Vol 28. Insights from Sage’s CMO

Case Studied Experts
Meet Carolyn Manning

Each week, we sit down with a marketing leader to learn more about their career, insights, and accomplishments. This week, that marketing leader is Carolyn Manning, Chief Marketing Officer at Sage.

Carolyn is a lawyer by trade. Though she’s been retired for many years now, she practiced human rights law and, later, employment litigation. Eventually, she traded courtrooms for yoga studios and retail floors, beginning a nonlinear path that’s taken her from Lululemon to healthcare to senior care technology. What’s consistent is her ability to build community across industries, brands, and products.

Here are the need-to-knows about Carolyn:

• As VP at Lululemon, she helped launch the brand’s run program and developed grassroots activations like yoga festivals and cheer stations at marathons.

• At Outdoor Voices, she built Outdoor Voices University (OVU), a scalable campus ambassador program that became both a revenue driver and a content engine.

• At Galileo, she drove clarity on the brand’s messaging and positioning, leading to massive spikes in engagement that fueled rapid growth.

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From the Courtroom to Retail Floor

Carolyn became inspired to pursue law when she was working in a New York City school and saw the impact immigration policies were having on families. She started out focusing first on human rights and asylum work. “But you might be surprised to hear that human rights attorneys don’t make a ton of money,” she laughed. Carolyn eventually pivoted into employment litigation to pay back her loans, but didn’t find it particularly inspiring. 

Then, in her search for yoga pants that were long enough for her 5’10” frame, Carolyn came across the brand Lululemon. Upon looking into the brand further, she saw they were opening a store in her area. She went for a group interview and was offered a part-time job. “I thought, I'll meet some new people through this work, I'll get a discount, and I'll be able to buy all the yoga pants.”

Carolyn was offered a store manager position after a few months. At first, she didn’t even consider leaving her job as a lawyer to be a retail store manager. But her partner pointed out how disenchanted she was with the day-to-day of being a lawyer and how happy she was when she came home from her retail job. So, she took the leap. 

Carolyn ended up spending 13 years at Lululemon, moving from store manager to regional manager to VP of Brand and Community. Along the way, she helped Lululemon expand beyond yoga, launching its first run program. She also spearheaded some of the brand’s most memorable early activations: cheer stations at marathons, outdoor yoga festivals, and ambassador programs that scaled globally.

Changing and Rearranging

When Carolyn was ready for a change, she went over to Meetup as VP of Marketing. She said she was drawn by the way the company was using technology to get people to meet in real life. Plus, the role provided the opportunity to work with product and engineering teams for the first time, marking a career evolution that she knew was necessary.

After a while, though, Carolyn began missing the feeling of the physical product. She had known the founder of Outdoor Voices from her Lululemon days so when she found out they were looking for someone to structure their community program, she seized the opportunity.

Taking a page from her Lululemon playbook, Carolyn launched Outdoor Voices University (OVU), an ambassador program that recruited college students to host events and experiences. “We had this insight that most people wear what they know. I played sports in college and always wore the same brand I did back then until I switched to Lululemon. So if we could get college folks to wear Outdoor Voices early, we could create that longevity.”

With OVU, representatives received product quarterly, and in exchange, they would host events and experiences on their campuses. Outdoor Voices would collect emails for their mailing list through their event RSVP platform, and OVU reps would take tons of photos at each event, creating a self-sustaining content engine.

Pivoting into Healthcare

After years of building retail brands, Carolyn felt a pull toward something more personal. Her mother’s sudden passing and her family’s difficult experience with the healthcare system sparked a new direction. She joined Galileo, a virtual primary care startup, as VP of Marketing. 

“Galileo was the first time that I did more traditional marketing. We were doing B2B and D2C. The life cycle and growth engine was really important. Marketing analytics was really important. And I just felt like ‘I have to learn how to do this in the healthcare space instead of the retail space,’” she said. 

“There was, frankly, much less community building and it was more about optimizing onboarding and getting people exactly what they need, when they need it. It was more methodical than I was used to but I enjoyed that.”

That chapter laid the groundwork for her next move to Sage. The company focuses on senior living communities, blending hardware, software, and caregiving solutions. For Carolyn, it’s both professional and personal. Her father lives with advanced Alzheimer’s, and she’s acutely aware of how under-recognized caregivers can be. And now, she’s focused on building community for those folks and for families navigating some of life’s hardest transitions.

A Standout Campaign

Of the many campaigns Carolyn has led, one that stands out is United State, launched at Lululemon in 2016 just before the Clinton-Trump U.S. election. “I remember chatting with my boss and one of my mentors and saying, ‘I feel like we have to say something without saying it on social media. We can’t just post about it, we have to create something.’”

The idea of United State was a play on Lululemon’s yoga roots and the idea of one’s state of being. “We partnered with four or five incredible artists who were from what we would now call both red states and blue states. We brought them together in New York at our Flatiron store, and had this really immersive experience of yoga and conversation. It was a charged time and we all didn’t agree.” 

The artists then went off and created art for the campaign. “The end result was this really meaningful experience for these artists and the New York team. We wound up putting the art on product throughout stores ahead of the election, telling the story of the “United State of being.” I can't remember, frankly, whether the product sold, but I remember feeling like it was a really meaningful conversation to have at the time.” 

Carolyn said the brand didn’t take a political side in the conversations. Their message was focused on talking, communing, and staying in relationship with one another. “It could have blown up in our face,” she recalled. “But our intention was authentic. We wanted to create space to learn and understand one another. And that made sense for us because the core ethos of Lululemon was relationship.”

Advice and Takeaways

1) Build community for the sake of the community.

Carolyn’s ethos around community is to give without expecting anything in return. “When you’re building, it can’t be to drive revenue or retention. It has to be just for the sake of the community, not for the sake of growth. Of course, you build the infrastructure and tactics around it, but you can’t start with that and expect to have a rich, true community.”

If you’re building community, lead with the values you bring to it. Focus on bringing in one person at a time. If each person you bring on has a meaningful experience, they’ll tell their network about it. Carolyn says, “If it’s not scaling fast enough for you, it’s because it’s not cool enough for people to talk about yet.”

2)  Learn through hiring.

At Galileo, Carolyn suddenly found herself leading areas of marketing she hadn’t owned before: growth, lifecycle, analytics. Fortunately, she was given budget to hire specialists. “I really tried to hire as much expertise as I could in the things that were more tactical. And I would ask them to teach me,” she said.

If you’re fortunate enough to build a team, surround yourself with experts who can accelerate your learning. Saying, “I don’t understand this—walk me through it,” is a powerful way to build trust and expand your skillset. And if you’re not in a position to hire, you can still adopt the same mindset. Treat your interactions with colleagues, vendors, and mentors as a chance to sharpen your skills.

3)  Follow your interests.

Carolyn’s career spans law, retail, and healthcare. And each move was motivated by what mattered most at that stage of her life. “I just recognize how my interests change and then look for opportunities where I can be with really smart people who will teach me about whatever thing I'm interested in.”

Does your current role reflect what excites or matters most to you right now? If not, consider what kind of company, mission, or team would. From there, you can start talking to folks in those spaces, identify your transferable skills, and home in on what exactly you want to learn next.

Think long-term: What could help make your campaigns more successful over time? The right agency partner. And Vendry can help you meet yours, for free. Get started.