#29 Do what feels good ft. Christina Deex

Christina Deex is the Senior Director of Demand Generation at Checkr, a company using artificial intelligence and machine learning to automate background checks in a way that’s fairer and more equitable. She joins Pierce to talk about what the company’s mission means to her, how valuable her early marketing ops experience was in shaping her leadership capabilities, and the mindset she’s developed for exploring and choosing new opportunities along the way.

In this episode, you’ll learn:

1) How Christina used a marketing ops foundation to become a demand generation leader

2) What it’s been like for Christina to work for a company that is as purpose-driven as Checkr

3) What it looks like to balance a high-paced career with a big family of six kids

Show Notes

When Christina Deex first started her role as Senior Director of Demand Generation at Checkr, she was impressed by how intentional the company was in their onboarding processes. Even though she was joining remotely, she felt supported and proactively informed along the way, making it one of the most successful onboarding experiences she’s ever had.

This experience added to the respect she had already developed for the company during the hiring process. While on the surface Checkr is an automated, AI-enabled background checker for HR teams, its mission goes a lot deeper than that. By removing biases and limiting the amount of candidate data employers can access, Checkr is aiming to make hiring processes fairer and more equitable. It’s this purpose-driven mandate that encouraged Christina to join the team and help them share their stories to potential customers.

So, how did Christina get here? With a background in psychology, she started her career in marketing at Cisco, where she was one of the first five beta customers for Marketo. This made her an early adopter of marketing automation and propelled her into the next decade of her career, which was spent in executional marketing operations roles.

When she started moving into leadership roles within demand generation, her marketing ops background was really useful. It meant that she had a holistic view of the marketing system, and that she could make more informed decisions for her teams. She’s been learning more throughout her career, and it’s these insights that make her the kickass marketing leader she is today.

You’ll hear more about Christina’s journey in the podcast, but before you press the play button, we’ll leave you with some words of wisdom from our guest. Today, it’s advice that she shares both with her colleagues and her children:

“Go with your gut and keep it simple. If an opportunity feels good, do that. If it doesn’t feel good, don’t do it. It took me a long time to feel comfortable with my choices. Remember: you don’t owe anything to anyone except yourself. So do what feels good to you.”

Follow Christina on LinkedIn