Sofia Hernandez

TikTok, Global Head of Business Marketing

Linkedin

Career Highlights

• Built and currently leading TikTok’s 600-person global industry enablement org (marketing, scaled education, operations, partnerships, industry relations, brand safety, research, creator services)

• Launched Tiktok’s ad product suite to date (11 products in 3 years) enabling the global ad industry to adopt a new platform and impacting billions of dollars of revenue -these efforts also received recognition in 2022 from Ad Age as “Marketers of the Year”

• Launched SaaS platform Suzy, a disruptor to the market research industry, later leading the company to series C and continuing to advise via the board of director role

• Built and led an omnichannel agency ecosystem for the P&G Blades and Razors business in the CEEMEA region

• Public speaker on topics related to leadership through change, culture, the evolution of marketing, and corporate activism

failures

• Leading an org of Gen-Zers during and post-pandemic has shifted my leadership ideology and approach when it comes to motivating the future workforce

• I joined TikTok with what I thought was a ‘realistic’ set of expectations of what growth could look like considering we were launching a then-nascent product, at the height of a pandemic, with what we all considered an unrealistic org growth and revenue goal. The reality surpassed my original expectations and has forever raised my bar on goal setting

• It’s easy to get comfortable in the workforce culture of the moment.  I’ve learned that even if a company’s ethos isn’t rooted in an always-day 1 mentality, it’s on us as individuals to constantly be learning, innovating, and evolving

Current focus

• Establishing operational discipline as we grow while keeping a scrappy approach to our working model

• Streamlining org efforts so we adopt a single-minded go-to-market strategy

• Building measurement systems to attribute non-sales functions’ impact on revenue

Hobbies

Outside of work, I spend most of my time with my partner and two amazing daughters, Exploring NYC (even though I’ve lived here for 17 years), Eastern healing practices, Mentorship of students and future leaders, Live music (the last band I saw was Cafe Tacuba in Mexico City, next concert is James Blake in NYC)

Talk to me about

• The dynamics of scaling and globalizing a Chinese-based company in record time

• Leadership through organizational change

• Best practices in navigating the sales product and marketing trifecta

• The dynamics of a global, regional, and local team structure, and how to work in a holistic way

• The future of B2C/B2B marketing and its contribution and impact on business

• How brands need to think about their role in culture and connect authentically with communities

I want to talk to you about

• Innovative product ideas

• The evolution of the C-suite

  Advice on how to evaluate board opportunities

• Unique ways leaders have recognized employees beyond pay and titles