SiriusXM CMO Denise Karkos Always Has 10 More Minutes Left In Her

If playing soccer at Notre Dame taught Denise Karkos anything, it was that she always, always could find 10 more minutes to push herself further. After two hours of practice—and soccer consists mostly of running—her coach would line up the team for 30 minutes of sprints.

“There was absolutely no way I could do those sprints,” she recalled in a recent interview. “Yet I did them. I had never been pushed as hard as I was under that coach. And what it taught me was that you think you have limits, but you have no idea how far beyond those limits you can push. I always told myself that I had 10 minutes left in me.”

The psychological trick she played on herself served her well in her performance on the field and in the corporate world. Once she found herself working in an ad agency and trying to get a sweepstakes project off the ground against a backdrop of significant legal complications. She put in what she believed was a maximum effort only to fall short of success. When she went to her boss for sympathy.

“‘We didn’t bring it home. We didn’t bring it across the finish line,’” was all Karkos can recall him saying.

“And I remembered the sprints at soccer practice and I thought, ‘You’re right. I had 10 minus left in me and didn’t use it. Effort does not always equal impact. Find the 10 minutes.’”

More often than not, Karkos has found the 10 minutes and has used it to brilliant effect—she is currently the CMO of SiriusXM and was named Ad Age’s “CMO of the Year” in 2019. She attained these goals not only by working harder and smarter, but also by reaching for the next gear, a habit she also developed as an athlete, courtesy of one Julie Foudy. A future Olympic and World Cup Champion whom Karkos faced when Notre Dame played Stanford, Foudy taught Karkos that there is always another gear you can strive to reach.

Unfortunately, Notre Dame had to learn this lesson the hard way. “Despite spending an hour before the game trying to whiteboard a strategy for shutting (Foudy) down, she killed us,” marveled Karkos. “She single handedly brought us down despite being triple teamed.”

On that day, says Karkos, Foudy taught her two important lessons: first, said Karkos, “I was no Julie Foudy.” And second, she added, “That you should look to people who you feel are doing something at another level and learn from them, either from afar or, better still, by building relationships with them.”

Whether she is motivating herself to grow professionally or coaching her team to do so, Karkos follows several rules of thumb.

These include:

• Raising your bar: Karkos achieved her goal of becoming a CMO by age 42 and immediately began thinking about how to reset the bar. She advocates learning from others you feel are doing something at a higher level than you, but also recommends “raising the bar on those things that are authentic to you so you can go deep on the things that establish your personal brand.”
• Keeping a happy folder: Karkos says that confidence is a hard thing to coach, so she recommends bolstering confidence by keeping a log of the things you’re proud of. Her list includes crafting a new vision statement, launching a new customer segmentation model and doing the first multimedia advertising campaign ever done at SiriusXM. “You’re going to forget the little wins,” she said. “Bad things will happen and you’ll focus on them, so keep a list of what you’ve accomplished.”
• Accepting vulnerability: Being humble and accepting honest feedback is a must, avers Karkos, who reserves her greatest respect for those who gave her honest feedback when she needed it most. “One of my best mentors used to give me immediate feedback after a meeting, even when it went poorly and I failed to read the room,” said Karkos.

Once, that same mentor told Karkos that she tended to act too much like the “A” student who sat in the front of the class and answered all the questions. “He wanted me to think a little bit harder and deeper about the next five questions or implications,” said Karkos. “He valued deep thinking and curiosity. I try to honor that spirit by giving immediate and specific feedback to those I mentor.”