Episode 3

Building Strategy, Culture and Diversity with a Global SaaS Marketing Team

Concur is a global SaaS leader in travel and expense management. David Hsu is the Global VP of Marketing Data and Technology and has worked in senior marketing roles at IBM and CA in the past.

At Concur, he leads a global 30-member team with the mandate to support marketing with analytics, automation, martech, and project management solutions and services. His team balances both transactional, problem-solving work and more strategic innovation projects.

Episode synopsis

In this episode, David and Erica talk about different kinds of diversity that are critical in a global team - regional and location-specific diversity, role and skill diversity within the team, and the more human aspects of diversity such as gender, race, and personal preferences.

David shares his experiences on the process he follows to set a common vision and strategy for the global team, as well as his take on addressing the diversity of all types in his agenda.

Highlights include: 

  • How to cross-pollinate ideas and best practices across global teams
  • The process of developing an annual strategy and how to get the team to own and lead it
  • The conscious shift of moving from being a transaction-driven team to a strategic advisory function
  • How to bring the diversity aspect into hiring without falling into the trap of familiarity bias
  • The role of the leader in owning diversity – should they avoid it, proactively lead the discussion, or wait til the company is forced to surface the issues?
  • How some companies are stretching the hiring brief to make room for diverse voices. For example, companies seeking out qualified candidates without college degrees, or not advertising the role on LinkedIn
  • The rise of future roles in marketing - for instance, David recently created a Data Strategy role on his team to bridge the data gap between tech and business
  • What leaders should do to ensure diversity on their global teams


This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:

OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy

About the Podcast

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The Get: Finding And Keeping The Best Marketing Leaders in B2B SaaS
Your inspiration from the best marketing leaders in B2B SaaS today... from hiring, getting hired, leading, organizing, and more!

About your host

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Erica Seidel

Erica Seidel recruits the marketing leaders of the 'make money' variety – not the 'make it pretty' variety. As the Founder of The Connective Good, a boutique executive search firm, she is retained to recruit CMOs and VPs in marketing, growth, product marketing, demand generation, marketing operations, and corporate marketing. She also hosts The Get podcast. Previously, she led Forrester Research's global peer-to-peer executive education businesses for CMOs and digital marketing executives of Fortune 500 companies. Erica has an MBA in Marketing from Wharton, and a BA in International Relations from Brown. One of her favorite jobs ever was serving as the Brown Bear mascot.

You can find her on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/ericaseidel/, or on her website/blog at www.theconnectivegood.com.