Claire Spangenberg, Pioneering Brand & Marketing Strategies in the Mental Health Space
June 21st, 2021
Claire Spangenberg is the VP of Brand & Marketing at Alma, overseeing all aspects of growth marketing, product marketing, lifecycle, brand marketing, content marketing, creative, and PR. Prior to Alma, Claire was the Brand Marketing Lead for Caviar, a food delivery company owned by Square (until 2019), and on the brand marketing team at Chipotle.
In this feature, Claire shares her key learnings from her first role, why and how she pivoted to brand marketing, skills needed to succeed in this field, and her day-to-day as VP of Brand & Marketing at Alma. Read along to soak up her incredible career advice for ambitious women, such as yourself.
Early Career
You started your career as a Project Manager at Epic after graduating Vanderbilt with a BS in Human & Organizational Development. What key learnings did you take from your first role?
To be honest, I took the job at Epic out of fear. At the time, it seemed like my classmates were going into one of three things, exclusively: consulting, finance, or graduate school. There wasn’t a very fleshed out “other” category, and certainly not much structured support for it.
I had spent all of my summers interning in the arts, only to realize that the business side of art wouldn’t be enough for me. Epic was the first job I interviewed for, and the first offer I got. I felt like I needed to start somewhere, so I did.
While it wasn’t my dream first job, it was a very good first job, as first jobs go. The nature of the work was consultative. As a 21-year-old, I was flying to my client’s hospital every week and telling an experienced team of not-21-year-old hospital administrators what to do.
Simply put, I learned how to be a working professional, fast – from writing emails and sending agendas in advance to inspiring big teams to move even bigger projects forward. The job also required tapping into EQ – understanding and connecting with my clients on a personal level, empowering them with the resources they needed to make the implementation successful, and giving and receiving feedback.
As a now hiring manager and leader of a fast-growing team, my message is: start somewhere. Do not stress over the perfect path or the perfect first job. Start somewhere, learn something, and craft your career story by living it. When it comes time to interview for your dream job, be ready to share what you learned from each step along the way that got you to this point. That is what the hiring manager at your dream job wants to hear.
After a year at Epic, you joined Chipotle as a Brand Marketing Strategist for a few years. How did you know you were ready for a career pivot and initially drew you to this field?
I actually left Epic to go back to Vanderbilt for law school. While there, a good friend of mine from college who was on the Chipotle marketing team visited Nashville and, somewhat jokingly, told me about “this role” I’d be “perfect for” but I’d “have to leave law school.” To which I responded, “Tell me more.”
The role of a Brand Marketing Strategist for Chipotle was creating, owning, and executing the brand marketing plan for an entire region for Chipotle. It offered a lot of autonomy, opportunity to tap into creativity and storytelling, and the opportunity to learn the marketing ropes from a best-in-class brand.
Discovering brand marketing was an aha moment for me. As a self-identified “type A creative,” brand marketing allows me to tap into everything I love about storytelling, meaning making, and creative expression, all with a steady paycheck.
The woman who hired me out of law school – Jacqueline Gonzales – saw that I had it in me and brought me on with zero marketing experience. I don’t think it’s hyperbolic to say that her intuition changed my life. I’m so grateful she gave me the shot, and I learned so much from her leadership.
You’ve held Brand Marketing roles at Chipotle, Square, and now Alma. What skills and strengths did you realize were key to succeeding in this field?
Brand marketers are storytellers and meaning makers. To do this in a way that drives real business value, you have to first and foremost understand who your business is for, and how your product or service will add value to their life. Then you need to understand the journey they might take to find you. What problem are they solving for? What does it look like functionally, and what does it feel like emotionally? How can you change that for them?
This is an iterative process that evolves with the business and across customer segments. To be successful, you need high EQ, a creative edge, and the ability to turn data into actionable insights that can drive everything from strategic decision-making to creative direction for the company.
Alma
You’re currently the VP, Brand and Marketing at Alma. What exactly does your role entail and what is your day-to-day?
I joined the company when there were around 5 people, and I was a marketing team of one. So the answer to this question has looked very different day-to-day, year-to-year.
Now the company is around 100 people, and the marketing team is 12 and growing. Our responsibilities span growth, product marketing, engagement & retention, brand & content, creative, and PR. Now that the team is the size that it is, I’m doing significantly less IC work and much more leading and people management.
It’s my job to hire smart people who are passionate about our mission, better at what they do than I will ever be, and, if given all of the resources they need to be successful, will be a force multiplier for Alma. It’s also my job to rally the team behind a shared brand & marketing vision in service of our overall company strategy and to chart a path toward that vision.
My day-to-day looks like meetings with the leadership team on company goals and strategic decision-making, lots of 1:1s with my team and with cross-functional stakeholders, and blocks of time for deep work, which usually entails team and marketing planning, strategy documentation, digging into new insights & learnings bubbled up by the team, and hiring.
Your past Brand Marketing roles have been in food services. Why healthcare now and what excites you the most about the future of mental health as it relates to brand and marketing?
During my time at Square, I was working with a life coach on the side to explore purpose in depth and how I wanted to show up in the world. We did an exercise together, and through that I landed somewhere around the intersection of marketing and mental health.
The mental health conversation wasn’t as ubiquitous then, and there were far fewer companies in the space. With no obvious next step, I went so far as to think maybe I would ditch marketing to become a coach myself. Then Harry (Founder & CEO of Alma) called.
If you’re into exercises like this, try it! Make a list of –
What you’re good at
What you love to do
What you can get paid to do
What the world needs
Underline the themes – where all four buckets overlap is a good jumping off point for brainstorming how you can show up in the world in a way that’s globally meaningful and personally rewarding.
It’s been an exciting and important time to work in mental health. Companies in this space are tackling stigma and access issues from every angle. I believe that mental health is health and that we should be proud in seeking support and brave in talking about it. In the next five to ten years, if we can make meaningful progress on issues of access and affordability, having a therapist will be as prevalent and important as having a PCP (primary care provider). Brand and marketing teams are telling the stories and selling the services that can move culture forward on this topic.
Career Advice
What do you wish you knew when you were first starting your career?
Perfectionism will burn you out and cut your creativity off at the knees. And perfection isn’t even the expectation! Your managers, particularly in the startup world, want to see you work hard, fail fast, iterate, and repeat. Don’t let perfection be the enemy of good. (I still give myself this advice.)
Who is one woman you aspire to be like?
Jacqueline Gonzales! My first boss in marketing. She challenged me to practice “quiet confidence.” Speaking up, weighing in – these things are good. But knowing when to do so is even better. Instead of speaking first, take a beat. Instead of making a statement, reframe it as a question. Make space for others to take up space. As I worked at this, the impact was clear – easier buy-in, better decisions, stronger teams, and honestly, more fun at work.
