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How Re manages a global team from Dhaka to NYC remotely, leads with empathy, and finds peace with an EDM-country playlist.
Step into a ‘Day in the Life’ — your inside look into how marketing’s most dynamic leaders kick-start their days, manage competing tasks, and stay calm and collected through it all.
Enter Industry Dive’s VP of Marketing, Robin Re, who for the past 10 years, has led marketing efforts to grow the B2B journalism’s brand from ~150k to over 14M subscribers.
Read on to explore how Re conquers her overflowing inbox, leads with empathetic listening, and what book she can’t put down.
Who is Robin Re?
Role: VP of Marketing
Company: Industry Dive (An award-winning B2B journalism provider and global content studio)
Size: 500+
Fun Fact: Likes being an old dog learning new tricks: Learned to drive stick-shift, ski, and became an ice hockey goalie all in the past 10 years.
Rise and Shine: Gearing Up For the Day
What’s the first thing you do on a workday?
I don’t have an alarm clock anymore. I have a baby, haha. So when she’s up, I’m up. The first thing I do is check my phone to see what time it is and if there’s anything urgent — then, it’s baby cuddle time.
How do you structure your workday and prioritize tasks when you have so many in front of you?
I’m a big believer in physical to-do lists; pen to paper style. My day is filled with a lot of meetings and checking in with parts of the team, which creates its own structure. But blocking an hour or two every afternoon to sit with my to-do list helps me ensure I’m making progress, and not just spending all my time in meetings.
Coffee or tea?
Coffee in the morning — fresh-brewed, made from fresh-ground whole beans, with a splash of oat creamer. And sleepy-time tea at night.
What are your favorite productivity methods and hacks?
Calendar time-blocking is my go-to. I’m a three-monitor person: a big monitor, a laptop, and an external monitor that I can easily travel with. My calendar is always in eyeshot on one screen. I color coordinate all my calendar meetings based on the style of the meeting (1:1 vs. project brainstorming, for instance). That way, I can quicker gauge my own bandwidth for the day, and see if I have time to get into the groove of something creative, or if I need to focus on prep work.
What’s your least favorite day-to-day task? How do you make it more enjoyable?
Going through my emails at the start of the day. I don’t like surprises and a lot of them are lurking in emails, haha. I try to read through and organize as many as I can with the ‘remind me’ feature in Outlook, which is a lifesaver for making sure I get back to someone without it slipping my mind.
I’ll also put on some focus music to get into the flow of my email: LoFi Girl Radio is my go-to right now.
In the Zone: Lessons in Leadership
What’s your best tip for managing a large team remotely with team members dispersed across the globe?
As a global org, we have a lot of colleagues in the UK and in our Dhaka office, so I always have a time zone tab up for quick conversions. You never want to accidentally ping someone at midnight their time, so that helps keep me in the clear.
Beyond that, having (virtual, but ‘face-to-face’) check-ins with individuals is so important. By talking candidly, just us, I can help make sure they still feel connected even if they’re on the other side of the world. Emotional cues are critical, and you can still read those through a screen.
What’s your best advice for managing the inherent stress that comes along with your role?
Stepping away. And that can mean literally stepping away from the laptop. Take a walk. Get outside. Fresh perspective can always take some sting out of the bite. An hour later, it’s not as scary. I always remind myself that every time I’ve kept myself awake at night stressing over work things, it’s always better by morning, and never as bad as I thought it would be. That self-assurance that I will come out on the other side like I have every time before helps me take it all in stride.
What marketing initiative are you and your team working on that you’re most excited about?
Right now, we’re working on a campaign success guide of sorts for our marketing clients. It’s a great opportunity to flex our marketing consultation muscles and set them up for long-term success months after we helped them originally. This will be such a cross-functional project. With so many different teams chiming in, it’s exciting to take on a project that really shows off the collaboration we can do as a company.
In your opinion, what’s the hallmark of a good leader?
Empathetic listening.
If you’re not listening, that means you’re always talking, and no one will want to work with you, haha. It’s a balance, right? The empathetic side of that is being able to tap into what makes people tick and how they can bring their best selves to work. You’ve got to be able to pick up on that, and you’re only going to learn that by listening.
The Wind Down: Rituals, Reflections, + Rapid-Fire Questions
Since you work from home, how do you separate work from personal time?
Having a baby has helped, haha! I have a commute again — even if these days, it’s to the daycare and back. Getting away from my desk, getting in the car, and picking her up is my hard stop.
But in general, setting boundaries with your team of when you’ll be available, and when you won’t — and encouraging them to do the same — is critical. It can be as simple as a quick ‘got your message, and I’ll get back to you in the morning’ to keep the lines of communication open.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
I’d tell myself that being a good leader is about being comfortable making decisions. Often, there are a lot of good ideas in a room and someone just needs to make a choice to keep things progressing.
Equally, you need to be okay with making the wrong decision. And you need to be ready to take responsibility if that choice doesn’t pan out. Being humble and accountable are the traits of a great leader. Each mistake is going to help build a better response or decision the next time around.
What work snack is always on hand at your desk?
Oh, definitely popcorn or trail mix. Trader Joe’s has so many fun ones, and right now I’m obsessed with their Happy Trekking mix.
Sometimes there are Sour Patch Kids…but they don’t last long enough to stick around.
What’s your current song hyper-fixation?
Embarrassingly, ‘A Bar Song (Tipsy)’ by Shaboozey. I’m from Texas and you know how the saying goes — “you can take the girl out of Texas…”
There’s nothing like a good throwback remix ‘gone country.’ My favorite station on Spotify right now is Country EDM.
Are you reading anything right now?
I’m finishing up a book called ‘The Mystery Guest — book #2 in the mystery/thriller ‘Molly the Maid’ series. But what I’m really excited about is finally getting around to reading ‘A Court of Thorns and Roses.’ I think I’ve been on the library’s waitlist for that one for over eight months.
