Many of you listeners here in the US are right now planning your Thanksgiving holiday weekend, and the centerpiece for most of you is a beautiful turkey dinner on Thanksgiving Thursday. Well today–to get you in the spirit–Jim welcomes two special guests on The CMO Podcast: Kyle Lock, the VP of Marketing for the Butterball Company, and Christa Leupen, the Director of Purpose and Consumer Communication for Butterball. Butterball is of course the best known and most loved turkey brand in the US....

The growth and popularity of Formula 1 racing is one of the great marketing stories of the past five years, and on this week's episode Jim is going behind the scenes to understand why. His guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Louise McEwen, the Chief Marketing Officer of McLaren Racing, the global leader in high-performance supercar production, and elite motorsports. Founded in 1963 by racer, engineer and entrepreneur Bruce McLaren, the company is formed of McLaren Automotive, which...

This week Jim is joined on The CMO Podcast by Greg Lyons, the Chief Marketing Officer for Pepsico Beverages North America. Greg looks over about $28 billion in revenue, with 10 Billion dollar brands, including Pepsi-Cola, Gatorade, Mountain Dew and Bubly. PepsiCo Beverages North America is part of PepsiCo, a $91 billion food and beverage global powerhouse. Greg has been with PepsiCo for over 25 years, and CMO since 2017. He was a guest on the show in May 2020–in the early days of the...

With the holidays nearly upon us, this episode of The CMO Podcast offers some insight and perspective on this year’s holiday season. Joining Jim this week is Claudine Cheever, the VP and Global Head of Brand and Marketing at Amazon. Since its founding in 1994 by Jeff Bezos, Amazon has profoundly changed life and business. Thirty years later–Amazon’s revenue is nearly $600 billion, with a market cap of about $2 trillion. It's among the few brands that people just cannot imagine living without....

It’s election season in the U.S., with some brands taking on a special responsibility and role at this time. Among them is The Wall Street Journal, and this week Jim speaks to Sherry Weiss, the Chief Marketing Officer of Dow Jones–the parent company of The Wall Street Journal, Barron’s, MarketWatch, Investor’s Business Daily, and a portfolio of business intelligence assets, including Factiva.  Sherry has worked as CMO of Dow Jones for about two years, following a career path seemingly built...

It's the spookiest time of the year! For this Halloween-themed episode of The CMO Podcast, Jim welcomes Gabrielle Dallas Wesley, the Chief Marketing Officer of Mars Wrigley North America. Privately held since its founding in 1911, Mars Wrigley is a giant in the consumer goods industry. The company boasts about $50 billion in sales and includes famous brands like M&Ms, Snickers, Orbit, Pedigree, Whiskas, Ben’s Original, and MasterFoods. In August 2024, Mars Wrigley announced the purchase...

This week's guest on The CMO Podcast is one of the foremost experts in the world of Artificial Intelligence and marketing, Professor Jim Lecinski. Jim is the Clinical Associate Professor of Marketing at Northwestern Kellogg. We use the term “Renaissance man or woman” too loosely these days, but in this case it's an appropriate moniker. Consider these highlights from Professor Lecinski's curriculum vitae:Studied German and Government at Notre Dame, MBA from Illinois.Teaches seminars and blogs...

Today's guest on The CMO Podcast is Emily Silver, the SVP and Chief Marketing & Athlete Experience Officer at Dick’s Sporting Goods, the $13 billion-by-revenue retailer. Dick’s was founded by Dick Stack in 1948 with his first product line, a bait and tackle. Today, Pittsburgh-based Dick’s Sporting Goods has more than 850 stores and a variety of other experience centers and platforms, all focused on sports. Think Golf Galaxy, Public Lands, Moosejaw, and others. Emily has worked at...

The guest today on The CMO Podcast is Emily Ketchen, the Chief Marketing Officer and VP of Intelligent Devices Group and International Markets for Lenovo. The Intelligent Devices Group–as you might expect–is Lenovo’s division with Personal Computers, Smartphones, and AR/VR solutions. Lenovo is a $57 billion global technology company–the largest PC company–with business in 180 countries. It also markets infrastructure, software, solutions and services.  Emily has worked at Lenovo since...

Fall means it's time for your annual flu and Covid shots! So, this week on The CMO Podcast, Jim welcomes Kate Cronin, the Chief Brand Officer for Moderna, the 14-year-old pioneering biotech company. Moderna achieved nearly instant awareness and fame in 2020, when it received the CDC recommendation for its COVID-19 vaccine. Moderna’s name combines the words "modified" and "RNA" to signal the core essence of the company: to introduce a new category of medicines using messenger RNA, “the...

This week on The CMO Podcast, Jim welcomes Ramon Soto, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Northwell Health, Based in New York, Northwell Health is one of the largest health-care providers in the US, with 21 hospitals, 900 outpatient facilities, 12,000 affiliated physicians, 87,000 employees, and 2 million patients a year. The Wall Street Journal recently featured the nonprofit company for its radically different approach to marketing their brand. Spoiler alert: it includes...

The guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Maya Wasserman, the Head of Marketing for Personal Entertainment, Home Entertainment and Brand Marketing for Sony Electronics. Maya oversees a large scope of products–from TVs, soundbars, headphones, and more. Founded in Japan in 1946 by Masaru Ibuka and Akio Morita, Sony has been a fixture in popular culture for the better part of eight decades–think WalkMan, Playstation, and Watchman. Today, Sony does about $90 billion in revenue globally, with...

We're entering the beginning of a new school year and the American College Football season begins this weekend! For the first time in this podcast's history, Jim welcomes a CMO of sorts from a large University: Pedro Ribeiro, the VP of Public Affairs and Communications for the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana. When it comes to strong University brands, Notre Dame represents one of the best. Notre Dame was founded in 1842 by Reverend Edward Sorin, a priest of the Congregation...

For this week’s episode, The CMO Podcast returns to Penn State University–Jim's MBA alma mater–for a live panel discussion on authentic leadership. This panel wrapped up another successful annual Alumni Leadership Connections Conference in Happy Valley. Joining Jim on stage for the Authentic Leadership panel are three fellow alumnae:Dana H. Born, Faculty Chair of Harvard Kennedy School & a Retired Brigadier General of the US Air ForceWanda Bryant Hope, Chief Diversity, Equity &...

This week, Jim welcomes Isabelle Sakai–the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Vancouver-based Mark Anthony Brands–to The CMO Podcast. The company was founded in 1972 by Anthony von Mandl. Mr. von Mandl’s is a classic entrepreneurial story; at 22, he began selling imported wines out of his car, and now the company–which is still private–is estimated at about $4 billion in revenue. Mark Anthony Brands is best known for its top selling consumer brands, White Claw and Mike’s Hard Lemonade, but...

 This week on The CMO Podcast, Jim brings you a packed bonus episode, featuring eight guests he spoke with earlier this Summer during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity.  This recording is part of a special episode of Vayner’s Marketing for the Now series. Each guest joined Jim in the much-desired air conditioning to chat about creativity, leadership, what’s inspiring them, and the central theme of Gary Vaynerchuk's new book: the importance and challenge of attracting...

With the Olympics off to an incredible start, Jim welcomes a guest on The CMO Podcast who's in the middle of all the excitement–Gene Foca, the Chief Marketing and Revenue Officer at Getty Images. Founded in London in 1995 by Mark Getty and Jonathan Klein, Getty Images is a global visual content creator and marketplace, with annual sales approaching $1 billion. Getty has an enormous library of stock images, editorial photography, video, and music; each year they cover more than 160,000 news,...

With the Paris Olympics upon us, Jim can think of no better guest to preview the big event–from a marketing perspective–than Andrea Fairchild, the SVP, Global Sponsorship Strategy for Visa.  Visa has been a major sponsor of the Olympics since 1986, and became the first global partner of the International ParaOlympic Committee in 2003. Sponsorship is a major pillar of Visa's marketing strategy; they are also partners with the NFL, FIFA, and Formula 1, to name a few. The global payment...

Jim's guest this week on The CMO Podcast is Lisa Caputo, the EVP, Chief Marketing, Communications and Customer Experience Officer at Travelers, the 165-year-old diversified insurance company. You know, the company with the red umbrella, which they first used in an ad in 1870. Travelers is one of the largest insurance companies in the world, with revenue of $41 billion, 30,000 employees and 13,500 independent agents and brokers. Travelers operates in the US, Canada, the UK and Ireland. Lisa...

Jim is celebrating the 300th episode of The CMO Podcast with a bang! He welcomes back three of his very first guests on the show from 2019: Kristin Lemkau, the Chief Executive Officer of J.P. Morgan Wealth Management at JPMorgan Chase, Lilian Tomovich, the Chief Marketing & Experience Officer at Barclays, and Dean Aragón, Group Brand Officer and CEO & Vice-Chairman of Shell Brands International AG. In a way, they co-created this podcast, helping Jim find those initial footsteps and...

This week on The CMO Podcast, Jim continues his conversation with Jonathan Mildenhall. He hands over his hosting duties and shares his own career & life journey. If you haven’t already, make sure to listen to part one before heading into this one. Last week, the episode ended with Jim bringing P&G to the Cannes Lions festival for the first time; little did he expect that five years later the company would be honored as Creative Marketer of the Year. Jonathan picks up their...

As the podcast approaches its 300th episode, Jim is switching things up (literally) as he welcomes guest host and friend, Jonathan Mildenhall, to interview him.  Why Jonathan? For starters, he is one of the most gifted and generous leaders in the brand-building industry, and as you'll learn during the conversation, a sort of brother to Jim. Not in the obvious ways; Jonathan is black, gay, English, and was raised by his mother in the projects of north Leeds. Jim is white, one of six children,...

There is no city like New York City! This week Jim welcomes the Chief Marketing Officer of New York City Tourism and Conventions, Nancy Mammana. Just before joining Jim for the recording, Nancy was also named the Interim CEO of the company. Nancy’s organization is a private, non-profit entity, earning about half of its funding from the city of New York through a contract, and the other half from membership fees, sponsorships, and ad revenue on its digital properties. NYC Tourism and...

This Friday, June 14 is National Bourbon Day in the United States! Naturally, Jim has invited a real expert: Matias Bentel, the EVP and Chief Brand Officer at Brown-Forman. This 150-year-old Louisville-based company holds brand icons like Jack Daniels, Woodford Reserve, Old Forester and Herradura. An industry leader, Brown-Forman boasts about $4 billion in sales across 170 countries, 40 brands, and about 6,000 employees worldwide. Matias has worked as the Chief Brands Officer at Brown Forman...