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 .
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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
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