About The Author
tina lambert
Tina Lambert has spent over 25 years as a marketer and innovator across both Fortune 500 and smaller, high-growth companies. In that time, she’s tried her level best to drive growth, pivot around barriers, and build innovation teams that love their jobs.
Tina lives in Chicago, Illinois, near her two best friends in insights and with a couple of high-maintenance dogs that hate how little attention they get when she’s writing.
HMMM. If you are here, you probably already read that summary in the back of my book, and maybe you are thinking: That’s it?
So here’s a little more about me.
MY CAREER
I’ve spent over 25 years working in innovation and marketing at Hasbro®, Procter & Gamble®, Kellogg’s®, Kraft®, Tyson®, Hostess Brands® and now Tropicana Brands Group®. I’ve been really lucky to work at such prestigious companies and learn from some of the best marketers in the country. As you can see, most of my career has been in food & beverage categories, which are both fun and fast-paced.
MY LIFE STORY (in six sentences)
I had a non-traditional childhood. My father was in the Army, and we moved around every few years, forcing me to leave my friends behind and start over each time. I spent about a third of my childhood in Europe. I am also the oldest of seven kids, so I like to joke I was born into a leadership position. The seven of us are all really close thanks to all of that transition; when you move that often your siblings are the most consistent part of your life. During one of those tough transitions where I was new in a town, I ended up pregnant at 18. My daughter has been everything you could wish for in a child, and I have spent my life since trying to make hers the best possible.
When I started my career, I had a toddler and had just graduated college as a young single mother. I knew nothing about how corporate America operates and I was also pretty rough around the edges. I’ve been very fortunate over the years to have a few leaders who took me under their wings and gave me the feedback I needed to not just survive but thrive.
WHY I WROTE INNOVATION IS UGLY
In 2024, I found myself going through a major career transition, where I knew for months our company’s acquisition would lead to my layoff. I had never experienced a period of my career that felt as scary and out of my hands before. As a complete control freak, I needed something positive to focus on. For years I had been saying I wanted to write a book about innovation. I suddenly found myself with both the energy and motivation to make it happen. Getting started was the hardest part, but once I wrote the preface, it felt like the rest just tumbled out very quickly. I have spent a lot of my career working in innovation roles, and in most of them, there was no one with more experience than me that could give me advice. I felt like I was flying by the seat of my pants a lot of the time. Trying to convince a broad team of a direction that most of the time I felt a little unsure about could be overwhelming.
WHY THE BOOK IS WEIRD
I really don’t like business books. I’ve tried to read so many and have finished very few. They are usually so incredibly dull and obvious in their main points. I wanted to write something that I would want to read. When I read business books, I typically can only read one chapter at a time and then go back to reading something more fun for a few days before coming back. So, I wrote something you could consume in little snack bites. I worry that I had so much to say in some of the chapters that it did end up getting business booky in parts. But hopefully on balance you found it more interesting!