Allyson Park, Senior Vice President and Chief Communications Officer at Walmart, joins Doug Simon, CEO of D S Simon Media, for a conversation on leadership, continuous learning, and building a career with purpose in today’s rapidly evolving environment.
Drawing on her experience helping lead communications for one of the world’s largest companies, Allyson shares perspectives on the importance of creating a culture where people can learn in every direction. She also discusses what it means to take ownership as the “CEO” of your own career. The conversation also includes how Allyson and Doug have put leadership principles into practice in the workplace.
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Podcast Host, Doug Simon is CEO at D S Simon Media. D S Simon Media is a recognized innovator in broadcast public relations and the creator of the industry’s first AI-Powered Broadcast Media Tour™. Clients include top brands in healthcare, technology, travel, financial services, food and beverage, consumer goods, entertainment, retail, and non-profits. Celebrating its 40th anniversary, the firm has won more than 100 industry awards.
Contact Doug at dougs@dssimonmedia.com.
TRANSCRIPT:
DOUG: I’m really excited to speak with Allyson. She’s smart as you would surmise, but fun and no pressure. Let’s start with how do you explain the work of Walmart in a way that really resonates with the audience? I mean, there’s so much to choose from.
ALLYSON: Yeah. Look, that can be really hard, but it comes down to a few things. First, Walmart serves people in real life at real scale. And we help millions of customers each week save money and live better all over the world. And that’s really done through our 2.1 million associates. What’s I think unique is that we sit at the intersection of everyday life, whether that’s food, whether that’s healthcare, whether that’s technology, jobs, sustainability, or small businesses. So, when I explain Walmart, I like to say we’re a people led tech powered omnichannel retailer dedicated to helping people save money and live better. And what’s in that sentence are sometimes the extremes like how are you people led and tech powered? How do you serve people through e commerce and in our stores and clubs? How do you help people save money and live better? And I think no one can do those two extremes better than a company like Walmart.
DOUG: Yeah. And you’re also very focused on helping your team and give advice to others advancing their careers. How can people in communications become the CEOs of their own careers?
ALLYSON: Yeah. I love that line. Be the CEO of your career. And, you know, that’s really about one, understanding your own ambition, understanding, you know, the trade offs you’re willing to make. And you’ve got to think like a business leader first, not just focus on the title. The best thing I did for my own career was I took leadership roles outside of traditional communications, whether that was leading strategic initiatives or government affairs and policy, sustainability, a global foundation, portfolio management, which is all around renovating and innovating products. And so, my real advice is don’t chase titles, chase capability. Stack skills, learn how your business operates. The communicators who thrive today are really the ones who can connect all the dots. You’ve gotta play at that enterprise level. You have to manage your career like a portfolio, not a ladder.
DOUG: Right. Now, you’re quite the go getter, obviously, to have had the career that you’ve had. Are the suggestions for people might feel a little hesitancy or sort of might not have that as part of their core that might help them move forward and sort of take that step up to really be the CEO of their career?
ALLYSON: Yeah. Look, I think the CEO of your career is actually applicable to anyone with whatever they want to do. It’s about instead of waiting for your boss to lean in and say, hey, would you like to do this? It’s about you having a development plan. It’s about you being, you know, a constant learner. It’s about you owning your career and not at the end of your life looking back and saying, I wish I would have done this, I wish I would have done that. So, I think it applies to a stay-at-home mom. I think it applies to a stay-at-home dad. I think it applies to someone who decides to go back to school. I think it decides to someone who works trade, which is equally as important as working in an office. It applies to our frontline as much as it applies to, you know, someone in our tech team. And it’s just really about owning your career, owning the choices that you’re gonna make, being happy with your life. You have one life. And I’m a big believer that no one’s looking out for you more than you should. So, you’ve got to be in the pilot mode for your career versus just deciding what’s gonna come to you and being okay with that.
DOUG: Yeah. And when it comes to mentorship, find that the most successful leaders are both mentors and mentees themselves learning from others not necessarily part of the hierarchical chain, but as a leader, are there some tips you have that might make it easier to advise people who are say lower in the hierarchy just starting out or maybe have hit a roadblock in their career to grow and learn and get around that?
ALLYSON: Look, we’re all in the roles we’re in today because someone leaned in and helped us. And that was true for me as well. You know, I was in my senior year of college and really did not have a job landed and just reached out to a bunch of CEOs to get some help. And so, we all have to start somewhere. And I think people are, in general, usually willing to help. I know I am. And, you know, it really starts with what do you wanna do and what do you wanna learn? And then can who help you do that? And I’m a big believer in reverse mentorship as much as I am in being a mentor, sponsor, and mentee. You know, we’re all building skills and wanting to stay curious. We’ve got to always be in learning mode. And I think leaders have to role model that learning themselves. The healthiest cultures learn in every direction.
DOUG: Yeah. And that reverse mentorship is really that mentee mentor combination all within one person that I was speaking about before.
ALLYSON: Too many times people look at the mentor as the person up a couple rungs in the hierarchy. And that’s actually not what I’m suggesting. I’m suggesting talk to people who are at lower levels in your organization. You know, one of the reasons why I’ve taught for the past four years at University of Florida is I learned so much from those students. So, don’t think that you’re learning only comes from your boss, or your boss’s boss, or your boss’s boss’s boss. It actually can come from your colleague. It can come from someone who is just joining the organization. It can come from a student. It could come from your kids. It’s just amazing if you’re just open to learning how much you can actually learn, and that can help you, and you can apply to your role.
DOUG: Though employees really need to take ownership of their own growth on that. So, any tips that they can to do they can do to do that better?
ALLYSON: Yeah. I mean, raise your hand before you feel fully ready. Years ago in my career, I had an instance where someone was leaving and I just went to my boss and I said, look, if I can help in any way, I know I’m not ready for that role yet, but I’d be more than happy to lean in and take on extra work. I’ve got the capacity. So, a lot of your career growth can come from saying yes to the experiences that really stretch you. Go out for the job that no one wants. You know, stay late. Put in some extra hours. Don’t wait for influence to be granted to you. It comes from, you know, understanding the business, bringing solutions, and building trust consistently. And you do that through your say and your do being aligned and then that follow through. So, you know, for me, it’s like little things over my career. When I first started out, we had a, we had a closet of all of our samples and it was a mess. I stayed one night late and I just reorganized it. Nobody asked me to do that, but it would improve efficiency in our effectiveness when we were running and building press kits and things like that. So, just lean into the things that no one else is doing. Be a great teammate. Be a kind colleague and people will come to you and the work will come to you and the opportunities will come to you. And then lean in when you see someone’s job that you’re like, oh, I want that job. You know, ask to shadow them, ask to spend a little bit of time, go grab coffee, and learn from others.
DOUG: Yeah. And there are these key moments. I mean, what you were talking about resonated with me personally. My staff sort of teases me when I say, at my last job and they’re like, Doug, your last job was forty plus years ago because the company is going to celebrate its 40th anniversary.
ALLYSON: Congratulations.
DOUG: Thank you, but that was the opportunity. I was doing traditional PR. I was an accounting. For then, it was Boys Clubs of America. It hadn’t become Boys & Girls Clubs yet. It was my account. And we had a video production person who did video news releases. I’d also worked in video. I was working at NBC Sports on weekends when my boss let her go. We wanted to hire someone else. And I said, hey give me a chance. I have the skill set. And I got that job and that started me off. So, I was advised, there are key moments in your career when there are opportunities. And I don’t know if this is too much of a New Yorker to say it like this, but you got to like dig into them like a rabid dog going after a bone when those opportunities happen because they’re really the key moments that could send you on a different direction.
Are there any final thoughts you’d like to leave our audience with? And maybe we can circle back to what’s happening at Walmart. Obviously, you’ve helped define that, but the role is so massive for people who are trying to lead major organizations on the communication side like yourself. What are some of the things that you’re seeing? Are there trends or ideas?
ALLYSON: The world is complicated. It’s becoming more complex. It’s certainly becoming more tech powered. AI, you know, you can look at it as a disruption or you can look at it as opportunity. I’m just an eternal optimist. And so, my advice to any leader is, you know, understand the challenges, but bring that optimism to your teams. Help them find hope. I think as a leader, your job is to always honor the past, be honest about the present, and give hope for the future. No one wants to work in an environment where there’s not hope. And so, l think those three things are really important as a leader. And then for a communications team, look, they’re dealing with a lot of disruption. You know, if you look at the universal trend of media fragmentation, the external world is tough, and you can’t just understand communications. You understand, you know, what’s the pressure on your customer, your consumer, what’s happening with stakeholders, what’s happening from a policy environment, and what’s happening with your associates. And so, you’ve gotta look at things from so many different lens and then be able to connect all those things. So, that’s where being a lifetime learner really comes in. You can’t just look at, I’m communicating this. You have to understand the macro environment that you’re operating in. And then I think as a leader of a comms team, you know, I’m always saying to my team, like, hey. Look. You know, let’s be kind. Let’s be thoughtful. Let’s always give grace because it’s a tough environment externally.
DOUG: So, I think one solution would be if you could be cloned to be more of a leader of many different organizations, but absent of that, people should be watching this podcast episode to learn so much from what you’ve had to say. Thanks so much for being with us.
ALLYSON: Thank you.
