Tiana Conley’s success leading Kellogg Co.’s global cereal business includes returning Special K to growth in 2020 for the first time in nine years. Her work beyond her role also makes her stand out. After joining Kellogg in 2017 and assessing that pipeline development and community were lacking among its Black marketers, she began mentoring. When the racial reckoning following the murder of George Floyd prompted companies to take more action, she suggested Kellogg create education content at the intersection of racial injustice and food insecurity.

Philanthropy is in Kellogg’s DNA but it’s also a traditional company, Conley says. “This is too critical for us not to make our voice heard,” Conley, who is Filipino and Black, told leadership. “Feeding Freedom,” created with Burrell Communications, included videos shown internally and externally, garnering 400,000 impressions with no media spending.

“You have to be the change that you want to see,” says Conley.

See all of Ad Age's 2021 Leading Women U.S. and Europe here.

What advice would you give your younger self?

I would have fully leaned into my own authenticity earlier. Being a first-generation college-educated person, and a person that’s Black and Asian, you don’t see a lot of role models. It’s very easy to fall into the trap of seeing how others are successful; in some cases that’s helpful, but in some cases it’s not. I didn’t fit their mold. I’m really great at being myself and I’m not great at being other people. The more I got comfortable in my own authenticity the better I became. 

What’s the biggest risk you’ve ever taken?

Maybe just stepping out and doing what was right for me personally in my career. I navigated through working in Cincinnati at Procter & Gamble and Kimberly-Clark, I had my two kids back-to-back, and then filed for divorce. I realized that I needed to make a change for my personal life that was not career-driven. I needed to do what was best for my life and my family. That felt risky at the time. I came back to Chicago with Beam Suntory in 2017. It ended up teaching me that you can never be as great as you need to be professionally if you’re not great personally.

If you weren’t doing your current job what would you be doing and why?

I would probably be some form of a civil rights advocate.

What should the industry do to encourage more women and people of color into its ranks?

Give people fair access to opportunities to either enter or advance within said industries and give them equal compensation.

Which campaign or other piece of work have you seen in the last year that you wish you had done? 

I love the spot that Beats by Dre did ("You Love Me"). I think it was particularly relevant in the moment. It essentially said we need to reexamine how we love everything about Black culture but we don’t love Black people. The team who invented it should be remarkably proud of themselves.

See all of Ad Age's 2021 Leading Women U.S. and Europe here.