changed was because marketing's demands changed. Yes. And there was a tight coupling there. Yes. Do you see the danger in in house agencies losing that tight coupling? And how can that how does that happen in? You know, when it goes wrong? How does that happen?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  13:40  

So I have a hypothesis. I mean, now we're talking about 78% of brands have invested in in outside agencies, but there is definitely in the marketplace. There's there's what do we call them cautionary tales, from companies whose in house agencies did not survive. And I think it's really about lack of alignment. It's it's the so how does that come

 

Robert Berkeley  14:03  

so how does that come about? And how do you fix it?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  14:04  

I think I'm back to the leadership, right, the leadership being entirely attuned to what

 

Robert Berkeley  14:11  

leadership have the in house agents leadership

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  14:12  

Leadership at the in house agency have being totally attuned to what the business needs, and working hand in hand to define what

 

Robert Berkeley  14:22  

is the trajectory? Is this about reporting structures? Or is it about personality and force of will to be involved in those conversations be visible, because if you're not allowed into those conversations, you can never do it? So you have to kind of key you have to have an understanding from the other side marketing say exactly. I need these guys here, right listening because I need them to be alive. You have to have that empathy rather than they're just another one of the options when it comes to production.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  14:48  

So your your question was, is it one or the other? I think it is both right? It's leader. It's definitely where you where you sit within the organisation I have, you know, I feel pretty strongly that you should You'd be sitting in the marketing function, your agency should be sitting in the marketing or brand function, whatever you're defining it to be

 

Robert Berkeley  15:06  

reporting up to CMS. Yes,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  15:08  

Yes absolutely. I believe that's the best. And secondly, you have to have a culture that you know, driven by that leader, that really has kind of a mutual empathy between the marketer and the in house agency, you need to be able to walk in each other's shoes, and really understand why you're doing what you're doing.

 

Robert Berkeley  15:29  

You know, it makes me makes you kind of reflect and wonder how on earth an external agency ever manages to do any good work for client, because you're right, if you're right about this connection that's needed. Within house agency, it's kind of easy, because you're down the corridor. You're there you see each other all the time, if you're an external agency, you're not, you're living a completely separate life in a separate building with separate pressures and comparators. And yet, you have to be plugged into your clients mindset in order to deliver appropriate results.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  16:00  

I think there's some magic in that though, too. Having that outside perspective, can you infuse that in your inside, you know, in your internal agency, then maybe you will never need to rely on another airwatch agency record to be able to do that for you. But there's, there is always a danger of becoming too insular, right, becoming too much talking to yourselves about how you know what what the business needs, what the customer needs? And in that case, sometimes you do, you want to make sure that your operating model allows you to engage, you know, an extension of agencies and other resources to help make sure that you're not talking to yourself all the time, so that you are bringing those fresh perspectives there. Absolutely. We should never feel in competition with other agencies. I don't believe that at Deloitte, I absolutely don't believe I think that's we're not doing our partners, any favours we're actually getting in their way. When we do that we're not we're not putting our Deloitte hat on and doing what's best for the business. If it we have to understand where we are in the in the value chain. And if it's something that we're not good at, we need to be the first ones to say, Okay, let's bring in this other team who is great at that,

 

Robert Berkeley  17:18  

don't you think there are situations though, where in house agencies might feel vulnerable if they start doing things like that? They may, however, I

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  17:29  

They may, however, I I think that's short sighted, I believe the in house agency is about making it possible. It's not about always making it here. And, and I think that that's a way you can continue to go up the value chain, why invest in something initially, if it's if it's if it's bleeding edge, right? Maybe it's better for the firm to make the investment, you know, externally for a bit of time, until you understand how it is going to be leveraged in any scale, and then determine whether you invest in it or not, it's still you, it's still you, the agency. If, if you're operating in a way that your marketers trust you to operate that you you're owning it, it's still your organisation who's delivering on what the need is, it just so happens that you're leveraging all of these partners, external partners and internal partners to do that. That's not

 

Robert Berkeley  18:21  

I guess, you've just got you know, anything in life, you've got to have an inner confidence in what you're doing. And if you don't, then yeah, yeah. Anyway, so back to your career, you said you would use fidelity for 20 something years. Tell us quickly about your roles and how that changed yourself and how you you proceeded through the organisation.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  18:40  

I started in production project management like roles and ascended into or or lat while latticed very, it's not a ladder, it's more of a lattice. egalitarian, that's right, into operations roles, operations roles really because I understood how things worked. I wanted to help them work better and I thought the best perch for me was operations right how do I make this really you know this like there's a whole lot there's a there's a lot of talent here these are the people processing tools I mean, there's you know, with all these people all these processes all these tools a lot I can go right but also a lot can go wrong

 

Robert Berkeley  19:21  

you got the autonomy to make these changes. Oh God now. Yeah,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  19:27  

I was definitely over time. You know, making the case nudging, nudging sometimes underneath the radar and sometimes going and making the business he knew he wanted to go absolutely. Absolutely. In over time understood. You know, how do I make sure this is a well oiled machine without making it feel like it's manufacturing that it truly is what it is our product is creative and we need to allow

 

Robert Berkeley  19:55  

making production be the be the dog and creative the tail is not a good idea. Well Afraid so easy to happen.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  20:02  

Robert, you know, I made that mistake. You know, I remember I think God, I caught my fidelity and learned all these things not to do.

 

Robert Berkeley  20:09  

Thanks, fidelity.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  20:11  

It’s Very grateful. But I think a lot of us go through that, you know, understand that it is this desire to basically make it all very rigid and very all very, very linear. And oh, just everyone just didn't do this process. We just did it the way I told him to do it would be perfect. Well, no, that's not how it works, especially with creative

 

Robert Berkeley  20:35  

your next move from fidelity after there for how many 2023 years 23 years was to to Deloitte and green dots. So So how, how did that move come about? And what did you What did you find when you got here,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  20:52  

I had the opportunity to take what I call a a sabbatical the opportunity to leave fidelity. And I could have stated fidelity but felt like I would I done everything I could possibly do here over the years I've been there, too. I really just want to do this somewhere else in a small team. Basically, build a team from scratch was really what I desire to do.

 

Robert Berkeley  21:21  

desire to do. But how big was the team at fidelity? It was around 200. A new and how were you leading that? At that point? No,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  21:29  

No, I was leading operations and vendor manager. Okay, so I was supporting running the operation. And so and I was ready to lead an agency that to me, that was what I wanted to do no BS next. Yeah.

 

Robert Berkeley  21:44  

So how did this come about then?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  21:45  

So I, I I left fidelity advice. I'm notgonna take three months off, six months off and just kind of take a break. What did you do? I left, I left fidelity on June 30. delight contacted me on this on July 7.

 

Robert Berkeley  22:05  

Okay, so Eight days later,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  22:07  

he later and said, Would you like to come and talk to us about this opportunity? And I'm like, Oh, no, I am,  yes I  often want to help

 

Robert Berkeley  22:14  

the Inside Jobinside joke listeners understand how they can, how they can find out about in, in house agencies that are starting out. But they just seem to come to write well I.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  22:24  

They found me, they found me on LinkedIn. And I had had been because I had been preparing to leave fidelity and so I spend some time kind of telling my story.

 

Robert Berkeley  22:32  

Only itstory in had You said you'd left no doubt that so as far as LinkedIn was concerned, you were still tend to go over the crowd within

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  22:41  

Yeah, within a month or so and talk to Deloitte about that. And they're like, that's great. Okay, talk to us about this job. And I thought, Oh, this will be good. You know, this will be good. You know, this will be a good, good practice for for when I really do start looking for new roles. This

 

Robert Berkeley  22:56  

Okay, this is the eighth of July.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  22:58  

And then I was started here on like, middle of October. So I've been here for two years. ago and

 

Robert Berkeley  23:03  

Ago and what did you do out of curiosity between July and October, I

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  23:08  

I interviewed a lot with Deloitte, but basically painted. Oh, I painted I painted I gardened I Ii i paddle boardeding. I live in whole Massachusetts, which is right on the water. tasket Beach. And so I was I was intending and It was summer. I was. It was it was it was awesome. I read I I I, tempted to retire I kind of did I know my husband wasn't ready for me to retire my family. I have a daughter. I have my 17 year old now who's going to college next year. So I was not retired. I have a 28 year old is getting married this year. So to me, it was about what's next. And for me, it was always cool places not established. Well, just so happens to place was pretty well established by the time I got Green Dot  Green Dot

 

Robert Berkeley  23:59  

green. So Ggreen Dot. is, the name given to the in house agency.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  24:02  

Right, right. And it was really I I came at a time of transition from the Ggreen Ddot agency because it was built about five or six years ago, where it it was decided it made sense. They had marketing and marketing service like roles embedded in the practices at Deloitte, but they weren't all in the centre. So about five or six years ago, they brought them together into the centre and said, okay, we now have an in house agency, it was basically the greenhouse agency that was part and parcel of the marketing communications function within the US member firm. And

 

Robert Berkeley  24:37  

It was a US only then us only Yeah,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  24:39  

US only Yeah, USus only. And so I came in really, to kind of bring it to him very much. executional really incredibly talented people who have come from each of the practices.

 

Robert Berkeley  24:53  

practices. They're very creative driven, or was it very productive is

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  24:56  

It is very production driven, very channel specific. Delivery specific which was a a.com, email, experiential, lots of live events, virtual events, very much in a a a lot of distribution of thought leadership, really in support of the practices and

 

Robert Berkeley  25:18  

How internal communications, well,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  25:20  

well, no Deloitte, marketing, Deloitte, so basically more upper funnel kinds of messaging, you know, on our website, and our social in our social spaces and and and live in virtual events. So, because b2b not so much, yeah, not so much, you know, broadcast a little bit of advertising, but not a tonne. Our brand team brand sponsorship team really owns the brand and the advertising around the brand, we do everything else. But very much execute execution from execution to delivery was what the team was really focused on.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:00  

In creative execution and creative effort to create sign on to production out.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  26:04  

And that was brought into, okay, assess this because we really eventually want to be world class want to be world class, we want to be world class we want and it was really important for us to be able to support the business in a more strategic way. What what would you do, Kim? So let me start to do that.

 

Robert Berkeley  26:21  

What do you mean by world class

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  26:23  

that we are driving business, through the work that we do that we're bringing that we are as it were able to articulate that this work that we're doing on behalf of Deloitte is actually delivering value is actually driving business for Deloitte

 

Robert Berkeley  26:40  

Okay world class that how do you translate that into what's required of degree of green dot?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  26:47  

Well, that was part and parcel of the of the work to be done is to do that we knew we knew that we need to invest in more cohesive strategy, function and higher and to round out our creative offering. Our creatives were really focused more executional and your production heavy understand yeah absolutely,

 

Robert Berkeley  27:05  

and creative light. Absolutely. Absolutely. And strategic planning light,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  27:12  

it did not have that we had it very, very very light, right? Well, we did have we had it in our we had it in our channel, the way we were managing our channels, but it was very much it was very much

 

fragmented in a way we approached it. So in the last few years, we've been kind of reassembling ourselves. So could you draw directly on your experience with fidelity to solve some of these? Oh,

 

Robert Berkeley  27:34  

Oh, these are? These are not easy problems or trivial problems? No,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  27:37  

No, I think and it's not just fidelity is I've been an active participant in the in the in house agency marketplace. I do. I I Ii were you on the I was on the board for several years

 

Robert Berkeley  27:48  

on the board for several years, collaborated and worked. And we're aware of what other people would do absolutely and you drew upon that as well.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  27:55  

Oh, tonne time. One of the things we do I used to do it fidelity and do it more now is that we benchmark with other in house agencies, we've spent time with State Farm. MGM, as I've mentioned, I've had conversations with a number of others that I can't mention that that we do just how how in person sessions or virtual sessions to say, How are you solving this?

 

Robert Berkeley  28:21  

So this this collaboration with other in house agencies, yeah which I have members uniquely, I think can do as yeah opposed to in the wider marketing landscape? Yeah. Because they're not competitive, right, can learn from each other? Yeah. Did you find when you I presume? Did you reach out to them for this to me? Yeah. Yeah, they were clearly receptive, totally receptive. And yeah. How did you formalise this into a process? So this is

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  28:49  

We have is actually what we have in the agencies. We call it the outside in initiative, where work, we have a roster of brands that we reach out to and basically you do

 

Robert Berkeley  29:02  

that as a group? Or do you yes do them individually, sort of unilaterally between each one unilaterally unilaterally between each one? Why is that? Why wouldn't you form a kind of committee of I think

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  29:11  

I think that's the next, you know, that was actually something that was discussed at the recent I have conference, which I thought was brilliant, and may approach that because I think there's a lot of value in having those conversations together, or basically leveraging each other to evaluate how each other are doing. Yeah, we

 

Robert Berkeley  29:30  

Yeah, we heard from Jared King, yes Iinside Jjobs, yes talking about how she was on an advisory board for the office in house team, completely right different markets, very different, very different markets. But But always we're talking about that and then we had from Hallmark talking about how they were doing that. And I think they were doing it, you know, at Starbucks and others but those were kind of it almost seemed to be project based.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  29:56  

They were project based. It was really almost what what We, what we've been doing at Deloitte is kind of a hybrid of what Hallmark has done and what Orvis and Coca Cola are did but I think that there's another step to that. So that that the in house agencies Oh, you know, consortium of in Southeast Asians, the leaders become a board for each other.

 

Robert Berkeley  30:18  

And it's not then just about benchmark.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  30:20  

That's right. It's really about helping you strategize on where, you know, on your on your on your biggest problem sharing best practice. Absolutely. Absolutely.

 

Robert Berkeley  30:30  

Well, this initiative clearly has paid off for you. So yeah just remind me, how long have you been here, it really be two years, this last month, two years, it's all happening in the past. So, so you put your skates on when you arrived. Yeah And you you could see very quickly that there was the shortfall at the front of the funnel, we don't know if that's the right term.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  30:54  

But the front and the front door are for we had a bunch of side doors, right? We didn't have a formal account management function. We had in each discipline within the agency had, in essence, their own customer service like function, which basically fragmented how he showed up. So very well went through lots of iterations of reimagining how we could all come together in service of each other in reorganised so we established an account management function to really own the relationship with marketers. And really, it earned that seat at the table to really have is that the biggest challenge? Yeah, no, there's all sorts of challenges. Yeah, and frankly, we're not done, we're just starting. So it's, to a certain extent, we are in one of those things I say, you know, is with every marketer, and every stakeholder, we're starting at a different place. In some, we're, we're a very large company with lots of different offerings with multiple businesses. So in essence, like an external agency, and frankly, it was like this at fidelity too We had lots of different constituents, lots of different clients, and we don't like to call our internal folks clients, but we have lots of different businesses to service. So we do need to show up differently for them, depending on what their needs are. Right? So it really is understanding how do I you know, how do I build a model that is fungible to that is respectful of where the marketer is today, and, you know, in and in having us show up in a way, you know, that helps us work with them to get to move up the value. So

 

Robert Berkeley  32:41  

So that's the question, yeah how do you do it? And I got to ask you, how have you done it? I thought we'd go

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  32:47  

Sothought we'd go sSo what we have is, is CS is a group of CO E's, we have an account management function that is the front door of our agency and those account folks are aligned to the to, to our COEEO, he said Centres of Excellence, okay, so instead of calling ourselves pillars, which feels somewhat separated, right Centres of Excellence, connotates contents this these are folks together who have a vocation, they're dedicated their vocations, but, but it feels it feels more inclusive to say Centre of Excellence, at least, I believe that and it seems the teams believe that too. So we have an account management function very similar to external agencies in many of the other internal agencies, we own the relationship with our strategic marketers, and communications professionals who are working on behalf of the businesses, their job is to earn a right at the table and their responsibility is to show up the way that business needs them to show up at that time, right and then and then together work towards us moving up the value chain around how and you have to mentor and coach them. Oh, absolutely, absolutely.

 

Robert Berkeley  34:00  

Is yourSir personality type that fits here or if you got also

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  34:03  

we do have all sorts when they initially I think I think I mentioned to you previously is that we have a lot of people within our organisation who are actually Deloitte lifers, they've been at Deloitte Forever, forever, for all good reasons to really encourage encourages mobility within Deloitte,

 

Robert Berkeley  34:21  

how do you stop that turning into calcification and institutionalisation

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  34:24  

and back to back to making sure that we always have a really good mix of folks who who've been here for a long time and really know the organisation, as well as folks who've coming from the outside in basically can’t having movement and encouraging movement.

 

Robert Berkeley  34:39  

So the older ones can help navigate yeah and the younger ones can help illuminate

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  34:43  

it's not necessarily younger, it's it's newer, newer. Sorry, yes right it’s Newer is folks who have it's really they compliment each other to me, I think of it as like as, as a healthy tie. If it's or or title pool if it's constantly in motion. And the water continues to be fresh, it's going to be healthy. If it gets stagnant, it's not healthy or if it's too much movement, it becomes stormy and and breaks down. So

 

Robert Berkeley  35:12  

And I guess your job is to keep keep the weather vane now. Things are going and stepping in if things right  go well. Right So

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  35:19  

So as I mentioned, we have this account management function, they really are being the barometer of the relationships across across our, our, our stakeholder base we're doing work for then a strategy function which, which we're actually building out our new head of head of strategy starts actually on Monday, but really investing in that strategy planning function. Really, how

 

Robert Berkeley  35:42  

are they stepping into a new role? Yes. So here we are two years on right this is kind of the final piece of the jigsaw, really to get the things, the most recent piece of the jigsaw. There is no final there's never I think you're

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  35:54  

There's never I think you're all it's a journey, not a destination. I think we're always kind of reaching for what that Northstar is and Northstar just keeps getting moved out because you continue to raise the bar for yourself.

 

Robert Berkeley  36:02  

So where we are now is that you have started Ggreen Dot. in the United States but green dot now is going international.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  36:11  

Well, let's go. I won't say it though. Is Greenock going national, but we are I have partners who do what I do for Deloitte in other regions. So

 

Robert Berkeley  36:21  

it's branded green.as. Well, no, actually, they all have their own culture and personality, you're working within a brand guardianship yeah umbrella right, that he's set elsewhere anyway, right, exactly. So you have that as your kind of guiding

36:36  

Yeah,

 

Robert Berkeley  36:38  

your North Star. And then each of them are responsible in their own way to their own local glow local company,

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  36:44  

right. They're there for their regions. And we're we've been working in collaboration together to create an offering that would allow us together to support global launch of global campaigns,

 

Robert Berkeley  36:58  

right? elaborating

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  37:00  

a tonne. We've been working on that in the last year and had great success

 

Robert Berkeley  37:05  

challenges along the way there as well.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  37:07  

It's, you know, local cultures on deletes is a partnership. And so it's a very consensus driven company, which is delightful. But also it takes it takes a long time. You know, sometimes it takes a long time, and it takes a lot, so spoons in the soup to make it work. That's not a bad thing. Having come from companies previously that were very command and control, you're not necessarily you're not really part of the decision making the problem solving yeah and decision making here, everyone gets to have this

 

Robert Berkeley  37:37  

functional representation. The post

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  37:39  

really is it's delightful. Yeah It's like it's so it's you feel it's a little scary, and it's, but it's a lot. It's a lot satisfying. Yeah. Yeah

 

Robert Berkeley  37:49  

So speaking internationally, as far as production is concerned, you're I think the first people that I've encountered that do what I do, which is yeah run a production operation in India. Yeah, Yeah. So tell me how that came about and how that works.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  38:02  

Right. So So I what I would say is that we run, it's not just production is creative production we have we have our USI. It's United States Indiain the operation supports the US member firm and other firm other firms within within the globe. And I could not tell you what the origination was of it.

 

Robert Berkeley  38:25  

You've inherited that I inherited that

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  38:26  

I inherited that but it's a mighty beast, I see it as a strategic advantage of our our operation to have to be able to follow the sun. The talent is extraordinary. And, and the desire to continue to grow up the don't think of the operation of being relegated to production, because they're doing more than that. Right? They're really we're making an investment in making sure that they're entirely integrated in our in our yeah end to end operation.

 

Robert Berkeley  39:04  

It aAnd again, yeah I can speak from experience, it's yeah hard to add value unless you know, the broader picture that here's it’s something that we we work on. Yeah, all the time right is not just being order takers. And thank you very much. And we'll make that right, but in some way, understanding the bigger right picture. Exactly. And being part of that thavalue chain and to be I don't want to say it's a bad word to say relegates. I don't think of that I t process, right. You can add right more value both ways. I definitely think I mean, obviously, I work but I definitely see it as being a valuable part of the mix. Yeah, we all and end all the way.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  39:33  

Right, making sure that everyone is connected. And that because you're not always seeing each other, although we are doing more video conferencing and using those kinds of tools so that we can see each other Yeah,

 

Robert Berkeley  39:45  

Yeah I always regard it not so much as cultural alignment with a capital C about countries between countries, yeah more about cultural alignment between groups of people operating for the same ends exactly as a culture there and yeah you need to make sure that you are working on on parallel rails right  right time. And it's so easy for those rails to diverged, right.? If you don't keep checking in, right, but certainly our experience is that those calls are super necessary the fact that now suddenly, almost every call is a video call. Right. It's massive improvement. But I still always urge our clients to come and see us yeah and for us to come and see right our clients right once a year each and right it keeps those rails parallel right keeps everyone working pulling in the same direction and it ensures you can get value coming from both sides.

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  40:34  

I can value validate that for you because I have my my team of creatives and folks from our strategy team over in Hyderabad last week, they spent they spent a solid like seven days, interesting basically getting immersed.

 

Robert Berkeley  40:49  

This has been fascinating interview. It sounds like there's a lot more you could be telling them. But I'm also fascinated to hear that you do have a life outside yeah delight. I don't know if you're still paddleboarding I'm painting. Yeah. Can you combine paddleboarding and painting? Same time? I want to try yoga yoga and yoga. Not paint on the path All right. So if if someone sees a silhouette of a woman on a paddleboard pulling all sorts of strange shapes and downward dogging and all that stuff that might be that could be new that could be some sunrises, I suppose. Isn't it doesn't set there, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, that's right, that's right. All right. So what else do you do? Do you read much do you yeah have a commute? I guess? I've been I've been listening to podcasts. Oh, good. Excellent. Anyone who cares?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  41:39  

There's this one called Iinside Jjobs. Yeah. I've been reading a lot but I'm I'm I'm just I binge watched so many different shows. I wait till the show is full the full. Fully dropped. Fully dropped except though I started just watching watchmen on on HBO and I am like, now I'm mad at myself for having done it because it's only an episode for and I'm sure it's going to be 10 episodes.Right. I wish I waited. It's really good. I like I like I get full I'm very eclectic. Check chicklit to like, you know, almost. Yeah, dystopian. Yeah, dystopian, like really? Yeah. sci fi. I like everything. Wow. I really like everything. Oh, yeah, very much. Yeah, very much very much. I just finished the testament, which was the sequel to The Handmaid's Tale. I read The Handmaid's Tale back in like the 80s and was terrified. And I've been watching the HBO show, and then and then I was like, Oh, please, oh, God, let something good happened to these people. And I read the book. And I'm, Oh my God.

 

Robert Berkeley  42:43  

like, Oh, that's

 

  42:44  

sorry. Sorry about that. It's actually very well, frankly, in the first book, she

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  42:50  

does write that there's you know, there's a there's, you know, there's a there's a light at the end of the talk.

 

Robert Berkeley  42:55  

I I yeah, I yeah, I yeah, I've read a lot of mush that word. Yesah. And it always, yes ends well, yesah. It's not quite as you expected. Exactly. Exactly. McNeil Ddowns, thank you very much for being a subject mine on the podcast. Thanks for having me. Robert was really fun came if anyone wants to get a hold of you to ask you about any of the challenges you faced or to learn anything more. How should they do that?

 

Kimberly McNeil-Downs  43:19  

They can, they can email me kimcneildownsatdeloitte.comkey McNeil Ddowns at Deloitte comm or LinkedIn. Yes,

 

Robert Berkeley  43:26  

Yes, Kim, they'll bounce from Deloitte. Thank you so much for being on the podcast. Well, thank you rob. It was been really fun. Thanks so much to Kim for her hospitality at Green Dot and also to Emily foster of IHAF have and my producer Prateek Srivastava for making all these things happen. Also Prerna chhabraprenta Chopra Express KCS for handling the podcast editing so beautifully. If you're new to the Iinside Jjobs podcast, then I guess I should offer you a very warm welcome. Do take time to visit our website at insight jobs podcast.org to see my growing back catalogue of episodes, something there for everyone by now I hope you can also sign up to my very intermittent Iinside Jjobs newsletter. Also, do please do yourself and me a favour recommend us to a friend. And if you're feeling particularly generous, post a comment and a review to iTunes till next time