What’s it like to be in competition with yourself? 20 Great Answers with Rushenka Perera, VP of Marketing for SAP, ANZ

Plugged In, Switched On.

Join your host and Executive Creative Director Barrie Seppings as he asks Rushenka our ‘20 Questions’ and discovers why managers need to ‘walk the talk’, how to use your superpower at work and why you should care what your agency thinks.

Welcome back to this month’s “Plugged In, Switched On” podcast from Splendid Group.

The interview format at Plugged In, Switched On is very simple: we ask every guest the same 20 Questions and invariably we get 20 different (but always great) answers. Here are some of our favourites from our interview with Rushenka:

• What’s the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from a leader?
• What’s the one thing you’d change in B2B marketing?
• How do you keep up with the relentless pace of change?
• What’s your superpower?

Rushenka Perera is the VP of Marketing for SAP, ANZ, with over 25 years of marketing experience. Rushenka has the rare ability to think strategically ability, build collaborative teams, and get the collective to translate into execution. Connect with Rushenka on LinkedIn

Barrie Seppings is the Executive Creative Director of The Splendid Group and the host of Plugged In, Switched On. Connect with Barrie on LinkedIn.

Thanks for listening!
If you want to learn more about Splendid Group , see some of our work or meet any of our people, visit splendidgroup.com

Chapters

1. What’s it like to be in competition with yourself? 20 Great Answers with Rushenka Perera, VP of Marketing for SAP, ANZ (00:00:00)

2. Question 1 is the elevator pitch. What is SAP selling and why would anybody pay good money for it? (00:02:22)

3. Question 2: Is that something you grew up dreaming of? What did Rushenka in high school think she was going to do or what was she told she should go in to do? (00:03:44)

4. Question 3: I do this for free. Which particular part of the job or task do you just naturally enjoy and find yourself gravitating towards? (00:05:48)

5. Question 4: Control, alt, delete. What's the one career move or moment you wish you could go back and undo? In that moment perhaps you realized, "Oh, I'm learning a valuable lesson here." (00:07:34)

6. Question 5: Shout out. Who have you learned the most from in your career? (00:08:36)

7. Question 6: The only constant is marketing cliches. How do you keep up with change? How do you continually lean into it? As you said, you've been doing this for quite some time. How do you keep curious? How do you keep excited? (00:13:21)

8. Question 7: Here's to your health. You're in a job that's in high demand, it's a high stress job, it's a fairly cerebral kind of job. What do you do to keep yourself both body and mind healthy and to sustain the kind of energy? (00:15:03)

9. Question 8: Did you come across a segment or a type of audience or somebody that you feel when you're marketing to them, you really do need to take time to understand them and address them a little bit differently? (00:16:53)

10. Question 9: Green with envy. What's the campaign or event or idea or launch that you've seen, and you went, "Oh, I wish I'd done that. That's really good"? (00:18:37)

11. Question 10: That really gets my goat. What's the one thing in this industry, and we can talk about B2B tech or we can talk about marketing or a combination of both. What's one thing in this industry that's gone on for far too long and needs fixing? (00:20:35)

12. Question 11: Truth serum. You've worked with a lot of agencies over the years. What's the one question you'd ask an agency if you knew they had to tell you the truth? (00:22:05)

13. Question 12: Better together. How are you making that call to know when you should step back and let somebody do the thing or step in and say, "Right, I'm going to do this on my own, 'cause it's just going to be faster and better"? (00:23:58)

14. Question 13: Change your mind. What is a long held belief or conventional wisdom about marketing that you no longer hold? (00:25:14)

15. Question 14: Put your money where your mouth is. What surprised you over the last 6 to 12 months of stuff that's working better than expected and also some stuff that you're like, "Nah, this is starting to tank. We're going to pull back from it"? (00:26:34)

16. Question 15: Overhyped, underrated. What buzzword or concept do you think is getting too much airplay recently? (00:27:21)

17. Question 16: The supermodel question. Linda Evangelista very famously once said she wouldn't get out of bed for less than $10,000 a day. What figure do you get out of bed for? (00:29:26)

18. Question 17: This ain't happening. What's the most unexpected or unusual situation you've found yourself in thanks to work or thanks to your job? (00:30:41)

19. Question 18: Home alone. What was the pandemic and the lockdown experience like for you and how has that changed the way you work now or live and work and that work-life balance? (00:32:29)

20. Question 19: All of me. How diverse and open and welcoming have you found the culture within SAP? (00:33:58)

21. Question 20: Secret weapon. Rushenka, do you have a secret weapon in your career? And if you do, will you tell us what it is? (00:36:15)