Marketing Vanguard

In the age of AI, marketers still have to answer one big question: “Why should anyone choose you?”

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Ameetess Dira, CMO of Petzey, for a conversation about the decisions that become even more important as marketing gets easier to automate. Ameetess breaks down why purpose alignment is a non-negotiable in her career, why she deliberately pushes marketing into product, technology, and finance conversations and why some of her strongest brand partnerships looked strange on paper.

Ameetess Dira is Chief Marketing Officer at Petzey, an on-demand pet telehealth app with more than 1,000 pet professionals across the U.S.

Her path into marketing has crossed broadcasting, radio, print, agency leadership, technology, and international market expansion across Asia and the United States.

Her move into pet health was deeply personal. After losing her senior dog, Ameetess deliberately sought out work that could improve access to care for animals and the people who love them. That purpose now shapes how she thinks about everything from partnerships and crisis response to the role marketing should play inside the wider business.

What You'll Learn:

• Why purpose alignment is a non-negotiable for Ameetess when choosing where to work
• Why underserved problems can create stronger brand opportunities than obvious ones
• How unexpected partnerships can work when the underlying values make sense
• Why marketing should be embedded in product, technology and finance conversations
• Why AI may make storytelling more valuable, not less
• Why long-term brand trust can matter more than short-term revenue
• How CEO trust gives CMOs more room to take meaningful risks
• Why leadership has to change depending on the people and market involved

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you’re wondering why your good ol’ marketing playbook no longer works, the answer probably lies in the funnel you’re targeting.

Turns out, the buyer changed the route.

Recorded live at Advertising Week New York, this episode of Marketing Vanguard features Jenny Rooney in conversation with Salesforce CMO Erin Oles to unpack what happens when customer behavior moves faster than the funnel marketers built around it. Erin gets into why traditional attribution assumptions are starting to crack, why marketers need to understand how their brand appears inside LLMs and why AI should be given real problems instead of vague “use cases.”

Erin Oles is Chief Marketing Officer at Salesforce.

Her path into marketing began in sales, an experience she credits with teaching her how quickly you can tell whether a message actually resonates with a real person.

Today, her approach to AI is similarly practical. Rather than treating new technology as something marketers need to master in theory, Erin argues for learning by doing, staying anchored to customer problems and handing repetitive work to AI when human judgment can be better spent elsewhere.

At Salesforce, that means rethinking everything from AI search visibility and customer discovery to conversational agents and real-time campaign optimization.

What You'll Learn:

• Why Erin thinks the idea of a fixed marketing “playbook” is becoming an oxymoron
• Why buyer behavior is making the traditional nurture funnel feel increasingly artificial
• Why yesterday’s attribution models may not explain tomorrow’s customer journey
• Why AEO is not simply SEO with a new acronym
• How owned content can quietly work against your brand inside LLM results
• Why AI works best when you start with a problem instead of a tool
• Why context becomes more valuable as access to intelligence becomes more universal
• How AI-driven discovery could push marketers beyond the traditional boundaries of marketing

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AI gives every marketer access to similar tools. So, how’s that going to help your brand stand out?

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with MasterCard’s Executive Vice President of Global Brand Strategy and Innovation, Cheryl Guerin, to talk about how brands can differentiate themselves when technology becomes table stakes. Cheryl gets into how MasterCard uses AI to eliminate routine brand work and free its people for higher-order thinking, why Priceless has survived nearly three decades of cultural change, and why real agility sometimes looks like saying no.

Cheryl Guerin is Executive Vice President, Global Brand Strategy and Innovation at MasterCard.

She has spent nearly 26 years at the company across a wide range of roles, including regional marketing leadership, products and services, P&L responsibility and global credit before returning to the area she describes as her heart: marketing.

Over that time, Cheryl has helped evolve the Priceless platform through major shifts in culture, technology and the business itself, leading initiatives such as the True Name card and Touch Card. Her perspective is grounded in a simple challenge: keep the brand relevant as the world changes without losing the human truth that made it matter in the first place.

What You'll Learn:

• How MasterCard uses automation to free brand experts for higher-order creative work
• Why Priceless has remained relevant across nearly three decades of cultural change
• Why saying no is becoming a critical part of brand agility
• How “passions experts” help MasterCard identify cultural opportunities earlier
• Why emerging talent can create different economics and stronger relationships than obvious superstar bets
• Why purpose-driven work has to connect brand ethos, constituent needs and business impact

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketers love acquisition. But Doug Zarkin thinks that obsession is helping brands ignore the much more expensive problem sitting underneath it: retention (or the lack of it).

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with the CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone” to unpack why being liked is not the same as being loved, why retention deserves the same energy as acquisition and why some of the problems blamed on marketing actually belong to the entire business. Plus, a breakdown of his “Think Human” philosophy and the leadership lesson he has landed on after decades in the business: being effective matters a lot more than being the smartest person in the room.

Doug Zarkin is CMO and author of “Moving Your Brand Out of the Friend Zone”.

His career has taken him from the agency world into brand leadership across Avon, Victoria’s Secret and Pearle Vision, where he spent more than 11 years leading marketing. This decade-long role gave him the opportunity to take a big-picture view of brand transformation, customer loyalty and how positioning moves beyond advertising into operations and experience.

Across his work, Doug has developed a simple philosophy: brands win when they stop treating customers as transactions and start building the trust, relevance and experience that gives people a reason to choose them again.

What You'll Learn:

• Why brands often overestimate how strong their customer relationships really are
• Why retention deserves the same energy, budget, and attention as acquisition
• Why customer churn can signal an operations problem rather than a marketing problem
• How the “Think Human” philosophy changes the way brands approach customer experience
• Why AI works best as a mirror and an assistant rather than a substitute for judgment
• Why marketers should enter new environments with a notebook instead of a playbook

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

The fastest way to shrink marketing’s influence is to treat it like it’s just another department.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Jenny Rooney sits down with Kellyn Smith Kenny, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T, for a sharp conversation about what the CMO job actually demands.

Kellyn argues that marketing should operate as an engine for growth, gets into why leaders are responsible for raising the bar, why conviction without patience can backfire and a foundational mistake marketers risk making with AI.

Kellyn Smith Kenny is Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at AT&T. Here, she brings marketing and growth together - a combination reflected in how she thinks about the CMO role itself.

Her career has taken her across major brands and very different stages of company growth, including Capital One, Uber, Hilton and AT&T, giving her a broad view of what marketing leadership looks like inside both established organizations and businesses undergoing major change.

Her approach is simple: marketing cannot operate as an isolated function. It has to understand the economics of the company, build strong relationships across the organization and create the conditions for both the business and its people to perform at a higher level.

What You'll Learn:

• Why marketing leaders need to understand how the entire business makes money
• Why finance and operations should be allies, not neighboring departments
• What separates being a marketing manager from being a company leader
• Why great leaders create the conditions for people to do the best work of their careers
• Why raising the bar requires conviction and patience at the same time
• Why high-quality data has to come before meaningful AI adoption
• Why human insight still belongs at the center of strategy and creative work

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Every industry, marketing included, is battling one affliction: sameness.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jason Pirock, Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, to discuss why differentiation may be one of marketing's most underhyped priorities right now. Jason also challenges the industry’s fixation on ROAS, reveals why CXO titles don’t matter as much as you’d think, and what creator partnerships should really look like.

Jason Pirock is the Former Vice President of Global Brand Marketing at Outrigger Resorts and Hotels, with nearly 20 years of experience across retail, commercial real estate, and hospitality. His career has spanned work across Hyatt, Aparium Hotel Group, Springboard, and Outrigger.

Across those roles, Jason has consistently gravitated toward building and rebuilding, from rethinking an early business at Target to putting content creators into local markets before “creator” became standard marketing language. His perspective combines brand strategy, experiential marketing and a strong belief that differentiation matters even more as technology makes execution easier.

What You'll Learn:

• Why hospitality’s adoption of AI is accelerating after years of lagging behind other industries
• Why consumers are gravitating back toward real-world experiences and human interaction
• Why authentic creator fit matters more than reach or follower count
• Why senior marketing titles matter less than alignment with leadership
• Why ROAS should be treated as a directional indicator rather than the full definition of success
• How a builder mindset can shape a marketing leader’s career
• Why differentiation becomes even more important as AI makes generic execution easier

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

The old sponsorship model was simple: buy the assets, activate around the big moment, and move on.

Jessica Goldstein thinks that model is already outdated.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica, the NWSL’s Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions, to unpack why modern sports partnerships need to behave more like platforms, built around athlete storytelling, fan behavior, consistent presence, and a role the audience can actually recognize.

Jessica Goldstein is Vice President of Partnerships and Marketing Solutions at the NWSL, where she leads partnership strategy and marketing solutions for the league. Her work here primarily focuses on combining both sides of that experience: helping partners build stronger roles inside the league while using athlete storytelling, cultural crossover, and long-term consistency to grow fandom around women’s soccer.

She has spent more than 20 years in sports, beginning at the NBA in production and entertainment before moving into brand marketing. spent more than 11 years agency-side, where much of her work focused on sponsorship strategy and building women’s sports platforms for major brands.

What You'll Learn:

• Why athlete storytelling can turn individual players into gateways to broader fandom
• Why traditional sponsorship asset lists no longer create enough value on their own
• How 360 partnership strategies can connect live moments, content, and fan behavior
• Why tentpoles need an always-on strategy around them to drive long-term value
• Why data should inform partnership strategy without pretending to make every decision for you
• How women’s sports can unlock categories and stories that traditional sports partnerships may not

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Audience targeting may have gotten easier, but getting people to truly care has not.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Dan Moriarty, CMO of Chicago Fire FC, to unpack why the marketing pendulum is swinging back toward creative, what makes live sports such a powerful attention engine and why brands should think harder about the emotion behind what they sell.

Plus, the inside scoop on why he left the Chicago Bulls for a growth-stage MLS club and the difficult people decisions that have helped reshape his marketing organization.

Dan Moriarty is Chief Marketing Officer of Chicago Fire FC, where he leads marketing for Chicago’s Major League Soccer club.

Originally from England, Dan began his career agency-side before moving into brand roles at Hyatt. He later spent around eight years with the Chicago Bulls before joining Chicago Fire FC.

At the Fire, he has been part of a period of significant investment and change across the club, from its on-field ambitions and downtown presence to new facilities, fan experiences, and plans for a new stadium. His marketing perspective combines a digital-first background with an increasing conviction that, as targeting becomes easier, creative quality matters more than ever.

What You'll Learn:

• Why sports still commands attention in a world built around on-demand content
• Why Chicago Fire FC focuses on selling joy and passion rather than soccer itself
• How the club turned World Cup energy into an owned Chicago fan experience
• Why easier targeting makes stronger creative even more important
• Why buying reach is no longer a meaningful competitive advantage
• How Chicago Fire FC is restructuring its in-house creative operation
• Why avoiding underperformance can cost you your strongest people

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Brand or performance? That’s the wrong question for marketers to ask, according to Nick Fairbairn.

Live from the Marketing Vanguard stage at Brandweek 2026, Jenny Rooney sits down with Chime’s SVP of Growth to unpack why brand lift and direct-response accountability belong in the same system, why buying an AI tool does not amount to AI transformation and why scrappy creative may do more brand-building work than marketers want to admit.

Nick also gets into TV’s messy shift from linear to streaming, executive conversations around brand investment and why creators should perhaps be a part of every channel.

Nick Fairbairn is Senior Vice President of Growth at Chime, where he leads a broad growth organization spanning paid media, organic growth, go-to-market, lifecycle, product, engineering and onboarding.

His career started in media buying, including television and radio, before he moved into agency entrepreneurship and then brand-side marketing. Along the way, he’s worked at ProFlowers, helped build acquisition at Dollar Shave Club during the DTC era, led startup growth and later joined Chime to build its product marketing capabilities before moving into his current growth role.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI adoption needs active leadership instead of waiting for teams to figure it out themselves
• Why buying another AI tool rarely changes how a marketing organization actually works
• How Nick measures TV with the rigor of a performance channel
• Why brand lift and direct-response accountability should sit in the same conversation
• How data can turn a defensive budget discussion into a stronger case for brand investment
• Why lower-production testimonial creative can still move brand equity and consideration
• Why Nick thinks creators should eventually become part of every marketing channel

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Brandweek 2026 and presented in partnership with Tatari.

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

When every company starts looking like a tech company, a media company and an entertainment company at the same time, brand clarity becomes mission critical.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Grace Kao, CMO of Snap, to talk about what it takes to build a brand people actually understand and want to spend time with. Plus: a breakdown of Snap’s push toward chat, real-world connection and why marketers should be asking the question, “How do we actually add something?”

Grace Kao is Chief Marketing Officer of Snap, where she leads marketing across Snapchat and the company’s broader brand portfolio.

Her career began almost by accident after she stepped away from graduate school and joined BBDO as an executive assistant on the Apple account. From there, she built a career across agency and brand roles spanning PlayStation, Yahoo, Pandora, Instagram, Spotify, and Snap.

Across those chapters, Grace has consistently gravitated toward brands with strong identities, youth audiences, and clear points of view. At Snap, she is focused on keeping the brand rooted in friendship, creativity, and real connection while exploring new ways for brands, creators, and communities to participate on the platform.

What You'll Learn:

• Why brand clarity becomes more valuable as businesses stretch across categories
• How relationships and people can shape a career more than a perfect plan
• Why challenger brands and youth culture have more pull
• How Snapchat is moving beyond passive consumption toward active participation
• Why brand marketing has to match the creative standard of the community
• How chat, Maps, and IRL experiences can create new roles for brands
• Why unexpected partnerships can make audiences see a brand differently

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CMOs are being asked to do something increasingly absurd: deliver more growth, with less budget, while marketing gets more complex and more expensive.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jessica Apotheker, CMO of Boston Consulting Group, to unpack what it actually takes to survive and matter in the modern C-suite.

Jessica Apotheker is Chief Marketing Officer of Boston Consulting Group, where she leads the BCG brand while continuing to work directly with clients on marketing, digital transformation, and growth. Before joining BCG, Jessica worked in product marketing at L’Oréal.

Her approach is grounded in one principle: strategy only matters if it survives execution. Whether she is advising clients or leading BCG’s own marketing agenda, Jessica focuses on measurable impact, stronger capabilities, and making sure marketing earns its place as a growth driver.

What You'll Learn:

• Why granular execution is what turns strategy into actual impact
• How to think about marketing through orchestration, art, and science
• Why BCG increasingly sees itself as a force multiplier, not just a consultancy
• How the impact, asset, and muscle model creates measurable client value
• Why CFO and CIO relationships can determine whether a CMO succeeds
• What makes the CMO role uniquely vulnerable in the C-suite
• Why AI should be positioned as a growth lever, not just an efficiency play

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Mary Yee, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Sony Interactive Entertainment, started her career in accounting, not marketing. And, yet here she is.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Mary to unpack how a career that moved from finance to Clorox to PlayStation to the CEO seat at Tatcha (and back to PlayStation) shaped her view of what great brand building actually requires.

Mary Yee is Senior Vice President of Marketing at Sony Interactive Entertainment, where she oversees the PlayStation brand globally across hardware, peripherals, network services, subscriptions, digital retail, and games.

Her career began in public accounting before she moved into brand marketing at Clorox. She later joined PlayStation during the PS4 era, helping build the brand through a major period of category growth and digital transformation. In 2021, she became CEO of Tatcha, where she helped expand the luxury skincare brand across channels and into 34 countries before returning to Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Across gaming, beauty, and CPG, Mary’s approach is rooted in the same core idea: understand the business, understand the consumer, and build brands around real human connection.

What You'll Learn:

• Why financial literacy can make marketers stronger brand builders
• How analytics and creativity should work together, not against each other
• How Tatcha used communities, creators, and retail to fuel growth
• Why Mary defines herself, first and foremost, as a brand builder
• How cross-media IP expands reach beyond a brand’s core audience
• Why PlayStation anchors products, games, and IP under one master brand
• How curiosity helps leaders move successfully across categories and roles

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What happens when consumers love the idea of your product but freeze when it is time to choose?

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Andy Lopez, CMO of Behr Paint, to unpack how Behr is turning consumer friction into brand opportunity. Andy shares why “color paralysis” is one of the biggest pain points in the paint journey, how Behr uses insight to build confidence at the point of decision and why the strongest marketing ideas start by solving something real.

Sparks President and Chief Client Officer Melissa Levy also joins Jenny for a mid-episode sidebar discussion on trust, measurement, and the future of experiential marketing. Sponsored by Sparks.

Andy Lopez is Chief Marketing Officer of Behr Paint, where he leads an integrated marketing organization spanning brand, product marketing and commercialization. He began his career agency-side, including at Saatchi in Los Angeles working on Toyota, before moving to Behr more than nine years ago.

At Behr, Andy has expanded across brand marketing, product and broader marketing leadership, bringing together consumer insights, innovation and go-to-market strategy. His perspective is shaped by experience on both sides of the agency-brand relationship, as well as Behr’s long-standing exclusive partnership with Home Depot.

What You'll Learn:

• Why the best agency partners behave like extensions of the brand team
• What AI still cannot replace in strategic marketing relationships
• How to use AI to create capacity instead of simply cutting costs
• Why consumer confidence matters as much as consumer inspiration
• How Behr identifies and solves “color paralysis”
• How exclusive retail partnerships work when both brands plan together
• How Behr’s Color of the Year connects trend forecasting to actual consumer behavior

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What do agency leaders need right now? According to Ross Martin, maybe “a sanity check and a lobotomy.” Funny, yes. Also not entirely wrong.

In this special episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney spotlights the launch of Adweek’s Agencies Vanguard program with three founding members: Jessica Henrichs, CEO of DonerColle Partners; Ross Martin, President of Known; and Chioma Aduba, President of Droga5. Together, they unpack why agency leadership has become one of the most complex jobs in business, why competitors need spaces for radical honesty, and why the future of agencies cannot be solved in isolation.

Jessica Henrichs is the CEO of DonerColle Partners and one of the founding members of Adweek’s Agencies Vanguard program. In this episode, she brings a clear perspective on adaptive leadership, the value of peer support and why agency leaders need to build belief through change rather than pretend they have every answer.

Ross Martin is the President of Known and a founding member of Agencies Vanguard. Known for his candid take on the agency industry, Ross brings a sharp view on the structural challenges facing agencies today, from outdated business models to the bigger question of what the industry wants to stand for next.

Chioma Aduba is the President of Droga5 and a founding member of Agencies Vanguard. In this conversation, she speaks to the value of transparency, cross-agency community and creating an industry that feels like it is in good hands for the next generation of creative talent.

What You'll Learn:

• Why agency leaders need perspective, not just certainty
• How leaders can build organizations that adapt through change
• Why agency executives need safe spaces for honest conversation
• How competitors can collaborate on shared industry challenges
• Why agency business models are facing structural pressure
• What diverse agency models can learn from one another
• Why the industry needs to decide what agencies should be known for next

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Some of the biggest opportunities for marketing leaders exist in industries where marketing has historically had the least influence. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jenny Rooney sits down with Danielle Wuschke Paige, Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Nixon Peabody, to explore what it takes to modernize marketing in a complex, relationship-driven industry. Danielle shares how her B2B and agency background prepared her for legal marketing, why trust and content matter more than flashy creative, and how she is evolving the function through stronger business strategy, thought leadership, and AI adoption.

Danielle Wuschke Paige is the Chief Marketing and Growth Officer at Nixon Peabody, an Am Law 100 firm with offices across the United States and internationally. She leads the firm’s marketing and business development organization, with responsibility spanning brand strategy, communications, client engagement, strategic pursuits, digital, design, industry marketing, and practice growth.

Danielle began her career in technology sales before moving into strategic marketing and then spending more than 15 years in the agency world, including leadership roles at FleishmanHillard and MSL.

What You'll Learn:

• Why strong B2B marketing fundamentals can transfer across industries, even when the category itself is completely unfamiliar
• How to turn marketing into a more strategic business function by helping stakeholders understand its impact on firm performance, reputation, and growth
• Why legal marketing is content-first and how timely expertise can build trust with clients who want more guidance from their advisors
• How to balance a law firm’s overall brand with the individual reputations of attorneys whose personal credibility often drives business
• Why AI should enhance junior marketers rather than replace the foundational skills of writing, creative thinking, and communication

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What’s it going to take to build relevance in a brutal attention economy? In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, host Jennifer Rooney sits down with Jennifer Storms, Chief Marketing Officer of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, to break it down.

Jennifer traces her path from Olympic dreams to sports marketing to PepsiCo to NBCUniversal, sharing how NBCUniversal thinks about brand salience across NBC, Peacock, Bravo and NBC Sports, why the Olympics needed to be rebuilt as a year-round franchise and how Legendary February turned three separate live events into one unified cultural moment.

Jennifer Stormsis Chief Marketing Officer of NBCUniversal Television and Streaming, where she leads brand strategy, integrated marketing, media and consumer engagement across NBC, Peacock, Bravo and NBC Sports. Her career spans the United States Olympic and Paralympic Committee, Turner Broadcasting, PepsiCo and NBCUniversal, giving her a rare perspective across sports, media, entertainment and consumer brands. At NBCUniversal, Jennifer focuses on building distinct brands, driving audience growth across platforms and turning major cultural moments into year-round franchises.

What You'll Learn:

• Why a strong career north star should allow for strategic zigzags
• How CPG experience shaped Jenny’s view of consumer behavior and brand building
• Why brand salience matters when consumers have endless content choices
• How NBCUniversal turns campaigns into year-round franchises
• Why creators and athletes should be treated as storytellers, not just reach vehicles
• How AI makes human storytelling and live experiences more valuable
• Why live sports should be planned before, during and after the moment

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The best journeys have the most unexpected turns. That’s Sam Allen’s story, and he’s sharing it in this episode of Marketing Vanguard. Tune in as host Jenny Rooney welcomes Sam, CEO of Iterable, to explore how AI is reshaping marketing technology, the future of the CMO role, and why strategic focus beats market-wide expansion for high-growth companies navigating unprecedented transformation.

Sam Allen is the Chief Executive Officer of Iterable, a leading customer engagement platform transforming how enterprises leverage AI-driven personalization at scale. With nearly three decades of experience in technology, including prominent roles at Salesforce, where he managed a $100 million marketing technology budget and served as COO of the global marketing organization, Sam brings deep expertise in enterprise operations, marketing technology infrastructure, and strategic growth. His perspective on balancing human expertise with AI capabilities makes him a valuable figure in the marketing space, especially for senior marketers navigating digital transformation.

What You'll Learn:

• How to position your company for a billion-dollar exit by identifying the right market conditions
• Why CMOs should expand their seat at the table rather than pivot roles
• The "Define the Moment" leadership principle and why it’s so important to move decisively
• How to interrogate AI recommendations using human context and expertise
• The verticalization and focus strategy for scaling
• Why the future of knowledge work belongs to practitioners who become experts in AI tools

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Marketing Vanguard continues live from Cannes as Jenny Rooney hosts a special Adweek House conversation with Mainardo de Nardis, Global President and COO of Edelman and Rani Al Hajji, Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, Personal Care at Unilever.

This conversation cuts straight into one of marketing’s biggest modern problems: everyone has infinite opportunities, infinite channels and infinite reasons to do more. But the best marketers are not winning by doing more. They are winning by making sharper bets and doing less for more.

Mainardo de Nardis is Global President and Chief Operating Officer of Edelman, with deep experience across full-service marketing, PR, digital, media, startups, AdTech, MarTech and global agency leadership. His perspective centers on how brands earn relevance and trust in a world where attention cannot simply be bought.

Rani Al Hajji is Chief Growth and Transformation Officer, Personal Care at Unilever. With more than 25 years in marketing and consumer goods, including roles at L’Oréal, Colgate and Unilever across Europe, the U.S. and China, Rani focuses on redefining how brands create connection moments that matter. In this conversation, he brings that lens to Unilever’s personal care portfolio, cultural relevance and the FIFA World Cup.

What You'll Learn:

• Why visibility is not the same thing as attention
• How brands can move from attention to real engagement
• Why saying no is now one of the hardest and most important marketing skills
• How clear KPIs make distractions easier to spot
• Why cultural relevance starts with knowing what each brand actually stands for
• How Unilever is building around FIFA without buying its way into the moment
• Why paid should amplify earned relevance, not replace it

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman

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Are marketers making a fatal mistake by treating AI as just a cost-cutting tool?

The Marketing Vanguard Cannes series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Jonathan Adashek, SVP, Marketing and Communications at IBM, to unpack how marketers should be treating AI, today. He breaks down how at IBM, it is becoming a way to rethink processes and drive measurable growth, their “client zero” approach, $4.5 billion in savings over three years and why the company now does half the number of events it did two years ago.

Jonathan Adashek is SVP, Marketing and Communications at IBM, where he leads marketing, communications, and CSR. He joined IBM in January 2020 as Chief Communications Officer and took on the marketing portfolio in January 2022. In his role, Jonathan helps shape IBM’s global narrative as the company sharpens its focus around hybrid cloud, AI and open technology. His background in communications and politics gives him a distinct view of marketing: build a clear story, bring people on the journey and connect brand work more closely to business outcomes. At IBM, he has helped drive AI adoption across processes, event strategy, customer segmentation and internal operations through the company’s “client zero” approach.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI should be measured by effectiveness and growth, not just cost reduction
• How IBM uses AI to improve event targeting, personalization and lead generation
• Why training, workflow design and tool discipline matter in AI adoption
• How to avoid runaway AI agents and fragmented tools inside a large organization
• Why unifying marketing and communications can bring brand narrative closer to revenue
• How IBM balances 115 years of brand equity with sharper hybrid cloud and AI positioning
• Why customer segmentation and team structure can change go-to-market effectiveness

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman

Hosted on Acast. See https://acast.com/privacy for more information.

Marketing Vanguard continues live from Cannes. Host Jenny Rooney sits down with Mark Kirkham, Chief Marketing Officer at PepsiCo Beverages US, to break down why Cannes only works when CMOs show up with clear intention. Mark explains how AI has moved from tech hype to operational reality, why disruption cycles collapsed from five years to five months, and why honest peer debate is the only way marketing leaders stay ahead.

Mark Kirkham is Chief Marketing Officer of PepsiCo Beverages US, where he leads brand, category, and marketing programs across Pepsi, Mountain Dew, Starry, Bubly, and Mug. A 15-year PepsiCo veteran, Mark has held global and regional marketing leadership roles including Chief Marketing Officer, International Beverages, VP of Global Sports, Juice and Energy, and Head of Marketing & Innovation for Western Europe. His work has included Pepsi’s UEFA Champions League partnership, the global Pepsi Taste Challenge, expansion of Gatorade and Mountain Dew across international markets, and award-winning brand and innovation programs. Before PepsiCo, Mark held roles at P&G, Nielsen, and Forrester Research.

What You'll Learn:

• Why AI is shifting from hype cycle to everyday marketing work
• How CMOs should evaluate AI through growth, efficiency, insight, and discoverability
• Why disruption now happens in months, not years
• How peer learning and open debate help the entire industry move forward
• Why Cannes works best when CMOs prioritize quality over quantity
• How teams can learn from challenger brands and organic social-first thinking
• Why the industry has a role to play in making Cannes more curated and creatively valuable

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman

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