The CMO Whisperer

My guest this week is Alan Bethke. For over 20 years, Alan has served in various roles for Subaru of America, including his current role as SVP of marketing, where he's responsible for all marketing brands, strategy, media, planning, creative customer experience, corporate comms, and on and on and on.

My guest this week is Marissa Solis. Marissa is Senior Vice President, Global Brand and Consumer Marketing for the NFL, where she leads all global brand and consumer marketing initiatives for the league, including all national advertising, both traditional and digital, in stadium marketing and new fan development.

 My guest this week is Richard Howe. Richard is an accomplished entrepreneur, tech executive and board member. He served as a senior executive at FinTech innovator, Fair, Isaac and Company, the inventor of the FICO score, which profoundly changed the way credit worthiness is evaluated. He was also chief strategy officer at Axiom, the inventor of direct to consumer data based marketing.  Richard is...

My guest this week is Dr. Marcus Collins, an award winning marketer, best selling author and former chief strategy officer at Wieden+Kennedy, and currently a marketing professor at the university of Michigan. Part marketing professor, part chief strategy officer, Dr. Marcus prescribes lots of advice for brand health.

My guest this week is Aubriana Lopez, Head of Data Strategy, Global Product Marketing for Samsung Ads. Aubriana is an experienced multi discipline marketer who's had the ability to grow her expertise throughout the ever evolving nature of the media business, with a focus on audience development, cross functional measurement, and in depth reporting and insights.

My guest this week is former NBA player, Channing Frye. After an illustrious 14 year career, which included winning a championship in Cleveland with none other than LeBron James. Channing is now lead analyst for Warner Brothers Discovery, where he hosts the multitude of shows, including handles on NBA TV and his cohost of a very popular podcast with another NBA player, Richard Jefferson.  Channing...

From Bank of America to American Express to a champion of journalism done right, Lou Paskalis is a leading voice in the world of marketing and media today.

My guest this week is Reena Agnihotri, former Global Head of Brand Consulting at Deloitte, Reena is now Global CMO at Valiantys, a leading global Atlassian partner that accelerates customers business transformations using agile methods. Reena is also part of an exclusive leadership program through Women of Influence, a program designed for decision makers who want to optimize their leadership pote...

My guest this week is Michael Williams. Michael's a global leader who has served as CMO for the Grand Prix of America Formula One, the New Jersey Devils, and the San Francisco 49ers. He was also responsible for all sales and marketing for the Walt Disney Company's Mighty Ducks of Anaheim and is currently the General Manager and Managing Director of Summit One Vanderbilt, the tallest commercial sky...

My guest today is Jawad Bisbis. After starting his marketing career at Procter & Gamble, Jawad has held senior roles at 7Eleven, Focus Brands, Coca Cola, and Luxottica, right up to his current role as global VP of marketing at Ball Corporation. He holds a master's degree from KEDGE business school in France and is fluent in Arabic and French.

 My guest this week is Pierre Bouvard, Chief Insights Officer for Cumulus Media and Westwood One. He leads their audio active group of media and creative advisory service and works with both national brands and agencies to craft targeting and measurement solutions. Prior to his current role, Pierre was SVP at TiVo Research and Analytics, where he led cross media and measurement engagements for Pro...

My guest this week is Jon Bond. At age 27, Jon and his partner Richard Kirshenbaum founded Kirshenbaum Bond, a truly new kind of agency that challenged the status quo from the Mad Men era. And within just six months, the agency had been featured in New York Magazine. Jon has gone on to do so many other things, including working with Forbes to create its iconic 50 most influential CMOs. Jon also si...

My guest this week is Dawn Hudson. From CEO, to CMO, to chairman of the board, her career has spanned high level posts in media, retail, consumer goods and more. Dawn has at brands like the NFL, Pepsi, Lowe's, PF Chang's, Nvidia, the LPGA and the list goes on.

My guest this week is Bruce Hershey. Yes, as in the Hershey Kiss, Hershey candy bar. Bruce has over 30 years of marketing experience and he's held various leadership roles, responsible for marketing strategy and growth on both the client and agency side. In 2019, Bruce won the highly coveted CMO of the year award. Here's my conversation with my dear friend, Bruce Hershey. Links Bruce's LinkedIn St...

My guest this week is Oksana Sobol. Oksana leads the insights function at The Clorox Company, where she's implementing an agile, fast, and consumer centric insights model. Her global career spans everything from brand marketing and market research in her native Ukraine, and then the Czech Republic. She's worked for big companies like Nielsen, Kraft Foods, Unilever, J&J, and Mondelez. Links Oks...

Back in 2011, Jim Leschinsky, while working at Google, coined a phrase; Zero Moment of Truth. He would later write the book, Winning the Zero Moment of Truth. It was then and is still today a seminal book in the world of marketing. Jim's gone on to become an Associate Professor of Marketing at Northwestern University.

My guest today is Pio Schunker. Pio has been on both sides of the aisle; from the brand side, including stops at Coca Cola and Samsung, where he held senior marketing management roles, to the agency side, including stops on Ogilvy and Mather and Loewen and Partners, where he worked on accounts like American Express and Mercedes Benz. Most recently, Pio just launched his own agency called The Actio...

My guest today is Bart Sichel. Most recently, Bart was the CMO of Bed, Bath and Beyond. Before that, he was at Burlington stores and he was also a partner at McKinsey where he was a leader in their marketing practice. He has an unbelievable amount of experience in the world of marketing, especially in retail. We kicked off the conversation on the topic that is the elephant in every marketer's room...

My guest today is Terry Kawaja, the founder and CEO of Luma Partners, a strategic advisory firm that's right at the intersection of media, marketing and technology. Terry has been called the Jon Stewart of investment bankers, and with very good reason. He's overseen over $300 billion worth of transactions. He's also known at least by me as the Weird Al Yankovic of investment bankers. Find out why...

Alma Derricks has over 25 years of experience building inventive new ventures at established media, entertainment, tech, hospitality, CPG. You name it, she's done it, at brands like Verizon, Sirius XM, Amazon, Southwest Airlines. She's also held senior management positions at HBO, Paramount, and Cirque du Soleil. She's currently a senior client partner at Korn Ferry. Links Alma's LinkedIn Steve's...

My guest today is Jeanniey Walden . Jeanniey is the senior vice president and CMO of Rite Aid and Thrifty Ice Cream. Her decades of experience span Fortune 500 companies and startups across a whole host of industries, including retail, health and wellness, consulting, ad agencies, fintech. Everything. If that weren't enough, she's also the host of her own network TV show called Liftoff.

My guest today is David Edelman. David's the former CMO of Aetna, and he's currently a senior lecturer in marketing at Harvard Business School. I've known David well over 10 years and we had an absolutely fascinating conversation focussing initially on AI and and the customer experience. One of David's recent HBR articles was " Customer Experience in the Age of AI " which are two topics that are v...

My guest today is Doug Zarkin, former CMO of Pearl Vision. Doug's won Effie Awards and Cleo Awards and countless other awards that I can't even think of. I've known Doug for well over 10 years, and he is absolutely one of the brightest minds in all of marketing that I've ever met. Our conversation ranges from his thoughts on why emotions are so important when it comes to advertising, to what he de...

My guest today is Evan Greene. Evan's the former CMO of the Recording Academy, which you probably know better as the Grammy Awards. Evan and I've known each other well over 10 years, and we had a truly fascinating conversation. We talked about everything from making the complex look simple to what initially drew him to the world of marketing in the first place, and if he was ever starstruck during...

Hi, this is Steve Olenski, AKA the CMO Whisperer, a title given to me by the former CMO of Walmart. Part marketing practitioner, part ad agency, veteran part journalist - I was a Forbes writer for nearly 10 years. What I am at my core is a conversationalist, I love to engage in real conversations. In a world where AI blurs the lines between what is authentic and what is not, The CMO Whisperer Show...