How Future Leaders Maintain their Brands

By: Laurie Gethin, Director, Education, Food Marketing Institute

After months of preparation, we’re only a few days away from welcoming rising industry leaders to Future Leaders eXperience in Chicago, Illinois. If you’re planning to join us, you’ve probably taken the time to log into our interactive networking tool to create a profile, and have downloaded the FMI Future Leaders eXperience mobile app. But, we thought it would be fun to share a few extra tips with you before you go.

For 14 years my colleague, Stephanie Simpson, has served as the Director of Human Resources at FMI. It was Stephanie’s background in food retail that quickly taught her to always focus on outstanding customer service. At FMI, she works tirelessly to ensure each and every employee has the opportunity to advance in their career and in the industry. Recently, Stephanie shared with me three helpful ways you can maintain and develop your brand:

1. Be an Expert

   Immerse yourself in your industry through a variety of experiences. Go to conferences, participate in webinars, find a mentor, and be a life-long learner.

2. Be Confident

   Whether you work in an office or a store, demonstrate your ability to lead through your professional role. Be a team member that co-workers feel they can come to for advice or help.

3. Never Let Them See You Sweat

Keeping up with the workload can be stressful. Remain calm and you’ll make the     best impression. Remember, no one knows what you know!

At Future Leaders, several keynote speakers will provide information that can enhance your career and personal brand:

In “The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business," Charles Duhigg—a Pulitzer-prize winning reporter for The New York Times and the best-selling author of The Power of Habit and Smarter Faster Better—looks at what separates the merely busy from the genuinely productive by exploring eight key critical concepts. He will explain how people and companies become smarter, faster and better through case studies from U.S. Marine Corps boot camp, the making of Disney’s Frozen, and how Google sought to build the perfect team.

Kindra Hall’s keynote presentation, “The Irresistible Power of Strategic Storytelling,” will share the secret of high-level leaders' strategic storytelling.  By focusing on this rarely taught skill, this former vice president of sales and national champion storyteller will help participants see how an essential messaging shift toward storytelling has the potential to revolutionize their organizations, share compelling research, case studies and stories of her own, and deliver storytelling strategies and techniques that can start rising stars on the path to becoming high-level leaders.

See more exceptional speakers at www.FMI.org/FutureLeaders  and hear from other industry veterans here.

Watch Stephanie Simpson, director of human resources, share how future leaders can maintain their brands and advance their careers.