Why I joined Asana: Trish Tormey, Product Marketing Manager

Welcome to our monthly “Why I joined Asana” series! Every month, we talk with Asanas across our teams and offices—from Dublin to Sydney—to get to know the people inside the company and learn why they chose to work here.

Meet Trish Tormey, a Product Marketing Manager in our San Francisco headquarters! Trish works closely with our Product Management team to launch new products and features that help teams around the world work together effortlessly.

Trish grew up in Portland, Oregon, went to school in North Carolina, lived in Chicago, and is now happy to be back on the West Coast, where she’s been at Asana for almost 5 years. Get to know Trish and why she joined #teamasana.

How did you become interested in working at Asana?

I love the idea of teamwork and solving for inefficiencies in our daily life, but I never thought I’d work in tech. Prior to Asana, I spent time in sports marketing at Duke University and coached cross country and track at Northwestern University while getting my Masters Degree in Sports Administration. I loved the experience of inspiring the team I coached to take big risks and learn incredible life lessons through sport.

When my husband and I moved to the Bay Area from Chicago, I was interested in taking what I’d learned from all the great teams I’d been a part of and work for a technology company that was solving a big problem. I was inspired by the idea of figuring out the challenges of teamwork while working at a company that was a thought leader in that space. Once I met with a few individuals from Asana, I immediately knew it was the place for me to grow and learn.

What team are you currently on, and what are some of the most interesting aspects of your role?

I’m currently on the Product Marketing team. It’s been fun to be part of the evolution of Product Marketing here and establish how we collaborate across the company to bring solutions to market. I helped create the system we still use today, a project called Shipping and Launches where we track all of our product changes and how we bring them to market for anyone in the company to follow.

As we’ve grown, our team’s responsibilities now include not only the go-to-market strategy, but discovery as well. This means bringing customer insights into the product process to help build the best solutions possible. Most recently I worked on the launch of Workload with effort and capacity, and now I’m working as the Product Marketing partner to one of our three product pillars, Clarity. This team concentrates on delivering the Pyramid of Clarity through our product, which is a fundamental part of our mission including things such as subtasks, tasks, sections, portfolios, and more. It’s exciting to think about how we create a more insightful product while ensuring the building blocks are stable and optimized for different types of workflows.

What was your journey to becoming a Product Marketing Manager?

After dedicating five-plus years to the sports world, I was ready to take my skills in a new direction. Asana provided the perfect opportunity for me to get my hands dirty in all things marketing, from running our blog calendar, to hosting our first customer event, to helping relaunch our entire mobile app—all while learning from incredibly smart managers and teammates.

When I first joined, the Marketing team only had five people. After about seven months at Asana, I was able to move onto our Product Marketing team to fill a need we had to partner more closely with the Product team. Since then, I’ve worked across our product, from mobile to integrations and our most recent Asana Business launches. As the company has grown, I’ve been able to execute bigger and bolder campaigns, partner more closely with product, and have more space for truly understanding our customers and market trends.

What are you most excited for as you grow in your role at Asana?

As we grow, we are moving from launching features one by one to creating bigger and bolder campaigns and solutions. I’m excited to partner closely with the Clarity pillar to establish processes that will scale with our fast-growing team and ensure our customers‘ voices are heard throughout the product process. In a fast-growing market, our competitors are continuing to evolve, and it’s fun to be part of a visionary team that is thinking big and bold about what the future of work can look like.

What’s it like to use the Asana product every day?

Product Marketing is an incredibly cross-functional role and I literally don’t know how I would do my job without using Asana. I have one source of truth to communicate with my Product, Sales, Design, Customer Success, and Marketing partners. Everyday I know exactly where we are in the product process, I can easily communicate with stakeholders, and I know exactly what I need to get done. I love that we are able to quickly create templates for repeatable processes (efficiencies for the win) and find the information we need to do our jobs.

What value have you carried with you throughout your career, and where did you first hear it?

At Duke, I went from being the slowest runner on my team as a freshman, to an All-American as a senior. Although this now feels like a very long time ago, the lessons I learned through that experience have impacted how I operate today. I learned how important it is to keep up with the basics and run your own race.

I’ve tried to keep those lessons with me in my career by trying to not overcomplicate things and trusting my instincts. This can mean asking questions (even if they feel dumb) to make sure everyone is aligned on what we are actually trying to do, be communicative so teammates understand what is going on, and think about what’s actually possible given the resources and time available. Instead of spending time comparing yourself or your work, focus on what you can do well to help the team the most.

If you could give a new Asana one piece of advice, what would it be?

I have two! First, take ownership of your role and its impact. The opportunities are endless if you are proactive. Second, bringing your entire self to work has incredible benefits, so don’t be afraid to do it. As a mom of two young kids, I often feel pulled in many directions. I’ve found that being real with my teammates has enabled me to form closer relationships and ultimately, it’s brought me more joy and fun at work. I don’t have to pretend that everything in my life is perfect, but that also doesn’t make me worse at my job. I would actually argue it makes me and my team better.

Our Marketing team is growing! Come work with Trish and the rest of #teamasana. We have open roles in San Francisco, Dublin, Tokyo and Munich.