Meet Fred, Our New VP of Enterprise Marketing!

Welcome Fred!

The Gravitate team is a cast of colorful characters. Meet one of our newest team members, Fred Love, VP of Enterprise Marketing. Not only does he have 11 years of experience in B2C marketing in Tokyo and 19 years of B2B marketing in Silicon Valley, he was a Gravitate client for six years. He says, “I loved the team and their work so much that I asked to join the agency. They lowered their standards and brought me onboard!”

The team asked, Fred answered.

Who influenced you as a child, other than your parents?

My grandmother was a biology teacher. She was cantankerous, but somehow tolerated me as a preschooler. An educator at heart, she’d take me fishing, cut open the fish, and show me how everything worked: mouth connected to stomach connected to intestines; gills connected to veins connected to heart.

She taught me that with some education and observation, you could understand how things work. It’s a lesson that stuck with me, and it steered me to non-fiction authors who explain things like Carl Sagan, Rachel Carson, Isaac Asimov, and Jared Diamond. They taught me that facts are more useful than opinions, which is something we seem to have forgotten these days.

What is something you’ve learned in navigating uncertainty?

Don’t listen to The Harvard Business Review.

Name something super-overrated. Why?

Game of Thrones. Seriously, I just want to relax. Why do I need a Gantt chart, a character database, GPS, and an eight-season commitment to memorize all this stuff?

Name something super-underrated. Why?

The Oxford comma. Look how one punctuation mark totally changes the meaning of a sentence:

“The nadir of Trump’s administration featured encounters with Rudy Giuliani, a healthcare disaster and a sex toy vendor.”

…versus…

“The nadir of Trump’s administration featured encounters with Rudy Giuliani, a healthcare disaster, and a sex toy vendor.” (The vendor in question is Four Seasons Gardening’s next-door neighbor.)

What was your first job?

My first job was as a dishwasher at a Red Robin. It was pretty disgusting, but it taught me grit.

My second job was as a busboy at a beachfront restaurant in Santa Cruz, CA. It was a high-end joint with equally high expectations for service. I had a knack for it and was promoted to waiter and then manager before I was 20. (I was recommending wine before I could legally drink.) The gig taught me humility, customer service, negotiation, and grace under pressure, skills that were oddly useful when I worked in Tokyo and I still leverage today.

Folks say you’re a car nut. What do you drive?

My name is Fred and I’m a car-aholic. Admitting that I have an addiction is the first step in overcoming it.

I’ve had some good business outcomes that enable this hobby, to the point that a neighbor asked if I’m a drug dealer. (Sadly, I’m not.) When I die and I’m being screened at heaven’s gate by…whoever does the screening…Saint Peter?…I’ll have to read a list of cars that I’ve owned to a bunch of hungry orphans. This is objectively not good, and I’m donating and volunteering furiously to correct the balance of my karma account.

How many emails are currently in your inbox?

[redacted]

Have you always had great hair?

Are you kidding? I can’t even compare to this luxuriant mane:

Gravitate CEO Colten Tidwell

What career advice would you give your 20 year-old-self?

“Do what you love and you’ll never work a day in your life” is bullshit. Who’s going to pay me to drink beer and watch Star Trek?

Instead, find the job that you like and are good at, then double down and become awesome at it so you’re the go-to in your industry. Clients and hiring companies will pay a premium to get the best. Plus location, location, location: Building your career is easier if you have the wind at your back. Go where your services are in demand: Los Angeles for entertainment, New York for finance, Silicon Valley for tech, Vancouver WA for web development and digital marketing.

That’s good advice, but not great advice. What else you got?

Always suck up to the CEO. (See “luxuriant mane” comment above.)

Also, the name “Dorito” suggests there’s a bigger, more delicious “Doro” out there. Hey 20-year-old self, make it your job to find it.

This is why I’m not a career counselor.