Jamaliya Cobine

[00:00:00] Roy Notowitz: Hello and welcome to How I Hire, the podcast that taps directly into the best executive hiring advice and insights. I'm Roy Notowitz, founder and CEO of Noto Group Executive Search. You can learn more about us at notogroup.com. As a go-to firm for purpose-driven companies, we've been lucky to work with some of the world's most inspiring leaders as they've tackled the challenge of building high performance leadership teams. Now, I'm sitting down with some of these very people to spark a conversation about how to achieve success in hiring and create purposeful leadership for the next generation of companies. Jamaliya Cobine joins me on the podcast to help kick off a new series of special episodes that we're developing here at How I Hire. I'm asking C-level professionals to break down their roles -- everything from finance, to marketing, to supply chain, and beyond. We'll dig into these major functions, responsibilities, and skill sets for each position for our zell listeners, both on the recruitment and candidate sides. In this episode, we're taking a close look at the chief digital officer role. I'm joined by a successful omni-channel and e-commerce expert to help us learn everything there is to know about the CDO role. Jamaliya Cobine has an impressive track record as a CDO across many different direct to consumer and retail industries having worked for global brands like Urban Outfitters, Burton Snowboards, Top Shop, and Wüsthof. She's led the digital teams in apparel, outdoor sporting goods, housewares, beauty, and a variety of consumer products, all with an emphasis on transformation, performance marketing, and consumer-centric strategy. Jamaliya is currently the CDO at Omorovicza Cosmetics. Jamaliya, thanks so much for joining the podcast today. It's great to have you here. I'm excited to have this conversation.

[00:02:05] Jamaliya Cobine: Thank you. It's a pleasure to be here. I really appreciate it.

[00:02:08] Roy Notowitz: Excellent. So your title now is chief digital officer. I'd love for you to describe at a high level the scope of the role and the primary accountabilities.

[00:02:20] Jamaliya Cobine: It's one of those roles that, I think, at every company, it's a little different, and different functions can flow in and out of it. My role specifically in my company, it's really focused around digital marketing – and that's both organic and performance – so, including things like social media, paid social, paid search, those areas. It's about user experience, the front end design of the website, as well as managing, in my case, an agency, but at other companies, it might be an on-premise team who actually do the backend development and front end development of the website. So there is this interesting intersection of technology, brand, and then, for me as well, that editorial creative piece in: what stories are we telling to our consumers? How are we bringing the brand to life through email marketing, digital marketing, social media, and most importantly, on that brand website, where it's really truly the home of the brand and needs to be, you know, the purest essence of who a company or what the product is? So, for me, one of the things I love about that is this confluence of the analytical and scientific side of the brain and the creative side of the brain being able to come together with technology, some of that creativity, and then that marketing and selling piece . Some chief digital officers I personally know have a far more tech-heavy focus and even have, in some cases, IT and vast technical teams reporting into them. I'm with a brand that doesn't have a massive IT department and technical team– 

[00:03:52] Roy Notowitz: Right.

[00:03:52] Jamaliya Cobine:   –whereas other companies, that's really something that's totally separate.

[00:03:55] Roy Notowitz: And the digital transformation was a big term, and I know, for some CDOs, that's a primary responsibility as well. Would you put that in the same bucket as the technology and the change?

[00:04:07] Jamaliya Cobine: I would, because I think digital transformation reaches into every level of the organization. It can be how teams connect through technology. It can be how teams connect to their customers through technology. And I think every company defines it a little bit differently, but, if you're inherently not thinking with a digital-first mindset as a wider organization, then any CDO tasked with digital transformation ultimately can't be successful. So that reach really does go into kind of all aspects.

[00:04:40] Roy Notowitz: So, when you come into a new role, like the one that you're in, what are some of the things that you start looking for, assessing, thinking about, to sort of get a sense of what needs to happen or the strategy or priorities?

[00:04:54] Jamaliya Cobine: Well, my superpower is my EQ, so I really want to start understanding who the players are within a company and what's important to them. I think that's a really good way to start assessing where you're going to need to win over hearts and minds a little bit and where you're going to have common allies in building consensus around things. So I actually start with the people ultimately. And then I also look, at the same time, in parallel, where is the business? What's the sort of health check, if you will, on an either an existing digital business or on the concept that a company wants to bring to life? So, coming into my current business, it was really assessing: does the platform that we're currently transacting on and the teams that we have, are they ultimately bringing us what we need in terms of meeting the goals that the company has for a three or five year plan?

[00:05:44] Jamaliya Cobine: What new technologies do we need to bring in? Do we have a robust enough front-end experience to achieve our consumer goals around connecting with customers? And then, ultimately, some of those hard KPIs that you're going to have across every business around: where's our traffic coming from? Is it healthy traffic? Is it qualified? What does our conversion look like? What does that journey look like? I always shop the brand just like a regular person. I usually got my husband in there shopping the brand, follow it on social media, so if anything gives me pause or friction, those are the things that you have to start zeroing in on of how do you create a structure that removes that friction for the customer in the end goal?

[00:06:30] Roy Notowitz: Post COVID, the landscape's changed a lot in the digital marketing world. So, what are the unique challenges and opportunities that chief digital officers are facing in this moment?

[00:06:42] Jamaliya Cobine: There was such a COVID boom around digital and e-commerce, and I think, coming out of that, I would say that a lot of businesses maybe jumped in faster or with more enthusiasm than was maybe strategic into digital. Not to say that isn't what they should be doing, but I think it was like, "Everyone's doing this. We have to get on board," or, "This part of our business is growing. What do we do to maximize it?" Now, in the year 2024, the tide's going out a little bit and everyone's trying to figure out what they should do. I think the key is getting back to an amazing consumer experience that meets the customer, ultimately, where they are. And that's going to be across digital channels. It may be across multi-channel retail if you are across different selling types of channels -- wholesale, digital, direct to consumer, all these things. And it's really getting back to those basics. I think losing sight of your customer, and what they ultimately want, and what brings joy and happiness to their experience is the worst thing you can possibly do. And I do think COVID, it almost made it a little too easy to be successful in digital. And now, it's a good reckoning time to remind everyone that we actually have to work for these people's time, attention, and dollars, pounds, euros, wherever you're transacting in the world.

[00:08:01] Roy Notowitz: So what do you think is working and resonating? What do you think is not working anymore?

[00:08:07] Jamaliya Cobine: I do think people are coming back to some physical experiences, and it's not always to purchase, but the ability to try, trial, experience the brand in a physical setting, I think that's something that people's comfort level is now finally in place. I don't think that means traditional retail is going to bounce back in the way that it might have been 10, 15, 20 years ago. But I do think that's making space for that. You know, there is the traditional thing that we're all hearing, which is that advertising prices are going up--

[00:08:37] Roy Notowitz: Yeah. 

[00:08:38] Jamaliya Cobine: --and they absolutely are, and that's becoming a really complicated space to play in. But I think if you're really savvy and intelligent about how you use it, it's a lot more about goal-setting. So I find that you may not want to put as much into some of the traditional digital marketing acquisition channels, but you also have to set the right goals. And that's something digital marketers and chief digital officers who are responsible for marketing have to be really transparent about. You may spend on something, expecting to get a lower ROI on that. Your ROAS on a campaign may be a bad  acquisition. And the more you can socialize those ideas, and make that okay, and balance it out with great ROAS-driving work down the funnel, the more successful you'll be. But you do have to really be thoughtful about how you educate about that back into the company and rightsize that with the budgets and the risk tolerances that your organization has.

[00:09:34] Roy Notowitz: So, obviously, the storytelling and the editorial stuff you're doing really is engaging that consumer, but what about even the bigger brand, and brand positioning, and brand marketing? I think we've realized that you can't just spend money on acquisition, you have to also build a brand that people connect to emotionally. How does that tie into your work? Or who do you work with within your organization? Or externally? And is there an interest or an appetite for investing in brand marketing that sometimes is even harder to measure?

[00:10:04] Jamaliya Cobine: I think that's so important. A common thread for me throughout my career isn't the type of product I'm selling, it's actually the fact that I really love working with companies that have more than just the product to sell. So they're trading on the lifestyle, the feeling that it gives you, the community that it builds around it, and the efficacy of it. Does it work? Is it the best? Or is it in that arena And competing for that title? I always say you can sell a lot of plastic junk on Amazon pretty easily in the grand scheme of things, but selling something that makes someone feel something is a long game play. And I think that's the important one. But, back to your original question, just around that partnership with brand. It’s crucial, and I think more and more, there is friction and push and pull between those functions because some of the functions that might have traditionally sat under a CMO, or under a chief brand officer, or a chief creative officer, are starting to blur the lines with chief digital officers. You know, sometimes digital design teams will sit with the chief digital officer. Marketers, performance marketers, social media managers can blur the lines back and forth between those two spaces, so I'm less concerned about where the person sits. I'm more concerned about that open relationship between the groups in marketing and digital to make sure that they're going towards the same goals. The fastest way to failure is if you have two really smart, dedicated teams that have opposite goals and aren't running in the same direction together.

[00:11:39] Roy Notowitz: Yeah.

[00:11:39] Jamaliya Cobine: So that's the key.

[00:11:40] Roy Notowitz: Well, I think also, just from a recruiting perspective, there's probably certain aspects of your role that you want to own. Different elements. Whereas also like a CMO or a chief brand officer, they're going to want to own certain things. Or even SVP of e-commerce that you might be working with as well. And so that creates a challenge, right? Because different companies are structured in different ways. So what are some of the nuances in how companies structure the CDO, or CMO, or e-comm in digital marketing functions?

[00:12:11] Jamaliya Cobine: One thing I would say is I've seen so many companies that aren't thoughtful about the play between those different groups, whether they report to each other or their peers. And I think, before any company chooses to bring in a chief digital officer or even create a role like that, they should really think about what is the interplay between those groups and strategically how is that going to benefit their business? I think that is crucial. And sometimes you don't know because you don't know who the person is or how they might shape something, but I'm a firm believer in: you don't shape a role around a person, you shape it around what the company needs, what the business needs, and the strategy, and then you find the person that's the best fit. So being crystal clear on that, because I've come into many businesses where that isn't crystal clear. And frequently, in most businesses, I don't think it is crystal clear. So I think that's crucial.

[00:13:02] Roy Notowitz: Yeah, I think it accelerates the time to success too, or impact, if you have that figured out in advance. What roles typically report into the CDO, and how is your team structured?

[00:13:13] Jamaliya Cobine: Yeah, so I have a head of digital marketing, and then we have digital marketing agencies that do execution under that. I have a lead on editorial, so that's the storytelling piece. That role plugs very much directly into our brand marketing function, as well as a key collaborator. And social media sits under that person, given that's such a huge medium for storytelling, and that's the organic piece of social. Content creation for social media is shared, but all of the campaign content, things like that, is going to sit under our brand team.

[00:13:46] Roy Notowitz: That's great.

[00:13:47] Jamaliya Cobine: In some past roles, I've actually had creative sit under me as well, and that's, again, it's a business decision where that digital creative piece sits. User experience, I think, almost always sits with the chief digital officer, and I think that's really crucial because that's almost the way that you bring the creative to life in a way that actually serves the customer best. And, usually, and in, at least in all of my past roles, the business accountability and the P&L responsibility for the success of that digital business and those digital channels rolls up to the CDO, and then that e-commerce function as well, so that people who are really trading the business day in, day out.

[00:14:25] Roy Notowitz: So do you share P&L with the head of e-commerce as well?

[00:14:29] Jamaliya Cobine: E-commerce rolls into me, there's no separate e-commerce function. I think in all of my roles, I've always had e-commerce as a function underneath my group.

[00:14:37] Roy Notowitz: That's great. So, in what ways does the type or stage of the business inform the type of profile, or experience, or scope of work as it relates to the structure, scope, and scale?

[00:14:48] Jamaliya Cobine: I do think that a business should have at least a relatively established level of maturity before they hire a chief digital officer. I think there are other C-level roles that you put in place when a business isn't mature yet, just fundamentally how you're structuring a team. And I can think smaller brands, and businesses, and startups can actually get pretty far with that director-level leadership within functions like this. But, once a business begins to mature, and you start to have really complex interactions with customers across a lot of different marketing channels, potentially across a lot of different sales channels, then you start to need someone who is ultimately helping to drive really the strategic thought on what you're doing. And it's not only goal-setting around sales goals, but it's also goal-setting around long-term, what are you building for that business or that brand, and how are you going to get there? And I think that strategic piece is something that, as a business matures, becomes just a, a non-negotiable.

[00:15:50] Roy Notowitz: How important is global experience? We get asked a lot to find people with global experience. So, specifically for this role, what does that look like? How much global experience do they need in reality versus maybe what the expectations might be?

[00:16:06] Jamaliya Cobine: I think, if a business is selling outside of their home market, and that business is, call it, any more than say, 10% of your total business, you really should have someone that has global experience. You know, maybe selfishly I say, like someone that's actually lived overseas, or has very closely led teams that live overseas, or are working in-market. You can do as much Googling as you want. You can ask Chat GPT all the questions you want about a market, but physically being in it or growing up in it is wildly different. And that respect for the cultural differences and what that means across every touchpoint – marketing, customer experience, how you manage teams, and how you can bridge cultural gaps in understanding to get things done within a company. It's both an external and an internal factor. There are certainly very successful businesses that I think can scale within only a home market like the US, being a massive direct to consumer and e-commerce market. And you may not need it if that's the goal, but, when you start to branch out with any meaningful business size, I think it's pretty key.

[00:17:14] Roy Notowitz: That's interesting. What is in the DNA of a passionate world class, top performing chief digital officer? What competencies or capabilities do you think are absolutely essential in order for them to be successful?

[00:17:28] Jamaliya Cobine: Yeah. Some of the things that I know have really helped me find success are a natural curiosity and a real openness to being wrong. I think that's hugely important. I think if you have the ego to think that you have the big job because you're the smartest and the most informed person in the room, then I think you're doing it wrong. I think if you're the person that can draw the best out of people, and ask challenging questions, and help take something that's formed and put a fine point on it, then you're doing some of the right things. But that piece is really hugely important of how you really develop the right people strategically and bring people together to get things done and work collaboratively. And you could say the same thing about a CEO, but take those things and then put that in the brain of someone who has always lived and breathed digital, and come up through that, and has a real intimate understanding of what individual, different types of roles across digital teams do, then that gets you to a really good recipe for success.

[00:18:32] Roy Notowitz: How competitive is the market for chief digital officers right now?

[00:18:36] Jamaliya Cobine: I think with chief digital officers, because it's one of those roles where every business has almost a little bit of a different mix that they need, whether it's a little more to the CMO side, a little more to the technology side, it is highly competitive, and it's a pretty unique one where you're looking across a wide portfolio of both technical competencies and then all the usual things. Is it a team fit? Do they strategically understand the business, and can help develop it? Do they have the global or regional skills needed for it? So I think it's highly competitive. I think probably one of the harder things for people is breaking through into that and taking the step from maybe a more specific function, like you're a performance marketer, or you've come through the user experience side of the world, and then taking that step into more of a senior leadership role. I had the privilege of being able to, again, at an early time in my career with a business like Urban Outfitters, work across a lot of different teams and functions in a collaborative way. And I think getting that type of experience where you can at least see beyond your four walls, and your KPIs, and what you're meant to deliver is hugely helpful in being able to make that jump from more of a senior leadership role into an executive role in the digital space.

[00:19:59] Roy Notowitz: That's interesting. So what should boards, investors, CEOs consider or be prepared for if they're thinking about initiating a CDO search? And what are the things that they should be looking for?

[00:20:12] Jamaliya Cobine: I think one of the first questions to ask is, “Do we have the capabilities to properly evaluate someone's actual capabilities in the digital space?” Because I see so many companies trying to bring someone in who's digitally savvy because they feel it's lacking within their organization. So then, obviously, the recruiters that they work with are key. Who is that person that can really properly assess that and understand the technical competency of the individual? So defining that early on I think is really helpful. Another piece that I think is incredibly important to look at is: what is that organizational structure internally and what are they coming into? Who are their key partners? And setting really clear guard rails for this is the space that the role's meant to play in, here's what the role truly owns, and here are the things that are going to be shared ownership. I think one of the easiest ways to fail is that you bring someone in and then you pit them against internal people. Or there's a bit of that friction, so being able to clearly define those guardrails for a candidate in that job spec, or even in the conversations they have with those more senior people across the organization during the recruit process is wildly helpful.

[00:21:27] Roy Notowitz: That's a great example. Are there any other, like, common hurdles or barriers that might be frustrating to an incoming CDO? And what kinds of things can the board, or investors, or leadership team do to pave the way?

[00:21:41] Jamaliya Cobine: One of the things you never really want to hear as a candidate, or within your own business as a chief digital officer, you don't really want to hear that something like the pandemic or something that is an external factor is the reason why a business is going digital. Whether it's new to them or it's something they've decided to put more resource into or more budget into, it shouldn't be that, “Oh, well, I guess we have to do this because customers shop online these days.” What you really want to hear is that a business has been thoughtful and methodical about why this is an important part of their strategy and why it's important to them. And I think the business I'm in currently is great in that sense of thinking really in a consumer-centric way of, you know, where are we meeting people? And this is one of the spaces that our customers meet us, and learn about us, and so, how can we make it the best possible experience? Those are the things you want to hear. What are the consumer-centric reasons, or the business-centric reasons, or even organizational reasons why it makes sense?

[00:22:44] Roy Notowitz: So to what extent are capabilities transferable across industry sectors? So, you know, like, you've gone from cutlery to cosmetics to snowboards. Tell us a little bit about how transferable this skillset is, and should companies be looking for people from a broad range of consumer sectors?

[00:23:05] Jamaliya Cobine: I get this question all the time. I think because my background has moved across so many different spaces, and really, for me, I think that's almost a candidate-specific thing. What's your common thread? What is your story that you can tell that interconnects those things? And if you're someone that's interested in moving across different spaces and learning about how slow and fast moving consumer goods work, how fast fashion works versus something like skincare, selling things that are much larger, selling things that are much smaller. I mean, there's nuances to all these different kinds of businesses, especially when you think about fulfillment, logistics, warehousing, supply chain, how long it takes to actually make your product and get it to you when you run out of it. There's impact in all of that. And those are things I personally think you can learn. And my common thread is that I work with brands, again, that are selling something beyond just the product, and it really is about connecting with the consumer's lifestyle and making them feel something. But I think every strong senior leader should know what's their common thread that interconnects the things they're doing and makes them passionate about the companies they work with. Some people are really great at taking businesses from X to Y. Maybe it's in that startup zone of the 10 million to the 25 million. Definitely known people that their common thread is really working with sort of mid-size companies in that 100 million to 500 million zone. So for some people it's about size of business or speed of scale. For me, it's brand touchpoint, essentially.

[00:24:37] Roy Notowitz: So what do you love most about your work as a chief digital officer?

[00:24:42] Jamaliya Cobine: I love the people the most. I love building teams. I love developing talent, and I think digital is such an exciting place to do it because the space is always changing. And if you'd ask me that question ten or fifteen years ago, I'd say, “Well, I joined and stayed in the digital space originally because it's always new, essentially. The finish line moves every single week with changes in technology, and consumer behavior, and global politics, and all of these kinds of things.” So, originally, it was just that dynamism or that, that nature of change around digital. And now I love seeing people that are excited by that, who want to bring those new ideas, who want to maybe be the people thinking of those new things that change it.

[00:25:26] Roy Notowitz: Right. That's great. Where do you get industry news or are there any convening or professional development or networking opportunities that you might recommend somebody to go research more?

[00:25:42] Jamaliya Cobine: There are some great conferences out there, and you can meet wonderful people. For me, developing and maintaining my own personal network has been most gratifying because I think, you know, you meet a lot of interesting people along the way. I think building and maintaining that personal network is incredibly important, not only for one's job success and growth, but also for that piece around technology, information, keeping up with that. I've started to delve a little bit into Substack a little bit and getting into some of these new corners of the world where there are some interesting people. You know, LinkedIn is a good networking tool, just functionally it is. You know, it's been around, everybody's there, it's a good way to stay connected with people. But I don't buy into the pay for play networks and leadership. It's not that I don't think there's value in that, but for me, that's not my go-to.

[00:26:30] Roy Notowitz: And it might be something to think about too, when looking for a chief digital officer, is somebody who builds relationships across their discipline and other people within the organization even. So what are you most excited about as you think about the future?

[00:26:46] Jamaliya Cobine: I am incredibly excited about the trajectory and the speed at which all of this is moving, and I'm really excited actually about the challenges. I think the next probably three to five years in the direct-to-consumer and digital space, both from a marketing perspective, as well as from a pure business and sales perspective, I think they're going to be kind of hard. They're going to become hard because I think we had this really amazing wave that we were all riding digitally with the pandemic. And you had people with a lot of time, stuck in their homes, looking for outlets, and some of that was shopping. It was consuming content. It almost primed your audience, right? And I think that's really moving away. And the reason it's exciting that it is going to be a little bit challenging is I think that’s when the cream rises to the top, right? 

[00:27:33] Roy Notowitz: Yeah. Mhm. Always.

[00:27:34] Jamaliya Cobine: That's when the people who are thinking creatively, who are really thinking about their customers. At the end of the day, that’s what it is. Who’s really caring for, supporting, creating a community for their customers, and, ultimately, bringing them something of value that's going to improve their life recreationally, for fun, for self image, for whatever it is, but make an improvement for them. Those are the people that succeed through the more difficult times.

[00:27:59] Roy Notowitz: That's incredible. Great, thank you. How is AI influencing or impacting the role of a chief digital officer? 

[00:28:07] Jamaliya Cobine: The biggest thing for me is I think people are just figuring out how to actually use it to be more productive. You know, for the last few years people have been talking about it maybe with a bit of a fearful tone. How is it going to replace people in roles? Me, personally, I'm not sitting around thinking about how I can use AI to replace my team so I can have, you know, headcount savings and cost. I'm actually trying to encourage them to play with the tools and discover the tools that are out there and available to see if it can streamline what they're doing and make their jobs and their lives easier. So, my hope is to inspire and, honestly, have teams that are already doing this and very willing, because they're interested in technology, but also inspire broader organizations to think about how it actually makes their employees lives better, and how they can use their existing people, teach them about it so that they can be more productive. I think we're not to the place where we really need to worry about it taking over the copywriters and the content creators of the world, but, if they can use it as a tool to springboard them to step two and get past step one, how great is that to be able to expedite a little bit?

[00:29:16] Roy Notowitz: It's amazing. We're seeing a lot of benefits as well. Thank you so much, Jamaliya. It's been so fun diving into this topic. Really look forward to keeping in touch.

[00:29:29] Jamaliya Cobine: Thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

[00:29:36] Roy Notowitz: Thanks for tuning in to How I Hire. Visit howihire.com for more details about the show. How I Hire is created by Noto Group Executive Search. To find out more about Noto Group, visit notogroup.com. You can also sign up for our monthly email job alert newsletter there, and find additional job search resources. If you're liking this new series, let us know by leaving us a review on Apple Podcasts. This podcast was produced by Anna McClain. To learn more about her work, visit aomcclain.com.