Graduate Profile: Google Senior Vice President Lorraine Twohill talks about her "very real" education experience at DCU
Graduate Profile: Google Senior Vice President Lorraine Twohill talks about her "very real" education experience at DCU
Lorraine Twohill’s experiences at DCU helped shape a career that has taken her to the most senior marketing role at Google. As Senior Vice President for Global Marketing at the technology giant, Lorraine is responsible for the company’s worldwide marketing function, and she makes an explicit link to her current role from her time spent at DCU, where she graduated with a Joint Honours Degree in International Marketing and Languages.
“I learned the value of a talented team and how to work in a team dynamic, and that is a critical part of my job,” she recalls. Now based at Google’s headquarters in Palo Alto, California, she points to a common theme throughout her working life. “One constant for me is the focus and investment in the team talent, in bench strength and then getting out of the way – empowering the team to go make it happen. I love building teams and seeing them take off: it’s the best part of the job. I am very proud of the incredible teams I have been able to build and in the work they have done.”
Those teams carried out marketing activities in Europe, the Middle East and Africa. In 2014, Lorraine was promoted to the company’s senior ranks. Commentators say the move underscores the importance of marketing at Google, a company which is valued at more than US$540 billion and regularly listed as one of the world’s most valuable brands. “To run marketing for one of the world’s most iconic brands, at such an interesting time, is certainly for me a defining moment in my career, as well as – in my humble opinion – the world’s coolest job!” she says.
“I have been at Google for almost 12 years, and it has been an incredible journey to be part of this company growing from the early days to becoming this extraordinary company and brand. The way we think about our role as marketers is knowing the user, knowing the magic and connecting the two. Knowing the user means understanding who is your consumer, what do they care about, how we can help them. Knowing the magic is knowing what’s in the heads and hearts and minds of your engineers, understanding the vision they have for what they’re trying to create. Then we bring those two worlds together so that we create something that people will then be excited about. And then we tell the world about it,” Lorraine says.
The Carlow native says her qualifications from DCU were very important in shaping her career. “It gave me a love of marketing, and also the year abroad was an incredible experience. The languages allowed me to work in different countries, which then made me a much better marketer as I knew a lot more about people, cultures and habits,” she says.
The DCU campus was a lot smaller when she studied there – “You could easily find someone in the library if you needed to!” she jokes – and she points to the behavioural economics module that made a strong impact on her. “I thought the subject was fascinating, why people buy things, how they decide, how their background can affect their purchase behaviour, the post purchase reconciliation, how people think about brands, associate with them,” she says.
“DCU also has close ties with business and the case studies and projects we worked on felt very real, so I felt I had a better understanding of what real-world business scenarios would be like.” That understanding then translated to roles with Bord Failte and then Opodo, the travel portal created by nine European airlines, which she describes as a “wonderful start-up experience”.
She also advises students starting out at DCU to make the most of every moment. “College was a revelation for me – it was my first time living away from home, the whole thing was a huge adventure and I certainly made the most of it, from the lifelong friends I met, to the year abroad, to the wonderful very accessible lecturers and staff who were always there for me. A college environment gives you the freedom to try stuff, take risks, make mistakes, learn and ultimately grow in confidence as you work out who you are. For me, the best part about college was who I became by the time I left.”