Sonia Jackson Myles: Breaking Harmful Patterns in the Workplace
From buying car parts at Ford to managing $20 billion at Procter & Gamble, Sonia Jackson Myles knows how to leverage marketing and media buying to drive efficiency.
After years of helping women in the corporate world break harmful patterns, she’s applying that knowledge globally with her nonprofit, The Sister Accord.
As an advisor and executive coach to startups and Fortune 500 companies, Sonia Jackson Myles, Founder and CEO of The Accord Group, LLC, works with CEOs and their teams on growth strategies for profitability, change management, and creating a culture where employees can thrive. After 20 years as an executive in corporate America at multiple blue chip organizations, including JPMorgan Chase, Procter & Gamble, and Disney, Sonia founded The Sister Accord® Foundation, a global organization dedicated to educating and empowering girls and women.
She sat down with The Continuum to talk about the power of purchasing, finding marketing efficiencies, and one truly universal rule of leadership.
Thank you for talking with us.
It’s my pleasure.
We understand that you had anticipated a career in marketing, but that’s not exactly what occurred. What was your career journey?
I studied marketing in college and really loved the world of branding. I wanted to be a marketer, but at the time many of the companies I wanted to work for had a requirement that you had to begin as a salesperson first, which is something that didn’t interest me.
I was in the Career Center at Florida A&M University one day looking for other ideas and a man came up to me and said: “Hello, my name is Craig Shatzer. I'm from the Ford Motor Company. Have you ever considered a career in purchasing as a buyer?” I had never heard of buying as a career and decided to give him an opportunity to explain what it entailed. I think what fascinated me most about large-scale purchasing was that you could negotiate a nickel reduction and save the company millions of dollars. I was intrigued by the opportunity. I wanted to establish a career where I could contribute from the moment I started with a company. Plus, I’ve always been a car fanatic and the chance to work for Ford and go back to Michigan was really appealing.
It sounds like your purchasing career had a lot of overlap with marketing. Can you explain?
Yes, I worked closely with marketing people in some of my corporate roles. There are two sides to purchasing for large companies: direct and indirect. Direct purchasing is when you’re buying components of your product or things that will go on to be purchased by a consumer. At Ford Motor Company that meant I was buying car parts like engines, sun visors and headliners. Indirect purchasing refers to goods and services that the company needs to run and sell their product whether that is health benefits, furniture, IT services, or advertising and marketing.
When I left Ford, I went to work for Gillette, where I was responsible for all the indirect purchasing. This was a great opportunity for me to step into the marketing space and really think about our strategies for working with agencies. In many companies, agencies don’t work directly with buyers in a strategic relationship. Instead, all details of the contract, scope of work and fees are worked out directly with the marketing teams.
I found that there were concerns in marketing, both internally and among agencies, that buyers like me wouldn’t understand that the approach to buying creative thinking could not be viewed the same as buying packaging. I understood their concerns, but when you’re a large corporation it’s important to make sure you’re looking for efficiency, whether you’re buying packaging or creative services. We’re looking for a great return on investment. This is still an issue for companies today and something I address frequently in my work.
“In the absence of information, people will make stuff up. When they make stuff up, it's typically negative and usually wrong. If you let that happen as a leader, you then must spend time unwinding the false narratives—and that’s time that you should be spending moving forward.”
And you continued to work with creative agencies when you went to Procter & Gamble?
Yes. When P&G (Procter & Gamble) bought Gillette, they had been trying for many years to shift creative services and media buying into purchasing. It made sense as they were the largest advertiser in the world at the time. There’s no way that you can get the efficiencies that you deserve as a $7 billion global spender if you’re negotiating $500 million at a time.
I was honored to be offered the opportunity to lead the designing of the global media sourcing organization, as this was such an important shift in how the company operated. I spent the first year traveling to all the regions and countries around the globe where P&G had people buying media so that I could understand the nuances and differences and be able to structure a new global media sourcing organization that could deliver our goals and objectives.
What was your most important take away from those trips?
I would say that my most important take away was not about marketing or media buying, it was a leadership lesson that applies in any setting.
Everywhere I went, I found that people had made assumptions about what would happen if purchasing took on media sourcing. Most assumed we were making the change as a way to reduce headcount. I had to convince people that we were there to drive efficiency and effectiveness for the company by building long-term, sustainable relationships with people/agencies who would help us win. This was not a reduction in workforce restructuring.
My takeaway, which has proven valuable time and time again, is that in the absence of information, people will make stuff up. When they make stuff up, it's typically negative and usually wrong. If you let that happen as a leader, you then must spend time unwinding the false narratives, and that’s time that you should be spending moving forward. It’s one of the reasons I believe that transparency in leadership and communication is absolutely essential.
“it’s important to get clear about who you desire to serve. you have to go deep into their day-to-day lives so that you can understand how you can enhance their daily activities. When you start there, you can grow your brand in truly unexpected ways. I call it Leading with Love.”
You stepped away from the corporate world after P&G and now consult with leaders and run a non-profit aimed at inspiring girls and women. Can you explain how The Sister Accord Foundation came about?
I have always taken my role as a mentor very seriously. I have mentors of my own and I have a mentee from every continent—with the exception of Antarctica. When I was in the corporate world, I noticed a pattern. My male mentees would say, “Sonia, I've got this new business idea, I need you to help me flesh it out.” My female mentees were saying things like, “I don't like working for women. I'm struggling with Lisa, and I don't trust her.”
I had teams across the world and was working with every demographic—women of every socio-economic background, every religion, every race—and there were consistencies in what I was hearing in our mentoring sessions. I began to research to understand more fully why I was seeing these differences. I call it a ‘Humanity Insight.’ Girls are socialized to compete and to not like themselves or each other. This starts at an early age. I wanted to use my experiences and voice to address this global issue.
I established the Sister Accord Foundation because I wanted to help women break these patterns and learn how to create an environment that values Sisterhood in the workplace. The three pillars of our mission are educating girls and women, enlightening girls and women of the Power of Sisterhood, and eradicating bullying and violence against girls and women.
Our mission is to inspire one billion girls and women to understand their value and worth through leadership programs that enable healthy and positive relationships amongst each other.
“We’re launching in a few weeks and if it goes well, great. If it doesn’t, we’ll pivot. As marketers, we should never be afraid to test and learn.”
Your combined experience in managing such a large global purchasing budget, coupled with your international non-profit work, gives you a unique perspective on marketing. What advice do you have for marketers?
Wow. There are so many things that I would like to share. I will start by saying it’s important to get clear about who you desire to serve. Then, you have to go deep into their day-to-day lives so that you can understand how your brand/product/service will enhance their daily activities. When you start there, you can grow your brand in truly unexpected ways. I call it Leading with Love.
I’m launching a new product soon that would seem entirely unrelated to my brand because it’s in the cosmetics space. However, everything that I do is around self-love, self-confidence, and self-esteem, and so is this new product. We’re launching in a few weeks and if it goes well, great. If it doesn’t, we’ll pivot. As marketers, we should never be afraid to test and learn.
Readers who want to know more about Sonia and her work should check out her websites at soniajacksonmyles.com thesisteraccord.com or the foundation’s website at thesisteraccordfoundation.org.
March 14, 2023
