Believing in Your Own Voice, Even Before Anyone Else Does

Most leaders say they want ideas from the field. Few build the conditions that make people share them. In this episode of the LEAD Podcast, hosts Amy Hom and Kelly Grogan sit down with Jenna Law, Senior Director of Marketing and Communications at Keke's Breakfast Cafe, to discuss what it takes to build a department that did not exist and lead with a voice people trust. Jenna's path runs from restaurant floors through agency work, Darden Restaurants, and The Walt Disney Company before arriving at Keke's as the brand's first marketing hire. The conversation opens on the practical question of walking into an organization with no infrastructure, no budget history, and no internal appetite for the function you were hired to run. Jenna outlines her sequence: listen first, complete full operations training, diagnose what is broken before proposing solutions, then triage priorities against business impact. She is direct about the hardest part of the job, which is saying no to requests and explaining the reasoning well enough that people accept it. The second half turns to voice. Jenna describes how confidence accumulated across roles where she had no prior expertise, and the standard she now holds as a leader: if someone is invited to the room, their perspective gets heard. She closes with specific guidance for emerging leaders on preparing for rooms where they are the outlier voice, lining up allies before the meeting, and treating the choice of who you work under as a career decision. ✅ What You'll Learn: ✨ How to build a marketing function inside a brand that has never had one ✨ How to diagnose, triage, and sequence priorities when everything appears urgent ✨ Why saying no and defending the reasoning protects business impact ✨ How confidence compounds through accumulated experience rather than personality ✨ What operators and field leaders can do to get their ideas heard by corporate ✨ How to prepare for rooms where you are the only voice like yours ✨ Why the leaders you choose to work under shape your trajectory more than you expect 🙌 This episode is for: 🔥 Marketing and operations leaders standing up new functions inside established brands 👥 Operators and general managers who want their ideas heard beyond their four walls 💡 Emerging leaders working to find and hold their voice 🌱 Anyone moving from restaurant operations into a corporate or specialist role