Jill Kelly of GroupM
How she faced her monster in the attic. And won.
"FEARLESS CREATIVE LEADERSHIP" PODCAST - TRANSCRIPT
Episode 334: Jill Kelly
Hi. I’m Charles Day. I work with creative and innovative companies. I coach their leaders to help them maximize their impact and grow their business. To help them succeed where leadership lives - at the intersection of strategy and humanity.
This week’s guest is Jill Kelly, the Global CMO of GroupM, the world’s largest media investment company.
The journey that brought her to this powerful position has been complicated and has forced her to confront threats both real and imagined.
“I think that story not only forged who I am today, but has very much shaped my outlook on life, my outlook as a parent, as a mother, as a marketer, as a manager. And I think it's really wildly relatable too. Everyone’s got a monster in the attic. It may look a little different, but I think there's one for everyone.”
It has been said that if you stand in a group of randomly selected people and ask everyone to place their fears in the center of that circle, most of us would choose to take back our own.
If that’s true, it’s because our own fears have become so familiar to us that we have learned to live with them, sometimes even to empower them, in case confronting them reveals an ever greater terror - that we were right to be afraid. That the monster in the attic is real.
Fear is a foundation of the human condition. Without it we would not exist as a species.
But the fear that fills today’s society, the fear of individual irrelevance, has become so powerful that it threatens to wash away everything else that matters on the human journey. Kindness. Compassion. Empathy. Respect. And love.
The only path away from the abyss is leadership. And that is the hero’s journey. The willingness to resist the herd mentality and forge another path.
That journey is always hard. But it becomes impossible if we decide to accept our own monster in the attic without resistance or challenge. Because when we start to accept our own fear, when we allow it to join us, unchecked, on our journey, only one thing is certain. That the time it will show up is when our back is turned and we are facing the real threat.
I cannot promise you that you will ever conquer your monster in the attic.
But I can promise you that every day you stare it down, you weaken it. Even time you shine a light on it, you expand what is possible. For yourself and for others.
Here is Jill Kelly.
Charles: (02:49)
Jill, welcome to Fearless. Thanks so much for coming on the show.
Jill Kelly: (02:52)
Well, thank you Charles for the invite, so pleased to be here with you.
Charles: (02:56)
When did creativity first show up in your life?
Jill Kelly: (02:59)
I think it started... it was, creativity was really more of a social survival tool for me, I will say. I came to the United States, from Seoul, South Korea, and I was adopted at the age of, of six. And at the time, I didn't speak English. And I came to the United States, I landed at JFK Airport on February 7th, one week later I was put into kindergarten. And I came into an environment that was super foreign for me and, you know, for example, when I was at JFK, I had my whole Irish American family, my new family, greet me, and I never saw a white person before.
So, here are my grandparents with shocking white hair and green eyes, and my adopted mother who was a single parent at the time, just blue eyes, tall, 5'8”, 5'10”. And I came into a environment that was very, very odd and different. And as a result of that, I had to assimilate into America pretty quickly, including learning English, for the first time, coming into a school system where I was the only one that actually looked like me, was a very, Italian Irish neighborhood.
It was a school system that was pretty homogenous in its student makeup, and the only other person who kind of looked like me was my adopted sister, Nancy, who happened to be adopted three years prior to me, by this single woman named Pat Kelly, who was just an incredible hero in my eyes. So, creativity came in the form of learning to speak English really, really quickly, the type of clothes that I chose to wear, how I actually used humor and comedy in the stories that I told.
So for example, I remember in 5th grade, everyone had to do a presentation, a five-minute presentation about, I don't know, mammals or something. And I remember using physical comedy as part of my creative storytelling, and it was somewhat of a social survival, because by standing out, I tried to blend in. So, visible creativity, storytelling creativity, was in my arsenal of blending into a society that was very foreign to me.
Charles: (05:16)
So you had never met your adopted mother before you arrived at JFK that day?
Jill Kelly: (05:20)
No, no, I was, literally got on a plane from Seoul, Korea into JFK Airport and I had a chaperone with me. She had maybe two or three other little girls from Seoul with her, who were meeting their adopted families for the very first time. So when I came out, I remember thinking, I was like, I came off the plane and went into the receiving space, and my chaperone said, "This is your new family." I was just befuddled.
I was just befuddled. I had no idea what was going on, and you can imagine, I was just a month shy of six. As you can imagine, as a six-year-old, I lived with my biological mom, for the first five and a half years of life, and she had given me up and had… you know, I was dropped off at the steps of an orphanage.
And I was in the orphanage for maybe five or six months, and the explanation to me was, my mom had told me that it was a new school and she was coming back for me. So, this whole notion of just being adopted, it was just not in my... it just didn't register for me. So I never met my family before, I didn't even know why I was going on a plane to this foreign place called New York in America.
Charles: (06:39)
So no one had ever explained to you what was going on, no one had ever sat down and said, "You're going to be living with a new family."
Jill Kelly: (06:46)
No.
Charles: (06:47)
Nothing at all?
Jill Kelly: (06:48)
No, nothing at all. And I would say, Charles, it was somewhat of a bizarre circumstance for me and so much of my experience in my early days in Korea as well as the orphanage has shaped my resiliency. I'll use an example. When I was in the orphanage, every once in while, one of the little girls would disappear, and she would ask to go to the attic, and she was never seen again. So, on February 6th, I was asked to go to the attic, and the myth was that there was a monster that lived in that attic and would eat the little girls.
So I remember being asked and I was so frightened, and I remember ascending the stairs, and I opened the door to the attic, and there was no monster, instead it was just tables. There were little tables and on these tables were little girls' clothes. So, you know, there was fuzzy sweaters and maybe a corduroys. And I was asked to pick out an outfit to greet my new family in America, and from that attic I went straight to the airport, and from that airport, I went straight to JFK.
Charles: (08:06)
There are so many questions I want to ask you. Do you have a relationship with your birth mother now?
Jill Kelly: (08:11)
I did. I did. So, when I was 25, I was given a scholarship actually, at my employer at that time, to go to Asia, specifically go to Hong Kong and Beijing. And fate, coincidence, I don't know how you would describe it, the day before I was due to board the plane to go to Hong Kong, I received a letter from the Korean social services agency, and it was a transcribed letter from my birth mother inquiring about my whereabouts. And just purely coincidental.
So when I was in Hong Kong and Beijing, I went up north to meet her for the first time after 20 years. And Charles, I have to tell you, you know, in my ridiculously business veneer at the time, you know, the young 25 ambitious woman, I was thinking that this was a business trip. And I was going to assess, is there cancer in the family? Are there genetic dispositions I should be aware of? I totally isolated myself from the emotional context of such a reunion between a mother and child.
And I remember staying at the Marriott, we chose to have lunch at… no, it was the Seoul Hyatt. It was the Seoul Hyatt. And, I remember coming down the stairs, coming down the elevator, opening up the elevator, the elevator doors opened, and she was standing maybe about 20 feet away from me, recognized immediately, we look almost exactly alike. And I literally fell to my knees, to the floor. That moment was so overwhelming, and so unexpected, because I was coming into this engagement in kind of a forensic type way.
And I was just flooded. I was just flooded physically that I literally collapsed to the floor. She's doing well. We chose not to stay in contact. We chose, and I don't know in retrospect if it was the best decision, but we both believed at the time that it was now a chapter closed. I was very pleased to see that she's healthy and she was smiling. She actually came with her boyfriend. I found out some of the circumstances surrounding my adoption, which I did not know about at all. There were some... my memories are selective, and perhaps deliberately so from my earlier days in Korea, including that I had a little brother.
Charles: (11:08)
Hm.
Jill Kelly: (11:09)
Andit was discovered, or she had shared with me that when I was younger, maybe about four or five years old, my parents had divorced, and my younger brother… my father had taken possession of my younger brother and they were on a train from Seoul to Busan, which is at the very tip of the Korean Peninsula. And en route he was lost.
Charles: (11:34)
Lost?
Jill Kelly: (11:35)
And he was never, he was lost, he was never found again. He was lost. And as a direct result of that, quite understandably, my mother went into an extraordinary depression. And I had always reconciled the circumstances of my adoption as being financial. So you can't feed your daughter, you can't clothe her, you can't educate her, then perhaps another family could.
And it wasn't until that lunch at the Hyatt, that she told me that it really had nothing to do with financial, she herself could not be a mom. And rather than admit that, rather than live with that, she made a very difficult decision to give me away. And I could see it in her eyes that, I'm a mom now of three children, I can't imagine how difficult that decision must have been for her, you know.
I still think about my brother. I actually did Ancestry over the years to see if there was a connection somewhere out in the world, and unsurprisingly they came to me and said, "You're 99% northern Asian." I was like, "Okay." But I still think about him. I still think about him, and I still think about… I have a different appreciation for the strength of the decision that she had made, because I don't know if I could.
Charles: (13:13)
No, I understand that completely. The trauma of all of that is unimaginable. I'm sitting here trying to imagine it and I can't come close to imagining it. Of the impact of that, that you're aware of, because I'm sure there must be impacts that you still aren't aware of, the complexity of that is so enormous. Of the impact that you're aware of, how do you carry all of that today?
Jill Kelly: (13:36)
I think I carried it differently, I would say, 20 years ago, than I did today. As I was mentioning before, I tried to reconcile what my identity looked like when I was much younger, and I so wanted to be the traditional known American child growing up. But I was anything but. You know, I think about my circumstances around me, I was growing up in a very white neighborhood, diversity just did not exist.
I was adopted by a single parent, which in the 1970s was just not… it was just not done. And there was no father in the picture. So, I had all these kind of moments of what difference looked like for me, and I'm still candidly reminded of my difference today. So, you know, I'll go into a Korean nail salon, and I'll go in with my daughter and they'll speak to me in Korean, unfortunately I lost the language -
Charles: (14:38)
Hmm.
Jill Kelly: (14:39)
... as much as my family tried to keep me engaged in the Korean la- I lost it almost immediately. I do think it's somewhere back here in the back of my head. But I am reminded of what this looks like, you know, related to the upbringing that I had. And I'm certainly reminded of that difference, and I think in the last, I would say, 18 months, that difference has come to a different kind of head, especially what we've been seeing the racism and the violence against the AAPI community, which saddens me greatly.
And the way that I carry that experience is, I, at the time, I wouldn't have thought of it as, someone gave me the gift of life, or someones gave me the gift of life. And that is my adopted mom and that is my biological mom. Two women who had no idea who each other was, but they were bound by a decision that they've made, and it's because of that, those two decisions made, that I'm here. I'm an immigrant to the United States, I have the privilege of being in an awesome industry that I love.
I've got three remarkable children, and a partner, my husband, who's just simply amazing. And I wear it with pride. I wear it with extraordinary gratitude. And that wasn't the case, I would say, in full disclosure, Charles, earlier in my life. But I would say now there's a maturity and a perspective that has been given to me, and I think the pandemic was, as awful as it was, gave a lot of us a couple of gifts, and I think that's perspective. Perspective on what really matters.
Charles: (16:22)
What is it hard for you to trust?
Jill Kelly: (16:26)
I don't know if there's anything really hard to trust. I do think trust is earned, it is not necessarily automatic or a given. I personally think that team success, company success, family success, individual success is all pivoted on our ability to embrace and give trust. Without that currency, there is no binding agent that brings humans together. It's trust and respect and care. So, I don't know if necessarily it's hard to trust, but I do believe it is something that we are all accountable to both give and take.
Charles: (17:18)
So you haven't found that your experience, as traumatic as it was has, has damaged your ability to trust other people or situations?
Jill Kelly: (17:27)
No. I think maybe, closer to that moment, when I was younger, I had a recovery period, for sure. You can imagine, when you're six years old, you've got your faculties, right, you've got your memories, you've got your linguistic skills, like, they're all very much present. And not knowing, no one described to me what to expect or what was going on, I had to kind of discover it on my own in an odd way.
I remember when I first came to the United States and I was sleeping in my bed, and I remember hearing planes fly by overnight, because we were living close to an airport. And I was thinking, "I wonder if that's the plane that, you know, could take me back home." because I still didn't settle into the permanence of my reality. So I was never given the full disclosure of what was happening to me.
So, there was always a little… there was a hint of suspicion, for sure, for many, many years when I was growing up as a kid. Does that linger on today? Perhaps there's some souvenirs of it, but I would say that initial suspicion or, “Wait, what am I getting into?” Or, “Do people have my back?” It was certainly present in my kind of earlier formative years but really, really less so now.
Because the relationships that I have, whether it's in the work environment or my personal environment, they've been strengthened through trusting relationships and people who do have my back, and people who have made decisions that I trust, that I have faith in, that are very credible. So, I don't think they linger as prominently as they did when I was younger. And I think one of the causes for that, or perhaps one of the reasons for that, is that I assume best intention with people. And most of the times they have not failed me in that capacity. And that's where the build is, that's where the trusting relationships come from.
Charles: (19:32)
I'm really struck by the narrative arc of the little girl who was terrified walking up the stairs to go to the attic, to the woman who is a very successful, powerful business leader. Where do you think in your journey that the realization that you would like to lead came?
Jill Kelly: (19:54)
Oh, goodness, that's a really good question. The realization to lead. I don't know if I ever woke up one morning and I was like, "You know what, I'm going to be a leader." I think leadership is not a chief title, I don't think it's something that's in one's signature. You can be a leader without having any direct reports. You can be a leader without necessarily having a grand infrastructure, if you will.
I think for me, leadership is an ability to help people be their very best at all times, and that comes with influence, and candidly, that just comes with my sense of duty of care. So I'm in a position of being a manager and a manager of teams, multiple teams over the course of my career. And I think it is a duty, not a nice-to-have, not a thing that you put on your LinkedIn profile or CV. It is a duty of core management care that I give the oxygen and the space and the runway and the platforms for our people to shine.
And I know that it's kind of a hackneyed saying about, you know, lead from behind, but I do truly believe that that is the case, and leadership is not knowing about… knowing everything. Leadership in my mind is you ask more questions than you have answers, certainly that's my M.O. I ask tons of questions when it comes to new projects and I don't care what the construction of the team is.
Ask more questions than you have answers to. I never believed once that I was the smartest in the room. In fact, I considered myself a perpetual student. And I think that leadership is not a stamp of approval that you've made it. I think leadership is defined by the decisions that you make, and the behaviors that you've set, and the expectations that you set for the team.
Charles: (21:56)
There's a lot of conversation these days about the importance of leaders being vulnerable, I think particularly in the pandemic world that we've all lived through. A lot of leaders have come forward and said that they've realized that they have been more successful when they have been willing to share their own vulnerability. Have you found that to be true on a personal level?
Jill Kelly: (22:14)
I have, and I will tell you, Charles, the story that I have, my early, early days journey, obviously that's my story that has been with me, that I've been wearing for quite some time. But I actually never articulated it until just five years ago. I've never said it out loud, I've never disclosed that kind of personal, the monster in the attic, that kind of vulnerability that I felt. And I do think honesty and disclosure, you know, to the level that one is obviously comfortable is really important for team building and just human-to-human thing.
Because I think that oftentimes people may think of people in leadership positions as invincible. We have this weird armor on at all times, or we don't have moments of extraordinary doubt. You get nervous when you go into presentations, but that all happens, because we all have blood running through our veins, we still have brains that give us some seeds of doubt.
We’re forged by the experience of life and time, and those experiences, we're all our own stories, we're incredible books, and what a shame it would be to deny each other those stories, that, gift of self, and that vulnerability that you're talking about, I don't think I really was able to embrace it until I can embrace and articulate and share my personal story, because we're all bundles, we're all bundles of very interesting.
And I think that story not only forged who I am today, but has very much shaped my outlook on life, my outlook as a parent, as a mother, as a marketer, as a manager. And I think it's really wildly relatable too, everyone's got a monster in the attic. It may look a little different, but I think there's one for everyone.
Charles: (24:25)
Did you find people changed their behavior towards you as you started to tell the story? Did you perceive that they saw you differently?
Jill Kelly: (24:31)
Yeah, absolutely. I'm not sure how you cannot. That story is just so personal, and so perhaps surprising, perhaps surprising. When I say, “change,” not in any way bad, at all, it's just people said, you know, "When I was growing up, I remember when…" so it actually became almost a vehicle for other stories, for other people to share their stories. So, different reactions, of course, and absolutely, by no means, none of them were negative by any stretch. If anything, it almost gave license for others to expose themselves a little bit, as well.
Charles: (25:16)
How did it change your leadership?
Jill Kelly: (25:19)
I would say that I find that I'm much more, candid, constructively candid, respectfully candid. I'm actually a lot more confident and humorous as a manager, because it's something that I had hidden for so long, not that I hid it deliberately but it was just not a place that I went. And once that was disclosed, I felt just more me and comfortable in my historic skin as well as my contemporary skin.
And when you bring those two factors together, you are able to bring your whole self to the game, and that's what we encourage all of our employees to do, bring your whole self to the game. And it's remarkable what happens when you give it a shot, when you have faith that your stories will be well-received. And I have found myself being more forthcoming, supportive, empathetic and vocal about individual stories, and I appeal for the same for all of our leaders and all of our employees because I think we are truly each a bundle of extraordinary, we just have to tell it.
Charles: (26:34)
You mentioned earlier that we're living through what feels like the dividing of America across social, political, economic and certainly racial lines. Have you experienced that first-hand? Have you been a victim of the changing dynamics across society, at least in this country?
Jill Kelly: (26:51)
Oh, yeah, yes, I have. I would say that we have a plague in this nation. Racism is a plague in this nation, and me personally, from being called a Coronavirus, you know, B-word on a crowded subway, to being spit on, when I was actually running in my neighborhood.
And that's, in the last 18 months is actually quite traumatizing, is actually quite traumatizing. And I see it in my own behavior. So I don't… like, I step away from the subway platform, some good, you know, 10 feet, you know, I try to stand in the middle. I see it in my own behavior. I don't wear headphones when I'm running, just so I could be aware of my surroundings.
And I'm part of various AAPI employee resource groups inside of my own organization. And the pain that this community has felt along with so many other communities, unfortunately is very real and it's very scary and it continues to mount. And, you know, I think for the AAPI community in particular, because there's so much stereotypes around this community. Model minority, invisible minority, laborers not leaders.
Apparently, you know, there's four billion people on this planet who are really, really good with math and we should be pursuing accounting and finance functions. So there's these myths and stereotypes around this community and it's hard to vocalize it in a way that is both constructive and helpful, in that there is, how do you debunk them? How do you strip them away?
And the solution to that, or one way of addressing that, is just by one by one, through sponsorship and allyship and mentorship, help lift the community up. And, you know, it is for a lot of the hyphenated communities that we have in our great nation that is America, you know, there are a lot of the stereotypes to be fought, and that battle is going to be fought one at a time, one conversation at a time, one listening at a time, and not stop talking.
Because it's been under-reported, a lot of the hate crimes against this community are under-reported. Back in April it was, like, 3,000 that have been registered in the United States, by August it was close to 10,000. And, what's really hitting home for me is, yes, I have certainly been subject to it, but we're getting to levels of extraordinary violence and death.
And the victims are the most vulnerable among us, including the elderly - the elderly community or the elders in our community who are so precious, to the culture and the fabric of our community. So I have certainly witnessed it, I have certainly been a recipient to it, and I am unafraid to vocalize it, because I think people should know.
Charles: (30:02)
I want to just be clear about something you said at the beginning of that. You said that you stand in the middle of the subway platform as opposed to by the edge because you're afraid somebody might push you under the train?
Jill Kelly: (30:10)
Yes.
Charles: (30:12)
So you're literally walking into the world thinking somebody might try and kill me today.
Jill Kelly: (30:16)
Yeah, there are certainly moments where I am consciously thinking about that, and in some moments it's unconscious, so now it's just automatic, I don't run with earbuds on, because I just need to be aware of my environment. I do not stand, you know, beyond the yellow line of that platform, in fact I'll migrate towards the middle. So there are certain behaviors that I have adopted as a result of what's going on in our world.
Charles: (30:42)
How do you shed that when you walk back into the rest of your world? How do you shed that sense of ‘I need to protect myself'?' And, and then reengage with your kids, with your husband, with your work colleagues, with the people that work for you in the most positive way that you want to? And clearly you're an incredibly positive human being, so that's who you want to be, how do you shed all the defensiveness and then show up in a way that you want to?
Jill Kelly: (31:03)
Yeah. Well, you show up just like we're doing right now, right, you show up with the same level of energy, you show up with the same level of optimism. Just because these certain behaviors, I have adopted certain behaviors to protect myself, is not a distraction, a detractor or undermine any of this. I think that, if anything, I should be over-indexing on being out there, I should be over-indexing on talking about these behavioral pattern changes which I have.
And I think there is strength in that truth, I think there's strength in that articulation. So I don't see them as divergent at all. It's just what 2021 calls for. And it's not to compartmentalize it. I have talked about, you know, this moment that I had on the crowded subway. I have talked about being spit on, on my back when I was walking in my neighborhood. So, I think just by saying it out loud, it does not make the behavior okay by any means, that's not what I'm getting at. But it makes it more just out there, it's just out in front.
And I'm just really honest about it, and I don't think that's a bad thing at all. I think there's an appreciation for, from my team that this is the reality that Jill has to manage. And I would say the same thing for the Jewish community, as well. I would say the same thing for Black and Brown communities, as well. So I don't compartmentalize it, I bring it right to the front. And I think that's okay.
Charles: (32:40)
How do you lead?
Jill Kelly: (32:43)
I lead with assumed best intention. I lead with some humor as well. I think in the right doses and in the right moments, I think humor is super helpful and it's healing. And the third is very practical. I just want to be helpful, I just want to be helpful to the team, and underpinning all of that is constructive candor, constructive and real-time candor, as well.
And I think there is a greater appreciation for that today than perhaps for years ago, where, you know, we're in this virtual environments where that transmission, that pat on the back or that “Really great job!” right now, as you're washing hands side by side in the bathroom, that doesn't exist in the manner that it used to.
So it's even more important that I set meetings that are 25 minutes long, so I have a five-minute swing just so I could, like, go back to individuals and just give them that private, you know, nod at the end. I think it's important now more than ever because we're so technically-driven, like, "Meeting starts at 10:30 and we'll end at 10:25, and we've got five agenda items to cover."
And I think we have to bring a greater connection between managers and employees, especially now more than ever. We have employees, thousands of employees, who actually onboarded during the pandemic. Who have never actually seen each other. You have to find those moments, and they can be done for sure. I do believe in the hybrid system, but inside of these virtual environments, I think if you are choiceful and you are intentional, you can carve out those moments for that virtual pat on back. Our teams need them now more than ever.
Charles: (34:29)
And what are you afraid of?
Jill Kelly: (34:33)
I'm afraid of letting people down. Letting my kids down, my husband down, my mom down, just, my team down. Because I have historically been creating standards and quality control output and have really found joy and pride in creating really awesome stuff with the team, for the team. And, you know, there's always that worry that I'm going to disappoint. And I don't know how unusual that is, but I would say that would be my fear, letting people I care about down.
Charles: (35:23)
I want to thank you for joining me today. You are such a story of optimism and possibility, I think, to come through all of that and to be where you are today, is really quite remarkable. And I really wish you happiness and joy, and obviously success, through the rest of your life. It's really been a pleasure and a privilege to talk to you today.
Jill Kelly: (35:45)
Well, thank you, Charles. I very much appreciate it. It's lovely being with you.
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