Today we’d like to introduce you to Marta Riggins.
Alright, so thank you so much for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us a bit about how you got started?
I am a California native who has spent equal time living in both Norcal and Socal and recently relocated in 2020 with my family to North County San Diego! I started my career in entertainment working as an assistant to three talent agents at Innovative Artists on-camera commercial, voiceover talent + FORD models division. From there, my career journey evolved working in B2B and B2C Marketing, live event production and HR for entertainment, tech and lifestyle companies like Pandora Music, LinkedIn and Instacart.
I really found my true career passion after having a baby ten years ago. I was leading the event team at Pandora Music and on the road every week putting on concerts and events. I had this “dream job” on paper, but I quickly realized it was not my dream job anymore. Shortly after coming to this realization, the head of Pandora Music’s HR team approached me about joining the HR team to help market the company to candidates and attract top talent. I quickly fell in love with this type of work and saw a need for the company to not only invest in candidate marketing but to also invest in the culture to keep all the great talent we were recruiting. The scope of my role expanded and I inherited culture and employee experience and social impact and have been doing this kind of work ever since. Over a decade later, my field (now known as Employer Brand and Employee Engagement) is very in-demand, especially now as employers try to attract talent and retain their people in a pandemic world. In October of last year, I created my own consultancy and helped advise companies of all sizes, industries and locations on how to develop innovative employer brand and recruitment marketing strategies that boost hiring growth, create a best place to work halo, build inclusion strategies elevating underrepresented voices, and define responsible business approaches that build community and activate employee engagement. This work is an expression of my joy, and I feel fortunate to wake up every morning and help make the workplace better and more meaningful.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way. Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Working motherhood, especially with a new baby (ten years ago) was ROUGH. When I had a baby, I was one of the first people to use my companies newly created “Mother’s Room.” At the time, I only had two weeks full-paid time off and I had to cobble together my four months “maternity leave” between reduced pay disability and using up all my PTO, all to come back to a co-worker asking me “how my vacation was?” When I came back to work, I immediately had to go on week long work trip to SXSW in Austin, never having left my infant son before. I had no designated place to pump and to this day, I’m eternally grateful to 2 amazing strangers – the Spa Manager at the W Hotel (a new dad himself) who let me use the women’s locker room to pump (which was a 30 min round trip walk I did about 6-8x’s a day) and to the bar manager at Antone’s who let me store my breast milk in the bar fridge next to the Bud Light. On the way home, my connecting flight was delayed and I ended up being stuck at the airport for hours with no way to replenish the ice in my little breast milk bag. By the time I got home, they had spoiled, and I sat over my kitchen sink, crying as I poured out 50 bags of hard-earned bags of breast milk liquid gold.
After experiencing this (and many other difficult experiences as a new working mother), when I transitioned into HR, I became a vocal advocate for improving and modernizing the parental leave and care benefits at my company. It was hard enough navigating being a new parent, especially in an environment that wasn’t built for me. My own experiences lit a fire and influenced my inclusion work, especially being an active ally and advocate for historically underrepresented and traditionally marginalized groups and finding ways to help make company policies and programs more inclusive.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
My expertise spans across four pillars – Employer Brand & Recruitment Marketing, Employee Engagement & Culture, Inclusion & Belonging, Social Impact and Charitable Giving. I am known for being a veteran in the employer brand and employee engagement space and being a frequent featured speaker at industry conferences like Culture Summit, Culture Amp’s Culture-First Summit, LinkedIn Talent Connect, HCI and SXSW. I am known for being an innovator, helping companies think differently about how to approach company culture, inclusion, employer branding and social impact. I am proud of the social impact partnerships and campaigns I have worked on to help fight food insecurity rates with Feeding America, service projects with the Ally Coalition during Grammy Week to raise awareness funds for LGBTQ+ youth, and executing service projects with members of Arcade Fire, State Radio, the Ally Coalition, and attendees of SXSW to support those experiencing homeless.
I am an unapologetically human in how I lead. A creative problem solver and constant studier of lifestyle, cultural, workplace, wellness, technology, and media trends. I’m on a personal mission to ban the term “culture fit.”
How do you think about happiness?
Helping people, my community and pushing the boundaries of corporate America to think differently. Spending time with my family – especially when traveling in our camper van Eddie Van Halen. Being outside in the sun, riding my bike along the 101, eating tasty food with good friends, and any activity where I am in the ocean.
Contact Info:
LinkedIn profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/martariggins/
Image Credits
Karina Tenbrugencate,
