CMO Moves

“There's something very special about working in a category that has so much impact on people's lives.” Meredith Verdone, CMO of Bank of America, unequivocally loves her job. And with 20 years of experience with the bank, Meredith has not only seen growth in her role – now taking on all brand, media and creative strategy for the enterprise – but also in the way the brand connects with consumers on the sometimes sticky subject of money.

Debra Bass, Global CMO and US President of Nuvo is not only an authority on village movements, she’s led and been supported by villages of all kinds in her unconventional career. Growing her marketing expertise through AT&T, Procter & Gamble, Bristol Myers Squibb, Panasonic, followed by 15 years at Johnson & Johnson, Debra is now making another unconventional move to lead Nuvo, a radical new technology company focused on reinventing pregnancy care for the 21st Century. Tune in to hear her incredible career tips as well as some fun personal learnings from her global travels.

Cynthia Chen, CEO of General Mills China, is on the cutting edge of all things “China fast” and radically different marketing approaches to grow a global brand. In a world where Häagen-Dazs, owned by General Mills in China, is considered a lifestyle brand that earns 2.4B impressions in a single event, and where red pleather pants and dumpling-decorated red hats are co-created with General Mills and their partners, it’s easy to think you are living in an alternative universe. Tune in to hear how Cynthia is setting new standards for partnerships, growth, risk, speed and role models in the C-Suite.

Maria Menounos is a celebrity, a host, an author, a podcaster, a wrestler and the CEO of a revolutionary new type of network, AfterBuzz TV, which produces more than 150 hours of programming each week and develops the careers of hundreds of new hosts each year which has earned billions of downloads all over the globe. Beyond her success from Entertainment Tonight, Access Hollywood, The Today Show, Nightly News and now AfterBuzz TV, Maria has always been committed to supporting the community around her. While quarterbacking her mother’s stage 4 brain cancer care, Maria discovered she herself had a brain tumor and faced a pivotal point in her life and career. Tune in to hear more from Maria!

Today is a fun day. It’s #BacktotheBar day which means that more than 7,000 Bacardi employees across 130 global cities will storm 1000+ bars during a sixteen-hour period. I had the great honor of chatting with John Burke, who is the CMO of Bacardi and also the President of Bacardi Global Brands in preparation for this beloved day. With honor, I share his incredible story of how he is leading the Bacardi brands, and more importantly, the Bacardi teams with a single mission to stay focused on the consumer and give back to the communities from where they came.

Chris Brandt, CMO of Chipotle, is on a mission to help make Chipotle a lifestyle brand versus just a food brand, which means creating emotional connections with consumers who buy into the brand, not just buy it. In this episode, Chris dives deep into the critical marketing skills required - storytelling, innovation and collaboration - to deliver exciting new ways to engage consumers every day. Chris also shares his perspective on the difference between finance and “marketing math”. Tune in to hear his incredible journey and how he’s learned to focus, measure and celebrate not just the touchdowns, but all the first downs required to deliver long-term results.

Julian Duncan, CMO of the NFL Jacksonville Jaguars, is one inspirational guy. From the first moment we started talking, I was blown away by his humble and joyous demeanor. This is someone who grew up without many role models for where he is today and managed to play professional football and create his own roadmap to CMO just by being himself, funko pop addiction and all. Tune in to hear more from Julian on his incredible journey, how he uses culture as his career guide, how he keeps himself at the forefront of marketing and how he’s become the deadliest player at Taboo.

Nick Drake, EVP of Marketing & Experience of T-Mobile shares his many important career and life lessons from the Rugby field to the inside of agencies to the ocean on a surfboard and into the Outback as a Jackaroo. Nick’s life adventures are mesmerizing and despite his humble and gracious demeanor around his opportunities in life, his spirit of always “going into the unknown and amazing things will happen” has shaped his career and all the companies he has led into greatness. Tune in to hear more about how Nick is leading T-Mobile with “Are you with us” and don’t miss his point of view on the efficacy of advertising today and the role that 5G will play in ferreting out the brands and agencies that will truly win in the future.

Andrea Zahumensky, CMO of KFC U.S. is a “small town girl, raised on small town values” and learned early on that doing things the hard way is often the right way. Throughout her career, which started in IT post graduating with an engineering degree, it has remained a consistent truth in her life and helped her earn her role as CMO of an iconic $4B brand. Tune in to hear her insightful career tips and the exciting marketing initiatives she’s driving at KFC, including innovative food mash-ups and creative campaigns that uses marketing as a “magnet vs a mirror”.

Jeanine Liburd, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer of BET, and I met last year at Brandweek in Palm Springs. As I sat listening to her talk about one of my favorite topics, Culture, I just knew I had to have her as my guest on CMO Moves. Not only did Jeanine dive deep into Culture, she went deeper into a driving factor of Culture, Passion. Join us in this exploration of how BET is centering all their programming and activities to support and help advance the culture they represent. Find out how Jeanine translates emotion into passion to make meaningful progress in a world where, unfortunately, racial strife still exists.

How do you market a category that has almost no historical consumer behavior data, no precedent on best practices, an outdated stigmatism of shame and is still illegal in many states as well as Federally? Well, that’s exactly what David Dancer, CMO of MedMen is on a mission to do. MedMen is one of the largest cannabis retailers globally and has already seen exponential growth in the short eight months with David leading the charge. Tune in to hear more from David on how he’s building exciting new capabilities and tackling the psychological transformation of the category out of the dark corners.

In today’s very special edition, and final episode of CMO Moves in 2018, I'm bringing back three past guests who I chatted with earlier this year on CMO Moves to find out how things have been going since we last checked in. Also, since all three of these guests sit on our Innovators Council, I thought it'd be a good time to ask them what they think the hottest trends will be in 2019.

Jennifer Sey, Global CMO of Levi Strauss & Co., has had an incredible journey from elite gymnast to Global CMO. She shares the personal hurdles she had to overcome along the way and the incredibly impactful moments in her career, both bright and dark, that helped her to find her voice and become the exceptionally well-rounded leader she is today. This incredible mom of four (18, 15, 4 and 2!) has led a monumental turnaround for Levi’s, elevating the role of marketing to help make Levi’s hot again, has published a powerful memoir, produced two short films and is working on a documentary.

Alison Wagonfeld, CMO of Google Cloud, has had a unique career path from launching QuickenLoans for Intuit to start-ups to managing Harvard Business School’s California Research Center to Venture Capital, all to arrive in her role leading marketing for such a forward-thinking business unit in one of the world’s largest companies. Join us in this fascinating deep dive into technology today, what’s coming tomorrow and how Alison organizes her team to take on the rapidly changing landscape to help businesses adopt and embrace the future. Also don’t miss Alison’s tips on how to personally get ahead of the technology curve and what trends she sees growing in the next 5-10 years.

Kellyn Smith Kenny leads global marketing for Hilton, which includes 15 different trading brands, nearly 900,000 rooms, almost 400,000 team members and operates in over 100 countries all around the globe. Having come from Uber after building their marketing team from the ground up, Kellyn knows what it takes to revolutionize an industry. Tune in to hear more from Kellyn on how she’s changing the game for hospitality, her leadership style, how to use both your head and your heart and how she is living up to the pioneers before her - the same ones who invented the Brownie, the Martini and the Pina Colada, just to name a few fun factoids about Hilton. Did you know that? I sure didn’t.