The Marketing Marriage

“Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, nothing is going to get better. It’s not.” This famous line and the story behind it from Dr. Seuss children’s book Lorax became an inspiration for one of the hottest startup brand names in streetwear. Unless Collective is the world’s first regenerative fashion platform that makes 100% plant-and-mineral-based clothing and footwear. The mastermind behind the brand is a 26-year adidas veteran and company’s former CMO Eric Liedtke.

During his time at the three stripes, Eric amassed a number of successes: re-energized the brand by unleashing a culture of collaboration and creativity, brought in billion dollar celebrity partnerships, scaled ecom to 4B, and launched innovations like Boost and Futurecraft 4D to name a few. Yet, as a former competitive swimmer and Oceans Advocate, his greatest passion has been to fight against plastic waste. At adidas, Eric has merged his passion for the water with his open-source approach to business, catalyzing a company-wide commitment to sustainability. With Unless Collective, he’s taking his purpose to another level.

In our unplugged conversation, Eric shares:

• His philosophy of zero wasted hours.
• Why preparation underpins his philosophy.
• Lessons and reflections on his leadership journey in the corporate world.
• Personal take on culture.
• How confidence and candor became his leadership signature.
• Plans on using good dirt to disrupt the 3 trillion dollar fashion industry.

Listen in for a truly remarkable episode!

Let’s start by stating that our guest was recently inducted into the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame, held multiple C-level roles at head-turning brands like Facebook, HP, Visa and Pepsico, and graced several ranks of the Forbes Most Influential CMOs. We warned him that our podcast wasn’t going to make him famous. Then again, he IS already famous. Yet, despite all the accolades and measurable success, he may be one of the most chill and down to earth people in the business we met.

Antonio Lucio - a father to 5 daughters, brother to 3 sisters and a devoted son of a strong mother figure - shares how surrounded by strong and capable women taught him to listen at two levels and shaped him as leader. In all his roles, he was able to deliver business results while significantly increasing the representation of women and people of color across senior levels in the entire marketing ecosystem: clients, agencies and production houses. Today, he leads his company 5S aimed at advancing the marketing practice through marketing transformation and Diversity and Inclusion.

While Antonio’s resume with 40-year corporate experience may seem as a straight line up to the right, he opens up about both his ups and downs because he’s a firm believer of telling all the stories - the good, the bad and the ugly. Divorce. Losing his true north. Chronic depression. All led to some of the most difficult and also the most transformational times in his life. In our conversation, he emphasizes the importance of being candid about leadership. Sometimes you’re not having fun leading. Listen in for an insightful and at times vulnerable peek into the life of one of the greatest executives of our times.

In case you haven’t noticed, the job market is in a turmoil. Significant layoffs are sweeping the country (and continents). What to do in these trying times? How not to despair and instead move forward with confidence? Jeff Altman - no BS professional coach and career advisor - got the mic in this episode to tackle those questions. You’ll appreciate Jeff’s candor as he unpacks the importance of practicing & rehearsing, understanding the jobseeker x recruiter dynamic, and using one’s BS detector when selecting the next job. We also touch on the dreaded question of salary negotiations and discuss how not to put your interviewer to sleep. After getting a taste of Jeff’s genius, we wouldn’t be surprised if you seek more of it - whether on his JobSearchTV.com channel or in his No BS Job Search Advice Radio, ranked #1 in Apple Podcasts for job search. There’s an abundance of professional coaches out there but it is Jeff’s unique and direct approach that we believe helps make complicated situations easy.

Two words that perfectly define her - gratitude and humility. Two characteristic traits that aren’t so common these days for someone of her influence and professional achievement. Jenny Rooney - the first Chief Experience Officer of Adweek - has had a front-row seat leading initiatives for marketing decision-makers and spent 25 years covering the industry and its leadership as a business journalist. Her life choices remain firmly grounded in her number one priority - her family.

Of course, we had to talk about that mindset guiding her decisions. This episode is jam-packed with Jenny’s personal stories and perspectives on making it all work while staying true to oneself, defining success, and the importance of continuous learning.

Landing an interview as a graduate student with one of the most sought-after journalists is a great window to her belief in the power of words and the importance of how you approach people. Zeroing in on marketing, Jenny shares her view of marketers as some of the most courageous in the business, without getting the credit for it. All while sitting on the front lines of uncertainty.

Does strength need a rebrand? That is a question Tobi Gbile had to ask herself as she recently embarked on her TEDx Talk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1gXbKsOFc0&t=1s) journey. Frustrated with the stereotypical media portrayal of black women, who are expected to “shake things off” and recovering from an unhealthy relationship with pushing herself beyond limits, Tobi talks about using her experience to help empower others. Drawing on her professional endeavors in the fashion, TV, and music industries for brands like Disney, adidas, and her own creative ventures, we also touch on her passion for entertainment. Tobi’s purpose is simple - to inspire the youth through pop culture. It comes as no surprise that we used the opportunity to ask for her take and perspective on being culturally relevant. Tobi is currently based in Los Angeles. She was recently featured on TED.com for her TEDxSanDiego Talk, and is the Global Senior Campaign Manager for fashion and pop culture partnerships at Disney, co-host of the pop culture podcast The Weekly Baecay, Creative Director for rising multi-hyphenate artist TGBEAM, published teen fiction novelist of the "The Stunnerz", and the editor behind Girl With Purple Gucci's. Stay close to see what she adds to her story next.

Every marriage needs love, mutual respect…and a therapist. Ours is no exception. With a fresh year ahead of us and many setting resolutions for a more balanced and meaningful life, we found it fitting to invite our “shrink”. Not to worry, we won’t air (too much) of our own dirty laundry on this episode. Ingo Vauk, a psychotherapist working with people from all walks of life in his private practice in a small German town of Erlangen, shares how focus on the congruence between what you feel and what you do led him to a pivot in his career a couple of decades ago. Hailing from the music industry where he wrote, produced, and recorded for a large number of artists first in Sydney then London, toured with some iconic bands of the time, and even remixed one of David Bowie’s tracks, Ingo talks about the importance of listening, parallel processing and vulnerability. We also discuss why the chase often doesn’t deliver the promise and how regrets are mere illusions of what could happen. Do you want to know what it takes for a therapist to “fire” a client? You gotta listen till the end.

The role of a CMO has significantly changed and evolved over the last few years. There’s a plethora of job descriptions and titles out there associated with this highly coveted yet often short-lived C-level seat. Many talented marketers get mismatched in the process of a company selecting their lead marketer. Why does that happen? How can it be prevented? What are the right questions and first steps to take? Katie Klumper, who sits at the helm of Black Glass – the first-ever dedicated CMO consultancy that serves the chief marketing role - unpacks answers to these questions in our conversation. Recognized by AdWeek as one of the Top 50 Most Indispensable Marketing, Media and Tech Executives, Katie draws on an extensive career that spans senior roles at Deloitte and KBS and is a celebrated entrepreneur and expert in the field of marketing. Since 2019, she’s rapidly grown Black Glass, working with some of the most recognizable brands, including Goldman Sachs, GM and Walmart. Listen in for her take on the vital importance of onboarding to increase CMOs’ remit, frequently missed opportunities, and reframing marketing from being a cost center to delivering immediate ROI. With a new year unfolding, we touch on the uncertain times ahead and the marketing landscape including the drastic impact of AI. With beyond impressive professional pedigree, Katie also pulls the curtain on her personal life - making it all work, forgetting to move the elf, and launching a new hot sauce business.

A husband, a father, an entrepreneur, a founder, a sport enthusiast…and formerly an incarcerated heroin addict. Our guest had his feet firmly planted in a prison cell as well as fancy conference rooms in Paris, London, and NYC. Jordan Rogers - who built a decade-long career in brand marketing at Nike - has been on a rebranding journey himself since his early 20s. Starting from the very bottom taught him the importance of taking calculated risks and finding creative ways to make himself marketable. At the Swoosh, he’s worked with some of the best athletes & artists in the world including Ja Morant, Kevin Durant, Sabrina Ionescu, Odell Beckham Jr, Kyler Murray, Cristiano Ronaldo, Sanya Richards Ross, and Virgil Abloh. Yet, he doesn’t want his time at Nike to define his identity. In our chat, we discuss his belief that the best personal brands are built on serving others. Listen in to find out about  Perseus Creative, a marketing consultancy Jordan founded to help college athletes learn how to navigate the new NIL landscape. We also touch on his advocacy for second chances and for bringing about transformation in America’s Criminal Justice system to break free from Mass Incarceration.

What do fascination with laundry making and true understanding of the difference between a fact and an insight have in common? Guest of this episode Molly Bruttomesso, Senior Vice President of Customer Success at Wunderkind, has a lot to say about that. She spent a good chunk of her professional life in the ad agency world with Procter & Gamble clients, before transitioning into tech. There, she quickly noticed that facts were often misunderstood for insights, and she made it her mission to unearth and action on those “aha moments” in her new environment. Molly believes in infusing traditionally transactional and performance-led channels with brand messages that are equally, if not more, effective in driving business for her customers. Besides being a great marketer and storyteller, she also happens to be one of the most inspiring and empowering leaders that the podcast host Slavka has ever had the privilege to work for. We dig deeper into what shaped Molly to be an effortless role model especially for young women, her belief that having a seat at the table isn’t enough, and why it’s important to engage in regular conversations with the youngest, most junior team members.

Molly holds over 20 years of experience in client management in both customer success and at advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi and Publicis. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Georgetown University, and is an active member of the female executive network, Chief. Outside of her customer success career, she is an active champion for women, world traveler to 78 countries but happy to come home to Brooklyn and her family, and founder of the rocker T and blazer wardrobe for tech execs (move over grey t-shirts).

If you think that rock ‘n’ roll and leadership don’t have much in common, let our guest Andreas “Anttu” Forsberg - a leadership anthropologist, observer, and behavioral analyst show you otherwise. Through observation, behavioral analysis, and feedback, Anttu is devoted to helping executive teams understand how their behavior impacts the engagement of people around them – either increasing or decreasing the likelihood of High Performance. He is also the author of The Black Book of Leadership, a book about leadership written as a suspense novel woven with a number of rock ‘n’ roll references. With Anttu’s passion for creating an engaging and emotionally safe working environment, we unpack how predictability and transparency are key, why leadership is a dialogue, and how a good leader needs to be inclusive yet decisive. True to the podcast origins, we draw parallels with marriage and the need to step out of what is comfortable. Because just as in a relationship, if you haven’t ben listened to and understood, you will not commit. For an interesting perspective on why leadership training on individual level often fails, give this episode a listen.

With a master’s degree in adult education from Helsinki University and over 24 years of experience in leadership development, with more than 54,000 single quantitative behavioral data points, over 1000 hours of qualitative behavioral data analysis from more than 100 unique behavioral observation sessions of leadership teams at work, Anttu speaks with confidence making the claims about leadership and high performance he presents. When not contemplating leadership matters, he enjoys spending time in the kitchen cooking for friends and family, listening to rock music (often played a little too loud), and spending time with his family. You can learn more about him and his new book at https://www.leadinghighperformance.com/.

Diego Borgo is a Metaverse native, Web3 ambassador, NFT collector and advisor to global brands. He is on a personal mission to help mainstream adoption of blockchain and NFT technology. Where do relentless drive and deep passion for his work come from? We unpack Diego’s pursuit of freedom of choice and its link to the Web3 movement in the second part of our chat. We talk about his defining journey of moving 36 times in his 33 years of life, the transition from São Paolo to an 800-people village in Austria, and his decision to switch from corporate to self-employed mode. This guy operates on extremes and isn’t afraid to lay off clients with the wrong mindset. Definitely worth the listen!

What is all the buzz about Web 3, Metaverse, NFT, and blockchain? If you’re trying to make sense of it all and how it applies to your work, or if you just want to learn more from a guy who lives and breathes it on a daily basis, this episode is for you! Diego Borgo is a Metaverse native, Web3 ambassador, NFT collector and advisor to global brands on a personal mission to help mainstream adoption of blockchain and NFT technology. In our conversation, we tackle the unfolding shift in the digital space of consumers being treated as a product and a target to valuing anonymity and owning their data. In this context, we also touch on the need to build for the long-term and what is currently holding back mass adoption of the Web3.

In part two of our chat with Kelly Cahill, a digital marketer through and through, we couldn’t resist touching upon the topic of Twittercalypse unfolding in front of us. But to not dwell on a doomsday topic, in this episode we also talk about Kelly’s favorite brand project (hint: Atlanta Super Bowl), (female) leadership and its challenges, and her philosophy to make oneself dispensable as a leader. If you want to know what was Kelly’s hardest lesson to learn on her professional journey thus far, and how she tries to shortcut that for her teams, don’t miss our conversation. PS: we get to talk some marriage stuff as well :). 

You hail from the 20th century if you’re still asking a current marketer if they have experience with “digital”. Marketing today IS digital and it’s hard to imagine how one could survive if their primary focus wasn’t on digital channels and connections with the audience via plethora of such platforms. Kelly Cahill, a dear friend and the guest of the episode has been part of this ever-changing space that is constantly evolving, sometimes at supersonic speed, for over 15 years. She’s led digital evolution at some of THE brands like Nike, adidas, and Victoria’s Secret. We chat about her view on audience-led strategies, why quality over quantity resonates more than ever, and how an unpolished brand effect fits within the reality of real life happening through a device.

Are you seasoned enough to remember the times when direct marketing was limited to receiving a pile of mailed ads at home? Most of you will  chuckle at the thought of spending evenings and nights at a mail house sorting out direct mail letters to reach customers. Our guest, Dave Paulus was part of an incredible journey that started in a black and white print shop (there were no color printers at the time 🫣),  progressed into what was initially the wild west of email marketing, and ultimately evolved into a digital marketing agency acquired for an undisclosed amount by Dentsu, one of the largest global marketing and advertising agency networks in the world. Dave shares how a simple philosophy - finding, acquiring, and growing customer databases for clients - enabled what was once a 200 people company to pivot and to grow into a 14K employee powerhouse. In our chat, we discuss the internal family-like culture of work hard, play hard,  how having technology as an integral part of a business makes it sticky, and why it’s important to look at a journey as parts and pieces. Listen to the end for a perspective on the GenZ from a guy who started his career in 1988. 

After graduating from Clemson University in 1987 Dave began a career rooted in consumer data and marketing. As part of the Executive Team at Merkle, Dave led sales and client growth initiatives globally. Today Dave splits time between Colorado and Montana while spending as much time as possible with family and friends. In addition Dave works with several startups in an advisory and coaching capacity. You can find him on IG @d_paulus - Instagram and on LinkedIn 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dave-paulus-3b591. 

Starting what later turns out to be a prerequisite to the current career at the age of 16 and being exceptionally successful at 23 presents an interesting path of personal and professional growth. It’s no surprise that we get more personal in the second part of our conversation with Ziad Ahmed - the founder and CEO of JUV, GenZ consultancy that works with clients to help them understand young people. After closing the topic of Web3 (courtesy of your host Fabio), we spoke about the importance of surrounding yourself with people who humble and love you at the same time. Ziad also reveals his blind spots from the past, why he wouldn’t let his kids do what he did at high school, and his realization that spending more time on trying to be right than to be kind is a waste.

Ziad Ahmed’s JUV has worked with over 20 Fortune 500 companies, has been profiled by the New York Times, and has launched major purpose-driven TikTok campaigns. Because of JUV, Ziad was named to the 2019 Forbes #30Under30 list when he was 19-years-old. He also just graduated from Yale. Additionally, Ziad is the Founder of Redefy, a youth-run non-profit committed to furthering equality. You can learn more about him on IG @ziadahmed.

It seems that these days every company is talking about or searching for the best way to win with the GenZ. Countless studies and research projects have been conducted on this generation and an equal amount of Gen Z “experts” has emerged across different walks of marketing life, and beyond. All in search of a magic formula that would inspire this sometimes misunderstood generational cohort to embrace whatever the new product, initiative, or cause may be. Our guest Ziah Ahmed, a 23-year old entrepreneur, found himself at a young age in high profile conversations and realized that often young people are spoken about without actually being spoken to. It didn’t sit well with him and he founded JUV Consulting, a GenZ consultancy that works with clients to help them understand the youth. We talk about how empowering more, diverse young people and creating access to important conversations about them guide the existence of the JUV community. We go deep on the meaning of being purpose-driven, and why he believes in taking the call from all of his potential clients. If you want to hear what may be an unpopular take on GenZ x Web3, make sure you listen until the end.

Ziad Ahmed’s JUV has worked with over 20 Fortune 500 companies, has been profiled by the New York Times, and has launched major purpose-driven TikTok campaigns. Because of JUV, Ziad was named to the 2019 Forbes #30Under30 list when he was 19-years-old. He also just graduated from Yale. Additionally, Ziad is the Founder of Redefy, a youth-run non-profit committed to furthering equality. You can learn more about him on IG @ziadahmed.

With one of the largest sporting moments - The World Cup - about to take off, expect millions of fans worldwide living and breathing soccer for the next month. How and why is the “beautiful game” capable of connecting people in a manner like no other sport? Your hosts could tell some stories from their time working on the 2014 World Cup first-hand. But it’s much more fun to bring in a perspective of a dear guest who not only loves the energy and culture of soccer, but happens to be married also to a Brazilian. In this episode, we catch up with Alyx Wynn, who spent the last decade in marketing at Nike working on (you guessed it 😁) World Cups and now continues her passion for the sport at the U.S. Soccer Federation. She is known as the self-appointed ambassador of fun and full bellies among her coworkers and friends, and currently lives in Chicago with her wife, former professional soccer player Mary and their cat Bü. While at the Swoosh, Alyx was also one of the driving forces behind the Be True initiative that directly supports the LGBTQIA+. We touch on the importance of being aware of more than your immediate audience as well as being comfortable with others different from us in a way that’s productive.

Our guest Jason Faustino doesn’t talk about street culture, he is part of it. With genuine and deep ties within the sneaker community, he embodies the OG nature of that scene before hype and countless collaborations commercialized it. Simply put, Jason is cool! Though, he himself dislikes that label. In the second part of our conversation, we  chat about relativity of cool and unpack why in today’s world marketers shouldn’t be content with creating content. Most importantly, the mystery behind the hosts’ pantry filling up with Reese's Pieces chocolate is finally revealed. 

Jason Faustino leads collaborations and energy for Saucony product. In 2007, he co-founded one of NYC’s best footwear accounts Extra Butter with the goal to cultivate a lifestyle and community that emphasized fun and creativity.  Earlier, as a social worker, he helped kids stay out of trouble through breakdancing which continues to be one of his passions. In his free time, Jason pursues his many hobbies  including cinema and ice hockey. You can follow Jason on IG @um.jf13. 

In the world of fashion and lifestyle (among others), the importance of “being part of culture” is emphasized all the time. But what does it actually mean to be “of culture”? Why is it important for brands and marketers to be authentically connected to culture? We invited the mastermind behind Saucony’s collaborations and energy products - Jason Faustino to answer these questions.  We discuss his perspective on spotting new trends, finding parallels in seemingly disconnected interests, and the importance of going slow when birthing a collaboration. You’ll also learn why Jason is the designated driver and how his eager curiosity made him a multifaceted breakdancer, DJ, sneaker guy, hockey fan, and movie enthusiast. 

With genuine and deep ties within the sneaker community, Jason co-founded one of NYC’s best footwear retailers Extra Butter with the goal to cultivate a lifestyle and community that emphasized fun and creativity.  In his current role at Saucony, he launched some of the 🔥 collaborations 🔥 with Trinidad James, Tombogo, Diet Starts Monday, and a project with Maybe Tomorrow dropping soon. You can follow Jason on IG @um.jf13.