Hear from Philippa Snare, Facebook’s Director of Business Marketing on step changing your career.

After 16 successful years at Microsoft, full of amazing opportunities to develop by taking on new roles it struck me that unless I suddenly became a different person and started to under perform, the company would not ask me to leave. It was an alarming thought. It was like someone had turned the light on for me. If I am to seek new and challenging experiences in my life and career I’ll need to be the person that kicks myself out into a new world. So that’s what I did.

I was given some feedback once by a leader and manager that I was “unconventional”. At the time I was perplexed by this, I couldn’t tell if this was a compliment or not. After a while I decided to take it as a compliment, which got me thinking, ‘what if I worked in an environment where I was surrounded by unconventional people?’ I decided this was worth pursuing.

Next was the amazing support from great mentors who helped me identify common themes in what I love doing; the love of white space to build strategy, the development and support of others, the disruptive nature of new technology in business and the diverse environment that makes me come alive and be happy. These acted as anchors to build my future dream job and who helped me focus on my next project. I used them as talking points and went to people I trust and respect in the industry, not because they had big jobs, but because they were people I liked working with. I asked them, “knowing me, what kind of roles and projects do you think I should be working on?”. This led to a completely different way of approaching the next step and also led to me meeting some people at Facebook. It all felt very natural. The more people I met at Facebook the more I realised they had similar values, principles and attitudes. I got excited as I thought this is the culture I have been looking for.

The first thing I noticed was in the offer letter I received. It didn’t say ‘Sarah is your line manager’, it said ‘Sarah is your partner to help support you in landing successfully in your career at Facebook’. Before I even started I was blown away with that amazing positioning.

I was naturally but healthily nervous, after spending many years in my previous company, I had a large trusted network and a well formed reputation. I knew most people and how to get things done at Microsoft. It’s difficult to move to a new company, in a senior role, and not have that familiarity from the start. Also, while it’s lovely to hear “welcome we have been looking forward to you starting”, that inadvertently made me put pressure on myself as it feels like expectations are high. As most high achievers already have high expectations, hearing it from others in this kind way exacerbates it further.

Before I started I had already worked on a 30/60/90 day plan which I sent to my manager. On my first day, I received a business plan in which one page jumped out at me. It was one where the HR director, local stakeholders, peers and people in my team, had each written a statement of commitment to personally help me be successful in the first six months. That alone gave me confidence and comfort that I was in a supportive environment. It was enough to make me work hard to help everyone who was supporting me to be successful.

I would advise anyone in the first few months of their role to pull together a plan. This should cover not only what you want to do but also who you should meet and how things get done. Facebook is not as large internally as the brand is externally, which is both good and bad. The positive aspects are the opportunities to make a difference and uncover initiatives that haven’t been attempted yet. Also, there is an abundance of people who want to help. There is a saying at Facebook – ‘nothing at Facebook is somebody else’s problem’ and there is a genuine appetite to help good ideas come to life. This means there is also a very flat structure, everyone needs to be a do-er and a thinker, one of the first things I noticed is how accomplished everyone is. We all come from big jobs and the quickest way to learn how to get things done in Facebook is to lean in and do them.

Of course I was a little nervous about how quickly I could build my reputation and whether or not there was as much autonomy and opportunity to drive scale and impact as I had previously. But almost as soon as you land, you listen and see what people are working on and realize that the company is growing at such a pace that there is no end to opportunity. In fact, the most difficult thing to do is to prioritize what is going to make the biggest impact.

I spent the first few months traveling. On my travels I met my teams, who are based in different countries, learnt about the markets, met customers and partners and listened to what both my team, the cross functional teams and our customers were saying. This was the most valuable time for me. I knew I would only have time at the start before I got pulled into a million different meetings and projects. I am so glad I did this and met with the other leaders, asked them questions so I could understand how to piece the company together, It also helped me establish a network of people I could turn to when I didn’t know how to get something done, or if a document or project already existed that I wouldn’t know about.

What I noticed early on is that we are evolving at such a pace and reinventing the wheel on so many things that we were missing out on learnings and opportunities to scale on simple activations. This was an area in which simple changes, on reporting and practices, that I had implemented had big impact.

We are only 1% done – my interpretation of this is that Facebook has the most amazing reach in consumers, but as a business, is only just starting to hire the people it will need to keep building compelling and consumer focused experiences that keep people coming back again and again to connect the world.

The rate of growth in Facebook is impressive, and that can also be challenging, it would be very easy for the company to sit back and slow down a little to manage the growth. But that’s not who we are. Facebook is extraordinary, it is a learning organization at the heart, we are also striving to improve. My manager will regularly say, ‘we are too good not to be better’. I love this saying and it captures how Facebook works. Just because we have delivered an amazing event, or a globally impactful campaign, or a record breaking product launch for our customer that doesn’t stop the commitment to seeing what we could do better next time. When there is an opportunity to better align things we will, when a feature gets mixed feedback we will change it, if an experience doesn’t land well with the consumer it will be removed. I have never seen a company more dedicated to admitting when it’s wrong and changing it in the pursuit of one goal and that is, to make the world more open and connected. I have to say it’s impressive. To still have this agility after so many years is refreshing, and encourages you to always ask the question, ‘what could I have done better?’

I live outside London, with my best friend and partner in life Liam. His son James is most often with us, and I have a horse called Marmite stabled nearby. I love to try new things and learn new stuff, I play polo, ski, am big into scuba diving and have a close group of friends and family, which are hugely important to me.

Four months after starting in Facebook, my partner Liam snapped his quad tendon away from his kneecap by walking down a step (no he was not drunk!). So whilst developing our house and having to move out to a hotel, starting a new job, I then became a primary carer for someone I love very much whilst he could not walk for three months. I could not have been more fortunate to work for a company and a leader who was so supportive. I was able to work from home for the first few weeks while I arranged some care for Liam. I was able to shift my travel commitments to accommodate being the sole parent to do school drop offs and pick ups. I was able to still ramp up in my role and not put unnecessary pressure on myself because of the people and leaders support and attitude. Nicola and Sarah both checked on me and asked regularly if I was coping okay. Liam is now walking again, back at work and in physio. I could not have gone through this if it had not been for the attitude and values that Facebook truly demonstrates and believes in every day.

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