Three Lessons to Live By feat. Mindy Smith ’13

Owl Have You Know

It takes grit for a history major to walk into a job fair for business students and convince the rep from Kraft Foods that she’s the right person for the position. But that’s exactly what our guest, Mindy Smith '13 did.

Landing that job with Kraft spring-boarded Mindy into a marketing and sales career where she held positions with companies like Coke and now Shell. Currently, Mindy is a global strategy leader for Shell’s Mobility business, and is responsible for brand standards at more than 47,000 retail sites worldwide.

Mindy joins host Maya Pomroy ’22 to chat about her career-defining pivots, the importance of being bold, critical insights she’s learned at Shell and why she decided to get her MBA after an already successful career journey.

Episode Guide:

02:00 Career Beginnings and Early Jobs

03:22 Landing a Job at Kraft Foods

06:19 Insights from Working at Kraft

15:11 Transition to Coke

19:33 Joining Shell and Pursuing an MBA

23:57 The Steamroller Persona

24:54 Navigating Organizational Changes

27:58 New Role at Shell

29:00 Managing Global Insights

31:09 Customer Experience and Competition

35:45 Rice University’s Lasting Impact

41:58 Final Thoughts and Lessons

Owl Have You Know is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Networking is about learning, not just opportunities

35:31: Rice was such an important part of my life. And as I mentioned earlier, I still take a lot of the learnings and use them daily in my work. And one of the things that I really appreciated about Rice was going back to network, going back to hearing others’ perspectives and how they handle things. And when I was there, I loved hearing from people who had already graduated…[38:07] One of the things I did throughout was connect with alumni whenever I had the opportunity at different events. And even now, I love to hear people's stories, and I like to hear what people do, and I like to hear, you know, quite honestly, they’ll ask me questions sometimes that then get me thinking about things. And it's great to have that interaction. And, you know, people talk about network all the time in the sense of using your network if you're looking for a job or things like that. For me, it's really—it's the learning.

Life isn’t a straight line—embrace the curveballs

41:44: Whether it’s your life or your career, it’s not a straight line, and you can’t plan it out. I was just saying this to my sister-in-law: You can be the best planner. You can have every little detail planned out. Life is always going to throw you curveballs, and how you react to those curveballs—have the courage and overcome the fear—because some of those curveballs end up being amazing opportunities. Even though they might not have been in your original plans, that’s definitely one. Number two would be to always be curious. One of the things that I think I have benefited from is that I’m not afraid to ask a lot of questions. Sometimes that can annoy people, or sometimes I do worry that if—especially if it’s someone senior—they might see it as, you know, just, “Why is she asking so many questions?” But you know what? That’s how you learn. Be curious, though, and learn new things.

On the formula of success in a big company

26:29: I've always had a formula. Even 20 years ago, when I had an actual office, I had on my board the formula for success in a big company: 60 percent your network, 20 percent actual work, and 20 percent perception. And I’ll tell you, one of the things with what’s been going on lately, I've been telling people I might change my formula to 50 percent network and 50 percent perception because, absolutely, in a time like this—where people who might not know you are making decisions about your future with the company—not only the network, but the perception, is big. So, more important than ever in times like this, it pays off.

Show Links:

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Guest Profiles:

• Mindy Smith | Rice Business