Igniting Innovation: ESG Marketing Expert Julia Showcases Dell Technologies' Sustainability Efforts

Julia K. | Consultant, Marketing Communications | Texas, United States

Originally Published: July 14, 2023 

About Me & My Role: It’s my job to shine a light on everything Dell Technologies is doing to address our sustainability priorities: Climate Action and the Circular Economy. As part of the Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) Marketing team, I work to develop our corporate messaging on those topics, including writing our annual ESG report and supporting global marketing campaigns. I get to work across many organizations within Dell to learn from our subject matter experts and collaborate with marketers around the world, at every level, to tell our story of sustainability.

Why I Joined Dell:

Once upon a time, I ran my own marketing consultancy, focused primarily on education, ed tech, and cause marketing. When my husband died unexpectedly, I had to fold up shop and focus on getting myself and my three children through the unimaginable. When I began to emerge from that trauma, I realized I needed the stability of a job (not to mention the benefits!) but wasn’t ready to dive back into the high-pressure world of entrepreneurial marketing. My best friend suggested I go back to my roots from my college days as an executive assistant as an avenue to reenter the real world while I continued to heal. She worked at Dell, as did my husband. So that’s what I did. I took a career detour—a switchback.

A year into my work with Dell, I found myself supporting FIVE (5!) of the most supportive executives you could ever hope to meet. They encouraged me to start making connections and looking around within Dell for opportunities that were better suited to my 20 years of experience in marketing. I accepted a role in ESG (then Social Impact) marketing and found a great new home within the company.

Typical Week in My Role: I’ll let you know when I find out! Seriously, though, change is the only constant, and if I didn’t love variety, this wouldn’t be the role for me. Every single day, I learn something new. Every day, I’m challenged in some way. There are maybe some days when I wish for a bit more boredom, but more often than not, it’s the continual evolution that I love. My days generally consist of meeting with fellow marketers and subject matter experts to learn the most current information about our efforts and to coordinate across campaign teams, marcom, PR, analyst relations, agencies, and other marketing-related people. I try my best to block out sections of time to actually do the work of my job, which is concepting, creating, and reviewing content that moves people to action. Most Proud of: I've been most proud of the two annual ESG reports I’ve written. For the first one, I was responsible for the Cultivating Inclusion section of our report, which gave me the opportunity to interview team members around the world who honored and trusted me with their personal stories about contributing to and benefiting from Dell’s inclusive culture and workforce. This year, I had to learn an entirely new subject area—and fast! Writing the Advancing Sustainability section of the FY23 ESG report has been equal parts challenging and rewarding. I’m so impressed by the people and innovation behind our efforts to make a difference for business, people, and the planet.

Main Ways Dell is Advancing Sustainability and Taking Climate Action:

Dell’s two priorities within sustainability are:

1) climate action

2) the circular economy

In fact, the two are incredibly intertwined, with our circularity efforts making a significant contribution to reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Within climate action, we’re focused on setting ambitious, science-backed short-term goals and targets that will help us meet our larger 2050 net zero GHG emissions goal. But we can’t just focus on ourselves. We’re partnering upstream through our supply chain and downstream through our customers, focusing on the energy efficiency of our products and services to help them meet their own business and environmental goals.

Then, in the circular economy, we’re rethinking how to design waste into our products—developing new supply chains for things like ocean-bound plastics (OBPs) and recycled steel—to reduce e-waste and the emissions associated with manufacturing. We’re also innovating in product design with amazing approaches like Concept Luna, and we’re taking circularity into account at every step of the product lifecycle to redesign, reuse, and recycle our technology.

Advice For How to Make a Difference on the Planet: 

I know a lot of advice centers around starting small - taking the little personal actions that can have an impact when combined across whole communities and eventually the world. But I would say, don’t be afraid to think BIG. Don’t be discouraged from coming at these problems from a completely different angle—from tossing aside all previous assumptions and using your strengths to come up with a truly unique solution. Ask those giant "What if...?" questions.

There’s an opportunity to help with sustainability efforts, no matter what your role or expertise is. It may be more obvious for a product engineer who can help influence design or materials, but a salesperson can help influence a customer to buy the best sustainable data center to meet their needs and the planet's; an event planner can ensure they aren’t contributing to waste with unsustainable swag; and someone like me can help explain why sustainability is so important to convince all sorts of people to get on board.

Outside of work, what do you enjoy doing?

This question always makes me laugh. As a solo parent (that’s different from a single parent—there’s no co-parenting, no weekends to myself), raising three kids and loving my demanding career means there’s really no hobbies or me-time happening over here! I’m lucky enough to have incredibly bright, talented, and kind children, and most of my time outside of work is spent traveling the world to support their athletic success. One day, I hope to return to devouring books and traveling for actual relaxation, culture, and food! One day. 

To learn more about life at Dell, please visit our stories.