The CMO Podcast

This week, Jim welcomes Melody Lee, the Chief Marketing Officer of Mercedes-Benz USA. Mercedes-Benz is one of the world’s most enduring luxury brands and will celebrate its 100th anniversary next year.

Melody’s career in marketing had an inauspicious start. She graduated from Georgia Tech with both a BS and an MS in international affairs, took a $12/hour internship at a PR firm, and never looked back. After six years in PR,...

In this special roundtable episode of The CMO Podcast, recorded live at the Brand Innovators LVMH Villa, presented by Shutterstock. Jim Stengel sits down with four powerhouse marketing leaders to explore the timeless—and timely—question: What does it take to build a brand people truly love?

Joining Jim are...

Matt Spiegel, EVP of TruAudience Growth Strategy at TransUnion

Nicole Parlapiano, Chief Marketing Officer of Tubi

Melis...

Jim's guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Brian Irving, the Chief Marketing Officer at Lyft,  the 13-year-old, San Francisco-based  company whose purpose is to improve people’s lives with the world's best transportation. Lyft does business in the US and Canada, and has about $6 billion in revenue

Brian has been at Lyft for about 15 months. Before that, he has worked at three of the world’s most valuable companie...

Jim's guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Elizabeth Rutledge, the Chief Marketing Officer of American Express. Elizabeth is a unique CMO–she has been at AmEx for her entire career of 35 years, and she has been CMO for seven of those years. AmEx’s stock was about $4 when Elizabeth joined, and it is about $300 currently. More trivia–American Express was founded in 1850–one of the oldest brands in the world.  

Eliz...

We had a whirlwind five days in Cannes last week, bringing you our first of many live, in-person episodes recorded as part of the Cannes Lions Festival. And to kick it off, Jim is diving into a topic that was a part of many conversations in the south of France…the Creator Economy. Creators and the space they’ve forged have become one of most transformative forces in marketing. It’s reshaping how brands connect with people,...

You have probably noticed we are getting more provocative with our episodes and their titles. A few weeks ago we released an episode titled “Is Brand Purpose Dead.” Well this week’s episode takes it up a notch: “The Day the Universe Changed: How the last five years have changed us as humans and consumers.”  

Jim's guests are Mike Moynihan, the SVP of Brand, Marketing, Insights and Partnerships at the Leg...

This week Jim's guest on The CMO Podcast is Carrie Palin, the SVP and Chief Marketing Officer of Cisco, the $55 billion by revenue tech leader, whose purpose is to leverage technology, people, and broader networks to solve society’s greatest challenges. Cisco is on quite a roll–its stock is up about 40% in the last year.  

Carrie never took a marketing class in school, and never even imagined she would be a top te...

It’s officially summertime here in the U.S., and Jim welcomes a guest whose company truly embodies the spirit of the season. Kelley Puckett is the Chief Marketing Officer of goodr, a high-growth sunglasses brand founded nine years ago in Southern California.

Like many great startups, goodr began by identifying a problem and solving it. The founders—runners themselves—noticed that running sunglasses were expensive and overly...

This week Jim welcomes Rah Mahtani, the Head of Commercial Strategy US for Alibaba.com, the Chinese multinational technology company founded in 1999 by Jack Ma and 18 colleagues. Alibaba Group operates as a holding company for a wide array of businesses, including online retail, wholesale through Alibaba.com, logistics (Cainiao), cloud computing (Alibaba Cloud), and financial services (Ant Group). Alibaba.com is the world’...

Do you think brand purpose is a tired idea that never truly had relevance in the world of branding and business? Or do you believe that having a brand purpose—and activating it in everything you do—is the most effective way to run a successful company?

On this show, we've heard compelling arguments on both sides of the debate. So today, we're bringing together four thought leaders to discuss and explore one big question: Is...

We’re on the verge of summer, so you’re probably dreaming of that ice-cold beer—whether at the beach, the ballpark, or on your back porch. This week, Jim welcomes Sofia Colucci to the podcast. She’s the Chief Marketing Officer for North America at Molson Coors, the fourth-largest brewer in the world, with about $12 billion in revenue.

Molson Coors traces its roots back to 1786, when John Molson founded Canada’s oldest brewe...

This week's episode is something a little different. Jim returns to the beautiful Miraval Berkshires — a place known for reflection, intention, and growth. And that spirit is exactly what this conversation is all about: Jim's own Reflections on the Journey to Chief Marketing Officer.

We each have our own journey, but today, Jim will take you through his — including an internal viral campaign within P&G that ultimately ...

This week, we are celebrating the Class of 2025 inductees into the Advertising Hall of Fame, as Jim welcomes three of this year's honorees for a roundtable discussion. Recorded live the morning after "The Biggest Night in Advertising"—the American Advertising Federation’s annual Hall of Fame induction and celebration—the conversation highlights a few individuals each year who have made an indelible impact on the advertisin...

This week, Jim is coming to you from the serene and stunning Miraval Berkshires, nestled in Western Massachusetts, where Vayner hosted the Future CMO Summit. We welcomed twenty next-gen marketing leaders for a perfect setting that inspired a candid, energizing roundtable with some of the brightest minds in the industry today.

Joining Jim are four standout leaders who participated in the Summit:

• Melissa Madaio Colleluori,...

This week, The CMO Podcast is on a field trip, as Jim recently attended the Adobe Summit Digital Experience Conference in Las Vegas. The three-day event featured over 200 sessions, hands-on labs, sneak previews of new products, and plenty of opportunities for fun networking. So, it’s fitting that his guest is someone at the heart of the Adobe Summit: Rachel Thornton, Chief Marketing Officer of Adobe Enterprise.

Adobe is, of...

As we celebrate National Pet Day, Jim's guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Natalia Ball, the Global Chief Growth Officer of Pet Nutrition at Mars. This is a big business for Mars, Petcare is about 60% of its estimated $50 billion in sales. Mars was founded as a candy company by Frank C. Mars in 1911 in Tacoma Washington; it remains to this day a family-owned business. Mars Petcare brands include Pedigree, Whiskas, Royal...

This week we’re bringing you a special episode, recorded live at the Adobe Summit in Las Vegas in March 2025. As we here at the CMO podcast are happy customers of Adobe, we were excited to be part of the programming at the Summit. Our topic was How CMOs can thrive in these times of rapid change, with Jim being joined on stage by Emily Silver, SVP and Chief Marketing & Athlete Experience Officer of Dick’s Sporting Goods...

Happy April Fools! To celebrate the spirit of first day of April, Jim welcomes to the show one of Duo the Owl’s best friends, Emmanuel Orssaud, the Chief Marketing Officer of Duolingo, one of the hottest growth brands in the world with one of the hottest mascots in the world. Duolingo is the most downloaded education app in the history of the App Store and in 2019 became the top-grossing education app worldwide.

Duolingo’s ...

Spring is time for rebirth and renewal…and today’s episode is about a relationship between a client and an agency that embodies continual rebirth and renewal. Jim's guests this week are Sherry Graziano, the EVP, Head of Digital, Client Experience & Marketing at Truist Bank, and Scott Goodson, the CEO and Founder of ad agency StrawberryFrog. Sherry and Scott are longtime partners at Truist, a top 10 US bank headquartere...