Explore every episode of the podcast Marketing Vanguard

Every industry, marketing included, is battling one affliction: sameness.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jason Pirock, Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, to discuss why differentiation may be one of marketing's most underhyped priorities right now. Jason also challenges the industry’s fixation on ROAS, reveals why CXO titles don’t matter as much as you’d think, and what creator partnerships should really look like.

Jason Pirock is the Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, with nearly 20 years of experience across retail, commercial real estate, and hospitality. His career has spanned work across Hyatt, Aparium Hotel Group, Springboard, and Outrigger.

Across those roles, Jason has consistently gravitated toward building and rebuilding, from rethinking an early business at Target to putting content creators into local markets before “creator” became standard marketing language. His perspective combines brand strategy, experiential marketing and a strong belief that differentiation matters even more as technology makes execution easier.

What You'll Learn:

• Why hospitality’s adoption of AI is accelerating after years of lagging behind other industries
• Why consumers are gravitating back toward real-world experiences and human interaction
• Why authentic creator fit matters more than reach or follower count
• Why senior marketing titles matter less than alignment with leadership
• Why ROAS should be treated as a directional indicator rather than the full definition of success
• How a builder mindset can shape a marketing leader’s career
• Why differentiation becomes even more important as AI makes generic execution easier

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The old sponsorship model was simple: buy the assets, activate around the big moment, and move on.

Jessica Goldstein thinks that model is already outdated.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica, the NWSL’s Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions, to unpack why modern sports partnerships need to behave more like platforms, built around athlete storytelling, fan behavior, consistent presence, and a role the audience can actually recognize.

Jessica Goldstein is Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions at the NWSL, where she leads partnership strategy and marketing solutions for the league. Her work here primarily focuses on combining both sides of that experience: helping partners build stronger roles inside the league while using athlete storytelling, cultural crossover, and long-term consistency to grow fandom around women’s soccer.

She has spent more than 20 years in sports, beginning at the NBA in production and entertainment before moving into brand marketing. spent more than 11 years agency-side, where much of her work focused on sponsorship strategy and building women’s sports platforms for major brands.

What You'll Learn:

• Why athlete storytelling can turn individual players into gateways to broader fandom
• Why traditional sponsorship asset lists no longer create enough value on their own
• How 360 partnership strategies can connect live moments, content, and fan behavior
• Why tentpoles need an always-on strategy around them to drive long-term value
• Why data should inform partnership strategy without pretending to make every decision for you
• How women’s sports can unlock categories and stories that traditional sports partnerships may not

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Audience targeting may have gotten easier, but getting people to truly care has not.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Dan Moriarty, CMO of Chicago Fire FC, to unpack why the marketing pendulum is swinging back toward creative, what makes live sports such a powerful attention engine and why brands should think harder about the emotion behind what they sell.

Plus, the inside scoop on why he left the Chicago Bulls for a growth-stage MLS club and the difficult people decisions that have helped reshape his marketing organization.

Dan Moriarty is Chief Marketing Officer of Chicago Fire FC, where he leads marketing for Chicago’s Major League Soccer club.

Originally from England, Dan began his career agency-side before moving into brand roles at Hyatt. He later spent around eight years with the Chicago Bulls before joining Chicago Fire FC.

At the Fire, he has been part of a period of significant investment and change across the club, from its on-field ambitions and downtown presence to new facilities, fan experiences, and plans for a new stadium. His marketing perspective combines a digital-first background with an increasing conviction that, as targeting becomes easier, creative quality matters more than ever.

What You'll Learn:

• Why sports still commands attention in a world built around on-demand content
• Why Chicago Fire FC focuses on selling joy and passion rather than soccer itself
• How the club turned World Cup energy into an owned Chicago fan experience
• Why easier targeting makes stronger creative even more important
• Why buying reach is no longer a meaningful competitive advantage
• How Chicago Fire FC is restructuring its in-house creative operation
• Why avoiding underperformance can cost you your strongest people

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brand or performance? That’s the wrong question for marketers to ask, according to Nick Fairbairn.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Chime’s SVP of Growth to unpack why brand lift and direct-response accountability belong in the same system, why buying an AI tool does not amount to AI transformation and why scrappy creative may do more brand-building work than marketers want to admit.

Nick also gets into TV’s messy shift from linear to streaming, executive conversations around brand investment and why creators should perhaps be a part of every channel.

Nick Fairbairn is Senior Vice President of Growth at Chime, where he leads a broad growth organization spanning paid media, organic growth, go-to-market, lifecycle, product, engineering and onboarding.

His career started in media buying, including television and radio, before he moved into agency entrepreneurship and then brand-side marketing. Along the way, he’s worked at ProFlowers, helped build acquisition at Dollar Shave Club during the DTC era, led startup growth and later joined Chime to build its product marketing capabilities before moving into his current growth role.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI adoption needs active leadership instead of waiting for teams to figure it out themselves
• Why buying another AI tool rarely changes how a marketing organization actually works
• How Nick measures TV with the rigor of a performance channel
• Why brand lift and direct-response accountability should sit in the same conversation
• How data can turn a defensive budget discussion into a stronger case for brand investment
• Why lower-production testimonial creative can still move brand equity and consideration
• Why Nick thinks creators should eventually become part of every marketing channel

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

When every company starts looking like a tech company, a media company and an entertainment company at the same time, brand clarity becomes mission critical.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Grace Kao, CMO of Snap, to talk about what it takes to build a brand people actually understand and want to spend time with. Plus: a breakdown of Snap’s push toward chat, real-world connection and why marketers should be asking the question, “How do we actually add something?”

Grace Kao is Chief Marketing Officer of Snap, where she leads marketing across Snapchat and the company’s broader brand portfolio.

Her career began almost by accident after she stepped away from graduate school and joined BBDO as an executive assistant on the Apple account. From there, she built a career across agency and brand roles spanning PlayStation, Yahoo, Pandora, Instagram, Spotify, and Snap.

Across those chapters, Grace has consistently gravitated toward brands with strong identities, youth audiences, and clear points of view. At Snap, she is focused on keeping the brand rooted in friendship, creativity, and real connection while exploring new ways for brands, creators, and communities to participate on the platform.

What You'll Learn:

• Why brand clarity becomes more valuable as businesses stretch across categories
• How relationships and people can shape a career more than a perfect plan
• Why challenger brands and youth culture have more pull
• How Snapchat is moving beyond passive consumption toward active participation
• Why brand marketing has to match the creative standard of the community
• How chat, Maps, and IRL experiences can create new roles for brands
• Why unexpected partnerships can make audiences see a brand differently

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CMOs are being asked to do something increasingly absurd: deliver more growth, with less budget, while marketing gets more complex and more expensive.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica Apotheker, CMO of Boston Consulting Group, to unpack what it actually takes to survive and matter in the modern C-suite.

Jessica Apotheker is Chief Marketing Officer of Boston Consulting Group, where she leads the BCG brand while continuing to work directly with clients on marketing, digital transformation, and growth. Before joining BCG, Jessica worked in product marketing at L’Oréal.

Her approach is grounded in one principle: strategy only matters if it survives execution. Whether she is advising clients or leading BCG’s own marketing agenda, Jessica focuses on measurable impact, stronger capabilities, and making sure marketing earns its place as a growth driver.

What You'll Learn:

• Why granular execution is what turns strategy into actual impact
• How to think about marketing through orchestration, art, and science
• Why BCG increasingly sees itself as a force multiplier, not just a consultancy
• How the impact, asset, and muscle model creates measurable client value
• Why CFO and CIO relationships can determine whether a CMO succeeds
• What makes the CMO role uniquely vulnerable in the C-suite
• Why AI should be positioned as a growth lever, not just an efficiency play

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Mary Yee, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sony Interactive Entertainment, started her career in accounting, not marketing. And, yet here she is.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Mary to unpack how a career that moved from finance to Clorox to PlayStation to the CEO seat at Tatcha (and back to PlayStation) shaped her view of what great brand building actually requires.

Mary Yee is Senior Vice President of Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, where she oversees the PlayStation brand globally across hardware, peripherals, network services, subscriptions, digital retail, and games.

Her career began in public accounting before she moved into brand marketing at Clorox. She later joined PlayStation during the PS4 era, helping build the brand through a major period of category growth and digital transformation. In 2021, she became CEO of Tatcha, where she helped expand the luxury skincare brand across channels and into 34 countries before returning to Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Across gaming, beauty, and CPG, Mary’s approach is rooted in the same core idea: understand the business, understand the consumer, and build brands around real human connection.

What You'll Learn:

• Why financial literacy can make marketers stronger brand builders
• How analytics and creativity should work together, not against each other
• How Tatcha used communities, creators, and retail to fuel growth
• Why Mary defines herself, first and foremost, as a brand builder
• How cross-media IP expands reach beyond a brand’s core audience
• Why PlayStation anchors products, games, and IP under one master brand
• How curiosity helps leaders move successfully across categories and roles

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What happens when consumers love the idea of your product but freeze when it is time to choose?

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Andy Lopez, CMO of Behr Paint, to unpack how Behr is turning consumer friction into brand opportunity. Andy shares why “color paralysis” is one of the biggest pain points in the paint journey, how Behr uses insight to build confidence at the point of decision and why the strongest marketing ideas start by solving something real.

Sparks President and Chief Client Officer Melissa Levy also joins Jenny for a mid-episode sidebar discussion on trust, measurement, and the future of experiential marketing. Sponsored by Sparks.

Andy Lopez is Chief Marketing Officer of Behr Paint, where he leads an integrated marketing organization spanning brand, product marketing and commercialization. He began his career agency-side, including at Saatchi in Los Angeles working on Toyota, before moving to Behr more than nine years ago.

At Behr, Andy has expanded across brand marketing, product and broader marketing leadership, bringing together consumer insights, innovation and go-to-market strategy. His perspective is shaped by experience on both sides of the agency-brand relationship, as well as Behr’s long-standing exclusive partnership with Home Depot.

What You'll Learn:

• Why the best agency partners behave like extensions of the brand team
• What AI still cannot replace in strategic marketing relationships
• How to use AI to create capacity instead of simply cutting costs
• Why consumer confidence matters as much as consumer inspiration
• How Behr identifies and solves “color paralysis”
• How exclusive retail partnerships work when both brands plan together
• How Behr’s Color of the Year connects trend forecasting to actual consumer behavior

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What do agency leaders need right now? According to Ross Martin, maybe “a sanity check and a lobotomy.” Funny, yes. Also not entirely wrong.

In this special episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney spotlights the launch of Adweek’s Agencies Vanguard program with three founding members: Jessica Henrichs, CEO of DonerColle Partners; Ross Martin, President of Known; and Chioma Aduba, President of Droga5. Together, they unpack why agency leadership has become one of the most complex jobs in business, why competitors need spaces for radical honesty, and why the future of agencies cannot be solved in isolation.

Jessica Henrichs is the CEO of DonerColle Partners and one of the founding members of Adweek’s Agencies Vanguard program. In this episode, she brings a clear perspective on adaptive leadership, the value of peer support and why agency leaders need to build belief through change rather than pretend they have every answer.

Ross Martin is the President of Known and a founding member of Agencies Vanguard. Known for his candid take on the agency industry, Ross brings a sharp view on the structural challenges facing agencies today, from outdated business models to the bigger question of what the industry wants to stand for next.

Chioma Aduba is the President of Droga5 and a founding member of Agencies Vanguard. In this conversation, she speaks to the value of transparency, cross-agency community and creating an industry that feels like it is in good hands for the next generation of creative talent.

What You'll Learn:

• Why agency leaders need perspective, not just certainty
• How leaders can build organizations that adapt through change
• Why agency executives need safe spaces for honest conversation
• How competitors can collaborate on shared industry challenges
• Why agency business models are facing structural pressure
• What diverse agency models can learn from one another
• Why the industry needs to decide what agencies should be known for next

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Some of the biggest opportunities for marketing leaders exist in industries where marketing has historically had the least influence. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Danielle Wuschke Paige, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Nixon Peabody, to explore what it takes to modernize marketing in a complex, relationship-driven industry. Danielle shares how her B2B and agency background prepared her for legal marketing, why trust and content matter more than flashy creative, and how she is evolving the function through stronger business strategy, thought leadership, and AI adoption.

Danielle Wuschke Paige is the Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Nixon Peabody, an Am Law 100 firm with offices across the United States and internationally. She leads the firm’s marketing and business development organization, with responsibility spanning brand strategy, communications, client engagement, strategic pursuits, digital, design, industry marketing, and practice growth.

Danielle began her career in technology sales before moving into strategic marketing and then spending more than 15 years in the agency world, including leadership roles at FleishmanHillard and MSL.

What You'll Learn:

• Why strong B2B marketing fundamentals can transfer across industries, even when the category itself is completely unfamiliar
• How to turn marketing into a more strategic business function by helping stakeholders understand its impact on firm performance, reputation, and growth
• Why legal marketing is content-first and how timely expertise can build trust with clients who want more guidance from their advisors
• How to balance a law firm’s overall brand with the individual reputations of attorneys whose personal credibility often drives business
• Why AI should enhance junior marketers rather than replace the foundational skills of writing, creative thinking, and communication

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What’s it going to take to build relevance in a brutal attention economy? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jennifer Rooney sits down with Jennifer Storms, Chief Marketing Officer of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, to break it down. 

Jennifer traces her path from Olympic dreams to sports marketing to PepsiCo to NBCUniversal, sharing how NBCUniversal thinks about brand salience across NBC, Peacock, Bravo and NBC Sports, why the Olympics needed to be rebuilt as a year-round franchise and how Legendary February turned three separate live events into one unified cultural moment.

Jennifer Storms is Chief Marketing Officer of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, where she leads brand strategy, integrated marketing, media and consumer engagement across NBC, Peacock, Bravo and NBC Sports. Her career spans the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Turner Broadcasting, PepsiCo and NBCUniversal, giving her a rare perspective across sports, media, entertainment and consumer brands. At NBCUniversal, Jennifer focuses on building distinct brands, driving audience growth across platforms and turning major cultural moments into year-round franchises.

What You'll Learn:

• Why a strong career north star should allow for strategic zigzags
• How CPG experience shaped Jenny’s view of consumer behavior and brand building
• Why brand salience matters when consumers have endless content choices
• How NBCUniversal turns campaigns into year-round franchises
• Why creators and athletes should be treated as storytellers, not just reach vehicles
• How AI makes human storytelling and live experiences more valuable
• Why live sports should be planned before, during and after the moment

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The best journeys have the most unexpected turns. That’s Sam Allen’s story, and he’s sharing it in this episode of Marketing Vanguard. Tune in as host Jenny Rooney welcomes Sam, CEO of Iterable, to explore how AI is reshaping marketing technology, the future of the CMO role, and why strategic focus beats market-wide expansion for high-growth companies navigating unprecedented transformation.

Sam Allen is the Chief Executive Officer of Iterable, a leading customer engagement platform transforming how enterprises leverage AI-driven personalization at scale. With nearly three decades of experience in technology, including prominent roles at Salesforce, where he managed a $100 million marketing technology budget and served as COO of the global marketing organization, Sam brings deep expertise in enterprise operations, marketing technology infrastructure, and strategic growth. His perspective on balancing human expertise with AI capabilities makes him a valuable figure in the marketing space, especially for senior marketers navigating digital transformation.

What You'll Learn:

• How to position your company for a billion-dollar exit by identifying the right market conditions
• Why CMOs should expand their seat at the table rather than pivot roles
• The "Define the Moment" leadership principle and why it’s so important to move decisively 
• How to interrogate AI recommendations using human context and expertise
• The verticalization and focus strategy for scaling
• Why the future of knowledge work belongs to practitioners who become experts in AI tools

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing Vanguard continues live from Cannes as Jenny Rooney hosts a special Adweek House conversation with Mainardo de Nardis, Global President and COO of Edelman and Rani Al Hajji, Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, Personal Care at Unilever.

This conversation cuts straight into one of marketing’s biggest modern problems: everyone has infinite opportunities, infinite channels and infinite reasons to do more. But the best marketers are not winning by doing more. They are winning by making sharper bets and doing less for more. 

Mainardo de Nardis is Global President and Chief Operating Officer of Edelman, with deep experience across full-service marketing, PR, digital, media, startups, AdTech, MarTech and global agency leadership. His perspective centers on how brands earn relevance and trust in a world where attention cannot simply be bought.

Rani Al Hajji is Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, Personal Care at Unilever. With more than 25 years in marketing and consumer goods, including roles at L’Oréal, Colgate and Unilever across Europe, the U.S. and China, Rani focuses on redefining how brands create connection moments that matter. In this conversation, he brings that lens to Unilever’s personal care portfolio, cultural relevance and the FIFA World Cup.

What You'll Learn:

• Why visibility is not the same thing as attention
• How brands can move from attention to real engagement
• Why saying no is now one of the hardest and most important marketing skills
• How clear KPIs make distractions easier to spot
• Why cultural relevance starts with knowing what each brand actually stands for
• How Unilever is building around FIFA without buying its way into the moment
• Why paid should amplify earned relevance, not replace it

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are marketers making a fatal mistake by treating AI as just a cost-cutting tool? 

The Marketing Vanguard Cannes series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jonathan Adashek, SVP, Marketing and Communications at IBM, to unpack how marketers should be treating AI, today. He breaks down how at IBM, it is becoming a way to rethink processes and drive measurable growth, their “client zero” approach, $4.5 billion in savings over three years and why the company now does half the number of events it did two years ago.

Jonathan Adashek is SVP, Marketing and Communications at IBM, where he leads marketing, communications, and CSR. He joined IBM in January 2020 as Chief Communications Officer and took on the marketing portfolio in January 2022. In his role, Jonathan helps shape IBM’s global narrative as the company sharpens its focus around hybrid cloud, AI and open technology. His background in communications and politics gives him a distinct view of marketing: build a clear story, bring people on the journey and connect brand work more closely to business outcomes. At IBM, he has helped drive AI adoption across processes, event strategy, customer segmentation and internal operations through the company’s “client zero” approach.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI should be measured by effectiveness and growth, not just cost reduction
• How IBM uses AI to improve event targeting, personalization and lead generation
• Why training, workflow design and tool discipline matter in AI adoption
• How to avoid runaway AI agents and fragmented tools inside a large organization
• Why unifying marketing and communications can bring brand narrative closer to revenue
• How IBM balances 115 years of brand equity with sharper hybrid cloud and AI positioning
• Why customer segmentation and team structure can change go-to-market effectiveness

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing Vanguard continues live from Cannes. Host Jenny Rooney sits down with Mark Kirkham, Chief Marketing Officer at PepsiCo Beverages US, to break down why Cannes only works when CMOs show up with clear intention. Mark explains how AI has moved from tech hype to operational reality, why disruption cycles collapsed from five years to five months, and why honest peer debate is the only way marketing leaders stay ahead.

Mark Kirkham is Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo Beverages US, where he leads brand, category, and marketing programs across Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Starry, Bubly, and Mug. A 15-year PepsiCo veteran, Mark has held global and regional marketing leadership roles including Chief Marketing Officer, International Beverages, VP of Global Sports, Juice and Energy, and Head of Marketing & Innovation for Western Europe. His work has included Pepsi’s UEFA Champions League partnership, the global Pepsi Taste Challenge, expansion of Gatorade and Mountain Dew across international markets, and award-winning brand and innovation programs. Before PepsiCo, Mark held roles at P&G, Nielsen, and Forrester Research.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI is shifting from hype cycle to everyday marketing work
• How CMOs should evaluate AI through growth, efficiency, insight, and discoverability
• Why disruption now happens in months, not years
• How peer learning and open debate help the entire industry move forward
• Why Cannes works best when CMOs prioritize quality over quantity
• How teams can learn from challenger brands and organic social-first thinking
• Why the industry has a role to play in making Cannes more curated and creatively valuable

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Marketing Vanguard Cannes series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Lara Balazs, Chief Marketing Officer and EVP of Global Marketing at Adobe. In this episode, Lara breaks down why enterprise AI adoption is shifting toward tangible workflow wins. She highlights how heavyweights like the NFL, Disney and L’Oréal deploy Adobe Firefly to automate manual asset scaling while protecting proprietary IP. Learn why human empathy, brand trust and strategic judgment remain irreplaceable in the age of generative AI.

Lara Balazs is Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President, Global Marketing at Adobe, where she leads global marketing and communications, drives profitable growth and helps build Adobe’s brand in the AI era. Before joining Adobe in 2024, Lara was Chief Marketing Officer and General Manager, Strategic Partner Group at Intuit, where she led marketing and communications across the company’s brands and also served as general manager of Intuit’s ProTax group. She has also held marketing leadership roles at Amazon, Visa and Nike, with experience spanning B2C, B2B and B2B2C models. Lara has been recognized on Forbes’ World’s Most Influential CMOs list, Forbes’ Entrepreneurial CMO 50 and received Adweek’s CMO Vanguard Award.

What You'll Learn:

• Why the AI conversation has moved from fear to confidence
• How AI can augment human insight, empathy and brand visibility
• Why real case studies matter more than speculation
• How Firefly helps creative teams reduce repetitive production work
• Why being a CMO now requires humility, curiosity and constant learning
• How the multi-hyphenate marketer applies fundamentals across different business models
• Why taste, trust and judgment still require customer empathy and human decision-making

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing Vanguard continues its Cannes 2026 series as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Todd Kaplan, Chief Marketing Officer of North America at Kraft Heinz. In this conversation, Todd makes a sharp case for something the industry has almost talked itself out of - marketing is supposed to be fun. He shares why the best work often comes when teams are loose, curious and plugged into culture, not buried under PowerPoints and over-serious process.

Todd Kaplan is Chief Marketing Officer, North America at The Kraft Heinz Company, where he leads marketing across a $25B food and beverage portfolio spanning more than 70 brands and 50 categories. His remit includes creative, strategy, innovation, media, digital, insights, sports and entertainment partnerships, portfolio marketing and Kraft Heinz’s in-house creative content studio, The Kitchen. Before Kraft Heinz, Todd served as Chief Marketing Officer of Pepsi, where he helped bring the brand back into the cultural zeitgeist through platforms like the Pepsi Super Bowl Halftime Show, innovations such as Nitro Pepsi and Pepsi x Peeps, and the creation of a new Pepsi logo and visual identity system. His work has earned Cannes Lions recognition, and he has been named to Forbes’ “World’s Most Influential CMOs” list, Business Insider’s “Top 25 Most Innovative CMOs in the World” and Adweek’s “Brand Genius” and “Marketing Vanguard” honors.

What You'll Learn:

• Why marketing has become too serious and what that does to creative work
• How joy, looseness and creative energy can unlock better ideas
• Why cultural fluency matters more as paid media becomes easier to ignore
• How Kraft Heinz is rebuilding brand fundamentals across a complex portfolio
• Why empathy matters for both consumers and teams during organizational change
• How portfolio marketing turns 70 brands into a stronger retail and consumer solution
• What Cannes-winning work reveals about silliness, strategy and cultural attention

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The Cannes 2026 series of Marketing Vanguard continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Uzma Rawn Dowler, CMO & SVP, Global Corporate Partnerships at Major League Baseball. In this conversation, Uzma shares why fandom is not a behavior. It is identity. And why, for MLB, that changes the entire marketing equation. She gets into how baseball’s eight-month season creates a daily storytelling engine, why partner integration needs to feel organic to the fan experience and how MLB thinks about brand building through commercialization, culture and community. 

Uzma Rawn Dowler is the CMO & SVP, Global Corporate Partnerships at Major League Baseball, where she leads marketing for one of the world’s most iconic sports leagues. After more than a decade working across sponsorships and partnerships at MLB, Uzma stepped into the CMO role with a rare dual perspective: how to protect and build the MLB brand while also helping partners solve real business problems through baseball. Her work sits at the intersection of fan identity, brand storytelling, cultural relevance and commercial growth. From player storytelling to brand partnerships with companies like Mastercard, Adobe and Mountain Dew, Uzma’s approach is rooted in making marketing feel native to the moments fans already care about. 

What You'll Learn:

• Why fandom should be treated as identity, not just consumer behavior
• How MLB balances brand building with revenue-driving marketing
• Why top-of-funnel storytelling matters if you want bottom-of-funnel conversion
• How 4,200+ games create daily moments for authentic partner integration
• Why MLB frames partnerships as solutions, not sponsorship assets
• How player storytelling helps the league understand what will resonate with fans
• Why hiring smart people and relinquishing control is essential for modern CMO leadership

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing Vanguard continues its Cannes 2026 series as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Doug Sweeny, CMO of ŌURA. In this conversation, Doug shares how ŌURA has evolved from a sleep-focused wearable into a broader health and readiness platform, helping people understand what is happening inside their bodies before it shows up in their day. He gets into how ŌURA’s mission-led positioning, hardware innovation, and partnership ecosystem are helping the brand define what the next phase of wearable health looks like.

Doug Sweeny is the Chief Marketing Officer at ŌURA, a leading smart ring and wearable health technology company. With 15 years of agency experience and leadership roles across brands like Levi’s, Nest and One Medical, Doug has built a career around mission-driven companies that combine technology, usefulness and real-world impact. At ŌURA, Doug leads marketing for a brand that has moved beyond sleep tracking into a wider health platform spanning stress, resilience, cardiovascular health, metabolic health and women’s health. His work focuses on positioning ŌURA not just as a device, but as a way for people to better understand their bodies, build readiness and make smarter decisions about their wellbeing.

What You'll Learn:

• How ŌURA evolved from sleep tracking into stress, resilience, and broader health insight
• Why younger female consumers are the brand’s fastest-growing segment
• How women’s health features are expanding ŌURA’s relevance and category position
• Why stress and resilience are becoming core reasons people stay with ŌURA
• How ŌURA Ring 5 removes friction through smaller hardware and longer battery life
• Why mission-driven brands attract leaders who want to build products with real utility
• How “readiness” connects elite athletes, executives and everyday consumers

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman. 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you think the story behind AI is a productivity-led one, you’re wrong. Our series from Cannes 2026 continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Rafa Flores, Chief Product and Growth Officer at Treasure AI. In this one, Rafa cuts through the noise around AI adoption and AI-selling and gets into the real issue CMOs are facing: teams are not just unsure about AI; they are scared of what it could mean for their roles. He reveals how forcing AI adoption from the top can backfire, royally and why real AI success should be measured through revenue and conversion impact. 

Rafa Flores is the Chief Product and Growth Officer at Treasure AI, where he brings nearly two decades of experience across product development, engineering, growth strategy and partnerships. With an engineering background and a deeply practical view of how enterprise teams adopt technology, Rafa works at the intersection of AI, product-led growth and human-centered transformation. At Treasure AI, Rafa helps global brands rethink how AI can be adopted without creating fear, confusion or organizational resistance. His perspective is especially valuable for CMOs navigating pressure from boards, teams and vendors at the same time. 

What You'll Learn:

• Why fear of AI is real and should not be ignored by marketing leaders
• How to measure AI success through revenue, conversions and churn mitigation
• Why forcing AI adoption creates anxiety and resistance inside teams
• How CMOs can set guardrails that protect the business while empowering teams
• Why modern tech buyers expect to try products, not just sit through demos
• How product-led growth changes the customer journey in an AI-first market
• Why creativity in the AI era means orchestrating systems, agents and human judgment

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing Vanguard continues its Cannes 2026 series as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jill Kramer, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard. In this conversation, Jill reveals the false binaries marketing keeps boxing itself into: AI vs. creativity, brand vs. performance, strategy vs. execution, “what’s in” vs. what’s "dead." Her point is clear: the strongest marketing does not live at the extremes. It lives in the gray area where accountability, emotion, creativity, and business outcomes all have to work together.

Jill Kramer is the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Mastercard, bringing deep experience across brand strategy, creative leadership and enterprise marketing transformation. Before joining Mastercard, she held senior leadership roles at Accenture, where she progressed from Head of Advertising, then brand, and finally, to Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. Earlier, she also built her foundation on the agency side at BBDO. At Mastercard, Jill brings a perspective shaped by both sides of the table: the agency instinct for creative craft and the brand-side understanding of business complexity, accountability, and internal alignment. Her leadership is rooted in balance: brand and performance, creativity and AI, strategic vision and hands-on involvement.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI should sharpen creative focus, not replace the human craft
• How brand and performance marketing became a false choice
• Why the best marketing happens in the “soft emotional middle”
• How prioritization can become a creative act for a new CMO
• Why leaders now need to go high and deep at the same time
• How to shift from doing everything yourself to enabling the team
• Why the industry needs to stop arguing in extremes and talk more about the work

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The “Marketing Vanguard at Cannes” series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Julia Goldin, Chief Marketing and Product Officer at LEGO. In this conversation, Julia shares how LEGO has grown from a children’s toy company into a global experience brand loved by kids, teens and adults, without losing the creative system that made it iconic in the first place. She offers insights into the discipline behind that growth: knowing what to say no to, protecting authenticity, taking calculated risks and treating mistakes as part of the work. 

Julia Goldin is the Chief Marketing and Product Officer at LEGO, where she has spent 11 years helping shape the brand into a multi-generational creative experience. Under her leadership, LEGO has grown across children, teens and adults, while expanding its connection with girls and women builders. From LEGO SmartPlay to high-profile partnerships with Formula 1 and World Cup campaigns, she has helped LEGO push into new spaces while staying grounded in authenticity, trust and the limitless possibilities of the LEGO system in play. Her leadership philosophy is clear: creativity grows when teams are curious, willing to make mistakes and disciplined enough to protect what the brand stands for.

What You'll Learn:

• How LEGO expanded from a toy brand into a multi-generational creative experience
• Why saying no is one of the most important brand-building decisions a CMO can make
• How to balance innovation risk with consumer trust and brand authenticity
• Why mistakes are essential to learning, unlearning and relearning
• How LEGO SmartPlay uses technology to enhance physical play without adding more screens
• Why human creativity is the real competitive advantage in the age of tech 
• How partnerships like Formula 1 and World Cup campaigns become bigger than product launches

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Marketing Vanguard comes straight from Cannes 2026 as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Nathan Rosenberg, Chief Marketing and Brand Experiences Officer at Virgin Voyages. They discuss why the best and most real marketing happens when a customer is telling their friends the story of what they experienced, how Virgin Voyages turns crew culture into customer loyalty, and why repeat rate should sit much closer to the center of marketing strategy.

Nathan Rosenberg is the Chief Marketing and Brand Experiences Officer at Virgin Voyages, where he has spent 14 years building one of the most distinctive experience-led brands in travel. With 26 years across the Virgin organization, Nathan brings a deeply human-centered approach to marketing, culture, and brand strategy. At Virgin Voyages, his work spans far beyond campaigns. He champions the full experience of the brand, from how guests feel when they step onto a ship to how crew members are supported to deliver memorable service. His philosophy is simple but demanding: if you take care of your people, they take care of your customers, and customers take care of the outcomes.

What You'll Learn:

• Why marketing is irrelevant if the experience does not hold up
• How repeat customers can lower acquisition costs and change the growth equation
• Why crew experience directly shapes customer experience and brand memory
• How Virgin Voyages turned an adults-only cruise model into its clearest differentiator
• Why marketers need to stop drowning in reports they will never act on
• How AI can amplify creative teams instead of replacing them
• Why soft skills like empathy, vulnerability and listening are now the hardest leadership skills

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Consumer electronics marketing has a bad habit: it talks too much about the product and not enough about the person buying it. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Sarah Larsen, CMO at Hisense USA, joins Jenny Rooney to unpack why she’s throwing tech-speak out the window and rebuilding marketing around sell-out, consumer behavior, and real-life relevance. As Hisense’s first overarching CMO, Sarah shares how she’s reinforcing one sharp mandate: marketing needs to move product.

Sarah Larsen is the Chief Marketing Officer at Hisense USA, where she is the first leader to hold the company’s newly created overarching CMO role. With 30 years of experience across PR, earned media, social, digital, paid media, sponsorships, and consumer electronics, Sarah brings a nontraditional path to modern marketing leadership. Before joining Hisense, Sarah built deep category expertise through roles connected to brands like LG, Samsung, and Motorola. At Hisense, she now leads a broad remit spanning product marketing, product management, retail, insights, communications, and go-to-market strategy, with one clear goal: marketing that drives sellout.

What You'll Learn:

• Why consumer electronics brands need to stop leading with tech specs
• How Sarah defines marketing success through sellout, not vanity metrics
• Why CMOs should act as the great unifiers across product, retail, sales and consumer insight
• How to turn global sponsorships like FIFA World Cup into real consumer connection
• Why research needs to be continuous, not a one-time path-to-purchase study
• How future-proofing your brand means investing in the buyers who are not yet your core demographic

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This episode of Marketing Vanguard comes straight from Cannes 2026. Join us as host Jenny Rooney catches up with Dara Treseder, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer at Autodesk. Together, they explore why this AI era is also the “golden era” for creatives, why human ingenuity still runs the game while AI raises the floor and why trust is the one thing that isn’t up for debate. She raises a valid point: knowing what not to do with AI is just as important as knowing what to do with it.

Dara Treseder is Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer at Autodesk, renowned for her expertise in B2B brand storytelling and AI-integrated marketing strategy. With a background in transforming major enterprise organizations including GE and Carbon, she has pioneered approaches that balance human creativity with technological innovation. Her leadership in establishing Autodesk as the official design and make platform for the LA 2028 Olympics and her commitment to a $350 million initiative for AI workforce credentialing demonstrate her ability to align business growth with meaningful societal impact - a model of particular relevance for enterprise marketing leaders seeking to drive both profitability and purpose.

What You'll Learn:

• How to balance AI integration with authentic brand storytelling
• The "Facts and Feelings" framework for B2B marketing that moves beyond boring product specs
• Why hands-on AI fluency as a CMO is non-negotiable for strategic vision and system design
• How to operationalize workforce development as a competitive advantage by investing in AI knowledge transfer 
• The time-optimization secret weapon: using AI-powered calendar analytics and briefing tools to reclaim hours daily
• How to execute big strategic swings like Autodesk's sports marketing partnerships with LA28 Olympics and NFL teams

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman 

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While everyone’s chasing data and AI-driven targeted marketing, Natasha Madan’s keeping humanity at the centre of it all. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, the Head of Marketing at Intuit Credit Karma shares why blending art and science is essential to modern marketing. She dives into the how of building human connections that trump personalization algorithms and repositioning legacy brands for new generations while taking us behind the scenes of her groundbreaking work launching Prime Day at Amazon. 

Natasha Madan is Head of Marketing at Intuit Credit Karma, known for her expertise in brand strategy, customer-centric marketing and combining art with data science. With a background spanning CPG at Nestlé, where she honed customer insights across iconic candy brands, to Amazon, where she helped build Prime into a cultural phenomenon driving 30% of member growth, Natasha brings a rare blend of brand-building and performance marketing excellence. Her work bridging mission-driven fintech with sophisticated marketing strategy offers actionable frameworks for CMOs navigating the balance between personalization and human-centered brand building.

What You'll Learn:

• How to uncover customer needs before they articulate them
• Why sticking to vision while staying flexible on tactics drives long-term success
• The Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) framework beats MVP in building customer loyalty
• How to reposition a transactional brand into an emotional platform
• The case for full-funnel marketing over direct response in reshaping perception
• Why AI democratizes authenticity as your competitive moat

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Marketing leaders are often told to be more strategic, but how does that really play out in the day-to-day? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Michael Lacorazza, Executive Vice President and CMO of U.S. Bank, unpacks the biggest leadership lessons behind his career across Lexus, Toyota, and Wells Fargo, to name a few. He shares why customer-centricity is still the foundation of great marketing, how CMOs can build stronger alignment with business partners, and why understanding the P&L is no longer optional for marketing leaders who want a bigger seat at the table.

Michael Lacorazza is the Executive Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at U.S. Bank, one of the nation’s largest banks. With more than two decades of experience across automotive, hospitality, financial services, agency leadership and private equity-backed business transformation, Michael brings a deeply commercial view of brand, customer experience and enterprise growth. At U.S. Bank, Michael leads marketing, customer experience, and enterprise analytics, helping the organization strengthen its brand, serve a wide range of customer segments and build more integrated financial experiences.

What You'll Learn:

• Why commercial fluency is essential for CMOs who want to influence business strategy
• How to translate marketing metrics into growth, customer accounts, margin expansion, and business outcomes
• How U.S. Bank is using AI across key business imperatives
• Why financial app fragmentation creates an opportunity for banks to deliver more integrated customer value
• How Michael’s experience across automotive, hospitality, agency, financial services and private equity shaped his leadership style
• Why authentic cultural integration beats transactional brand sponsorships

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CMOs are being dubbed the new "unicorns," but is the journey as magical as it sounds? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Tim Rosa, CEO of Somnee, to explore the rare and valuable career trajectory from Chief Marketing Officer to Chief Executive Officer, and why brand-driven leaders are uniquely positioned to scale transformative companies in the health and wellness space. He shares valuable insights from Somnee’s journey of disrupting a $585B industry. 

Tim Rosa is the CEO of Somnee, a clinical-grade sleep technology and neuroscience company, bringing expertise in brand building, go-to-market strategy, and scaling consumer health companies. With a distinguished background spanning agency work, sports marketing, and seven years as CMO at Fitbit, Tim has developed a unique playbook for translating complex science into compelling consumer narratives. His work at Fitbit and now at Somnee has demonstrated that CMOs with operational acumen and cross-functional experience are uniquely positioned to lead companies at the highest level, making this conversation essential for marketing leaders aspiring to executive roles.

What You'll Learn:

• How to leverage CMO experience to accelerate CEO success
• Why clinical-grade data is non-negotiable in AI-driven health tech
• The challenger brand playbook for emerging health categories
• How to build enterprise and B2B revenue streams alongside DTC
• The counterintuitive marketing strategy of "zigging when others zag"
• Why self-awareness and surrounding yourself with complementary talent is essential for CMO-to-CEO transitions

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There’s no marketing tool more potent than personal experience, and this episode of Marketing Vanguard explores how that transformed Nutrafol’s brand journey. CMO Deena Bahri joins the conversation to share how she went from a customer of the brand to its CMO, how they’re redefining the hair health conversation, why scientific credibility is your most defensible competitive advantage, and how to balance startup agility with enterprise-scale growth. As she reminds us, the marketing playing field is level. The only real differentiator is your brand expression. 

Deena Bahri is Chief Marketing Officer at Nutrafol, bringing over 20 years of experience building disruptive consumer brands in wellness and fashion. Known for her expertise in blending science-backed positioning with emotional brand storytelling, Deena has led the transformation of hair health from a fear-based narrative to an empowerment-driven movement. Her insights offer actionable frameworks for those navigating the intersection of performance marketing and brand-building in the nutraceutical and wellness sectors.

What You'll Learn:

• How to pivot from fear-based to empowerment-driven brand positioning in categories historically rooted in insecurity marketing
• Why clinical validation and third-party accreditations are non-negotiable trust-builders in the wellness space
• The "before and after" messaging framework that moves consumers from shame and urgency to hope and accountability
• How to destigmatize taboo health topics through authentic brand voice 
• The strategic shift from lower-funnel performance marketing to full-funnel brand 
• Why startup DNA within scaled organizations drives competitive advantage

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How do you make a brand that’s perceived as “uncool” a cultural moment? Terence Reilly, Chief Brand Officer of Crocs, reveals his playbook in this episode of Marketing Vanguard. He reveals how he transformed a meme product into a global phenomenon, why embracing risk and "failing fast" is essential to breaking culture, and the strategies behind building authentic brand narratives in an age of AI and collaboration fatigue.

Terence Reilly is Chief Brand Officer at Crocs, renowned for his expertise in brand transformation, cultural relevance and innovative marketing strategy. With a background spanning financial services, retail and consumer goods (including leadership roles at Stanley, Footaction, and Famous Footwear), Terence has a proven track record of being able to elevate iconic brands through bold creative risks and collaborative partnerships. His strategic vision has contributed to making Stanley and Crocs household names globally, with his Stanley car-fire TikTok campaign generating $50 million in additional revenue and 100 million views. His unique marketing insights make him a valuable voice for any marketer (regardless of experience) who’s looking to navigate brand transformation successfully.

What You'll Learn:

• How to flip negative brand perception into a competitive advantage by leaning into criticism
• Why the "drive it like you stole it" philosophy for scaling wins fast, and the story behind the iconic Michael Jackson moment
• Why collaboration fatigue is real and how to recapture your brand's own narrative
• The power of empowering frontline insights to drive viral moments and the truth about the Crocs-Post Malone moment 
• How to create proprietary eponyms that make your brand synonymous with the category
• The non-linear career path that builds better marketers

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The power of word-of-mouth and referral-based marketing takes on a whole new meaning in this episode of Marketing Vanguard. Tune in as Amica Insurance EVP and CMO, Tory Pachis, reveals how their Rhode Island–based challenger brand competes against massive incumbents by doubling down on empathy, service, and human-led experiences while building relevance with younger consumers.

Tory is Chief Marketing Officer and Executive Vice President at Amica Insurance, the nation's oldest mutual automobile insurance company with 119 years of heritage. With 27 years of experience in the insurance industry and previous leadership roles at Travelers Insurance and Hanover Insurance, Tory brings deep expertise in brand transformation, direct-to-consumer marketing, and building customer loyalty in highly competitive categories. His work modernizing Amica's brand platform while preserving its legendary customer loyalty culture makes his perspectives essential listening for marketing leaders seeking to balance heritage with innovation.

What You'll Learn:

• How to leverage brand heritage as a competitive moat
• Why share of voice matters more than market share in commoditized categories
• The "consumer as hero" creative framework
• How to use AI for product discovery, not just operational efficiency
• The player-coach leadership model for scaling transformative change
• Why do direct distribution models require different marketing investments

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What if AI could bring more humanity to marketing, instead of taking away from it? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Lauren Weinberg, CMO of Supergoop! and veteran CMO at Square, Intuit and Peloton, reveals why brand authenticity matters more than ever in an AI-driven world, how CMOs should lead their teams through rapid technological transformation and the key strategies to balance budget discipline with bold creative thinking.

Lauren is an accomplished Chief Marketing Officer with extensive experience leading marketing transformations at industry-leading companies including Square, Intuit and Peloton. Currently serving as the CMO of Supergoop!, Lauren brings expertise in brand strategy, growth marketing and AI integration, offering a unique perspective that bridges creative storytelling with data-driven decision-making. Her proven track record of driving growth while maintaining P&L sensibility, combined with her advisory role at Emory University's Data Science and Decision Department, makes her a trusted voice for senior marketing leaders navigating digital transformation. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to position AI as a catalyst for brand authenticity rather than automation
• The strategy-first framework for saying "no" in high-intensity environments
• Why P&L sensibility is now non-negotiable for CMO credibility
• The three C's of hiring for an AI-driven future - conviction, courage and curiosity
• How to create organizational AI literacy without overburdening teams
• Why CMOs should shift from efficiency conversations to strategic AI conversations with the C-suite

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EVP, GM, or CMO - why pick one when you can be all 3? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Keisha Taylor Starr, EVP, CMO, and General Manager of Scripps Networks, proves that intersectionality and a diverse skill set can take your marketing game to the next level. Tune in for their discussion on how strategic repositioning can drive record-breaking audience engagement, why marketers must balance creative risk with financial rigor and the leadership moves required to shape an industry built for diverse voices. 

Keisha Taylor Starr is Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing Officer, and General Manager of Scripps Networks at The E.W. Scripps Company, bringing expertise in media marketing, brand strategy, and P&L management. With a career spanning agency work at BBDO, leadership roles at CNN, Turner Broadcasting, and Warner Bros. Discovery, as well as experience in collegiate sports marketing, she has consistently driven innovative transformations across news, entertainment, and sports properties. Her leadership in ION's rebrand into a general entertainment network with pioneering women's sports programming has resulted in record-breaking audience engagement and Google TV's most-watched free live channel designation in 2024, demonstrating how CMOs can balance creative vision with financial accountability.

What You'll Learn:

• How to transition from CMO to General Manager by gaining P&L ownership
• Why sports franchises are essential programming investments
• The strategy behind rebranding a legacy network for new audiences
• How to balance creative ambition with financial rigor as a CMO
• The importance of diverse representation in leadership and decision-making
• How to expand sports definition and create inclusive programming

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A new age of Super Bowl marketing has dawned upon us, and it’s time to embrace it. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, marketing leaders from Meta, Instacart, and Chime reveal how their brands are redefining Super Bowl marketing by prioritizing social-first strategies, earned media, and authentic creator partnerships over traditional metrics. Tune in to learn why the biggest marketing opportunities now live in subcultures and algorithmic feeds and how to tap into conversations happening off-screen.

What You'll Learn:

• How to shift from awareness metrics to earned social conversation as your primary Super Bowl success measure
• Why a social-first strategy is non-negotiable and why niche communities outperform monoculture campaigns
• How to design ads that crack culture through hyperbole and surprise
• The strategic partnership framework beyond logo placement
• How to unlock innovation by protecting brand fundamentals while experimenting relentlessly
• Why in-house creative teams, powered by AI, can deliver portfolio-defining work at a fraction of agency costs
• The non-negotiable marketing-product alignment tactic

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Surely a legacy brand like Crayola has done all it could to grow, right? Wrong. In this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast, recorded live at Brandweek in Atlanta in November 2025, Victoria Lozano, former CMO of Crayola, proves that the growth work of even the most iconic brands can and should never stop. From how nostalgia can be leveraged to the advantage of expanding into unexpected categories, this conversation covers it all. 

Victoria Lozano, former Chief Marketing Officer of Crayola, is renowned for her expertise in brand strategy, category expansion and omnichannel marketing across iconic consumer brands. With a career spanning Fortune 500 CPG companies including HBC, beverages and confectionery, she has built a diverse track record in product innovation, location-based entertainment, and educational strategy. Her work at Crayola demonstrates how legacy brands can evolve, redefine brand categories, unlock new consumer segments and build enduring marketing strategies that transcend traditional product boundaries, all while maintaining emotional resonance. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to merge nostalgia with future-forward relevance
• Why a CMO's role with high-awareness brands requires category expansion
• The framework for segmented messaging across stakeholder groups
• How to unlock hidden revenue streams in plain sight, like recognizing that 57% of Crayola purchases are made by adults without children
• The power of branded sensory identity as a defensible competitive advantage
• Why ecosystem thinking matters more than individual business unit performance

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How can you sell water in a can successfully, without making it a gimmick? In this live episode of Marketing Vanguard from Brandweek Atlanta, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Benoit Vatere, Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death, to explore how he, as a non-traditional entrepreneur with an engineering background, is scaling a cult beverage brand through unconventional media strategy, retail partnerships and aggressive upper-funnel investment while protecting the brand's core mystique.

Benoit Vatere is Chief Media Officer at Liquid Death, where he drives growth strategy and media planning for one of the most distinctive brands in the beverage industry. With a background as an entrepreneur and engineer who spent 25 years building ad tech products in Los Angeles, Benoit brings unique expertise in bridging creator marketing, retail commerce and consumer conversion. His work at Liquid Death demonstrates how data-driven media strategy, disciplined creative positioning and deep retailer partnerships can scale challenger brands into category leaders while maintaining distinctive brand equity

What You'll Learn:

• How to shift from DTC obsession to retail-first strategy
• The frequency-over-reach principle for mental availability
• How to build a tech stack that bridges awareness to retail conversion
• Why a CEO-CMO creates organizational competitive advantage
• The conquest strategy in competitive categories
• How to maintain brand mystique while scaling

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Taking risks and having them pay off in an industry as regulated as fintech can seem like an impossible task. But Coinbase’s success in bold and unique marketing proves it isn’t. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Coinbase CMO, Catherine Ferdon, reveals why bold creativity matters when it comes to marketing intangibles, how to build financial brands that don't feel sterile and the key strategies behind Coinbase's high-profile Super Bowl and Oscars campaigns.

Catherine Ferdon is the Chief Marketing Officer at Coinbase, bringing nearly fifteen years of fintech expertise to one of crypto's most established brands. With a background spanning Square, Cash App and Afterpay, she has built her career giving voice to complex financial products through bold, unconventional creativity. Her work exemplifies how CMOs can translate intangible, complex products into compelling narratives that drive mainstream adoption - a critical lesson for marketers navigating emerging technologies and regulatory constraints.

What You'll Learn:

• Why understanding intangible products in depth is the key to marketing them successfully
• The risk-taking framework for breakthrough creativity
• Why educational complexity requires participatory, not didactic marketing
• How to design media moments for their environment
• The leadership principle of strong opinions, softly held
• Why AI amplifies human creativity rather than replacing it

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Atlanta, a paradise for CMOs with 70% of Fortune 500 companies, thousands of startups, and immense talent, is often underestimated. Live from Brandweek, Alex Gonzalez, Metro Atlanta Chamber's Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer, explains why Atlanta is a top marketing hub and how brand positioning can shape a city's economic future on this episode of Marketing Vanguard.

Alex Gonzales is the Chief Innovation and Marketing Officer at the Metro Atlanta Chamber, leading efforts to brand Atlanta as a premier destination for talent, business and innovation. With a background spanning finance, business development and corporate marketing at industry leaders like GE, Chubb Insurance and Equifax, Alex brings deep expertise in transforming marketing strategies for Fortune 500 organizations and emerging tech ecosystems. His work establishing the "Atlanta Where You Belong" brand and fostering the Atlanta Growth Collective has positioned the region as a model for regional marketing and innovation ecosystems.

What You'll Learn:

• How to leverage a CMO advisory council to build authentic city branding by assembling chief marketers
• Why "place branding" requires defining emotional belonging, not just economic benefits
• The talent flywheel strategy and making the most of the city’s academic ecosystem
• How to position B2B companies as part of your city's DNA
• Why the startup ecosystem infrastructure (Atlanta Tech Village, Russell Innovation Center, South Downtown development) should be central to city marketing
• The multi-geography branding challenge and how to solve it 

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Financial services marketing is one of the hardest kinds of marketing to crack. But John Brockelman and his team at State Street Investment Management have proven, campaign after campaign, that it can be done well and done right. Tune in for his playbook on how financial services marketers can drive growth, connection and culture.

What You'll Learn:

• How to align marketing with sales and business objectives
• The importance of simplifying brand architecture for market expansion
• How to build intentional talent strategies by mixing specialized and generalist expertise
• Why guerrilla marketing and experiential activations outperform traditional advertising in regulated industries
• How to use strategic partnerships to reach new audiences
• How to scale AI adoption across marketing operations without replacing human creativity

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The Super Bowl is one of the biggest stages in the world - not just for the game and its players, but for marketers too. So, how do you make sure you win the game? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, four industry-leading CMOs - Gabrielle Wesley (Mars Wrigley), Stephanie Rogers (San Francisco 49ers), John Gieselman (Comcast) and Stacy Andrade-Wells (Liquid I.V.), reveal their personal playbooks on making the most of the Super Bowl opportunity, cutting through the hype and executing at the highest level. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to build a solid business case for Super Bowl marketing investment
• Why you should capitalize on the intersection of creative disruption and brand strategy
• How to activate beyond the 30 or 60-second spot through ecosystem thinking
• Why simplicity and cultural relevance are your competitive advantages
• The "uncomfortable gut reaction" test for evaluating creative readiness
• How to measure impact across different time horizons without becoming paralyzed by metrics

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Wine was a gatekept category, suffering from the dreaded perception of being "boring." That is, until Archer Roose, the canned wine company, redefined the category and made it fun for Gen Z. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, CMO of the brand, Conley Downing, unpacks how they leveraged “fun” marketing (instead of educational marketing) to make wine accessible and interesting again. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to reposition a legacy category by identifying and eliminating barriers to entry
• Why product format innovation creates distribution and occasion expansion beyond traditional compete sets
• The strategic value of celebrity partnerships rooted in authentic brand alignment and commercial acumen
• How to build sustainable growth through data ownership and omnichannel funnel strategy
• Why founder-led startups must balance rapid scaling with long-term positioning and acquisition readiness
• How transparency and ingredient clarity are becoming table stakes in beverage marketing

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Staying authentic and mission-driven while scaling aggressively may be the toughest problem in marketing to solve. But Sarah Leinberger, VP and Head of Marketing, Yoobi, has a pretty solid take on how to do it. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, recorded during Brandweek in Atlanta, Sarah reveals how CMOs can build authentic brand equity through strategic collaborations, why agility trumps budget in today's market, and the key strategies to balance rapid iteration with meaningful purpose. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to leverage borrowed equity without diluting brand identity
• Why speed and flexibility are competitive advantages for challenger brands
• The foundational framework for retail media success
• How to build meaningful retailer partnerships that go beyond “exclusive.” 
• The key strategies to optimize high-impact small teams
• Why authentic leadership accelerates team performance and trust

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In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, live from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Nic Brandenberger, CMO of Mammut, the 164-year-old Swiss mountaineering gear company, unpacks why Davos represents a unique opportunity for C-suite marketers and how the experiences brands create matter far more than the products they sell.

What You'll Learn:

• How to shift the definition of “brand” from product provider to experience giver
• Why breaking out of the marketing silo is a critical competitive advantage 
• The strategic advantage of being a part of Davos
• How to balance wholesale and direct-to-consumer channels
• How consumer-centric foundation separates great marketing from mediocre execution 
• Ways to identify and penetrate niche communities in fragmented markets like US mountaineering

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Podcasting live from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Karin Timpone, CEO and Founder of ClearPrompt, unpacks how to implement AI with focused, phased approaches rather than sweeping transformations and staying in the center of business strategy. 

What You'll Learn:

• Why CMOs are perfectly positioned to lead AI strategy across organizations
• How to break down AI implementation into focused, phased pilots instead of betting the entire farm
• The difference between technology adoption and strategic impact
• How to build cross-functional alignment in the C-suite around technology and strategy
• Pick one lane and go deep rather than trying to master all of AI
• Why it’s important to lean into industry moments that connect you with peers facing similar challenges

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From $0 confidence to CEO of one of the most well-known brands in the world, Sharon Price John’s story is nothing short of inspiring and we’re unpacking it on the latest episode of Marketing Vanguard. In this conversation, straight from the Brandweek 2025 stage in Atlanta, Sharon, CEO of Build-A-Bear, reveals her unconventional career journey and how that evolution directly shaped the turnaround and reimagining of an iconic experiential brand.

What You'll Learn:

• How to transition from functional expertise to CEO-level thinking
• Why CMOs must adopt a "business-first" mindset to advance
• The confidence gap that holds high-potential women back from applying for stretch roles
• How to unlock brand equity by understanding feeling over function
• The critical role of authentic leadership in driving organizational transformation
• How to pivot a single-location retail concept into an IP-driven, multi-vertical business

In an era where the marketing playbook is being rewritten daily, how can brands stay ahead? Joshua Spanier, Google’s VP of AI and Marketing Strategy, pulls back the curtain in “Frontier CMO,” his new podcast and weekly insights letter featuring the marketers, thought leaders, and industry pioneers who are reinventing marketing.

Josh previews the tough questions and unfiltered conversations featured on Frontier CMO, including:

• AI as a leadership test: exploring the "human" side of the AI revolution. As technology and tools advance the challenge becomes equipping marketing teams to leverage these technologies
• Brand relevance and connection: writing the next playbook for brand relevance by showing up as a main character in the places and spaces that connect with your audience
• Agentic Commerce: understanding the transition from "speed vs. certainty" to a world where shopping is fast and smart
• The new marketing organization: knowing where AI makes work faster and smarter and restructuring teams to keep up. Redefining agency partnerships to elevate insights and creativity in real time

Each episode of Frontier CMO features tactical, practical steps all leaders can take to navigate the future of marketing. Find it wherever you get your podcasts: YouTube | Apple | Spotify

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More than ever before, CMOs belong in the C-Suite. And, Sumit Virmani, CMO of Infosys, has a strong case to back this stance up. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, live from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Sumit breaks down the necessary evolution of the CMO, what AI has to do with it, and the strategic imperative of aligning with C-suite priorities. 

What You'll Learn:

• Why CMOs need to operate within the full C-suite context, not just marketing bubbles
• How to position yourself as a transformation partner, not a marketing operator
• The critical difference between using AI to do marketing better versus using AI to expand your business influence
• Why advocating for marketing's "seat at the strategy table" requires complementing creative genius with AI-powered analytics
• How to build an undeniable business case for attending high-level forums like Davos

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CMOs can drive business revenue - this is an established fact. But how can they do it better, bigger, and stronger in the age of AI? We’re unpacking this in the latest episode of Marketing Vanguard, live from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos. Tune in as Emma Chalwin, CMO at Workday, breaks down the evolving strategic role of CMOs at major enterprises, the intersection of AI and human-centered marketing, and how chief marketing officers can become essential drivers of business growth. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to position CMOs as strategic business leaders in the age of AI
• The "Art and Science" Framework for modern CMOs to thrive 
• Why AI adoption requires a human-centered brand narrative
• How to reframe customer relationships from acquisition to retention
• The "B2B to B2H" (Business to Human) messaging approach and why it’s critical 
• How to embed brand values as competitive differentiation

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AI has long been thought of as a threat to creativity. But what if they’re not at odds at all? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, live from the World Economic Forum in Davos, CMO of Adobe Enterprise, Rachel Thornton, reveals why putting human creativity at the center of marketing strategy is more critical than ever and how CMOs should be navigating this tectonic shift. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to position AI as "augmented intelligence" rather than artificial intelligence
• Why the core creative concept must remain human-driven while AI handles scaling
• How to free your marketers from tactical asset-building so they focus on what they love
• The framework for proving marketing's revenue impact to your C-suite
• Why authenticity and brand definition are now competitive imperatives
• How to treat customers as co-creators of your brand experience, particularly with Gen Z and Gen Alpha audiences

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AI has permeated every conversation since 2024, but CMOs have yet to use it to its full potential. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, live from the World Economic Forum at Davos, Bonnie Pelosi, CEO EMEA at Microsoft, reveals the truth about AI in marketing - what’s going right, what’s going wrong, and everything in between. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to embed governance into AI implementation from day one
• Why CMOs must act as connectors across the entire C-suite
• The "Customer Zero" mindset and why AI use cases must be geared, first, towards customers 
• How to lead cultural transformation, not just technology rollout
• Why curiosity and empathy are non-negotiable CMO competencies
• The distinction between tactical and strategic leadership

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In today’s tech-driven world, tech marketers cannot afford to lose sight of client trust. And yet, they do. On this episode of the Marketing Vanguard podcast, President and CMO of Salesforce, Ariel Kelman, reveals why customer success storytelling matters more than ever, how to ground AI in trusted first-party data, and the key strategies for balancing AI automation with human creativity. 

What You'll Learn:

• How to ground AI agents in customer data to drive measurable outcomes 
• Why CMO leadership must pioneer AI adoption before mandating it across teams 
• AI’s productivity paradox - why it enables both more output AND better work-life balance 
• How to position your brand's trust as a competitive moat in the AI era
• The framework for balancing centralized brand strategy with decentralized field execution  
• Why "show, don't tell" beats feature-focused marketing when launching complex products 

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