The CMO Podcast

Joel Yashinsky is the SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Applebee’s. Applebee’s opened its first restaurant in 1980, and now has about 2,000 franchised locations globally. This is his sixth year as Applebee’s CMO, following 18 years in various roles at McDonald's. Joel graduated from The Bowling Green University in Ohio, and then worked for Georgia-Pacific and Southwest Airlines before joining McD...

Antonio Lucio is the founder of 5S Diversity, which is focused on building capabilities in marketing transformation and diversity and inclusion. He is also an Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management and was inducted into the American Marketing Association Hall of Fame in May 2022. For the last 40 years, Antonio has worked as a successful global CMO and marketing industry leader. He has colla...

Heather Malenshek is the SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Land O’Lakes. She is also a returning guest to the podcast; Heather joined us 3 years ago when she was the CMO at Harley Davidson. (You can listen here. ) Land O’Lakes is a 100 year old farmer and retailer-owned cooperative. Its business goes way beyond the famous consumer dairy brand – with business units in animal feed, sustainable farm...

Andy Rebhun is the Chief Marketing Officer of El Pollo Loco. El Pollo Loco traces its origin to Mexico in the 1970s. Famous for their citrus-marinated fire-grilled chicken, El Pollo Loco is now a nearly-billion-dollar brand in the U.S., with about 500 owned and franchised restaurants in six western states. This is Andy’s first CMO role. He is an accomplished global marketing executive who has deli...

Max Steinman is the VP of Marketing & Communications for DoSomething.org, the largest organization devoted to young people and positive social change. It was founded in 1993 by Michael Sanchez and Andrew Shue, with the goal to make volunteering as cool as sports for GenXers and emerging Millennials. Max began his career in advertising, spending over a decade in the ad world, before working at...

Mike Evans founded GrubHub in his spare bedroom and turned it into a multi-billion-dollar online food delivery company. He left the company shortly after it successfully went public in 2014. Currently, he is working on his second startup – Fixer.com. Mike and his team at Fixer are building a "handyperson" business that looks a lot like GrubHub – easy online ordering, good communication, and great...

Lara Richardson is the Chief Marketing Officer of Hallmark Media, which includes the Hallmark Channel, Hallmark Movies and Mysteries, and Hallmark Drama, as well as a streaming service, Hallmark Movies Now. Hallmark Media is a subsidiary of Kansas City-based Hallmark Cards.  Lara has worked as the CMO of Hallmark Media for two years. Previously, she worked for USA Broadcasting, Oxygen Media,...

As creative skills begin to decline in the C-Suite, Deloitte Digital looked to answer a specific question: Can you create breakthrough innovation without creative leaders to guide the way? In this Office Hours episode of The CMO Podcast, Jim is joined by Mark Singer, the CMO of Deloitte Digital, to break down their recent report on Creative Business Transformation. Mark began his career working at...

Andre Gray is the Chief Creative Officer at Annex 88, which is part of the France-based Havas Group – one of the world’s largest communications companies. Annex88 believes that brands thrive only when they bring culturally representative creative ideas to the market. Andre has a resume befitting a top creative person in a top agency. He spent the bulk of his career in Europe, where he was the glob...

Doug Zarkin is the VP and Chief Marketing Officer at Pearle Vision, the $600 million global optical franchise. In 1961, Dr. Stanley Pearle opened his first store in Savannah, Georgia, and in 2004, Luxottica (the giant Italian eye-care conglomerate) acquired Pearle Vision.  Doug has been the CMO of Pearle Vision for 10 years – about three times the average tenure of a CMO. He has returned Pear...

Amy Jaick is the Chief Marketing & Communications Officer at Columbia Business School (CBS). The school was established in 1916 and offers MBA, PhD, MS and Exec Ed programs today. Amy works across functions and channels to create integrated programs that bring CBS’s mission, vision and values to life. This is Amy’s first CMO role. She was previously the Vice President of Digital and Social Str...

Melissa Menta has been the SVP Marketing & Communications for Peanuts Worldwide for over 20 years. "Peanuts" – AKA Charlie Brown, Lucy, Snoopy, PigPen, Linus, and the whole gang. Peanuts Worldwide accumulates more than $2 billion in retail sales, with partnerships running from Apple TV to NASA to The Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.  Melissa began her career working in marketing and PR at...

In a special episode of The CMO Podcast, we are joined by two former Procter & Gamble leaders, Chip Bergh and Janet Reid. Janet Reid was the first black woman with a PhD that P&G hired. She began her career at P&G in R&D later transferring to marketing. Currently, Janet is the CEO of BRBS World LLC, a private management consulting consortium.  Chip Bergh spent 28 years at P&am...

For Maggie Gross, BrandWorth started out as a question: How does a brand prove their value to a skeptical CEO or CFO who sees branding as a cost-driver? Maggie leads Brand practice at Deloitte. She has led strategy for brands like Dos Equis, Samsung, Keurig/Green Mountain, Lysol, and the Special Olympics. Her work with American Express on Small Business Saturday reframed the idea into the Shop Sma...

Tim Armstrong is the Founder and CEO of Flowcode, the offline-to-online company building direct connections between brands and consumers through next generation QR technology. Tim and his team launched Flowcode in late 2019, and was named to LinkedIn’s Top 50 US Startups in 2021.  Tim was one of the first guests on The CMO Podcast in 2019. His career has spanned a wide range of roles, from st...

Suzanne Kounkel , is a Principal in Deloitte Consulting LLC and the Chief Marketing Officer of Deloitte. Founded 175 years ago, Deloitte is one of the largest–and oldest– business-to-business enterprises in the world and an exclusive sponsor of this podcast. They have roughly 330,000 employees and about $50 billion in revenue across its many business services. Suzanne is a returning guest to the C...

Jose ‘Pepe’ Gorbea  is the Global Head of Brands and Sustainability Innovation for HP Inc., the iconic Silicon Valley company with a wide portfolio of printers, PCs, mobile devices, solutions and services. In FY2021, HP’s revenue was about $64 billion. Pepe grew up in Mexico City and spent the first years of his career with global food giants like Nestle and Kraft Heinz. Pepe has been at HP f...

Jenny Lewis  is the Global Chief Marketing Officer for The Knot Worldwide ,  that operates across 16 countries, with more than 2,000 employees and consists of 19 brands including The Knot, The Bump, WeddingWire, and The Bash in the U.S. Starting in 1996 as an early internet brand, an astounding 8 out of 10 engaged couples use The Kno...

Pam Forbus  is the the Chief Marketing Officer of  Pernod Ricard North America . Headquartered in France, Pernod Ricard is the second largest wine and spirits company in the world, with global sales of nearly $10 billion. Among their most recognizable brands are Absolut, Jameson, Kahlua, The Glenlivet, and Malibu.  Pam began in agencies, working for four of them in 13 years, and tra...

Harris Beber  is the Chief Marketing Officer of  Waze . Founded in Israel in 2009, Waze is a crowd-sourced navigation app with upwards of 150 million monthly users in 56 languages. In 2013 Google bought Waze, and the company continues to make your commute quicker. Harris spent five years as CMO at the video platform Vimeo, and before that he was CMO of Direct to Consumer operations at vi...

Shanee Ben-Zur  is the Chief Marketing and Growth Officer for  Crunchbase , a company founded in 2007 by Michael Arrington, initially as a place to track the startups his parent company TechCrunch was writing about. In 2010, AOL bought TechCrunch and Crunchbase, but Crunchbase went private again five years later.   She has a degree in Management Science from UC San Diego, and b...

This very special bonus episode was recorded live at the State Theater at State College, Pennsylvania home to Penn State University. This is a panel discussion from four Penn State Alumni hosted by Jim. This panel consists of  Tanya R. Kennedy , an associate justice on the Supreme Court of the state of New York,  Don Roy King , TV Director who spent 16 seasons directing Saturday Night Li...

Vinoo Vijay  is the EVP and Chief Marketing Officer for  Truist , a Top Ten US commercial bank with 15 million customers. They have over 2,000 branches, with assets worth $545 billion. The banks SunTrust Bank and BB&T merged in 2019 and became Truist in 2022.  This is Vinoo’s third CMO job. He was the CMO of TD Bank before he was CMO of H&R Block. Born in Indonesia, Vin...

Recorded at the 2022 Deloitte University Next Generation Academy , this is an Office Hours bonus episode, roundtable devoted to leadership. Joining Jim is  Emily Culp (Advisor at ECH Ventures and former CMO of Keds Shoes),  LeAnne Hester (Chief Marketing and Solutions Officer for  TRIMEDX ), and Jenn Kretchmar (Chief Digital and Merchandising Officer at Build-A-Bear Workshop ). This...

In this special edition episode of The CMO Podcast, Jim Stengel speaks with  Maria Sharapova , a five-time Grand Slam winner and former #1 ranked female tennis player. Joining her are  Prinz M. Pinakatt  (SVP, Global Head of  Danone Waters ) and  Max Eisenbud  (SVP, Head of Clients at  IMG Tennis ). Together, they tell the story of a brand, an athlete, and an age...