WWE ' s chief brand officer Stephanie McMahon
tells us the 3 magic qualities of a superstar and by Lara O ' Reilly
Lara O ' Reilly: You had a storied career before you became WWE ' s chief brand officer. Tell me about the progression.
You couldn ' t get a marketer that ' s more of an embodiment of the brand they look after than Stephanie McMahon.
McMahon is WWE ' s chief brand officer, who has worked for the company since she was a teenager, in a variety of roles from selling merchandise to jumping into the ring as a professional wrestler herself.
McMahon is also married to one of the franchise ' s biggest-ever superstars, Triple H. She is also the daughter of WWE chairman and CEO Vince McMahon and its former CEO, Linda McMahon, who retired to run for US Senate in 2009. The McMahon family first entered the wrestling world back in 1953, with the Capitol Wrestling Corporation, which subsequently became the World Wrestling Federation, and later WWE, which generated $ 658.8 million in revenue last year.
We caught up with McMahon at the Cannes Lions advertising festival last week, discussing a range of topics from her unusual upbringing, to being a woman in business, the qualities she looks for in budding wrestling superstars, and her favorite WWE star of all time.
This interview has been lightly edited for clarity and length.
ADVERTISEMENT
Stephanie McMahon: Absolutely, so I really first started when I was about eight years old and I was modeling merchandise in our catalog. But then I basically interned in our company in various different positions, since I was about 15. I worked the switchboard, I interned in human resources, I was responsible for collating, and stapling, and distributing our newsletter— at that time there was no digital— I interned in television production, putting together comp rails and things of that nature. I interned for our live events marketing team and digital media, which at that time was really in its infancy and we had a website that functioned much like the old Coleco " Donkey Kong " game.
Then I went to our sales office, and I was an account executive and at that time I also started as a character on TV. I think I was about 22.
Then I went to join the creative writing team and I was told: " Steph, you will be a part of the creative writing team and ultimately if you prove yourself in a few years you ' ll rise up the ranks." Well, within two weeks the head writer quit and I was told: " Congratulations, trial by fire, you ' re now going to head up the creative writing team."
I grew the creative writing team from about three people to about 30 people and developed a bunch of different innovations within that team. Ultimately that led to me taking over our live events, booking, and marketing function, taking over our talent relations and talent development function. Then, ultimately my husband [ wrestler Triple H ] came in as an executive and took over the talent and the live events piece and I went on to take over digital and, at the time, publishing.
Then creative became all-encompassing of everything, which made a lot of sense. What we really wanted to do was combine all the efforts, because our creative was siloed and everybody wasn ' t communicating and it wasn ' t an efficient process. So we brought all the creative teams
Page | 3 Lawless Entertainment Magazine – www. llemag. com