Career Path of a Head of Employer Brand and Belonging at Qualtrics
Lauren's career path originated from a fascination with "healthy company cultures," leading to a self-designed undergraduate program combining marketing, media, and international business, supplemented by impactful internships and extracurriculars like the Tillman Scholar program and cross-functional lab experiences. This foundation propelled a career trajectory through roles at Lululemon, Apple, and tech startups, punctuated by a year of travel, culminating in current leadership roles at Pluralsight and Qualtrics, focusing on employer branding and belonging.
Employer Branding, Company Culture, Career Development, Cross-functional Teamwork, International Experience
Advizer Information
Name
Job Title
Company
Undergrad
Grad Programs
Majors
Industries
Job Functions
Traits
Lauren Hodgson
Head of Employer Brand + Belonging
Qualtrics
Arizona State University (ASU) - W. P. Carey
n/a
Marketing
Technology
Human Resources (HR)
Scholarship Recipient
Video Highlights
1. Lauren's career path demonstrates the value of proactive learning. She created her own undergraduate program focused on company culture, combining marketing, media, and international business courses. This initiative showcases her passion and resourcefulness.
2. Her internships and extracurricular activities provided practical experience and networking opportunities. She highlights an internship at a non-profit working with at-risk youth, the Tillman Scholar program, and involvement in an innovation space and mentorship clubs. These experiences demonstrate her commitment to both professional development and social impact.
3. Lauren's career progression shows a deliberate focus on companies known for strong company culture and innovative people practices, such as Lululemon, Apple, and Qualtrics. Her journey underscores the importance of aligning one's professional aspirations with organizational values and pursuing experiences that foster growth and development within a desired field.
Transcript
Could you walk me through your career path, starting with your experiences in college and any internships or jobs you had before your current role?
College is really where it all started for me. I did my undergrad at W.P. Carey at ASU, and I was just so fascinated with companies that had very healthy company cultures. This wasn't something that was talked about regularly at the time.
It was really just Google, Zappos, and Southwest Airlines that were prioritizing their company culture in a really open way. I became super interested in that, thinking, "That's what I want to be a part of." I wanted to be on the team that was talking about company culture and making it happen so people could do their best work and feel autonomous and like they were truly contributing.
So, that's what I studied. I kind of made my own undergrad program because company culture wasn't really a focus in school at that point. I studied marketing, media, and international business, picking everything that would relate to this ultimate goal and taking classes that would build towards it.
That's how I centered myself. I saw what I wanted and then curated my own learning program. Honestly, the real education came from programs outside the typical studies. I did a really amazing internship for a nonprofit working on programming for at-risk and underserved youth.
I was given a lot of latitude there, coming up with all the programming. That was really fun. I was also part of the Tillman Scholar program, where I learned a bunch from my peers about leadership.
I was a part of Innovation Space, a cross-functional lab program with business, engineering, and product design students. We came up with product designs in this lab, which was an incredible experience. I was also involved in clubs like the American Marketing Association and Club Xp, which were mentorship clubs.
It was all about, "How am I going to curate this education to gear me towards where I want to go?" School was the big setup, and it brought me to a space where I focused on startups because that's where a lot of innovation and excitement were happening. Many forward-leaning practices were occurring in startups and tech.
I worked at Lululemon, which was really focused on company culture. Then I went to Apple, where I got to be a part of amazing systems created around people practices. I then worked for tech startups like Infusionsoft and Keep.
After that, I did a year of travel through South and Central America and Asia. Then I led employer branding for Pluralsight, and now I'm leading employer branding and belonging at Qualtrics. So, that's the journey.