Breaking Barriers at McDonald's and Beyond with Desiree Ralls-Morrison
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Desiree Ralls-Morrison’s career journey is one of breaking barriers, leading with integrity, and staying true to her values. As the Executive Global Chief Legal Officer at McDonald’s, she oversees global legal operations while supporting the company’s strategies and managing risk. Beyond her high-profile role, Desiree is a fierce advocate for racial equity and social justice, co-founding The New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund to uplift Black, Latino, and Indigenous communities.
Growing up as one of the only Black students in a small Connecticut town, Desiree learned early on about resilience, self-awareness, and the importance of staying grounded in her identity. Her path from Harvard Law School to leading one of the most recognizable global brands is marked by her unwavering commitment to authenticity and high standards. She also credits much of her success to the values her mother instilled in her and mentors like Ken Frazier, which she carries with her in every leadership role.
In this episode of The Branding Room Only podcast, Desiree shares how her upbringing shaped her personal and professional brand. She discusses her transition from healthcare to McDonald’s, navigating global legal issues, and why vulnerability is key to her leadership style. Desiree also dives into the importance of service, mentorship, and staying true to her core values, offering actionable insights for anyone looking to build a personal brand rooted in authenticity.
Chapters
1:05 - Desiree’s personal brand definition, favorite quote, and hype song
7:22 - How growing up in a small, all-white town shaped Desiree’s childhood, college education, and career path
18:18 - How Desiree transitioned into her current role at McDonald’s and the challenge that came with it
23:11 - How service and community involvement became key to building her brand and the founding of her racial equity fund
30:10 - The meaning behind receiving awards and public recognition, and how Desiree stays grounded
33:13 - Lessons learned from mentors like Ken Frazier and how they shaped her leadership style
39:39 - Balancing visibility with authenticity in corporate America
44:51 - Desiree’s advice for building a personal brand, what she does for fun, and her uncompromising commitment to integrity
49:38 - How Desiree’s authenticity and vulnerability form the foundation of her Branding Room Only magic
Connect With Desiree Ralls-Morrison
Prior to joining McDonald’s, she was the General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Boston Scientific Corporation; General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Boehringer Ingelheim USA, Inc.; and General Counsel of the Consumer Group at Johnson & Johnson. Desiree was named one of the most powerful women in Corporate America by Black Enterprise Magazine and one of the top innovative General Counsels around the world by Financial Times.
Under Desiree’s leadership, McDonald’s was named 2022 Best Legal Department by Corporate Counsel. She serves on the Board of Directors for DICK’S Sporting Goods, Inc. and is a Founding Member of the New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund (NCF), which was curated as a funding and support resource for Black, Latino, and Indigenous entrepreneurs, innovators, and non-profits.
She earned her Juris Doctor from Harvard Law School and her Bachelor of Arts in economics and political science from Wesleyan University.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison on LinkedIn
Mentioned In Breaking Barriers at McDonald's and Beyond with Desiree Ralls-Morrison
The New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund
Corporate Counsel Women of Color
Branding Room Only Interview with Laurie Robinson Haden - Shining Brightly:
Crafting a Personal Brand in the Corporate World with Zabrina Jenkins
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Sponsor for this episode
This episode is brought to you by PGE Consulting Group LLC.
PGE Consulting Group LLC is dedicated to providing a practical hybrid of professional development training and diversity solutions. From speaking to consulting to programming and more, all services and resources are carefully tailored for each partner. Paula Edgar’s distinct expertise helps engage attendees and create lasting change for her clients.
To learn more about Paula and her services, go to www.paulaedgar.com or contact her at info@paulaedgar.com, and follow Paula Edgar and the PGE Consulting Group LLC on LinkedIn.
Transcript
Paula Edgar: Welcome to The Branding Room Only Podcast where we share career stories, strategies, and lessons learned on how industry leaders and influencers have built their personal brands. Now, let's get started with the show.
Hi everybody, it's Paula Edgar, your host of Branding Room Only, and I am so excited for my guest today. Introducing Desiree Ralls-Morrison, who is the executive global chief legal officer at McDonald's corporation.
In her role, Desiree oversees the company's global legal operations and is responsible for supporting the company's strategies, anticipating and managing risk, and advancing McDonald's brand and values.
She also advises both the board of directors and the CEO. Desiree is also a founding member of The New Commonwealth Racial Equity and Social Justice Fund, NCF, which is curated as a funding and support resource for Black, Latino, and Indigenous entrepreneurs, investors, and non-profits. Desiree, welcome to the Branding Room.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Thank you Paula, thank you for having me.
Paula Edgar: I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. I start out by asking everybody the same thing. What does personal brand mean to you? How do you define it?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah, really, to me, it's what do you represent? What do you stand for? What do people think about when they think of you? That's how I think about personal brand.
Paula Edgar: Absolutely. Speaking of your own, how would you describe yourself in three words or short phrases?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: This is hard. I would say for sure integrity. I'm someone who believes that I'm honest, I have a really strong moral compass and principles. I would say that's number one.
Second, I would say authentic. I'm really an open book almost about anything whether it's how I think about diversity and how I think about it in my current role or in my prior roles, how I managed a professional career and raising two children and being a wife, whether as a new GC, helping my mom to transition after she fell ill.
I'm really authentic and very comfortable sharing my true self, including vulnerabilities and fears and that sort of thing. Then I think the third one really is around having high standards. I really care about quality, I really care about excellence.
Again, I grew up believing that I could do and be anything. I try to exude that. But also, I don't expect anything of myself that I don't also expect of my team, my children, and others. I care about excellence. I would say that's part of who I am.
Paula Edgar: Oh, I love that. When I talk about branding as a concept, I talk about five pieces, but the piece that I try to really get to folks is excellence. You're always striving for it, which is different than perfection.
You can't meet perfection, but you can always strive for excellence. So I love that you included that in there. That made me happy. Do you have a favorite quote or mantra that you use in life?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I do. It gets to that first quality about myself. It's something my mom would always say to me and my brother, “It's never right to do wrong.” I actually have it tattooed on my arm as a reminder, but it's definitely something that I live by.
At the core, what it means is about integrity. Sometimes we try to talk ourselves into rationalizing, doing something that at our core we really know is not the right thing and it might feel right because we've managed to talk ourselves into it but that quote is always a reminder to me that no matter what, it's never right to do wrong.
Paula Edgar: I love it. I love that you have a tattoo. I'm going to start asking questions of everybody who I interview because I have learned so many people have tattoos that I had no idea. I love that.
My mother used to always say, "You can be the wind or you can be the leaf." Essentially you can get there, hopefully, or you can get there by making sure it's part of your intention. It's how I live and internalize the excellence piece of all that I do. So I love that. We have the mama's quotes.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah. It's so funny because you hear them growing up, I'm sure my mom always thought it would go in one air and out the other and it probably did a little bit, but it really truly resonated with me and it wasn't just something that she said to me growing up.
It's something that I actually live by personally and professionally and so, it sounds like the same the same for you, but it really does just underscore how powerful one, our mothers are but two, these little nuggets that they probably don't realize how important they are, how they're really taking hold within who we are as people and at our core, but they really are.
Paula Edgar: They are, they're sitting there. I remember there was a quiz that my son did when he was maybe in second grade, and it was a fill-in-the-blank. What's something your mother always says? And he wrote, he misspelled it but it was a big word, “Accountability.”
I was like, “That's exactly right.” I felt very proud. I'm like, “He's listening to something even if he doesn't get it,” but I love that. I ask all of my guests if they have a hype song. It's either a song that when they're going to get full Desiree, it's playing in your head when you're walking in, or if you're having a bad day, you play this to get yourself out of that. What is it for you? It could be one or two different songs.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah. I would say a little bit it depends on the mood, but for the most part, I'm Every Woman is definitely a hype song for me. One, I do think that I very much represent not just every woman, but I'm a pretty normal person. I've been blessed, I've had some great things happen to me over the course of my life, but I'm very, very normal.
I feel like that's a perfect song for me, but also because if you really listen to the words of that song, it's that you're adaptable. You can pretty much do it all. You can do everything. We struggle a lot with doing everything at the same time, but I absolutely believe that there's nothing that we can't do. That song always just gets me excited and empowered and helps me to remember who I am.
Paula Edgar: I love that. It's funny when I ask people about this, all the time people smile when they're talking about the song, it literally is hyping them up in their mood and I love that. All right, so tell me, how did you grow up? Where did you grow up and how did that shape you?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Sure. I grew up in a town in Connecticut called North Stonington. It's a really small town. It's near Stonington, Connecticut, which some people might know. It's near Mystic, which people, depending on your age, might know from Mystic Pizza, but is a really small town.
I would say that's where I spent the bulk of my years growing up. It was a town that was completely white at the time. My family was the only Black family in town. I was the only Black student in my school because my brother is six years younger than me.
So we were never even in the same school at the same time. But it really taught me a lot of different things. I would say, first of all, my parents moved there because it was the best education that they could afford.
When they bought this house, it was a house that was in foreclosure. My mom worked at the bank. It was in a great neighborhood with great schools. They couldn't afford a private school, but they wanted to give us the best education they could.
That was how they did that. But then we also drove actually to another state, only about 15, 20 minutes away, but to go to church, because they wanted to make sure that we went to a Black church and always knew, despite the fact that we lived in this white town, that we were Black, and that we knew who we were, that we worshipped with people like us, but that we could navigate a world where we're getting a really good education and could swim in those lanes, but that we also could swim in the lanes where we really felt at home.
That was really important to them. Then I guess I would say what that experience taught me besides the fact that education is key to how we get to how we move up in this world and how we navigate socially, besides the recognition and understanding of how important it is to know who you really are and to be and socialize with people who you connect with and who are like you.
But it also got me very comfortable with being in those spaces of being the only one, this is from a very young age, getting used to being talked about in a negative way for no reason, being used to racism.
I remember our school was in two different buildings and walking from one building to the next. Having spitballs spat at me and being called the n-word and stuff like that. Being the only one in that situation. It got me used to the assumptions that people make about your limitations.
It got me comfortable with the fact that recognition is not always based on merit. The best and the smartest students might not, in my case, I wasn't the right color and so when the rewards and the recognition and scholarships and all that came out, I realized it's not always about merit.
There were some real-life lessons that are hard when you are in junior high school and high school and you don't necessarily see it, but it certainly played a big part in developing me into the person that I am and really understanding corporate America as well as just the world that we live in generally.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. I went to boarding school in Massachusetts. I always say that New England has some Southern flavor to it. Being a kid from New York City, I was used to being around people who looked like everything and then going and being one of the 20-something kids. That was a very interesting space to be in, and particularly socioeconomically, where I had no idea what insert brand here was because my students would buy me whatever fit from whatever place was cheapest. That's what I was wearing.
That totally resonates for me for the lessons that you learned from having to navigate in those spaces where you are the other in multiple of your diversity characteristics. Thank you for sharing that. Tell me then, you're in Connecticut, do high school, tell me about college, law school, and then your career path. What happened?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Sure. It's funny, my family would always say, I knew from a really young age, five or six, that I wanted to be a lawyer. They were always perplexed. Because we didn't have any lawyers in our family.
No one else had gone to college at that point or law school. They didn't know where this was coming from, but it was something that I declared, if you will, at a really young age.
That was the only thing I ever thought about doing. I went to Wesleyan undergrad in Connecticut in part because I wanted to be away from home, but not really far from home. It was about an hour or so away from where I grew up and allowed me to live on campus and get the real college experience.
But also if I needed my dad to help me with my car or I needed some groceries or something, I could always call home. Then went from there, I took a year off and just worked in a law firm in New York down on Wall Street.
I knew what I wanted to do, but I wanted to take my time and study for the LSAT and that sort of thing. So I did that. Went to Harvard Law School, which was an incredible experience for a number of reasons. I had the opportunity to learn from lots of incredible people, but also went to school with some pretty important, incredible people.
Paula Edgar: Anybody we know?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah. Obviously, Barack. This is what I say all the time. So, Barack was a year ahead of me in law school, but he's way older than me in years of age, just to be clear, so.
Paula Edgar: Got it.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I went to law school. Then went to a law firm in Connecticut. One of the largest law firms in Connecticut. Did that for about five years, and felt like I wanted to go to a New York law firm to get more sophisticated work.
What I learned there was that the work was more sophisticated and interesting, but I wasn't actually getting it because I was an associate. That goes to the partners, whereas at the smaller firm, I was doing my own depositions and was the second chair on cases.
It was really scale and all relatives. I'm at this New York law firm, but I'm not really getting the great juicy work, because I'm only an associate. It was around that time, my husband and I were talking about having children.
Back then, now this is 1997. Back then, you thought that you would go in-house if you wanted to have a family because you didn't want to work weekends, and you didn't want to work late evenings, and you were going to have a life. It was this idea of giving up some of the intellectual stimulation and money, and the tradeoff was that you were going to have a life. None of that's true.
Paula Edgar: I was going to say.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I would say the compensation can be good. The weekends you work, the evenings you work, and that work is extremely challenging and stimulating. It was fake news by the way, but I believed it at the time and I got a call about a role at Merck. I went to Merck and Ken Frazier was my general counsel.
Paula Edgar: Wow.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I had the bug. I had been a litigator in private practice. The nice thing about the Merck job was one, you didn't have to have any prior experience with regulatory FDA regulatory law, you didn't have to have prior in-house experience.
But then I also was going to be learning FDA regulatory law, but also I still got to do litigation for my products. I love litigation. So for me, it was a perfect role. That really started my in-house career. I have been in healthcare following that. I was in healthcare for 24 years before coming to McDonald's three and a half years ago.
Paula Edgar: Love this. I have to give you a side story about Ken Frazier. Recently, I went to go see The Wiz on Broadway. I was with a group of people and I walked past Ken Frazier. But I was like, “I know this man from someplace.” I'm wracking my brain. I meet a lot of people so I was like, “Who’s this guy?”
So I moonwalked. It was like, “Do I know you?” He's like, “I know that I know you.”, “Who are you again?” He must have thought I was like, “Who was this crazy lady?” Then I was like, “Oh, my God, you’re Ken Frazier.” Meanwhile, his wife is looking like she's about to attack me. She was like his security.
It was just hilarious because he was like, “I know that I know your face, and I don't forget faces.” But we had this moment where I turned into an ultimate fan girl and was just like, “Can we take a selfie?”
He was so kind and wonderful. But that's my Ken Frazier crazy girl Paula story. Side note, he is absolutely wonderful. I had to have a chance to talk to him for a little bit and he was okay with it.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: He is great. I will tell you, I think his wife must be used to it. I'll just share briefly one of mine. I saw him not that long ago. I'm in Bermuda. I look across the beach and Ken and his family are there and I actually had to interrupt their vacation and say hi and his wife again probably was like, “Here we go again.” But she was so gracious and he's awesome. He always takes time for people. But I was very, very fortunate to start my in-house career working for him.
Paula Edgar: I can imagine how much you've learned in terms of that as your starting point. You've had the opportunity to lead in some big brands. Again, I'm a fan girl, this is what I do. But there are three brands that I talk about consistently.
One is Beyonce because she's a brand. The other one is Coca-Cola because it's Coca-Cola, and McDonald's, it's the biggest global brand. When I think about branding and how your brand aligns with something else, it's exciting.
It also is, in my mind, overwhelming because it's like, Oh, this is a huge brand.” How was it for you when you decided to take that role and step into Hamburg University on that first day?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: First of all, I'll just say I was not looking for this role. I got a call about it. I said, “Yeah, I'm not interested. I'm happy where I am.” The person that called me was like, “Yeah, no. The CEO wants to talk to you.” Basically, what she said was “He's important, you're not, you're going to talk to him because he specifically asked about you.”
So I met with him and I didn't really pay attention to McDonald's news a lot, to be honest. I was in healthcare and a little bit in my own world. But the more I talked to Chris, my CEO, the more I realized that not only did McDonald's values line up with mine, but his values lined up with mine.
What he wanted in a GC was consistent with what I wanted to be for a CEO and for a company. When I made the decision to come here, I thought, “Listen, the things I really care about, things like diversity, things like developing people, those sorts of things on a McDonald's scale is very different than what I can do here.” At the time I was at Boston Scientific.
It was great. I was doing some wonderful things in those areas, but just the scale and the impact I knew was going to be very different. I totally underestimated it though. I've said this a couple of times, and I know people have heard it before, but when I came in, I sort of came in like a snob.
I was like, “Listen, this is burgers and fries. I've been in healthcare. How hard can this be? I'm saving lives. I'm whatever.” The impact that this brand has is like nothing else.
The legal issues are like nothing I've ever had to deal with before, whether it's things like pulling out of Russia, or looking at navigating the conflict between Israel and Palestine, or a proxy fight with Carl Icahn, which is the first of its kind in an ESG space.
Whatever the issue, people tend to want to make McDonald's the example. That's something I totally underestimated. I didn't realize it. A lot of times I'll tease my team and I'll say, “How come we never talk about burgers and fries?” Because the issues are so big and so significant.
There is something to be said to be able to say, “You know what, this is what we're going to do,” and it means something, and to also be able to call my friend Monica at Coke, or Nike, or Pepsi, or other companies and say, “This is what we're going to do. This is what we'd like you guys to do. What are you guys going to do? Let's talk about it. What do we think makes the most sense?” It's a room where not everybody can be in and I feel very, very blessed and fortunate to be able to play in this role.
Paula Edgar: Yeah. Like I said, it's the brand. When you think about the things that we are exposed to as being myopic Americans, but obviously McDonald's is everywhere, but it is the first brand that you really know when you're a kid, then continues to shift your whole experience.
I recall the first time I got to go to Europe and I was in Paris and I was like, “Wait.” It was very overwhelming to understand that this brand is everywhere you go and people understand and see the arches.
Even today when I was like, “What am I going to wear? I have to wear something with yellow.” For the fact that it's such a wonderful branding. I think it elevates everyone in it in terms of the affiliation and also makes the expectation a big one because to your point, you're setting policy in a lot of places and trends, which is what strong brands do.
Talk to me about some of the other things that you've done that it's not work, but still leadership and volunteerism and how that has helped you to build your brand.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah. I think service is a huge part of who I am. Whether it's through church, whether it's through my sorority, whether it's through any other community service opportunities, it's a huge part of who I am.
Again, it's part of where it shows up in how I describe myself, almost in all areas, but certainly integrity. Having this high sense of doing the right thing and purpose and realizing that I think everything that I have, I was blessed to receive. It doesn't mean that I didn't work hard for it, it doesn't mean I don't think I deserve it but I also think there are a lot of other people that are deserving.
There's a big part of me that feels like I need to use what I've been given and not even just financial, even just knowledge and experiences to other people. Again, in all aspects, let me say one other thing, I'm on the board of Dick's Sporting Goods.
Even sports matters. Sports for so many people is how they learn so many life skills, whether it's teamwork and leadership and the ability to lose gracefully, the ability to win gracefully. Not all adults know that today. Just saying.
Paula Edgar: Some people need to go back there and learn.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Exactly. Even in the things that resonate with me and where I try to put myself, it's in those places where there's a shared value with who I am and with my brand. One of the things that I'm most proud of is there was a group of 19 Black and Brown executives of which I am one that started a foundation in Boston.
This was following the murder of George Floyd. I think like many people, I was thinking and we were thinking like, “Personally, this was not why I went into the law to work for these big corporations.” When I knew I wanted to be a lawyer was because I wanted to help the underdog, I wanted to help people that looked like me that were not getting a fair shake.
I wanted to help the George Floyds of the world. I just went into this, “Am I really using my talents in the way that I'm supposed to be using them?” There were other individuals that were feeling the same way. We got together and really realized that we have political and financial clout and could pull our money and our resources and get our companies to invest that we could invest and really do something for Brown and Black communities that would be impactful.
That's what we did. We started this foundation that provides money to nonprofits. Sometimes these nonprofits, when organizations look to give money to nonprofits, they have certain metrics and standards, and a lot of nonprofits that are doing great work in these communities just can't meet those metrics and standards.
They could meet different ones, but we tend to cookie-cut what good looks like. We wanted to make sure that we were providing resources in communities that really needed them in areas that really needed them, whether it was education or healthcare or other specific areas in a way that would impact the communities that we lived in the Massachusetts area.
Paula Edgar: I love that. I'm also on a foundation board in Boston as well. It's a family foundation of which I'm not a family member, although I am now, but one of the reasons why I wanted to participate, and this is somebody who I went to boarding school with who said, “Can you come on and help us to literally shake up what we do?” was because I understood that there were so many, to your point, barriers to access for folks who are doing good work that are standards, but they don't necessarily make sense.
They're sometimes preventing the good that they want to do because of the standards that they have. So I'm excited to have that as an opportunity. But one of the things you've said at the beginning of your talking about this experience was you collaborated, you got with other folks.
It's something I try to explain to people, your squad, whoever they are, is a huge part of your brand. What you can do, what opportunities you can get, things that you learn, all of those things are that board of directors, those folks who are helping to shift the world with you and really will tell you the truth and give you things to work on, et cetera, it's such a big part of your brand.
I'm really glad that you said that you all came together and said, "What can we all do?” More people need to think about of who surrounds them and how they can help impact the world because of that. So I'm glad you brought that up.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah, and it was such an important time because first of all, I had gone to law school in Boston, I didn't even know all of these individuals. I didn't even know we had that much, you're, “Oh, you're the GC here? Oh, you're the president of this bank? You're this?” we didn't even know that we all existed, many of us knew some of us, but nobody knew everybody, and then to realize we were all feeling the same way, and then realizing we could actually have an impact here.
I think we could individually, but what you could do collectively is even more significant. It was a really important time for us, for me personally and for us, I would say. Now the foundation is thriving.
Paula Edgar: Fantastic. It reminds me of the conversation that I had with Laurie Robinson Haden talking about how she started CCWC and getting folks together who all had the same challenges and putting that list together.
I know that you were going to be at CCWC. I’m very excited to see you there and glad that you were getting recognition. It made me think of this as a thing. Sometimes folks love recognition. They love getting awards, et cetera. We don't know each other well, but we know each other.
I want to ask you, what do those things mean to you in terms of, because I know that sometimes you get to a level and people are like, “Here's every award that exists,” but are there some things that mean more to you? Are there things that you’d rather do the work that you do? What are your thoughts around being acknowledged in those ways?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah, sure. First of all, I never pay for recognition. There are some recognitions where I get lots of stuff in my inbox, “We want to feature you as the most blah, blah, blah, on the cover of blah, blah, blah, and it's only going to cost you $1,500” type thing.
We don't pay for any recognitions at all. When you see me being recognized for something, it's unsolicited and it's not paid for. That means it does mean a lot to me. It means a lot to me because you don't always know that what you're doing quietly has an impact loudly.
We don't do it for the recognition. I don't do it for the recognition. But it's nice when someone says, “You know what, I see you. I see you. I see what you're doing.” I feel so honored to be getting this diamond award from CCWC because first I'll say, I remember the first couple of years, people would always say to me, “Are you going to CCWC?” and I would say, “No,” and I felt like one, I didn't really know know about it and then two, I felt like I was far in my career and what's the benefit for me. Honestly, that's how I felt.
Then the first time I went, I was like, “I cannot believe I've been missing this all these years.” If for no other reason than to be in a room of 1500 women that look like you, and have shared experiences, if nothing else when you're in that boardroom and you're the only one, you remember, “This might feel lonely, but I am not alone. I am not alone because I just left 1500 women who are in the same place with me, rooting for me, cheering for me, struggling with me, dealing with the same things.” To get an award from that organization, it means a lot to me. I'm very excited about it.
Paula Edgar: I'm excited about it for you as well. I'll be the one yelling outside. You explained it really well, but it's palpable when you're there about the power of women of color when we come together collectively to do anything, but specifically to talk about our experiences as lawyers and women in the law, it really is a don't miss. I'm excited that it's 20 years of fabulousness.
Another question that just came to my mind when you said about being seen, it reminded me of something somebody else said to me. It was Zabrina at Starbucks and when she was on the podcast, she talked about not really being seen at work until she had a mentor or a sponsor to show her how to show up and to be out there and show her value and not to be shy about it.
Have you had significant mentoring in terms of the work and places that you've been in? You talked about Ken, and what are some of the things that you've learned about yourself and your brand and building your brand from mentors that you've had?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah, it's interesting. I've definitely had mentors. I consider Ken one of my mentors for sure. There was a woman who was the CEO of Avon, Sheri McCoy, who I consider a mentor and they serve very specific purposes for me at different times in my life and in my career.
I'd look at Ken and think about, similar to me, first in his family to do what he did, Harvard Law School and trying to navigate a world that's different from the world that he knew and grew up in and did it with such integrity and grace. Certainly, was a man and I would say still is, even though I haven't talked to him in some time, but I will always consider him to be a mentor.
Sheri, interesting because she had three sons and worked her way up the corporate letter at Johnson & Johnson, dealt with, I would say, a professional disappointment when she didn't get a certain CEO role and someone else did, and again, watched her pivot and handle that with grace, but really looked up to her in terms of how do I navigate being a mother and being there, but also being a professional? Because that's so important to who I am and actually makes me a better mother.
I've definitely had mentors that I've looked up to, that I've tried to emulate leaders that I look to, sometimes leaders that I would look to and say, “Okay, that's not what I want to be.” It’s really important to me.
I will tell you one of the most significant lessons for me or opportunities for me came when I was at Johnson & Johnson, we were in a situation where it was a real crisis situation. This was around 2010, I guess. A real crisis situation with our facilities and some of our products, Tylenol and Motrin and Pepcid, those products.
It actually ended up resulting in the shutdown of our facility, a consent decree, congressional hearings, shareholder derivative suits. It was ugly. But one of the lessons that I learned during that was that my boss never said to me, “This is too big or too important to the J&J brand, I think I need to take this over,” or “You need help, you can't do it yourself,” or anything like that.
There were days, literally, I'd walk in the office and I didn't know if I was supposed to be like HR that day, equality that day. I would come in and they would say, “You need to talk to FDA, you and the head of quality need to talk to FDA,” or “You need to be in the boardroom because the board wants to talk to you.”
It was the most exciting time for me because I always say it was a nightmare for the company, but it's a lawyer's dream with all these issues. But it taught me so much. It taught me about enterprise leadership, and how to be more than just a lawyer.
But it also taught me the importance of letting people do it. Either they rise to the occasion or they don't. They let me do it and it was a pivotal turn in my career journey, if you will, because it opened lots of doors and then sponsors came from inside the company and wanted to know what did I want to do next? Where was I going to go next? How could they promote me?
It's one of the things that I think people just need is they just need an opportunity and you let them shine and you recognize them for that and they tend to show up.
Paula Edgar: I'm sitting here thinking to myself, “Gosh, number one, I wish I had worked for a leader such as you,” just even saying those things because to your point about bad bosses, I've had way too many experiences with those, but just people who lead without giving that agency and I think you don't get to learn and grow and even make mistakes.
People act as if mistakes are things that you can't get over. Yeah, they may be challenging in the meantime, but I do think that mistakes are what also help us build resilience and what we learn from that helps us build our brand.
Like you said, that probably was wild. I was sitting there getting anxious when you were talking about what was happening. But again, you're talking about from a place of “I did that” as opposed to “[inaudible].” It builds us. They say [inaudible] makes you stronger. I'm like, “I'm strong enough, but I'm good.” They do build you. They do build you.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: They do.
Paula Edgar: One of the questions I had was about a challenge that you have, but you just talked about it.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Yeah. I think it's “I built that,” and also, someone gave me the space to build that. Because too often, I think, in corporate America, there's a lot of “Oh, this is really important. I'm going to do it. This is really important. I need to shine.” But someone gave me the opportunity, believed I could do it, and let me do it. They were comfortable enough with themselves to let me do it.
Paula Edgar: That’s a real boss move. When you're like, “Look how good of a leader I am that everybody's shining.”
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: That's right. That's right.
Paula Edgar: Speaking of boss moves, you have been recognized as one of the most powerful women in corporate America. Just take a minute a little, okay? How do you balance being authentic and still visible? We talked about the big brand, but the most powerful women in corporate America, that's a huge thing.
I remember I was talking to Carla Harris, I was like, “You're on a Fortune One company, how do you even wrap that around your head?” It's that same sort of thing. How do you balance authenticity and that visibility comes with the role and that recognition?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I think that recognition comes in part because of the authenticity, to be honest. I don't think that I would be nearly as successful or be able to really connect with people if I was pretending to be something that I wasn't. I think in part, that's where that comes from.
Also, I don't think about it. Well, and let me just say about the authenticity. I mean, listen, I say this all the time. What you get is the real Desiree, but you will not see the Saturday night Desiree.
People sometimes when they're like, “Yeah, your authentic self,” well, you don't need to bring all yourself to work. There's some of myself that is reserved for my family, my very, very close friends. That's that. I think authenticity, but I think also balancing that with the appropriateness of the forum and the environment.
But I also just think, I don't really think about it. I don't do anything because of the reward or the recognition or the visibility. I think maybe where I've seen people trip up is when they're so focused on personal branding that that becomes what they're focused on.
I think I was first, I am first, and then my brand has followed as opposed to—and maybe this is the wrong way to do it, you should tell me—but as opposed to this is the brand, and now I'm going to follow that. It has followed me, and I think that having that strong upbringing, strong sense of faith, a feeling of who I am and knowing who I am and what I'm capable of doing, all of that, that's my authentic self. I don't really think about the lists or the recognition. Actually, until you said that, I didn't even remember I was on a list like that.
Paula Edgar: Well, I love that. I will take the shine and think about it for you. I'll be like, “Do you know that Desiree?” I have received awards and it's always for me like, “Okay, what does this mean?” Of course, I love stuff. I'm like, “Yeah, this is great.” But then it's like, “So what does it mean?”
Whether it's because I'm a child of immigrants or first and all the things in my family, I don't know, but I'm always like, “It means I got to do more.” My business tagline is “Engage your hustle.” It’s like, “What's going to be next? What's going to be next?” because I'm always thinking about legacy.
Having lost my mom at a young age, I always think about the things that she didn't get to do with the things that she would have wanted me to do, like I said, being the wind or the leaf. Those are a tie-in, like, “Okay, good, I'm hitting the point that my mom would have liked. It would have been helpful.”
But to your point, I'm not doing it for those things. I always am surprise like, “Me?” Then I'm like, “Okay, yeah, P.” But your question about what comes first, your vision of the brand, or you being it, it's a mindset. It's when those two things come together.
The excellence that you talked about, and then the strategies and the decisions that you make, all of those things put in together, that's what makes a strong brand. But when you are working on it, I think you should have a vision first.
All my listeners always know I'm always talking about intention when it comes to branding because that's being the wind as opposed to being the leaf. You might get there, but I want you to think about where you want to go because tomorrow's not promised. I'm like, “What are we going to do today? Let's figure this out.” Always to a good goal, always to making the world better, making our situations better, making situations better for everybody and the future is important.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: And you know what else I loved about what you just said, I love that, and I'm sure this is common, like when you've lost someone that's close to you, a part of that driver is continuing to want to make them proud. I mean, I know my mom's watching me, and even though I'd rather have her here telling me she's proud of me, it's part of the driver of “Is this something that she would approve of? Is this something that would make her proud? Is this something that reflects the legacy, her legacy?”
Paula Edgar: Yeah, is it doing the good she talked about?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: That's right.
Paula Edgar: Yes, absolutely. Tell me, do you have any advice for people who are trying to build their brands?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: It's a little bit how I think about weight loss. It takes a long time to establish your brand. It can be lost like that. Weight loss is the opposite. It comes on really quickly, but it can take forever to come up. But I do think it's really important to be who you want people to know you as and to reflect that in your behavior, your decisions, your speech, your activities, your focus.
A lot of times, and this happened to me, someone was already talking to others about me before they even reached out to me to say, "We'd like you to think about this job." They had already talked to other people who had interacted with me in my career, people that they knew, people that I knew. That's your brand.
That's your brand when you don't even know conversations are happening right now. Conversations right now could be happening about you. What are those people saying about you? You want it to be positive, you don't want it to be like, “Oh, this person's angry,” or “This person doesn't have an open mind,” or not sure about whether they're the most ethical person.
What you want to be and to be known for is how you have to show up at every single time, and just assume that somebody is evaluating you, somebody is watching you, and then someone is having a conversation about you and about that interaction.
Again, I save my frustrations for certain people, for that safe space. It's not at work, it's with my husband, it's with my brother, it's with my closest friends and family. But that's where if I have to say a bad word or if I have to express frustration, or something that I don't want to be known for in the professional world, that's where I can let that out. But in the professional space, I always try to remember, reflect who you want to be known as, and embody that in all aspects of what you do and say.
Paula Edgar: I love that. We'll save all of those other things for Saturday night Desiree.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: That's right. After a couple of cocktails, it's on.
Paula Edgar: Speaking of, and maybe not, what do you do for fun?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I don't know, hey, fun. That's a good question. I love to read. I know some people would say that's not fun. I love to work out. I love the gym.
Paula Edgar: Some people would say that's not fun too.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I know it's not to some people, but I do. I love the gym. I love to shop Friday night. I didn't say Friday night Desiree. I said Saturday night Desiree, but Friday night Desiree usually has a glass of wine and internet shopping. I get lots of cool stuff. I wake up Saturday, I'm like, “What the heck did I buy?” I get lots of cool stuff the following week, and then I send it back to the store. That's all fun to me.
Paula Edgar: There we are. That's where we were aligned right there. I'm like, “Ooh, what can I get today?” Yeah, it's the return piece I need to work on. I ask the same two questions of each of my guests, and one is this: What is one aspect of your brand, I call it stand by your brand, that you will never compromise on?
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Integrity, I will never not do the right thing. I don't want to embarrass myself, I don't want to embarrass my family, I want my children to be proud of me. In the corporate environment, I have been asked to do things that did not sit well with me, and I refused to do it, but in my mind, for sure, it was either that person has to go or I have to go. It's not something I could ever, ever compromise on.
Paula Edgar: Love that. The second question is this: Branding Room Only is a play on standing room only because I am clever so I want you to talk to me about what is something about you, something that they would experience about you, some magic that you have that people would be in a room where there'd be only standing room in order to experience about you.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: I think it's honestly the authentic conversation. I mean, listen, I'm not afraid to share my vulnerable self. I feel more, and I will say this to my team a lot, I feel more like them than I do like me.
I remember climbing up the corporate ladder, I remember the fears, I remember being a working mother and being afraid that my kids were going to be sitting on the front stoop because I was late to daycare for picking them up.
I remember not feeling like my boss was including me in the conversation. I remember not being sure about “What do I pack for this business trip?” I think that people really connect with the fact that I see them because I was them and I'm still them in some respects.
I've certainly had a successful professional career, but I'm vulnerable enough to share my fears, my stories, my challenges, my history, my hopes and do it in a way that lets them know one, I'm willing and able to help them in any way I can, even if it's like, “This is how I navigated this. It may be right for you, it may not be right for you, but this is how I did it.”
There were a couple of times when I moved for bigger opportunities and my family couldn't move at the time, because well, they could have, but my husband and I decided the kids were in school. Let's let them finish out the school year. Those were some of the most difficult times of my life being away from my kids, and commuting on the weekends and that sort of thing.
It's not for everybody, but I'm very comfortable sharing some of those stories about how I felt and how sad I was and how I would think about, “Am I a terrible mother? Because I'm putting this before them because I'm coming home Thursday through Sunday,” all of that.
I don't know that I've done it right. There are lots of different ways to do it, but I'm certainly willing to share what I've learned. I think people gravitate towards that. I think they'd come into a room to hear it because either they'd do something differently or they'd want to see how I did it and they feel seen.
Paula Edgar: I love that. Well, I'm so happy that you had a chance to tell your story on my podcast and being in The Branding Room. I appreciate your authenticity and your vulnerability and your integrity in the conversation. Whenever you want to talk, you feel free to call and we'll talk as much as you want. Anytime you want. I look forward to seeing you get your award at CCWC and I'm going to see you soon anyway. Thank you for being in The Branding Room. Thanks, Desiree.
Desiree Ralls-Morrison: Thank you, Paula. Thanks for having me.
