Chief Marketing Officers at Work

This book contains 29 exclusive, in-depth interviews with chief marketing officers like Jeff Jones of Target, Linda Boff of GE, Brian Kenny of the Harvard Business School, Trish Mueller of The Home Depot, and Seth Farbman of Spotify.

This book will help C-level executives and others who interface and collaborate with marketing departments to understand how marketing drives growth at both startup and enterprise levels, and how marketing has moved from art to science. Trends in digital marketing, analytics, and marketing automation have pushed marketing to adopt data-driven approaches that would make a CFO's head swim. Marketing increasingly overlaps with business functions that were previously viewed as separate and distinct like sales, HR and recruiting, customer service, operations, and technology. This change in the status quo requires individuals in these roles to better understand how marketing works and how it can help them achieve their objectives, and the interviews in this book deliver those insights.

Who Should Read This Book?

• CMOs, other marketing executives, and aspiring marketing executives
• C-level executives
• Advertising execs, media planners, public relations professionals, digital marketers, and other marketing professionals
• Advertising agencies and marketing and PR firms
• Entrepreneurs
• All others who interface with marketing functions in their own roles

What the Reader Will Learn

• How chief marketing officers from leading corporations, nonprofits, government entities, and startups got to where they are today, what their job entails, and the skills they use to thrive in the CMO role
• How top marketing executives adapt to changes impacting their jobs in the areas of technology, language, and culture
• How the CMO works in an environment of ever-increasing collaboration where the roles of CEO, CTO, COO, and CMO are blurring
• How the CMO role is now dominated by data rather than gut decisions

Sample Questions

The interviews in this book all started with the same question, asking how the marketer being interview began his or her journey and the path that led to the role they now hold. Here is a sampling of other questions that formed the basis for these interviews: 

• What is your philosophy on building and managing a marketing team?
• How do you attract and retain top marketing talent?
• What do you look for in hires?
• Do you have any experience breaking down silos, and how can a CMO facilitate that?
• How do you make sure your goals are aligned with the overall organization?
• What kind of metrics do you focus on?
• How is globalization affecting marketing for you?
• How do you make sure you're in touch with your customers and understand their needs and wants?
• What organizations are you a member of and what value do you receive from them?
• What kind of data do you have access to and how do you use data in your role?
• What channels are you using to connect with your customers?
• How do you keep up with all the different marketing vendors, channels, and opportunities?
• How do you get through to consumers in a world of ad blockers where consumers have control?
• What do you think the future of marketing will be and how will it be different from today?
• What are some of the skills CMOs need that don't get enough attention?
• What are your thoughts on marketing to millennials?

If there was anything unexpected that resulted from these interviews, it was how tech-savvy these executives were. These individuals are hardly the types to engage in "Mad Men"-style marketing. They are driven by data, yet also aware of the risks posed by depending too much on that data. They are always learning and progressing. Now you have the opportunity to learn from them.