This Beam Suntory exec has worked in Russia, Slovakia, and Hong Kong. She thinks more people should consider a global career

– Around the world. Throughout her career, Jessica Spence has worked in Russia, Slovakia, Poland, Hong Kong, Denmark, and now New York. It’s the kind of global trajectory that not everyone considers—but Spence thinks more people should.

Spence is the president of North America for Beam Suntory, the spirits business behind Jim Beam, Maker’s Mark, and other liquor brands. Since finishing business school, she’s spent her career in the alcohol industry. “I knew I wanted to see a lot of the world and that I wanted to build brands that mattered to people,” she says.

Early on, at the beer business SABMiller (since acquired by AB InBev), Spence hopped around Eastern Europe running marketing. She addressed challenges like how to sell a new apple beer to Russian women, who didn’t often drink inside bars but carried beverages with them like an accessory.

Courtesy of Beam Suntory

She arrived at the brewer Carlsberg Group to oversee marketing from Hong Kong and later held business roles for markets from India to China. Spence says this was the biggest growth accelerator in her career, learning about different ways of doing business and leading teams—as well as operating in an even more male-dominated part of the alcohol industry.

In 2019, Spence moved to the U.S. to oversee brands and now runs the North American market for Beam Suntory. In the U.S., she leaned into the granularity of markets not just by states, but by cities and neighborhoods.

The U.S., too, was an international stop for Spence, who was raised in Luxembourg and attended university in the U.K. Growing up in such a small country gave Spence an early global perspective. “You know growing up that you’re going to leave,” she says. “Everyone is looking at countries next door and around the world imagining that’s going to be part of their lives.”

But Spence thinks more people—even those who start their careers in the biggest markets—should consider a global career. “Think really hard about what a global career could give you; that richness and the level of learning. The speed at which you have to learn because you don’t have anything else to go on,” she says. “You’ve just got your ability to learn and think through problems.”

She acknowledges the challenges of a career that requires frequent 6,000-mile moves. Spence doesn’t have children, which makes moving around the globe every few years a bit easier. “You have to be honest; there are going to be moments that are really tough—and it’s tough on you as a family. You’re not just putting yourself through it—at a certain point in life, you’re going to be putting your loved ones through it too,” she says.

Still, she’s a proponent of the career path for anyone who is “clear-eyed” about those challenges. “It accelerates your development,” she says. “It definitely did for me.”

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Separately, Fortune is soliciting nominations for its Impact20 list, which celebrates startups that have incorporated a social mission into their money-making operations. You can nominate a startup using this form and contact the editors overseeing the project at impact20@fortune.com. This year’s list will publish in early December, and the deadline for applications is Oct. 23.

Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
@_emmahinchliffe

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PARTING WORDS

"When you’re the first, you need to do well for yourself, but you also have to do well for all those who want to come up after you. If you mess up, people judge a whole community based on your actions."

—White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, the first Black person and the first openly gay person to hold the position, on being a representative for those communities