The best leadership roles aren’t packaged for you — they’re built by chasing what energizes you and leveraging your strengths to drive impact.

My career in marketing wasn’t laid out in a neat box. Growing up, I loved critical thinking, creativity, and technology, but no one showed me how these could shape a future in marketing. In college, I studied medical transcription, only to see voice-to-text technology disrupt the field as I was finishing. I pivoted to game design, mastering Flash, but it was quickly going obsolete as I graduated. These shifts forced me to identify what energized me — empowering teams and driving tangible results through strategic curiosity — and carve my own path.

Landing in marketing at Quicken Loans in 2011, I found my stride. As part of the first dozen employees at Email Aptitude, I scaled brands like Pura Vida Bracelets, and later influenced 137 percent agency revenue growth at Tinuiti. Now at Blue Wheel, I lead search engine optimization, organic social, community management, and email/SMS, embracing artificial intelligence to deliver results like +183 percent website conversion for Jack Black and +44.5 percent year-over-year revenue growth for PowerBlock. The defining moment? Realizing I had to forge my own role by focusing on what energized me and aligning it with high-impact opportunities.

Blend Curiosity With Technology

Too many people wait for the “perfect” role to appear. I learned that leadership is about creating your own path by embracing technology at the core of marketing innovation. For example, an omnichannel strategy for John Frieda’s Ultra Filler Plus launch online and in retail achieved four times the reach and No. 1 product status for John Frieda through creative campaign design, while my AI-driven strategies for other brands amplified customer engagement. Both approaches show how blending curiosity with technology can transform retail outcomes, inspiring teams to innovate and deliver measurable results.

Unconventional Advice That Shaped Me

The worst advice I received was to avoid learning skills such as omnichannel strategy and critical evaluation that would have benefited both me and my company. Ignoring that advice allowed me to master the language of strategy and drive growth. The best advice: “Prioritize what drives the biggest impact.” This principle guides my leadership, pushing my team to focus on high-value strategies, like AI-powered analytics or creative campaigns, to maximize results in retail’s fast-paced landscape.

Call to Action for Retail Leaders

Don’t wait for a role to find you. Identify what energizes you, lean into marketing where technology is the backbone, and build a career that delivers results. Empower your teams to experiment with tools such as AI and analytics solutions to drive innovation. As a professor at Cleary University since 2024, I mentor students to embrace this approach, equipping them to lead in marketing roles where tech is at the core.

Lisa Wendland, MBA, is the senior director of owned media at Blue Wheel, an Inc. 5000 omnichannel agency, and a professor of marketing at Cleary University.