Litthya Burgin: Overcoming the expected & the unexpected

Ryan Barry: 

Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, children of all ages, welcome to Inside Insights, the podcast powered by Zappi. I’m your co host,  Ryan Barry,  and I’m pleased to introduce you to my partner in crime and co host, Babita Earle. 

Babita Earle:

Thank you Ryan, and hello everybody. My name is Babita, and as Ryan said I have the pleasure of being his co host.  So this is a podcast that we’ll be airing every two weeks, and we are so excited. The focus of our podcast is really about unpacking change and navigating change. We know that learning how to navigate change is really really important, and what we want to do is bring you personal stories, both from inside and outside of insights, that will inspire, educate and give you the guidance you need to deal with issues around career progression, etc. 

So really excited. We’ve got some great interviews lined up. And Ryan, what I’m also excited about is that we’ll now get to speak more often. Because as we know, our diaries are a complete car crash, so even getting a half an hour once a week is tough.  

Ryan: 

That’s right, we’re gonna have some fun. And sometimes you guys will have to hear us air some dirty laundry. But I’m really excited to bring this show to everybody. We’re going to bring a really diverse set of topics to the table with people in leadership roles, people doing jobs from education, big business, academia, it’s going to be a lot of fun. 

Babita:

It is. So Ryan, should we go onto our first guest? I believe you've interviewed Litthya Burgin from GSK. Do you want to tell us a bit more about her?

Ryan:

Absolutely. I'd be happy to. I wanted to talk to Litthya as our first guest, because Litthya is somebody who I've admired for many years. I've worked with her in a few different companies. I'm always just struck by her optimism. And as I've gotten to know her story, she's a woman who's gone through immigration to the United States from a unique environment, worked through multiple different corporate roles, and seen great success. But, also she just battled and beat cancer. And I think she did it in such an eloquent and graceful way. She's somebody I always wanted to do an interview with. And so I thought she'd be a great first person and I'm really excited to talk to her. So let's get into it.

[Music transition to interview]

Ryan Barry:

Hi there. For everybody who's listening, I'm joined by Litthya Burgin, who's on the shopper insights team at GSK. Litthya is somebody who I've known for, oh my God, almost six years now. We've worked together in a few different companies. We wanted, today, to talk about overcoming adversity, managing your career in times of change. I'm just super excited to bring this interview with Litthya to the table. I think everybody's going to get just a lot of learning from your way of looking at life and your personality. Litthya, thanks so much for taking the time to do this.

Litthya Burgin:

Thank you. No pressure.

Ryan:

If you don't mind, just to start us off, tell us a little bit about your story.

Litthya:

I was born and raised in Venezuela, a country that is going through a really rough time right now. That journey started in '98, when Venezuela started going through this really rough patch. Hopefully, not for longer than it has been because it has really hurt us. I moved to the US in 2005. No kids back then. One of the reasons is that my ex-husband was relocated, so I ended up resigning from work, which I loved. I find myself in a new country. Granted, I moved to South Florida, so some people say that's like living in Venezuela a little bit. I don't disagree, I could have arepas for breakfast anytime I wanted to.

Ryan:

That's right.

Litthya:

I moved there to South Florida, got my first job at a small appliance company. I owe it to Sherry Anne James, who was my mentor back then. She has been a really good friend to me, and gave me my first opportunity in the US. I remember when I was interviewing, people were saying, "You don't have US experience." I'm thinking to myself, "Marketing is marketing." You know what I mean? People are people.

Ryan:

People are people. Yeah.

Litthya:

That was my first US experience. I learned about Walmart, Target, all those. How business is conducted in the US. I stayed there for five years or so, then I moved to New Jersey. New Jersey, Reckitt Benckiser gave me an opportunity. 

It was a really good journey. Through that process, I went through divorce and it was pretty rough. It was probably as rough as losing my mom. I had two daughters back then. My oldest was seven then, and my youngest was ... No, she was six? I don't remember. My youngest was months old. She wasn't even a year old. That was a pretty rough time.

By the grace of God, I'm here. I say that all the time. Mondelez called me. I started working with them. I wanted to try a new industry. That worked out, somewhat. I landed at Unilever after that. Really fun role with personal care brand, Caress. Not super popular in the US, but the objective was that, to make a difference. We explored a lot of people's insights and Hispanic insights. It was amazing. After that, they went through a rough transition. I continued to be there, but PepsiCo presented a really good opportunity. I said, "It's a little far, a couple of hours, one way. It's a fun place to work." I loved it, actually, the time that I was there. My personal payout was not great, the fact that commute was a killer.

Ryan:

Were you on the Tappan Zee Bridge every day?

Litthya:

Every single day, yeah.

Ryan:

Wow. For those who don't know the Tappan Zee Bridge, it's a beautiful view. Between rush hours, it's not a fun place to be on the road.

Litthya:

Oh, no.

Ryan:

That's not a fun place to be on the road.

Litthya:

Then, I'm here at this moment in my career saying, "All right, this is fun." A lot of exposure, a lot of great stuff with Hispanics as well. Portfolio strategy, relaunching Sierra Mist, go figure. It was fun. 

Experimenting, I love experimenting. That's part of who I am. I'm working at PepsiCo. I'm thinking to myself, "This commute is horrible, but who's going to hire me? I haven't been here for a year yet. People will think that I'm a bouncer type deal. I'm going to just stay put and see what happens." Then, I got a call, by coincidence, from somebody who I had been working with at RB. Jamie Romano, she called me and said, "We have this opening, would you be interested, at GSK?" Which is where I'm working right now for two and a half years. Absolutely love it. Between the time that I resigned from PepsiCo and before I started with GSK, I'm diagnosed with breast cancer,

That was rough. I did not know when I resigned. My first day at the job was going through orientation and at the end of the day crying to Jamie saying, "This is going on." New to people that I don't know. Jamie was the only person I knew. Yeah, it was really difficult. I have to say that leadership was phenomenal in supporting me through my journey. I will always be thankful to them.

I think that the other thing that helped me through this ... I didn't know if I was going to make it ... I think through my belief in God, who he is in my life and holding onto that. We even created a hashtag. #GodsGotThis.

Ryan: I saw that all over your Facebook. I loved it. I loved it.

Litthya:

Yeah. We do believe that. The support of my husband, my kids, my friends and family was really important. Without that foundation, I don't know where I would be. Going through leaving your country to a market and a culture that you're completely unfamiliar with, and then moving to Jersey, which is the real US. Right?

Ryan:

For sure.

Litthya:

Florida is ...

Ryan:

Jersey is America.

Litthya:

Exactly. One of my friends said, "Welcome to the US." I'm like, "What? What does that even mean? I've been living here for five years already." She's like, "Nope, this is the real US." She was not wrong, man. I'm telling you. All those transitions, the moves that those changes required, and a divorce and remarriage ... I am remarried, happily remarried. Going through sickness and all that stuff, I think I have not gone through half of what other people have gone through. I do believe that there's hope. I have a hope that goes beyond the day that I leave this earth. That gives me foundation, you know what I mean?

Ryan:

Yeah. It's just such an amazing story. This is one of the reasons why I wanted to have this conversation with you and share it with people. I had the pleasure of getting to know you on the sidelines and watching specifically how you handled your fight with cancer. I have to say it was just inspiring to me. As you know, my mother had cancer and she had a similar positive mindset. Just as I think about the level of adversity you've gone through and also just how you've dealt with so much change, I just thought your story would be important for others to hear about. Let's unpack a couple of things.

Let's talk about the word adversity. You've dealt with it a lot, right? Different changes in your personal life, your health and your job. What are your views on overcoming adversity? How do you manage that in your life?

Litthya:

Somebody said one time that we look at our past and the things that God has done for you or whatever you want to call that, right? The universe, the things that have happened in your life. You look at the rear view mirror and you see how you overcame those things. When you're in the middle of your situation at the moment, you tend to forget that you're going to get through it. That if you hold on to ... In my case, to hold on to God and what I believe, it's going to get better, and it gets better.

The point is sometimes we get caught up on the situation, and I do that still. Even after going through my sickness, now that I'm back to normal ... Thank God, right? Sometimes I think to myself, "The kids are arguing." I get caught up in that situation and forget that there's other things that I have experienced in the past that were worse and that this is nothing. There's nothing impossible. I think that's how I have tried to see things. I also have a sense of humor and I owe that to my father. He is a jokester. His jokes are the worst. They're bad.

Ryan:

He's actually not funny?

Litthya:

It's funny the way that it's not, you know what I mean?

Ryan:

Exactly.

Litthya:

He has an assortment of 10 jokes and he repeats them all the time. People are like, "Come on."

Ryan:

That's hilarious.

Litthya:

I inherited that. I find myself in business meetings going, "Ba, dum, bum, tch" by myself. People look at me like, "Where is this woman from?" That's part of it, too. It's called joy, I think. It's not easy, especially in a world where there's a lot of struggle, right?

Ryan:

Yeah, for sure. I love that, though, because it's very real of you. Even in a moment, as much grace and perspective as you have ... Obviously, you don't take yourself so seriously that you're like crippled by it ... It's such a real, human thing for you to say, "Even in a moment when your kids are tense or something ..." It's hard to compartmentalize things.

Litthya:

Yeah.

Ryan:

I think particularly in these social media times, everybody feels like you have to ... The external optics makes it seem like it's not okay to be vulnerable or that everybody's not going through it. It's-

Litthya:

It's a sign of weakness, so to speak.

Ryan:

I call BS on that. One of the things I always tried to do is ... I'm a leader and I'm like let me use my platform to say, "You know what? I screwed up today. Today, I ..." We're recording this interview in unique times and I'll tell you, it's not been easy adjusting to the anxiety of the kids and the whole thing.

Litthya:

Yeah, yeah.

Ryan:

Acknowledgement's key. You know?

Litthya:

Yeah. You said something super insightful when it comes to acknowledging your mistakes, right? Even in the industry that I work for, when I have a report coming from a vendor, sometimes some people have the tendency to tell you, "The good news is this." Just tell me what the data's showing me and I'll make a decision with that.

Ryan:

Yes.

Litthya:

Don't try to sugarcoat it. If you tell it like it really is, it'll be better for my business. You know what I mean? We have that tendency of covering our mistakes, or if we fail at something, the word failure seems to be like, "Oh, don't say that. It's like a curse word." You know? I do say this all the time. "I failed that." I failed my first marriage. I didn't think it through. You know what I mean? Before even getting into it. Those are things that you bring with you. It makes you better. You know what I mean?

Ryan:

It does.

Litthya:

I wanted to show you something.

Ryan:

Show me.

Litthya:

This is what I think my career is.

Ryan:

I love this visual.

Litthya:

It's not mine. I don't take credit for it. I love it because some people think that career progress is this. For me, career progress is this, right?

Ryan:

Totally.

Litthya:

That has happened to me. I have worked for CPG and done pharma, beverages and personal care, family planning, air fresheners. Now, I'm working for cold and flu, shopper, consumer, global, local. It has given me ... It's a blessing because it has given me the opportunity to learn to round myself as a professional. I think that's part of it, too. Your expectation of how things should go should not taint how you go through your day to day, if that makes any sense.

Ryan:

It does.

Litthya:

You have the expectation of becoming this person and you become somebody different. You know what? That's where you should be. That's the plan for your life.

Ryan:

Yeah, absolutely. If you get too hung up on these little crossroads you take, things that have a way of working themselves out. I think that whole notion of being okay to fail is something that ... It's not only a good thing for people's mental health and their wellbeing, but I think in today's business climate, if you operate under the assumption that failure's not okay, you're going to probably lose. The markets move too fast. You can't not experiment and get close to people. It's an interesting time. You are somebody who I think is an amazing leader.

Litthya:

Thank you.

Ryan:

A leader of a family, a leader of people. The way you handle vendor relations, it's always impressive, but also the humor of it. I remember on your Facebook, you had just gotten diagnosed with cancer and you, your three kids and your husband all shaved ... Obviously, you were going through chemo, so your hair had to go. I love that you took that time to ... I wouldn't say you made a joke out of it, but you said ... This notion of solidarity, you were there together.

Litthya:

Yeah. My sister put a pantyhose on her head. He cut his hair, my husband, but my sister just put on pantyhose. I found that unacceptable, man. I'm still staring at you.

Ryan:

You got to shave your head. Yeah.

Litthya:

Exactly.

Ryan:

One of the things you said to me a few minutes ago was you got to GSK. Obviously, the news you got on your first day at a new job, that's a pretty tough thing to swallow. The thing you said about GSK was leadership. When we were talking before we started recording, you talked about culture. Not necessarily GSK. I know you work there now and obviously you have an opinion of GSK. 

Litthya:

I love it.

Ryan:

Yeah. By the way, I was saying this to you previously. The culture of GSK is abundantly clear from the outside. People are happy working there. It's fantastic. Talk to me about leadership and what you think leaders today need to be bringing. I take it as a huge responsibility, being a leader. I don't think leadership personally just comes from authority. I'd love to hear your views. What does a good leader mean to you?

Litthya:

Thank you. By the way, I don't think of myself as a liter. More like a quart or an ounce, more than a liter.

Ryan:

I think of you as a liter. Always have.

Litthya:

That was a bad joke right there, from my dad.

Ryan:

That was your 'ba, dum, tch'. 

Litthya:

Exactly. One of the things that I believe is: Influencing others is important. Right? The way you influence others is not by imposing your criteria ... Which, let me tell you, I'm very opinionated. I've been working on that through my life, but also involving others in that decision. As somebody who works in the research field ... Happens to be a marketer who works in research right now and for the last 15 or so years ... I want to say that bringing not your own opinion, but what the truth is based on the facts helps you gain that influence.

Sometimes even in my field, people use 'I think' a lot. Your opinion is important to me, but tell me what the trend is. Tell me what the data shows. You speak on behalf of people that can not be heard at a meeting, that's super important. That's why I love my job because those consumers out there, they don't see the discussions. They just see the executions and if the executions are not great, then that's on us. Right?

Ryan:

Yeah.

Litthya:

Creating that sense of influence based not just on my personality and what I think. Nobody goes to any supermarket with what I think. That is worth nothing. The fact that you bring experience, the background and what the data is saying, it's one of the key factors to influence people. The other one is really treating people as people. What I mean by that is you can talk to the VP or the general manager with the same respect and the same ... It's a human being that eats three meals a day as well.

Ryan:

For sure.

Litthya:

Has problems like you do. Using the same amount of respect for those that are either at your level or on different levels through the organization is critical. Even the person that makes the coffee deserves respect.

Ryan:

Objectivity and respect. I like that. It sounds like we were raised very similarly. I don't look at anybody any differently and I think it's one of these things that ... I say this to a lot of people. I read a book that was written in 1934 by Dale Carnegie, 'How to Make Friends and Influence People'. What a different world he must have-

Litthya:

Wow, you're old, man.

Ryan:

I know. Do I look old? It's funny, I had a friend who found out how old I actually was and said ... I look much older than I am. He goes, "Man, you've lived a long life."

Litthya:

Exactly.

Ryan:

I wasn't alive in 1934, but I read this book probably two years ago. It's called 'How to Make Friends and Influence People'. People just want to feel respected and that you're present with them. You know what? That was written in 1934, it's the same in 2020.

Litthya:

Absolutely.

Ryan:

It is no different. I liked the objectivity point, right? It's like for so many years, big business particularly was making decisions based on what the most senior person thought.

Litthya:

Yeah.

Ryan:

It's not to take away from intuition, but if you can ground it ... Particularly today, where accessibility to your consumer, to their behaviors, to what they buy and what they don't buy, it's not hard to get. It's irresponsible to just be shooting from the hip all the time.

Litthya:

I agree with you. I agree with you. It's funny you say that because sometimes in companies, we have the tendency to say, "Ryan said we should do this."

Ryan:

Yeah.

Litthya:

"Ryan said we should." To that, the counter argument would be, "Joseph, who is the guy who's going to actually buy it, said this."

Ryan:

Yeah.

Litthya:

It's important to keep us grounded as to who are the people we serve, right?

Ryan:

Yeah. We all work for our customers. Let's be real. We're culturally trying some things at Zappi that are, I think, unique. We resist hierarchy. We don't like it. There isn't a person who can say, "Do this because I said so." Objectivity is important. I remember years ago we were going to launch some new innovation ... Probably was three years ago. About five different times, somebody would come to me and say, "Ryan, how should we price it?" I would just be like, "I don't know. I don't know. What are the customers think? What are they willing to pay for it? I don't know why you're asking me. I'm not the guy to ask." You know? I think that's a really important point.

Let's talk about consumers for a minute. You spend your life studying how people behave. What do you think changes with consumer behavior eight months from now, however long? I'm not going to guess when we all get out of here. What are some things that you can share of how you think consumer behavior changes after this is all over, given your expertise?

Litthya:

Oh my goodness, there are so many schools of thought, right? The ones that say, "Everything is going to change. We're not the same people or the same world, so everything's going to change." Those that say, "We're going back to normal, and forget." The category that I work for, people tend to forget when they get sick. We're talking about a cold or the flu, which is also very important, right? As a condition. People tend to forget that they got sick and go back to normal. There's those two extremes, right?

Everything will change. Nothing will change. I think there will be some aspects of our lives that will change and some things that will stay the same. For instance, I have seen more people doing online shopping, grocery deliveries. Those behaviors that were not embedded in our culture and penetrated households slowly, versus boom. I think that might change a little bit in terms of people getting used to the convenience of that and seeing that actually the products are good. Those behaviors that we were not early to adopt, because why? Right?

Ryan:

Right.

Litthya:

Right now, we do see the benefit of them and they might stick. Right? That's one of them. Online meetings instead of traveling all the time. Even when you have a customer meeting, some customers might decide, "We can do this online."

Ryan:

It is going to be interesting to watch as we go forward. All right. If you're working as a brand insights manager, what should you be doing in this downtime to get ready for whatever comes out the other side? How can you, as an insights person, get in front of it?

Litthya:

Wow, that's a really good question that I don't have an answer for. I'm trying to think. I want to say we need to go beyond the superficial trends. We have been inundated, inundated with overarching trends. How many people are getting sick? Blah, blah, blah. Go beyond that. What brand or what category do you work on? Observe and do social listening, understand what people are talking about in that particular case. The macro trend can affect me somewhat, but not entirely. Right? Staying behind those trends and talking to people when we can talk to people again, face to face.

Ryan:

Face to face, yeah.

Litthya:

Try and stay on top of that. If you can't, there's so many tools out there that you could leverage, right? Online research is one of them and social listening is the other. Try and go deeper and peel the onion to see: What are the implications in your category?

Ryan:

Yeah. I like that. Every category is different. I'm really interested to see people's relationships with brands after this. 

The interactions we're having with brands, I've seen some brands do it really well, whether it's connected TV or Netflix or whatever. We're consuming more content than we used to. We're buying things differently than we used to. My personal thing is: I've always been a big believer in brand building. I just think it's the most important time to, as you say, peel back the onion and get close, so that your brand can evolve.

Litthya:

Also, live to what you stand for. Right?

Ryan:

Yes.

Litthya:

If you stand for ... Whatever it is. You stand for fun. Okay. How do you bring fun to life at this time to people that cannot go out? If you stand for wellbeing, how can you help the community with this sense of wellbeing that we are losing somewhat because of the situation we're currently living in? It's sticking to who you are and that brand purpose, right?

Ryan:

Yeah. That's it. That's it. Litthya, you've been extremely generous with your time. Anybody who listens to this is going to be a better person. I thank you on their behalf.

Litthya:

Man, thank you.

Ryan:

I can't wait to give you a big hug next time I see you, when we can get out of our houses someday soon. I'm feeling like it's going to be summertime, so I'll have sunglasses on. It'll be lovely. Litthya, thank you so much. I really appreciate it.

Litthya:

No, thank you. It's always a pleasure. Thank you for having me.

[Music transition to takeaways]

Ryan Barry: 

All right. Wow. That was a really fun interview. I really enjoyed it. Babita, what were your thoughts?

Babita Earle:

Wow I thought, as well. What a journey she's been on. Just listening to all of that. It was quite emotional at some stages. Just all those personal experiences, but also all her professional experiences. And I think where she's landed is in such a positive place. And she was really open and vulnerable about that, which I think is really good for our listeners to hear because that's really important on a day to day basis. And, it's something we are really passionate about at Zappi because as leaders, if we show our vulnerability, that's important to the people that we are leading, that it's okay not to have a good day. So I thought that really stood out to me.

Ryan:

Yeah. I agree. Just to see the turmoil she's faced in her life. And then her ability to, obviously, she's a religious woman. She's taking it in stride. She's got a positive mental attitude and she's got these anchors that help her face change and adversity. And in such a positive way. I found it extremely inspirational, just her outlook on life. I think it's also one of the things you and I talked about when we started our podcast was that we don't just want to do token executive interviews. We want to have people with unique stories and backgrounds. And, so I think, Litthya was just such a fantastic first interview. I hope people enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed doing the interview.

Babita:

Well, ultimately, you know what I think her common thread was to treat people as people. That is so important. One of my personal mottos is to treat others how you would like to be treated. And she's clearly doing that. Such an inspirational lady. Yeah, great interview, Ryan.

Ryan:

Yeah. Absolutely, absolutely. It was really inspiring. I knew that her story was great. Just to hear it from her was a lot of fun. I think it's a great place to start. We're not just going to interview executives, we're going to interview people going through change in all different capacities. 

I hope everybody enjoyed Litthya's segment and if you know somebody who's got a great story, like Litthya, hit us up insideinsights@zappistore.com. We're going to be shipping these interviews every two weeks. We've got some really good sessions lined up that we're excited to share with you folks anywhere that podcasts are available. Thanks for joining us for the first episode, we’ll be back every two weeks.

Babita: 

Thank you everybody, bye.