WISDOM: A PORTRAIT SERIES

J E N N I F E R F R O M M E R

HEAD OF BRANDED CONTENT PRODUCTION

CONDÉ NAST

NEW YORK CITY

I. To me, wisdom is about getting over fear. In my early days, I wouldn’t feel comfortable expressing my ideas in meetings, or in brainstorm sessions. I’d hang back and later forward my ideas to the person running the meeting. Years later with a lot of experience in a myriad of different situations, I’ve learned how to be fearless in my expression. From writing to singing to coming up with marketing ideas, I am not afraid to bring my ideas to the table and to not take things personally.

II. I was kind of blind- sided in a job I once held. I thought I was killing it as I had been delivering for the company time and time again. I was totally giving my all to this role, to this company and I had been very successful in this position for years. As a result, a lot of my identity was wrapped up in this role – the role was defining me, I wasn’t defining the role. I thought I was solid in the job and with my colleagues, but as it turns out, the company had other plans and I was not a part of its future. I was really taken aback, shocked almost as there wasn’t any real, concrete reason as to why I wasn’t being included in its future plans.

III. I find wisdom to be intertwined with courage. It’s taken me lots of time to fully realize that you can accomplish many things in ones life just by having the courage to put yourself on the line, ask for something, speak up. I also didn’t realize that I kind of always did have courage inside of me, but wasn’t giving myself credit for tapping into it.

IV. I’m a total hybrid. I’m creative but a business person, I’m all over the place, but totally together all at the same time. I was the type of person who was friends with every clique in high school – stoners, cheerleaders, nerds, I really spanned the gamut. A great example of this is a day I had last week; I started out early morning, attending a board meeting for one of the organizations I chair. I then spent time with a young woman whom I’m mentoring followed by a business lunch with the head of a large apparel company. Later that day, I shot and produced a video for a Branded Content campaign, then rushed to a panel at Google about advertising trends, followed by a women’s networking dinner. Then I rushed home to get ready for a gig I had late in the evening (I sing in a rock band). I think that sums up who I am. I’m always running from one thing to the next and each thing tends to be disparate. I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but it’s who I am.

V. As a music business community we are facing issues of fragmentation! How, where to engage with music. It’s great that we have so many choices, but at the same time, that makes it really hard to learn about artists, great videos, new labels. Oddly, I’m still finding recommendations from my friends to be the best way for discovery.

VI. I am for my hometown of Rockaway, NY. It really pulls at my heart.

TM