Growing up on a row crow and hog farm in Indiana, Breanna Lawyer of Shirley, Ind., learned early that optimism goes a long way in life. Those lessons she learned working alongside her dad on the farm continue to inspire and challenge her to be her best in her role today as Elanco’s U.S. swine marketing brand manager.
“My dad still runs a nursery barn and despite the market being what it is now, his optimism and desire to get up and do the same thing every day with a positive attitude is something that goes a long way regardless of what you are pursuing in life,” Lawyer says.
She credits her dad who diligently works to feed the world as her mentor in terms of his work ethic and how he treats others with respect, all while having a positive outlook every day. It’s that perspective that so many hog farmers share that recently drew Lawyer back to the commercial hog industry.
After graduating from Black Hawk College East Campus, she transferred to Purdue University and majored in ag business. She went straight to Dow AgroSciences in a territory associate role in the range and pasture business before moving to southeast Florida to pursue a crop protection sales position with the company. She continued to take on new challenges and grow into new roles in global transformation and business before she landed a unique opportunity with Elanco’s marketing team. After almost a year in this role, she recently shifted over to oversee Elanco’s porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS) and respiratory product focus.
Read on to learn more about Lawyer’s career with Elanco, from her business philosophy to her views on consumer demand in the pork industry.
Q. Tell me about your business.
A. Elanco is well known for not only bringing producers solutions, but also collaborating and working with producers to better understand what they need and why, in addition to the challenges they’re facing, whether it’s a product fit, or even some of value-add work that we do from a data to decisions standpoint.
Q. What is your why?
A. Agriculture, and specifically the livestock industry, has always been the base of what I’ve done in life. Regardless of where I’ve gone, agriculture and production have always been what’s driven me to make my next career move. Specifically, my why is to help people be successful. I want to show other young women in agriculture that you can succeed, work hard, stay humble and be respectful at the same time. There are always opportunities for folks like that.
Q. Describe a typical day on the job for you.
A. It changes day by day but here in the short term, it’s preparing for Elanco’s launch of Pradalex. I am working with regulatory, manufacturing, account managers, technical consultant teams (veterinarians and nutritionists), ensuring I’m aligned with them as far as product positioning and resources that we have for our account managers and external stakeholders. When I’m not helping launch a new product, it looks like forecasting or answering questions that a customer or account manager might have about a specific purchase order that’s been sent in.
Q. How does your company help and work with its customers?
A. We work closely with producers to better understand everything from optimizing profitability at the packer level to transport loss and from sow productivity to market animal selection training. We focus on product fit but also educating and trying to improve efficiency at the producer level. Our account managers are known for their partnership with producers and tools that we have to bridge that gap to help them be as efficient and profitable as possible.
Q. How has the swine industry changed in the past year?
A. I’ve watched the overall resiliency and openness to collaborate with each other from a producer standpoint improve as far as conversations about things that are going well and things that aren’t going well. The past few years have been extremely challenging for producers. I think producers have truly displayed leadership resiliency not only at the barn level but also in advocating why we do what we do. I believe a big mindshift is taking place in how they approach things on a day-to-day basis.
Q. What concerns do you have about the swine industry?
A. The volatility in ag right now is concerning – not to mention when you add the layer of public perception and production practices receiving pressure. To me, one of the big challenges in ag in general is educating consumers to ensure we continue to have the freedom to operate moving forward.
Q. What are the greatest opportunities in the swine industry today?
A. Even though I grew up with a production hog background, you are separated just a little bit from where you come from when you go to school. Your eyes open to other opportunities. When I was in crop protection, I missed talking about livestock and production ag outside of row crop. I know it sounds cliché, but the people in the swine industry brought me back to commercial pork production.
Q. What do you enjoy most about your job?
A. I enjoy sitting down with producers and hearing straight from them about the challenges they face and the bright spots they see. I value the collaboration I have with them in my job. It’s that true teamwork that I love most about my job, whether that’s internal with our account managers or sitting down one on one with producers.
Q. What is your business philosophy?
A. All too often we focus on driving toward results and being very task oriented. But I always think it’s helpful to take a step back and remember you are working with people. From a business values standpoint, I think it’s about making it clear you care about the people you work with. You will deliver better results when you know the people you work with care about what you are doing and appreciate what you are doing. For me, it’s a lot greater than just KPIs or increase to the bottom line. That’s nice to have, and obviously very important, but at same time one of the core values I have is respect, empathy and a willingness to work together. To me, that is what embodies leadership even more so than hitting a goal and delivering a plan.
Q. What will the business look like 20 years from now?
A. I hope we continue to be innovative and that there will be less of a gap between consumers and producers. We are doing an extremely good job at getting more effective and productive, and that continues to improve, but it doesn’t matter how productive or efficient we are if we don’t have consumers that want our products. I would like to see pork consumption up and producers still being efficient and productive and profitable.
Q. If you could go back and do something differently in your career, what would it be and why?
A. Ask more questions. I look back and think about the things I had the opportunity to do and wish I would have tried to understand better rather than just knock out tasks. If I could go back, I would ask questions like, “Why are we doing it this way?” Take advantage of opportunities to sit down with subject matter experts.
Q. What advice do you have for someone who might like to do what you do someday?
A. Lean on the folks you know that are in an industry that you are passionate about. The best way to understand if a career is something you want to do or not is to experience it through job shadowing or internships. The more hands-on, one-on-one experience you can get with folks is best. Not only does that help you understand what you do or don’t want to do, but it builds a network of people to help you find the right fit. I’m a big advocate of surrounding yourself with leaders in industries you are passionate about. We can all get caught up in going through the motions. My biggest piece of advice is to ask yourself what you enjoy doing and why, then surround yourselves with people you can lean on to set your network to get yourself into those positions.
Editor’s Note: PORK Perspectives is a recurring column that provides business and leadership strategy tips from some of the pork industry’s finest. Pradalex and Elanco are trademarks of Elanco or its affiliates.
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