The CMO Podcast

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 portfolio of more than 50 pr...

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 in 1853 by Bavarian immigr...

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 Accenture Interactive) purchased th...

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 marketing industry has bee...

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” alternative in the market, hell...

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 orders in 2025. Today, DoorDash...

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 company has navigated controve...

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 personalized digital experiences...

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 turnarounds in modern busine...

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 Chief Marketing Officer &a...

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 search, answer engines, and wh...

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 multi-year transformation o...

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 cultural force that brings people to...

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, of course, home to iconic bra...

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 Havas — one of the world’s lar...

When you think about the technology that connects our world—the phones in our hands, the cars we drive, the networks powering everything around us—there’s a good chance Qualcomm is behind it.

Jim's guest this week is Don McGuire, Global Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Communications Officer of Qualcomm. Since becoming CMO in 2021, Don has helped transform Qualcomm’s narrative, elevating the company from “the tech behind t...

Some leaders talk about the power of creativity, and a select few leaders build a career proving it. Jim's guest this week is one of those. Andrew Robertson is the long-time leader of BBDO Worldwide, one of the most awarded and effective creative advertising  networks in the world. He served as President and CEO from 2004 to 2024 before stepping into his current role as Chairman. During his tenure, BBDO was named Netw...

Very few brands have reinvented themselves as successfully, or as culturally, as Coach. On this week's episode, Jim sits down with Joon Silverstein, Chief Marketing Officer of Coach, to unpack the bold transformation behind one of fashion’s most compelling modern growth stories. 

Coach is part of Tapestry, Inc., the New York–based global house of iconic accessory and lifestyle brands that also includes Kate Spade. This...

Few brands define connection quite like AT&T—not just through technology, but through trust. And trust is not a word historically associated with telecom companies.

Jim’s guest this week is at the center of AT&T’s transformation: Kellyn Smith Kenny, the company’s first-ever Chief Marketing & Growth Officer. Since 2020, Kellyn has helped usher in what she calls the “Accountability Era,” part of an ambitious, mult...