Vol 6. Insights from Amazon Transportation Head of Global Brand and Creative

Meet Jillian Kosic 

Each week, we sit down with a marketing leader to learn more about their careers, insights and accomplishments. 

This week, that marketing leader is Jillian Kosic, Head of Global Brand and Creative at Amazon Transportation. With a love for psychology and art, Jillian knew she wanted to go into advertising at a young age—and she followed through on it. Today, in her current role, she leads the full-service, global brand and creative team across all Amazon transportation and logistics products (road, rail, and air). 

Here are the need-to-knows about Jillian: 

• In her first role at Amazon, Jillian pioneered Amazon Prime Video’s US social media, gaining leadership buy-in for a paid social media program that saw a +$482% YoY budget increase in its second year. 

• Jillian built and led the media team for Amazon Go and Amazon Go Grocery; her team was responsible for all media strategy, planning, buying, and executing of marketing campaigns for the first 23 store launches.

Jillian founded the Amazon Freight marketing, brand, creative, strategic partnerships, and customer insights programs, and spearheaded the creation of the first global creative studio for Amazon’s middle and last mile transportation businesses.

Discovering superpowers 

Jillian has spent the last 10 years (and counting) at Amazon. The early parts of her career, though, were spent in a very different work environment: a boutique agency. 

“My first job at an agency, I didn't care what I did. I was just excited to be there. My approach was, ‘I will get your coffee. I will make your lunch. I will drop off your dry cleaning.’ I just wanted to be in an agency. I’d learn it by osmosis—I wanted to be a sponge. 

It was just about being scrappy. I think people need to figure out a way to learn the skill they're trying to learn.

I had a night shift at a drive through coffee stand and I was trying to figure out how to help them market the coffee stand to people coming through at 2 a.m. I found a volunteer gig for a non-profit that was in the health sector that needed someone to help with their database. So I started doing database entry, and then figured out a way to help them turn that into email marketing. I was just trying to figure out any twist on a skill that I could in order to learn something semi-related to marketing. 

In the agency world, by doing that consistently over the years, it started to allow me to pitch ‘real’ marketing programs that we could start to monetize. And over time, that brand as a ‘builder of programs’ is how I started to grow onto the trajectory of where I am today.”

After gaining experience on the agency side, Jillian realized that she wanted to take a 360 degree approach to her personal growth—which meant having a strong understanding of the business side so that she could empathize with her clients’ perspective. That’s how she ended up going to the brand side.

“When I saw the opportunity at Amazon, it really caught my interest. It was something in an area I had created a specialty in: social media and how to monetize it. I dug around my network, talked to a few folks who worked at Amazon, making sure that it felt like the right move. And 10 years later, it’s been a really fantastic move. 

The niches I’ve built have come from three things: 

1) having leaders who trust me and give me the opportunity to test and learn new things from the business

2) having a hunger to work on interesting things

3) out of those previous two, learning that I love building

Early in my career, I created a niche in social media and building social media programs. Working at smaller agencies gave me the opportunity to wear a lot of hats, and I learned that I loved the fast pace, content, and complexity of social media. I also loved trying to solve the problem of how to tie value to this. 

On the agency side, when I was at Worktank, there was an opportunity. Twitter had just launched . I went to the CEO at the time and ‘Hey, Twitter is here now and also Foursquare came out. I don't know what we can do with it, but can I create a page?’ I created a page and started fiddling around with it. Eventually, it became something we could actually create a program and a package for. 

When I moved to Amazon, I was on the Prime Video team. At the time, it was a very small, up-and-coming new business within Amazon. They needed someone to come in and build a social media program—so that's what I did. I spent three years there helping to build a social media program. And we grew the team, from me as a single marketer, to a team in multiple locations. 

Prime Video as a product grew a lot, but my specialty was to help others in the organization understand how social media can be an asset for them in their marketing plans, and then figuring out how we can help our partners leverage that to grow the business.”

Of course, being a builder inherently means working on projects that are undefined. But Jillian adopted a philosophy that helps her innovate and prove out her programs from the jump. 

“I think some of my core traits—being eager, hungry, curious—all go really well with figuring out something that we don't know and tying it back to the business's bottom line. But I also think you have to embrace uncertainty. 

In most of my roles, the initial answer often was ‘I don't know’ more often than it was ‘I know.’ Having the drive to figure it out goes a long way. And I think that works really well with Amazon's culture—having that bias for action, being willing to go super deep, not being scared to get your hands dirty. And once you come out of that, it’s about identifying how it all ties into the bigger picture and answers the ‘So what?’ question. I know that question is a cliche in the marketing world, but it is really important to be able to know, as a leader, if I need to go in the weeds. That question helps me understand that.”

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Creating The Job You Want

Jillian has worked in many different lines of business throughout her time at Amazon. As a pro at making growth-driven career moves, she’s developed a formula for getting into the next role. 

“I do a lot of mentoring as well as a lot of hiring. A question I am often asked is how do you find the next role? And my advice is don't go find the next role. You need to create your next role. If you want to grow and you have a goal, know what five stepping stones away looks like. Then, be vocally self-critical. What are your gaps and how are you going to get there? 

I think even if you know what you want, the path to it is often actually pretty ambiguous. In my experience, my goals are so far out that there are lots of paths to get there. But you have to be comfortable in creating that path yourself. My advice would be to sit down and actually write down what you want and your options to get there. Embrace the ambiguity, embrace that you don't know it all and that you have gaps. Try to talk to mentors and peers to figure out how you can actually go fill those gaps. Then make it happen.”

Advice and takeaways

Jillian’s career path offers so many valuable lessons. Here are a few:

1) Embrace Uncertainty and Start Building 

Jillian success at Amazon and early in her career stems from her willingness to embrace uncertainty and her identity as a builder. She thrives in undefined projects, using her eagerness, hunger, and curiosity to innovate and prove the value of new programs.

Marketers of any seniority can apply this mindset by actively seeking out opportunities to create and build new initiatives within your organization. Don’t shy away from ambiguous projects or emerging technologies. Instead, approach them with a “test and learn” mentality, always tying your efforts back to business objectives. This approach can help you establish yourself as an invaluable asset to your company and lead to outsized results early in your career.

2) Forge Your Own Career Path

Rather than waiting for opportunities to come to her, Jillian creates her own roles by identifying gaps in the business, spotting market trends and proposing solutions. She advises against simply finding the next role, but instead creating it.

To apply this in your own career, start by envisioning your long-term goals and identifying the stepping stones needed to reach them. Regularly assess your skills and pinpoint areas for growth. Be proactive in seeking out projects or responsibilities that align with your career aspirations, even if they’re outside your current job description. By doing so, you can shape your career trajectory and make yourself indispensable to your organization.

3) Develop a 360-Degree Understanding of Business

Jillian’s move from agency to brand side was motivated by her desire to gain a comprehensive understanding of business operations. This broader perspective has enabled her to empathize the needs of a client and make more strategic decisions.

As a marketer, you can enhance your effectiveness by expanding your knowledge beyond just marketing. Seek opportunities to learn about other aspects of your business, such as finance, operations, or product development. This holistic understanding will allow you to create more impactful marketing strategies that align closely with overall business objectives. Consider cross-functional projects or even short-term assignments in other departments to broaden your perspective and become a more valuable asset to your organization.

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