Jonathan Adashek (‘96, BA Political Science) has made his mark all around the world. In his current role as the chief communication officer for IBM, he is in charge of the corporate giant’s Global Communications and Corporate Citizenship organization, in addition to overseeing internal and external communications, content creation, social media, and more. His team operates in more than 170 countries, but Adashek has plenty of international experience: Before joining IBM, he lived and worked in Yokohama, Japan, as the Chief Communications Officer at Nissan and in Paris, France, as the Alliance Global Vice President, Communications for Renault-Nissan-Mitsubishi. He’s also worked with Microsoft and Edelman Public Relations. Before his jump to the private sector, Adashek spent time in Washington, D.C. in various roles at the White House and Treasury Department, and also worked on presidential candidate John Kerry’s campaign.
In March, he Zoomed in to meet with several students in the College of Letters & Science for an “AMA,” or an “Ask Me Anything” session. Here are his responses.
Q: How many languages do you speak?
A: I speak one. I speak English. I learned some basics whenever I moved places or would travel places for extended periods of time. But, I only speak English, but I can still get in a taxi in Japan and get anywhere I need to go.
Q: Given your current position, what was the most helpful thing that got you to where you are?
A: If I were to be honest about it, I was a terrible student. I’m going to be the wrong person to talk to about classes. The only thing I would say is to do a lot better than I did.
I tried to stay singularly focused on what I wanted to do, and that’s been very helpful. … Don’t run from something. Run to something. Run to an opportunity that you think you are going to love and is right for you.
When I was at Microsoft and knew it was time to look for something new, I said, “I want to be the chief communications officer at a big multinational (company).” Nissan was an amazing opportunity. It was staying singularly focused on being the chief communications officer for a Fortune 500 that got me there.
Q: What keeps you up at night?
A: There’s one thing that keeps up at night and that’s people. People is the thing I love most about my job and people is the thing I worry most about in my job. You can have the best idea in the world, but if you don’t have people to carry out those plans, you can’t do anything. You won’t get anywhere. I want to make sure that I have the right people doing the right things.
Q: How do you start networking?
A: The tools on networking – like LinkedIn – make it much easier than when I was trying to network. I would say, what are you interested in? Find a few people who would be interesting to talk to, whether you know them or not. Make some cold calls.
When I was younger I read the paper and it says, “In May, East Timor will celebrate their independence.” … I did a quick search online and found the name of an organization tied to East Timor. I found a number, I made a cold call, and less than a month later, I was in New York City meeting the foreign minister of East Timor, who won the 1996 Nobel Peace Prize, and he said, “Would you be willing to come to East Timor to help us secure our independence as UN rolls out?”
It was a cold call! But it turned into something. So talk to your friends or your professors, but when you’re done, say, “Can you give me names of two or three other people?” Ask them to help build that network.
Q: How do you select your team members?
A: I’m not going to hire somebody because I’m being a nice guy. … I want to know what benefit I’m going to get out of it. Why are we going to get better with you on the team? Everybody has value they can add.
I look for people who have a propensity to learn – people who are going to dig in, roll up their sleeves, learn about the business, and get to a place where they’re going to be really smart on it.
I don’t have a communications degree, as you all know. I’m a big proponent of diversity. I look at diversity of lived experiences as well, because that helps provide value that you can bring to the table.
Q: You started at IBM in January 2020. You’re coming into a new CEO who would be coming in in April. COVID happens. It’s a contentious political season. How did you balance so much change at one time?
A: When I was at Microsoft, we had an event called the Microsoft CEO Summit. We would get the Who’s Who in business. … I was talking to somebody and the topic of work/life balance came up. They said that they don’t believe in work/life balance; it’s work/life harmony. There will be ebbs and flows between work and your personal life. Taking that approach has really helped in the last year. Now, the person I was talking to happened to be (Amazon CEO) Jeff Bezos!