A huge congratulations to Suzanne Bursiek, our SVP of Integrated Marketing, for being named this month’s She Shines honouree by our Minute Media Women & Allies ERG! 💫 Suzanne’s story is a brilliant example of how curiosity, creativity and strong relationships drive lasting impact. Check it out below 👇. #MinuteMedia #WomenAndAllies #ERG #SheShines #WomenInLeadership #EmpowerWomen
The Women & Allies ERG presents our next She Shines honoree, Suzanne Bursiek, SVP, Integrated Marketing! ✨ Early in Suzanne’s journey across the traditional media landscape, the Internet crashed the party and changed everyone’s processes. Luckily, her arrival coincided with a paradigm shift as she was first wading into the water, so everyone she was surrounded by - with varying levels of experience - was forced to confront it together. So much has changed since that unstable start, but there’s been one constant: the necessity of networking and strong friendships. “I guess this goes into my life lessons of the day, but obviously keep in touch with everybody,” Suzanne related. Suzanne arrived in New York City “without a life plan” in the late 1990s, earning a job as a sales assistant at USA Today. Quickly, she realized that she preferred marketing to sales, fueled by a desire to “make the things” instead. The ability to examine different paths helped her follow her newfound interests, and an early friend she made set her on a course to keep trying new things (even if an early pivot ended in less-than-ideal, but hilarious-years-later, fashion). “A sales guy from USA Today had gone over to what was being formed as Stan Lee Media and brought me along,” Suzanne recalled. “The creative genius of Marvel Comics decided he wanted to get into ‘this internet thing,’ and he was going to turn the Backstreet Boys into superheroes for an animated series. Essentially, what happened is … the CFO ran off with all the funding to Brazil. My boss called, like, ‘Hey, you … might want to see if you want to explore another opportunity …’.” From there, she leaned on relationships and followed cohorts on the newfound path that they were all forging together, moving from Newsweek to The New York Times, then finally to Sports Illustrated, where she’s been for 21 years and counting. She now serves as the brand’s SVP of Integrated Marketing and Account Management at Minute Media, the culmination of a “roller coaster” journey that started when a friend from … you guessed it, Stan Lee Media reached out to connect. We may no longer be in the internet’s early days, but change remains unceasing. Suzanne, tasked with leading the hub that generates creative proposals and works with editorial and ad ops to execute them, has had to foster collaboration and rely on relationships to deal with the coaster’s drops and rises. “The rise of social media has changed how we leverage content,” Suzanne shared. “It used to be all about surrounding editorial. Now, we must ask how do we take all the blocks at our disposal and build the program that the client needs to achieve their objectives?” In other words, despite changing parameters and expectations, she’s still holding the reins, relying on partnerships, and making the things. And maybe, when she gets a bit of downtime, she’ll finally be able to get that Backstreet Boys project off the ground and help them shine, too.