Vice President of Growth
“What makes me, it’s not the achievements and the accolades. It’s my spirit, my soul.”
Not all kids get to stay kids. Justin Hutchinson was fourteen when his father was diagnosed with brain cancer. While his friends were focused on football and school, Justin made an adult decision: show up for his father and help care for him. Perspective arrived early.
Football had been the center of his world. He was good enough that his Baton Rouge coach believed a scholarship at a D1 university was realistic, and when his father's health improved for a stretch, that future came within reach. Then the cancer returned, and this time there was little time left. Justin decommitted from the university he was going to pursue a football career at, and he says "I have no regrets. God honored me in other ways for honoring my father."
Justin's father would unfortunately pass away a few months after he made this decision, at which point Justin enrolled in and finished prerequisites at a community college. He then took on student loans, and enrolled at Louisiana State University to study marketing. He covered rent working the counter at a smoothie shop, where the real work turned out to be people. He learned his regulars by their cars and their orders, started their drinks before they reached the register, and used the extra minutes to get to know them.
One of those regulars ran a marketing agency. He offered Justin an internship, and Justin turned it into a full-time job. Holding a growing career and a full course load at the same time proved impossible; the loans kept climbing, and there was no family safety net behind him. The choice between the degree and the job resolved itself the day a professor, who had no idea Justin was enrolled in his class, emailed to ask whether this promising young marketer would come speak to his students about the work.
Justin left school and now ten years into his career, he is still at that agency, ThreeSixtyEight, where for the past two years he has been Vice President of Growth, accountable for the company's expansion across sales and marketing. He has driven multi-million-dollar revenue growth, built partnerships with Fortune 500 companies, and is working toward a seat in the C-suite.
For years Justin led with the smoothie shop. Now he leads with results and lets the backstory fill in behind them. He takes that story to stages at Indeed FutureWorks, JFF Horizons, and SHRM events across Louisiana, making the case for skills-first hiring: judge people by what they can do and what they have overcome.
At home, Justin is married with a son named after the father he stayed for.
His argument for STARs is simple, and he has become the proof of it. Give someone the opportunity, make a real investment in them, and they can transform any business fortunate enough to have them.
Alternative Routes:
- Partial college completion
- On-the-job experience
- Internship
Top 3 Skills:
- Empathy
- Strategic thinking
- Sales management
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