The CMO Podcast

Artificial intelligence is reshaping marketing at a pace unlike anything we've seen since the birth of digital. But as today's guests remind us, the fundamentals of great marketing haven't changed. Recorded live at the Infillion Café during Cannes Lions 2026, Jim sits down with Marie Gulin-Merle, Global Vice President of Ads & Commerce Marketing at Google, and Anda Gansca, Co-Founder and CEO o...

Just days before Supergirl hit theaters—and as Ulta Beauty launched its ambitious partnership with Warner Bros. to bring the film to life through an immersive, 360-degree campaign—Kelly Mahoney sat down with Jim Stengel to discuss one of the biggest transformations happening in marketing today. Kelly is the Chief Marketing Officer of Ulta Beauty, the nation's largest beauty retailer, with more tha...

This week, Jim welcomes Grace Kao, Chief Marketing Officer of Snap Inc. Founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, Snap has grown from a simple idea about visual communication into a global platform reaching more than 940 million monthly active users and generating nearly $6 billion in annual revenue. Grace joined Snap in late 2024 and was promoted to Chief Marketing Officer just months lat...

  For 24 straight hours every June, the world's greatest endurance race pushes drivers, machines, and engineers to their limits at Le Mans. For Michelin, it's more than a race, it's a proving ground for innovation, performance, and one of the most enduring brands in the world. This week, Jim welcomes Omer Waysman, Vice President of B2C Marketing for North America at Michelin. Founded in Franc...

The role of the CMO is evolving. Increasingly, it is becoming a pathway to the CEO's office. Jim's guest this week, Melissa Grady Dias, first joined the show in 2020 as Global Chief Marketing Officer of Cadillac, where she helped transform one of America's most iconic brands into the leading luxury EV brand while navigating a global pandemic and unprecedented industry disruption. Now she has enter...

What does growth leadership actually look like in 2026? Recorded live at the Kellogg School of Management Marketing Leadership Summit, this week’s episode features two standout conversations with leaders building some of the most talked-about brands in business today.  First Jim sits down with AT&T’s Chief Marketing and Growth Officer Kellyn Smith Kenny to chat about how a 150-year-old co...

Are you a hopeful leader? Is your brand a hopeful brand? What does hopeful even mean anymore? And in a moment defined by uncertainty, anxiety, and rapid change, one emotion is emerging as a powerful force for brands and leaders alike: hope . Jim’s guests this week as both return guests, as he sits down with Samantha Maltin, Chief Marketing and Brand Officer at St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital...

A few weeks ago at Havas’ Hudson Street headquarters in New York City, industry leaders gathered on the eve of the Advertising Hall of Fame induction ceremony for a candid conversation about leadership, legacy, creativity, and courage.  For this special episode, Jim joins NFL Chief Marketing Officer Tim Ellis in conversation moderated by Maggie Connors, Chief Marketing Officer of Havas Creati...

What does it take to transform a legacy brand and yourself as a leader at the same time? To celebrate the launch of the streaming series on Hulu, Designed to Last, Jim welcomes Sherina Smith, Enterprise Chief Marketing Officer at American Family Insurance. Founded nearly a century ago in Madison, Wisconsin, American Family, or AMFAM, has grown into one of the largest mutual insurers in the United...

This week, about 5.5 thousand marketers from 44 countries and 800 brands are convening in Miami for one of the fastest rising gatherings in our industry, and Jim’s guest is the entrepreneur behind it all. Jim welcomes Christian Muche, Global President and Co-Founder of POSSIBLE. Christian began his career as an accountant before discovering marketing, with time at early internet pioneers AOL and Y...

What does it take to turn a simple drink into a global cultural phenomenon? This week Jim welcomes Allison Varone, the Head of Marketing at Campari America, to unpack the strategy behind one of the most impressive modern brand growth stories. From the rise of Aperol Spritz to the expansion of non-alcoholic options, the Campari Group has become one of the world’s leading spirits companies, with a p...

Long before our guest this week became the CMO of Levi’s, he was rocking the brand as a kid, breakdancing with his brother in shell-toe Adidas and Levi’s denim. Fast forward a few decades, and he’s now leading one of the most admired brands in the world. This week Jim welcomes Kenny Mitchell, SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of the Levi’s brand at Levi Strauss & Co. The legacy brand was founded...

If the role of a CMO is to make a brand interesting, why does so much marketing today feel anything but? This week Jim sits down with Nick Law, Creative Strategy & Experience Lead of Accenture Song, the $20 billion creative services division of Accenture, to explore what’s gone wrong in modern marketing, and what leaders need to do to fix it. In 2019,  Accenture Song (then called Accentur...

If you think the biggest growth opportunity in marketing is Gen Z, Millennials, or Gen Alpha, this episode may change your mind. We kick off a special monthly series focused on how marketers approach different generations, starting with Gen X and Baby Boomers. To explore the 50+ audience, Jim welcomes Brent Rivard, CEO and co-founder of Geezer Creative, an agency built around one bold premise: the...

More and more CMOs are ascending to the CEO role. Starbucks, Hinge, Revlon, Avon, and Brinker International are all companies that have elevated former CMOs to CEO. Joining Jim this week is a guest who joins that group. Diana Haussling is the Chief Executive Officer of hello, the bold, happy, design-forward oral care brand. Founded in 2012 by Craig Dubitsky with the goal of being a “friendly” alte...

What does it take to build a brand that cuts through the noise in a world where most people are trying to ignore you? Jim’s guest this week is Kofi Amoo-Gottfried, Chief Marketing Officer at DoorDash, who has spent the last seven years helping transform the company from a restaurant delivery app into a multi-category commerce platform with over $14 billion in revenue and more than 3.2 billion orde...

If culture moves at the speed of TikTok, then today’s CMO has to move just as fast.  This week, Jim is joined by Sofia Hernandez, Global Head of Business Marketing and Commercial Partnerships at TikTok. Since launching in the U.S. in 2018, TikTok has reshaped culture, content, and marketing. And its mission, to inspire creativity and bring joy, has fueled extraordinary growth, even as the com...

To kick off Women’s History Month, Jim welcomes Lara Balazs, the Chief Marketing Officer and EVP of Global Marketing at Adobe. A company at the center of creativity, transformation and technology. Founded in 1982, Adobe is a software company that is famous for its creativity, innovation, and strong employee and customer-centric culture. Their purpose is to change the world through person...

What does it take to revitalize a 150-year-old company? Jim’s guest this week, Conny Kalcher, has done it twice. First at LEGO during its historic turnaround, and now at Zurich Insurance as their Group Chief Customer Officer, where she’s proving that empathy is not a soft skill but a strategic advantage.  Conny spent 33 years at LEGO, where she helped navigate one of the most dramatic brand t...

This week we return with one of our most anticipated episodes of the year…the 8th annual Super Bowl Advertiser Roundtable. As is tradition, Jim is joined by Gary Vaynerchuk to welcome a collection of marketing leaders behind this year’s most talked-about Super Bowl campaigns.  Our Featured Guests are… Ahmed “Meddy” Iqbal, the Chief Marketing Officer of the Cadillac F1 Team Gail Horwood, the C...

We’re living through one of the biggest shifts in the internet since it began: a move from building content for people to building content for machines, on behalf of people. On this week’s episode, Jim Stengel is joined by James Cadwallader , Co-Founder and CEO of Profound , and Daniel Shin Un Kang , Head of Organic and Agentic Search at Expedia , for a thoughtful, practical conversation about AI...

In the first month of 2026, many leaders are recommitting to being more consumer-centric and more human — inside their organizations and in the market. This episode of The CMO Podcast is designed to help you do exactly that. Jim Stengel hosts a roundtable discussion around the book The Consumer Insights Revolution: Transforming Market Research for Competitive Advantage , which chronicles PepsiCo’s...

With the NFL season in full swing and the Super Bowl just weeks away, Jim sits down with Tim Ellis , Chief Marketing Officer of the National Football League, for a timely conversation about leading one of the most powerful brands in the world.  Recorded live at the ANA Masters of Marketing in Orlando , this episode explores how the NFL continues to evolve beyond the game itself into a cultura...

The auto industry is changing faster than ever, yet cars remain deeply personal, symbols of freedom, connection, and possibility. Few companies embody that spirit like General Motors, a brand that has shaped culture for more than a century and is now leading the charge toward an electric and connected future. Jim’s guest this week is Norm de Greve , Chief Growth Officer of General Motors. GM is, o...

At CES 2026, the conversation around AI often swings between hype and fear — but for marketers the real question is far more grounded: How do you scale intelligence, creativity, and performance without losing the human connection that brands are built on? In this bonus episode of The CMO Podcast, recorded live on the C Space stage at CES, Jim sits down with Yannick Bolloré, Chairman and CEO of Hav...