The CMO Podcast

Happy Women's History Month! The CMO Podcast continues to celebrate key women leaders with Jim's guest this week–Deena LaMarque Piquion, the Chief Growth & Disruption Officer at Xerox, the 118-year-old workplace products and services company. Of course, Xerox holds a special place in brand history; like Kleenex, Google, and Coke, Xerox is one of the few brands that became synonymous with its category.

Today, Xerox is a $7 billion company, and more diversified than the company you likely remember. Its current slogan, “We make Work, Work” says it all. In January, Xerox announced a new operating model and organizational structure to accelerate its progress; Deena was elevated from Chief Marketing Officer to her current position as part of that reorganization. 

Deena is a first generation American; she studied Political Science and Government at Vassar, and earned a Masters at Georgetown in Foreign Service. Through a chance meeting at Georgetown with a CEO, Deena started her business career in Miami with Tech Data, a giant IT distribution company. Deena then spent 19 years at Tech Data before joining Xerox in 2019. Tune in for a conversation with a self-titled leader: "Mother, Inspirational Leader and Business-minded Executive. Dedicated to raising kind and productive kids.”  

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To kick off Women's History Month, Jim's guest today on The CMO Podcast is Lara Abrash, the Chair of Deloitte US. In June 2023, Lara was promoted to the Chair role, where she runs the largest professional services firm in the US, with about 170,000 people in her organization.

Lara has worked at Deloitte for about 18 years, beginning as an audit partner in 2005. She earned her Bachelors in Economics at SUNY Albany, and her MBA in Accounting from Baruch College. Jim welcomes Lara on the podcast to talk about how she has approached leading the largest professional services firm in the US. Then, the show takes an interesting turn. Lara is an unabashed believer in the power of sports in building future women leaders, and the enormous economic opportunity for brands in the still massively underdeveloped area of women’s sports.

Tune in for a conversation with an athlete herself–Lara still plays competitive softball–and learn how she looks to develop the next generation of women leaders through sports.

Check out the "The real MVPs of business": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U5XqZ4PlQCg

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This week, The CMO Podcast celebrates Black History Month with a special episode centered on the incredibly fast start-up of an organization called BECA–the Black Executive CMO Alliance. BECA is the 3-year-old brainchild of founder & CEO Jerri DeVard, the former CMO of Verizon, ADT and Office Depot.

BECA is the only alliance created and composed of Black CMOs and CXOs to address the persistent diversity problems in America’s C-Suites and boardrooms. It has gained momentum in the short three years since its founding; its membership represents a collective market cap of $800 billion.

Jim is joined by three leaders whose lives have been impacted by BECA:

-Gail Petersen: Chief Marketing Officer & Executive Vice President, Global Marketing & Communications at Ecolab, a global leader in water, hygiene and infection prevention solutions

-DeLu Jackson: Executive Vice President & Chief Marketing Officer for the home-security company ADT

-Christina Marshall-Valdez: Director of Commercialization, Southeast Asia, SC Johnson–the large, privately held consumer products company. Christina is a BECA Future Leader who has recently graduated as part of the first cohort of The BECA Playbook.

Learn more about BECA at https://blackexec.com/

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Just in time for the month of love, this week's guest on The CMO Podcast is Michelle Crossan-Matos, the Chief Marketing Officer for Ulta Beauty. Founded in 1990, Ulta Beauty is the largest beauty retailer in the US, with sales in the $11 billion range, and growing. It offers a wide range of beauty products and salon services: 25,000 products online and across their nearly 1400 stores, from 500 well established AND emerging brands.

Ulta Beauty is not just big; the company is highly innovative in how they think about their store associates, their retail media, their loyalty program, and how they work with brand partners. 

Michelle was born and raised in Glasgow, Scotland. She graduated from the University of Strathclyde Business School before joining P&G in Europe. After 16 years at P&G, Michelle held CMO roles at Vertu, the luxury tech brand, and Samsung US. Michelle joined Ulta about one year ago. She has two middle-school-aged children, and splits her time between Puerto Rico and the Chicago area, where Ulta Beauty is based. 

Of special note: Jim had the previous CMO of Ulta Beauty, Shelley Haus, on the show in October 2020. Shelley was one of the brightest stars in the industry, and sadly passed away in the summer of 2022. So, it is with poignancy that Jim welcomes her successor.

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Tune in this week for The CMO Podcast's fifth annual Super Bowl Roundtable Discussion! Important marketers provide insight into how they created their Super Bowl ads and share their thoughts on the biggest marketing day of the year.

Jim welcomes special co-host, Gary Vaynerchuk, Chairman of VaynerX & CEO at VaynerMedia. 

Joining this year's conversation:

Brett O'Brien (CMO of PepsiCo Foods North America)

Kory Marchisotto (CMO of e.l.f. Beauty and President at Keys Soulcare)

Russell Wager (VP Marketing for KIA America)

Gabrielle Wesley (CMO of Mars Wrigley North America)

Andrea Zaretsky (CMO of Morgan Stanley Wealth Management)

Michelle Deignan (VP of Marketing & GM of OREO)

Adam Kornblum (SVP & Global Head of Digital Marketing at CeraVe)

David Corns (CMO of Open Door)

Eric Edge (Managing Director, Marketing & Advertising for Alaska Air)

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This week's guest on The CMO Podcast is Vineet Mehra, the Chief Marketing Officer of Chime. The 12-year-old fintech company was founded by Chris Britt and Ryan King as an alternative to traditional banking. Interesting marketing trivia: many believe the official launch of the company was in April 2014, when Chime was featured on "Dr. Phil."

Chime is a private company, with a mission to bring financial peace of mind to its customers. It has raised more than $2 billion in funding from a Who’s Who in venture capital. Revenue is estimated to be about $1 billion, with more than 20 million customers.

Vineet was last on The CMO Podcast in May 2020, when he was the Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Customer Officer at Walgreens Boots Alliance. Vineet, like Jim, began his career at P&G. Following nine years at P&G, Vineet worked at General Mills, Novartis, Johnson & Johnson, and Ancestry. Last time Jim and Vineet spoke, he had dreams of starting a pizzeria–so tune in for an update on that, plus a whole lot more.

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Jim's guests on The CMO Podcast are entrepreneurs Mike Zelkind and Tisha Livingston, founders of 80 Acres Farms. Mike is the CEO of 80 Acre Farms and Tisha is the CEO of Infinite Acres, a subsidiary of 80 Acres and the tech platform that powers the company.

Listeners are likely not familiar with this company, but should be. The nine-year old startup has raised more than $250 Million and revolutionized farming. 80 Acres is a pioneer in indoor, vertical farming. Imagine a farm that does not need sun, soil or favorable weather. It also does not use pesticides, and instead utilizes 100% renewable energy and 97% less water than a traditional farm, making it 300x more productive. 80 Acres Farms produce now appears in Kroger, Whole Foods, and other select retailers.

Mike and Tisha met while working together at Pierre Foods. Both had backgrounds in supply chain management before becoming partners and founding 80 Acres in 2015. Tune in for a conversation with a new breed of farmers, who have a true sense of conviction to help make a better world.

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Before we get too far into 2024, let's look back at the five major business themes from the 50-plus CMO Podcasts recorded last year. To apply these lessons to our work this year, we have invited three previous CMO Podcast guests to join us for a fruitful discussion.

First, Jim welcomes Julius Robinson, the Chief Sales & Marketing Officer for the US and Canada for Marriott International. Second, Samatha Maltin, Chief Marketing Officer for Sesame Workshop, the non-profit educational organization behind Sesame Street, one of the best-loved brands in the world. And the third guest is Jay Livingston, the Chief Marketing Officer at Shake Shack. 

Tune in for an ambitious episode–to reveal the five themes from CMOs in 2023, and to invite our guests to share their insights and advice on each theme. 

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Jim's guest today on The CMO Podcast is Jessica Correa, the Chief Marketing Officer of Unleashed Brands, the most interesting company you have probably not heard of. It is a portfolio company of brands that focus on youth development, including Urban Air Adventure Parks, Little Gym, Snapology, and Premier Martial Arts. The business model of Unleashed Brands is similar to a franchise model–they partner with founders and help them scale with support in human resources, technology, finance, marketing, legal and insurance. Systemwide revenue is in the $800 million range.

Jessica is an experienced marketer. After a BA from University of Tennessee in business and French, and an MBA from Emerson, Jessica spent nearly 13 years at Royal Caribbean. Jessica then took on CMO-like roles at Carpet One Floor & Home, Planet Fitness, and Urban Air Adventure Parks, before getting promoted to CMO of all Unleashed Brands. Tune in for a conversation with a CMO who thinks a lot about how kids learn, play and grow.

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We're still feeling that party energy of the holidays as Jim welcomes Taylor Berry, the VP of Brand Marketing at Tito’s Handmade Vodka, to The CMO Podcast. Austin-based Tito’s may be handmade, but it is no small brand. Tito’s is the number 1 best-selling vodka brand in the US, with revenue in the $2 billion range. Its story is a classic American Dream saga. Bert “Tito” Beveridge–yes Beveridge is his real last name–founded the brand in 1995 after failed ventures in the oil and drilling industry, and in mortgage lending. 

Taylor has worked at Tito’s about 5 and a half years, with four years as the head of brand marketing. An LA native and graduate of USC, Taylor now makes Austin his home. Interestingly, Tito’s is Taylor’s first time on the client side; he spent the first several years of his career on the agency side, working with the creative powerhouses TBWA/Media Arts, Droga 5, and SS+K. So, pour yourself a Tito’s cocktail, and listen up as Taylor takes us behind the scenes of one of the great brand stories of our times. Plus, he announces the “With Tito’s” brand platform and the Tito's Spokescart.

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Ring in the new year with the CMO Podcast as Jim welcomes Jonathan Knight, the SVP, Head of Games for The New York Times. The Times Games include the famous New York Times Crossword Puzzle, The Mini Crossword, Wordle, Spelling Bee, Connections, and Tiles. Founded in 1851, The New York Times is one of the oldest and most respected brands in the world, with nearly 10 million subscribers.

Jonathan knows a lot about building brands with high and lasting consumer engagement and loyalty. He has worked in the gaming industry for nearly 30 years, holding roles at Activision in the early days, then Electronic Arts as the senior leader on the Sims franchise. Jonathan then moved to Zynga and Warner Brothers Games before joining the New York Times Games in the fall of 2020.

Tune in for a thoughtful conversation about how brands can learn from the high-growth gaming category, and what leaders at large could learn from popular and lasting game brands.

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Join us for one final episode to wrap up the year as Jim welcomes MJ DePalma, the Global Director of Cultural & Inclusive Business Impact at Microsoft. Founded in 1975 by Bill Gates, Microsoft is now a $200 billion by revenue–and growing–company with 220,000 employees. The company has also made headlines more than usual this year with its investment in OpenAI.

MJ is a UCLA graduate with a psychology degree, and has worked at Microsoft twice in her career–once for four years, and now going on 10 years in her current stint. She has held her role as Global Director for more than five years. MJ has a gift for inspiring and motivating people, and looks to the Microsoft Purpose Playbook as the best tool to drive herself and her team to be more welcoming and inclusive.

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Today's guest on The CMO Podcast is Shira Feuer, the Chief Marketing Officer of Trinny London, the seven-year-old, digital-first, global beauty brand founded by Trinny Woodall. Founder Trinny Woodall has been an influential personality on the fashion and beauty scene since the 90s, when she started a Daily Telegraph Ready-to-Wear column with Susannah Constantine. The column morphed into the BBC series What Not to Wear. Since its founding in 2017, Trinny London has succeeded within the beauty space, leaning on its number one purpose – to give everyone the tools they need to feel their best.

Shira hails from Canada, where she attended McGill University, but had always felt a calling overseas. Shira began her career in banking, which allowed her to move to London...where she discovered quickly that a career in finance was not for her. From there, she dove into marketing, making her way to a seminal experience at Burberry, before joining the team at Trinny London in 2019. She recently celebrated five years as CMO of the company.

With the holidays upon us, join Jim as he welcomes a CMO who can find inspiration from everywhere, and tease a few great gift options for your loved ones!

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Jim's guest today on The CMO Podcast is Tamara Mendelsohn, the Chief Marketing Officer for Eventbrite. The 17-year-old global self-service ticketing platform for live experiences allows anyone to create, share, find and attend events. The app showcases music festivals, marathons, conferences, community rallies, fundraisers, gaming competitions–and even air guitar contests. 12 years after its founding, Eventbrite went public. The company’s purpose is simple: to bring the world together through live experiences. The company certainly delivers that purpose, with five million events last year, nearly 300 million tickets, 800,000 creators using the platform, and a yearly revenue approaching $300 million.

Tamara joined Evenbrite in 2009, when the company was only three years old, and she was appointed Chief Marketing Officer about 3 and a half years ago. Before Eventbrite, Tamara spent four years as a Senior Analyst at Forrester, where she specialized in ecommerce and multichannel retail. Tamara studied comparative literature and economics at Wellesley College, and earned her MBA from the Sloan School of Management at MIT. Tune in for a conversation with a CMO who loves connecting and community!

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Jim's guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Derek Yarbrough, the Chief Marketing Officer at the J.Crew Group, where he looks over the J.Crew and Madewell brands. J.Crew began in 1983–40 years ago–with its first catalog. Since then it has grown to a multi-billion dollar clothing and accessories business, with hundreds of specialty retail stores, about 150 outlet stores, and a thriving on-line business. With its sister brand Madewell launching in 2006.

Derek has been at J.Crew for about 13 years, and most of those years on the Madewell brand, before being promoted to CMO of the J.Crew group in 2021. After graduating from Stanford with an Urban Studies degree, Derek worked briefly as a consultant before joining the startup WalMart.com as employee #33. From there Derek worked in direct-to-consumer marketing at several companies with memorable names including, Hips&Curves.com, Flirtcatalog.com, and Abbey Roads Programs.

As the J.Crew celebrates their 40 year anniversary, Derek joins Jim to talk his entrepreneur career which led to the brand, and how inspired he is by the fans who have stayed true through all these years.

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How do you prepare to join the C-Suite after years of working as a marketing leader? Jim wraps up the final episode from the 2023 Deloitte University Next Generation CMO Academy with a roundtable panel discussion featuring Brad Hiranaga (Chief Brand Officer of Cotopaxi), Erica Taylor (Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Genentech), and Lisa Materazzo (Group Vice President of Marketing at Toyota Motor North America).

Brad Hiranaga is a returning guest to the podcast. He spoke to Jim in 2021 as Chief Marketing Officer at General Mills, where he spent 18 years. Now a year into his new role as CMO for Cotopaxi, a sustainable outdoor apparel brand, Brad looks to build on the mission of the founder, who–fun fact–named the company after a volcano in the Andes in central Ecuador.

Erica Taylor is Genentech’s first CMO. Erica actually worked at Genentech for 10 years before leaving to join another pharmaceutical giant, Gilead. Erica returned to Genentech in 2021 and was promoted to CO in 2022. She is also the first CO on our show with a PhD in Immunology.

Lisa Materazzo has spent over two decades at Toyota, with a brief intermission at AOL and Build-a-Bear, before returning to the company and ultimately becoming the Group Vice President of Toyota Division Marketing at Toyota Motor North America in 2021. Raised in a car-fanatic family, it’s extremely fitting that Lisa finds herself leading marketing for one of the most prominent motor companies in the world.

Tune in as these guests share how they prepared for the C Suite, what they got right and wrong in their career, and how they deal with imposter syndrome.

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The guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Carrie Ruddy, the Senior Vice President, Chief Communications & Marketing Officer of Trane Technologies–a 17 billion dollar by sales company focused on heating, ventilation, air conditioning and refrigeration systems. But this is no ordinary HVAC company–they are 100% focused on helping solve the climate change crisis through innovative new products and services. Trane’s CEO attributes their strong business results to “a focused execution of our purpose driven strategy.” We’ll talk about that.

Carrie first discovered her passion for communications at the non-profit United Way, after completing her Bachelors at Colgate University, majoring in English and Philosophy. From there she made stops in several industries, including financial services and grocery/retail, before joining manufacturer Ingersoll Rand in 2014. In 2020 the tools business of Ingersoll Rand was spun off, and the remaining company was named Trane Technologies. In January 2022 Carrie was named Chief Communications and Marketing Officer of Trane Technologies.

Recorded at the Next Gen CMO Academy at Deloitte University, during a Texas heatwave, (it was 105 degrees!) It's only fitting that Carrie joined Jim in the crisp AC for her first ever podcast interview.

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Jim's guest on The CMO Podcast this week is Kelly Lohr, the Chief Marketing Officer for Orangetheory Fitness, the leading heart-rate-based workout that combines science, technology and expert coaching to help members live a longer, more vibrant life. Orangetheory’s history begins in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, where founder Ellen Latham opening the first studio in 2010. Now more than a decade later, Orangetheory has expanded to 1500 studios throughout the US and 24 countries, with over one million members, and surpassing $1 billion in sales.

Kelly first discovered Orangetheory as a member herself, before joining the team in 2022. She brought her 20 years of marketing experience to the brand, including time at Freshly and Amazon Go. Kelly shares her remarkable personal story, as well as the story of a brand that sought to revive interest in in-person workout classes following the shutdowns of 2020 and 2021. Orangetheory has certainly achieved their goal; the brand is stronger today than it was pre-pandemic. 

Recorded at the Next Gen CMO Academy at Deloitte University in Dallas Texas, this episode features a conversation with a CMO who loves working out as much as Jim does!

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Jim's guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Ramon Jones, the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Nationwide–one of the largest and strongest diversified insurance and financial services organizations in the United States. Founded over 90 years ago, Nationwide provides a full range of insurance and financial services products, including car, motorcycle, homeowners, pet, farm, life and commercial insurance. And we all know the jingle…”Nationwide is on your side.”

Ramon first began his journey at Nationwide in 2000, where he worked in a call center. He held multiple positions over the years and eventually rose to the position of CMO in 2019. Now several years into the role, he oversees the teams that advocate for Nationwide’s iconic On Your Side promise with customers, partners, and communities. He's also just recently been named as a 2023 Brand Genius by Ad Week. 

Recorded at the Next Gen CMO Academy at Deloitte University, tune in as Jim welcomes a CMO and fellow transplanted Pennsylvanian, who looks to support young and upcoming talent.

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One issue often explored on this show is how to build the trust and value of marketing within the broader C-Suite. For this week’s episode, Jim welcomes three C-Suite execs (who are not CMOs) to dive headfirst into that issue. Recorded live in front of an audience of emerging CMOs at the 2023 Deloitte University Next Generation CMO Academy, this episode features guests Susan Sheffield (Executive Vice President and CFO of General Motors Financial Co.), Deborah Gibbins (Chief Operating Officer of Mary Kay) and Surabhi Varshney, who leads Global Corporate Strategy for chemical giant Celanese. 

Susan Sheffield has had a long career in corporate finance and banking, with stops at JPMorgan and Wells Fargo Bank, before joining General Motors Financial Co in 2001. There, she rose through the ranks to become the Executive Vice President and CFO in 2018.

Deborah Gibbins first joined the Mary Kay brand in 2013 as their CFO, before shifting to COO in 2018. Before her time at Mary Kay, Deborah held multiple leadership roles at PepsiCo’s Frito Lay.

And finally, Surabhi Varshney was promoted in February 2023 to the global corporate strategy lead for Celanese, a $10 billion by sales leader in the production of differentiated chemistry solutions and specialty materials. 

Tune in for insights from three remarkable women on how to build the value of marketing, and how to be a successful C-Suite leader.

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