Olivia Mariani on strategic innovation and leadership.
This week, we spoke with Olivia Mariani, VP of Marketing at Curbio and an Execore learner. Curbio is a pre-listing home improvement company that helps realtors and their clients. She’s been a marketing leader at Curbio for over two years and she’s also held roles at Network for Good, Rosetta Stone, and FiscalNote. She’s an expert in a variety of marketing disciplines, including revenue marketing, product marketing, and brand positioning.
How would you describe your leadership style?
I am a big “leading by design” person. I think it’s important to set up systems to enable creativity, innovation, challenging the status quo and continuous improvement.
The #1 critical thing is that everyone comes to work every day knowing how their role to play ladders up to the grander organizational vision, which is why I love the OKRs framework.
What parts of your job do you get the most energy from?
Creating, refining and tweaking strategy. I love to test assumptions, generate feedback from data and adapt strategy over time. I also have come to love external comms and PR, being a spokesperson for my company and speaking at events, investor relations, etc.
What do you think are the most important skills to develop if you want to be an effective business leader?
on effective leadership
Hiring the right people is a superpower.
It’s also important to be able to work cross-functionally to launch new initiatives and ensure a collaborative process that also holds departments and individuals accountable.
Lastly, being able to not let perfect be the enemy of good is important. I’m a big fan of the MVP (minimally viable product) in all aspects of launching products or services in an early stage company. This allows room for failing fast and iterating over time which keeps teams motivated.