Rising to the uppermost echelons of marketing leadership comes with unique responsibility. Marketers and brands hold sway over consumers: Advertising and marketing messages can be on par with any type of entertainment or content in reach and impact. Marketers not only respond to but shape people’s values, positions, cares, investments, choices, relationships and decisions.
At the same time, CMOs, responsible for brands, marketing messages and engagement vehicles, are consumer experts within corporations, with data key to understanding. That consumer understanding has become so incredibly valuable not just to marketing organizations, but to businesses as a whole because it drives growth.
CMOs also have come to recognize that understanding customers requires not just understanding how to deliver against their wants and needs from a product or service standpoint, but meeting their wants and needs in terms of priorities related to culture, meaning and purpose—things like social justice, sustainability, diversity and inclusion, women’s leadership, family connectedness, health and fitness, eco-friendliness.
Uniquely understanding both consumers and customers, driving corporate growth agendas and representing and making clear what companies stand for are core to CMOs’ influence.
That’s what the Forbes World’s Most Influential CMOs list assesses each year. Using data from news reports, websites and social networks to measure influence, and working with research partners Sprinklr and LinkedIn, we present the list for 2020.
It’s our eighth annual special report that assesses measures of influence—defined as the impact a chief marketer's actions and words have on his or her internal organization's motivation and performance, corporate brand perception, broader marketing and advertising trends and, ultimately, corporate financial performance, including stock price—while this year also evaluating influence as impact on corporate, industry or community response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the racial-justice movement.
CMOs wield influence in several ways, as we’ve tracked in previous reports, with bar-raising advertising and marketing campaigns or via a highly visible role representing their companies on social media, at public events or in the media. Still others cultivate and share a particular expertise—around customer experience or digital transformation or sustainability—that establishes them as thought leaders on that given topic.
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For many CMOs, 2020 has marked the culmination of a journey, a moment to lean into the influence, voice and visibility they had been building for years. 2020 was expected to be the year that predictions around digital transformation, diverse and inclusive teams and organizations, customer-engagement innovation, internal culture development and employee engagement would come to fruition. Indeed, in many ways, it has been—but not for the reasons originally anticipated. The challenges of the year have accelerated all of those efforts and many more.
The global pandemic, followed by the death of George Floyd and the ensuant propulsion of the Black Lives Matter movement, have caused company executives to kick into overdrive so many things—from how people work to how people support one another to diversity in the C-suite, and from digital transformation to inclusive messaging. CMOs have been at the center of that rethinking, making key decisions and expressing their positions and views and values, and influencing colleagues, partners, employees, customers and consumers with those expressions.
Certainly, the priorities for standout CMOs when the pandemic appeared were immediate: taking care of employees, nurturing corporate culture, rethinking customer experience, speaking to communities, driving true digital transformation, managing a remote workforce and rethinking the most effective marketing strategies when budgets took a hit. For example, SAP Global CMO Alicia Tillman transformed Bring Your Child To Work Day into a virtual event. And Anheuser-Busch U.S. CMO Marcel Marcondes shifted the company’s sports-marketing budget to the Red Cross as a donation.
And in support of the Black Lives Matter movement, we saw extraordinary leadership as well, which manifested in creative that squarely addressed systemic racism, public denouncements of racial injustice and calls to action for the entire marketing industry. For example, speaking to Forbes, then-Carbon CMO Dara Treseder, now senior VP and head of global marketing and communications at Peloton, shared her passionate view on the need to end racial inequality and build and retain diverse talent at all ranks within companies immediately. She called on business leaders, including CMOs, to lead the charge. Braze CMO Sara Spivey, in referencing her decision to move dollars earmarked for Facebook advertising to other areas, tweeted, “I won’t fund an org that fails to act against divisiveness and hate, hiding behind ‘freedom of speech.’ Fellow marketers, join me.”
And there are more examples in marketing leaders like Target’s Rick Gomez, Denny’s John Dillon, AB InBev’s Marcel Marcondes and Visible’s Minjae Ormes. In many cases, CMOs on the 2020 list—30 of whom are women—built on precedents: Jennifer Sey, senior VP and CMO at Levi Strauss & Co., has over several years worked to solidify Levi’s hold in culture as a storied, progressive brand that stands for inclusion and self-expression for a new generation of consumers. Antonio Lucio, who just departed Facebook as global CMO, had already built a reputation for himself as a marketing leader driven to improve diversity and inclusion priorities in his own organizations and in the broader marketing industry.
Through this range of measures, CMOs have not only helped their brands weather trials—they have shown how marketing can support an effective business and community response to moments of extreme challenge.
This year, 427 global CMOs were eligible for consideration. To be eligible for evaluation, CMOs or their brand must have appeared on at least one major brand or marketing list in the past year. To make the Top 50, a CMO must be in the top 20% of CMOs on at least three different indicators of personal, industry or internal influence, or show extraordinary impact visibility on the conversation around Covid-19 or Black Lives Matter.
Source: Sprinklr and LinkedIn
Scores are based on three datasets: brand performance as measured in the Sprinklr Benchmarking platform, which aggregated more than 832,404,704 brand-related social media shares, likes, retweets and comments; personal influence as measured in the Sprinklr Listening platform, which aggregated more than 130,489 news, blog, web and Twitter mentions about or from eligible CMOs; industry and internal influence as measured by our research partner LinkedIn, which analyzed more than two million profiles views and connections and more than six hundred thousand LinkedIn engagements.
The assessed time period was from February 15 to June 30, 2020. Please note that a few CMOs who were in their indicated roles during the research period have since left their companies or moved to new roles; we have mentioned the moves in their profiles.
#1 Phil Schiller
Senior VP of Worldwide Marketing, Apple
Apple's annual World Wide Developers Conference went virtual this year, and it also was free to any registered developer. As Schiller capped a 30-year career leading marketing for the tech behemoth in August, the now-Apple Fellow shared that message broadly: "We are delivering WWDC 2020 this June in an innovative way to millions of developers around the world, bringing the entire developer community together with a new experience," he said in a statement.
"The current health situation has required that we create a new WWDC 2020 format that delivers a full program with an online keynote and sessions, offering a great learning experience for our entire developer community, all around the world. We will be sharing all of the details in the weeks ahead." He also announced the more affordable iPhone SE as well as a partnership with Google on Covid-19 contact-tracing technology.
#2 Stephanie McMahon
Chief Brand Officer, WWE
McMahon is an outspoken and highly visible executive at WWE, a company in an industry often mired in controversy. The daughter of WWE CEO Vince McMahon, she is a former WWE Superstar herself, and she's a big proponent of WWE Superstars growing their own brands via social media. She has also championed women's equality in the WWE.
This year she spoke out about making the events that went on during the pandemic safe for fans and Superstars. In June she also reportedly shared what she and the company are doing to eliminate racial inequality on The Female Quotient—and partnered with FQ founder Shelley Zalis to create a discussion series called "Women in the Business of Sports."
#3 Fernando Machado
Global CMO, Restaurant Brands International
Previously global CMO of Burger King, Machado advanced to overseeing marketing for all RBI brands—including Popeye's and Tim Horton's—earlier this year. Long known for leading exceptionally creative and innovative advertising and marketing for Burger King, Machado this year led important efforts to maintain and drive business during the lockdown: As reported in Forbes, brand work showed people how to make Whoppers at home, offered students free Whoppers if they solved various questions while home from school, and featured a TV ad that let viewers scan a QR code on a screen to receive a coupon for a free Whopper with purchase.
#4 Jens Thiemer
Senior Vice President of Customer and Brand, BMW
Earlier this year BMW Group announced its plans to expand its esports marketing involvement. BMW SVP consumer and brand Jens Thiemer said the company plans to use its "design and innovation skills to help shape the discipline in the long term. Our esports involvement is an important milestone providing, for the first time, a new intersectionality with a dynamic and fast-growing community. We consider esports a promising, growing addition to our marketing activities."
The expanded BMW sponsorships comes as many other parts of traditional auto racing are embracing esports to partly fill the void caused by closures of live racing worldwide. Under his leadership the company—which has a long history for creating original branded content, including BMW Films series "The Hire," created for the internet back in 2001—this year also announced the launch of the BMW original podcast series "Hypnopolis," which imagines a future of new technology and mobility.
#5 Olivier François
Global President of Fiat Brand and Chief Marketing Officer FCA Group, Fiat Chrysler Automobiles
Speaking to Forbes in April, Francois explained how he's leading marketing carefully amid the pandemic: "We have to be careful, and with an awareness about switching on the light," he said. "We'll have to find a way that's sensible and original and will speak to people. There will be lots of nuances, lots of shades of gray." He prioritized staying keenly aware of consumers' feelings about the pandemic, with some yearning for a return to normal and others remaining wary—and advertising messages needing to balance both.
As medium is as important as the message, he said, he leaned into social and digital platforms for engagement given their speed and the ability they afford to deploy and change messages as needed. "Social-media campaigns live by the day, but TV campaigns live by the month or week," Francois explained. "We want to be the winner of each few days of messaging not by winning market share necessarily but by winning hearts and minds."
#6 Julia Goldin
Global CMO, Lego
Goldin and her team launched #letsbuildtogether to create a sense of connection among children isolated by the pandemic lockdown and support their parents. She also announced the company's $50 million donation to children's charities, which included additional support for long-time charitable partners who faced additional community needs due to the Covid-19 crisis.
#7 Ann Lewnes
Exec VP and CMO, Adobe
Lewnes oversaw the "Honor Heroes" campaign, for which, she told Harper's Bazaar, the company asked its creative-community members to design artwork dedicated to their personal heroes during the pandemic. And in late March, Adobe replaced its annual Summit for 20,000 attendees with an online-only version with 100 videos. Over just three weeks, as reported in Forbes, the company readied the virtual event, with keynotes (including Tom Brady's) shot in executives' homes. Lewnes said 17,000 people logged on and more than 450,000 people visited the website. Adobe then developed a digital-events platform to use moving forward.
#8 Lorraine Twohill
CMO, Google
Under Twohill's leadership, the company reportedly banned its April Fool's Day pranks out of respect for frontline workers during the early days of the Covid-19 outbreak. Speaking at Cannes Lions Live in June, she acknowledged not focusing enough effort on retaining diverse talent, putting too much emphasis solely on hiring. She also called for greater multi-cultural perspectives in internal teams as well as in agency partners so as to create messaging better representative of a multi-cultural world.
#9 Chris Capossela
CMO, Microsoft
In April, the chief marketer penned an essay on LinkedIn to share "what we've learned over the past month from our employees, customers, and our partners" in an uncertain time. In particular he pointed to Microsoft Teams as a platform for socially distanced engagement and a critical resource for healthcare workers. (TV advertising also touted Teams' usage and benefits during the spring.) He also wrote of Microsoft's efforts in driving digital transformation for an all-virtual world, and referenced a partnership with The Seattle Foundation, United Way King County, and other businesses to develop the Covid-19 Response Fund. Microsoft also paused advertising on Facebook in response to what it deemed inappropriate content on the platform.
#10 Marc Pritchard
Chief Brand Officer, Procter & Gamble
Pritchard has long been a preeminent voice in the marketing industry, a leader among leaders. In addition to his role at P&G, he holds posts at various industry groups, including the Ad Council, the Association of National Advertisers, and the American Advertising Federation. Long an exceptionally vocal advocate for diversity and inclusion in advertising and the industry, Pritchard, who often speaks of creativity being used as "a force for good," in June warned media platforms that the consumer package-goods company, one of the biggest in the world, would pull ad spend if they did not fairly and accurately portray Black people and all people.
#11 Alicia Tillman
Global CMO, SAP
Tillman, in an interview in Forbes, said SAP was quickly and highly responsive to the needs of customers as the pandemic hit. The company made SAP Ariba, a digital marketplace, free, as well as travel tool TripIt Pro. Through its Qualtrics product it also created Remote Work Pulse, she said, a survey tool to gauge how employees are feeling and what they need for remote work. In terms of supporting internal culture and morale, she led the initiative to turn Bring Your Child to Work Day into a virtual event.
#12 Magali Noe
Chief Digital Officer, CNP Assurances
Active on social media, Noe shares perspectives on current events as well as leadership strategies. She has strong views on the need for digital transformation, driving it at the Paris-based insurance company, which quickly adapted to remote work this year, reportedly with four goals: culture change, customer-centricity, investment in digital startups and agility. And she's a marketing leader who actively engages in "societal, climatic and technological challenges."
#13 Leslie Berland
Chief Marketing Officer and Head of People, Twitter
Berland has been behind Twitter's bold new campaigns and brandwork that get to the core of what Twitter really is and issues that matter, and decisions like letting all employees work from home indefinitely. "Decentralization and remote work was a top priority for us pre-COVID," she tweeted. "We'll continue to learn and improve to make the experience even better, but it starts with empowering people to work where they feel most creative, comfortable and safe."
#14 Mayur Gupta
CMO, Freshly
As Gupta explained to Forbes in April, when he was still CMO of the meal-delivery company, Freshly pulled back on a lot of its usual marketing and is instead relying on organic traffic and word of mouth while also switching from a top-of-funnel strategy to something more focused on partnerships and customer engagement. It also partnered with Nestlé to donate $500,000 to Meals On Wheels to serve senior citizens across the country. "We felt that during this time even though we're still a growth-stage company, we had the responsibility to take care of people who are highest at risk," Gupta had said. Gupta departed Freshly in May and is now chief marketing and strategy officer at media-company Gannett.
#15 Lynne Biggar
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Visa
In the midst of the pandemic, Visa, led by Biggar, opened a search for a new agency of record. It seemed an unlikely move—but Biggar believed that the time was right and "a good time to lift our heads up," she said to Forbes at the time. "I don't have to tell anybody that the world has changed dramatically in the last many months, and Visa's business continues to evolve in interesting and exciting ways." Meanwhile, the Visa Foundation announced a $200 million fund to support small businesses and a $10 million fund for frontline relief organizations, and partnered with IFundWomen to create grants for Black women-owned businesses.
#16 Ana Andjelic
CMO, Mansur Gavriel
Andjelic spent a year as CMO of luxury leather goods company Mansur Gavriel. In that time she was vocal on social media, building the brand's profile and sharing thoughts about human adaptability to crises such as the pandemic. She has held various strategy roles at agencies such as Droga5, Spring Studios and Havas LuxHub. Named to the Forbes CMO Next list in 2018 for her work as chief brand officer at Rebecca Minkoff, she left Mansur Gavriel in August to launch her independent brand-strategy practice. Her book The Business of Aspiration is due out later this month.
#17 Jochen Sengpiehl
CMO, Volkswagen AG
Sometimes being an influential CMO requires leadership and visibility even—and perhaps especially—when missteps are made. Volkswagen did just that when it released an ad for its new Golf 8 that was posted to its German Instagram account—and that many criticized as being racist. According to CNN, Sengpiehl took responsibility for the ad. As he said to CNN, "We should never have made a mistake like that," adding that "something like it can never happen again." The company announced that it would create a new diversity board to review future advertising. Sengpiehl also helped recreate the Geneva Motor Show as an online event, using virtual reality in ways that will inform its experiential marketing going forward.
#18 Raja Rajamannar
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Mastercard
In an April thought piece in Mastercard's LinkedIn newsletter "Marketing Sense," Rajamannar explained how he believes brands should respond to Covid-19. Among his directives: "In these uncertain times, brands can be either destroyed or elevated. The outcome depends on their response. Brands' considerations must reach beyond businesses. In these trying times, marketers need to identify how their brand can best convey compassion." Long one of Forbes' World's Most Influential CMOs known for his innovation and industry leadership, Rajamannar actively shared his expertise with peer CMOs during the pandemic. "As I have said before, and it is even more relevant today, marketers need to operate like general managers—general managers that have a deep knowledge in marketing," he said in an interview with Brand Equity.
#19 Antonio Lucio
Global CMO, Facebook
Lucio, long a Forbes' World's Most Influential CMO and long a proponent of the fact that diversity and inclusion priorities are not just the right thing to do—they are also good for business, had built his expertise and influence over a long career of marketing leadership at companies such as PepsiCo, Visa and HP Inc. Under his watch, Facebook responded to the pandemic with campaigns like "Never Lost," a film promoting the platform's Community Help feature, and "Born in Quarantine," a spot featuring babies delivered during lockdown.
In response to the Stop Hate for Profit advertising boycott over hate speech on Facebook, the company committed to placing warning labels on some content and by removing accounts linked to white supremacy from the site. Lucio announced his departure from Facebook in August and shared his plans to devote the next phase of his storied career to helping other marketers accelerate their own diversity, inclusion and equity efforts.
#20 Andrea Zahumensky
CMO, KFC
As reported in Forbes, KFC launched a number of initiatives to support those in need during the pandemic. In March, KFC announced were going to be donating one million pieces of chicken to its U.S. restaurants to help feed communities in need and donating $400,000 to the Blessings in a Backpack project to help children with no access to school lunches. That same initiative is now intended to support teachers and other school workers heading back to school across America. "As a working mother of three young children who had to finish out the school year virtually, I have more respect and appreciation than ever for the time, energy and dedication that teachers give to their students," Zahumensky said to Forbes.
#21 Minjae Ormes
CMO, Visible
Visible, a division of Verizon, launched its first TV ad campaign during the pandemic. Ormes, a marketing chief known for her attention to and empathy for employees and an awareness of audience diversity, knew the time was right, as cost-conscious consumers seeking alternatives might be considering switching wireless carriers. Under her leadership, the company also launched a social campaign called #VisibleActsofKindness, which was used to donate $250,000 to people in the form of Amazon gift cards in exchange for consumers sharing their stories of how they've helped others.
#22 Joy Howard
CMO, Dashlane
When the pandemic hit, Howard ceased mass-media advertising and examined all creative to assess relevance in a changed world. Dashlane also made its premium password-management product available for free to new customers and small businesses for three months instead of the usual one-month trial. Howard was one of the first CMOs to speak out against Facebook and hate speech and discriminatory ad practices on the platform.
#23 Dara Treseder
Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Carbon
Speaking to Forbes, then-Carbon CMO Treseder, now senior VP and head of global marketing and communications at Peloton, shared her passionate view on the need to end racial inequality and build and retain diverse talent at all ranks within companies immediately. She called on business leaders, including CMOs, to lead the charge.
Also while still at the 3D printing company, Treseder explained how it had been focused on three areas since mid-March: employee morale, navigating pipeline issues and canceled events, and developing a "business continuity plan" to adjust for the unexpected year. "If brand reflects culture and culture reflects brand, in this time it's really important how that brand becomes expressed through internal communications, through actions the company is taking to support the workforce," Treseder said to Forbes at the time.
#24 Mo Katibeh
Chief Product and Platform Officer, AT&T Business
AT&T Business worked to support small businesses through the pandemic, particularly those run by women and people of color. And a campaign featuring Elmo was designed to show how AT&T supported distance learning, but more important connected with and was sympathetic to consumers' new reality. "When you think about the word 'ad,' it's historical intent was to mean some sort of call to action," Katibeh said in an interview with Variety. "But at this moment commercials ought to communicate different sentiment. It's really about helping everyone understand that we are all in this together. We are connected together, and that's the overarching theme you are going to see coming through."
#25 Nancy Daniels
Chief Brand Officer, Discovery and Factual, Discovery
Daniels recognized the need for locked-down consumers to have new content to enjoy. Enter "a pipeline of shows to put on the air" to take their minds off the monotony, she said in a Forbes interview: Shark Week specials, Gold Rush, MythBusters. She's also a marketing leader with a unique challenge: positioning Discovery in and furthering the relevance of a cable network in a time of streaming wars, creating its own multiplatform strategy with Discovery Go.
#26 Ryan Bonnici
CMO, G2
Active on social media with a large following, Bonnici, a former flight attendant, tracks trends in tech and promotes the initiatives of G2, a software and services review site, such as its REACH conference and "pronoun project," which help fosters inclusive workplaces with pronoun badges. He's also a board member of Bring Change to Mind, an organization dedicated to ending the stigma and discrimination surrounding mental illness. He's worked to maintain a healthy workplace even amid pandemic-spurred layoffs, implementing such things as meeting-free Wednesdays.
#27 Jackie Lee-Joe
CMO, Netflix
Although she has since left Netflix, Lee-Joe, previously CMO at BBC Studios, was at the helm when the lockdown caused homebound viewers to consume streaming content in bulk: The company gained a reported nearly 16 million users in the first three months of the year. For an extended moment, the world seemed simultaneously tuned into "The Tiger King," the runaway hit of the spring. As Business Insider reported, Netflix announced mid-June that it would to spend $5 million partnering with organizations dedicated to creating opportunities for Black creators, Black youth, and Black-owned businesses. Bozoma Saint John joined Netflix as CMO in August, following Lee-Joe's June departure.
#28 Brie Carere
Executive Vice President, Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, FedEx
When the world locked down, in-store shopping came to a standstill and e-commerce surged. And powering the e-commerce? Delivery and logistics companies like FedEx. Carere deftly managed the new opportunities and challenges the changed world provided. FedEx introduced Sunday delivery to new markets, worked toward lowering e-commerce delivery prices, and announced plans to hire 70,000 seasonal employees to cope with the holiday rush. Under Carere's leadership, a partnership with Microsoft positioned FedEx as the shipping choice for small businesses.
#29 Melissa Hobley
Global CMO, OKCupid
Love in the time of Covid doesn't have to be dismal—so believes Hobley. The CMO of the dating app recognized the very real need to connect even in isolation, and she launched a campaign highlighting virtual date ideas. "As more and more folks are working from home, cancelling all social plans, not traveling, some are already feeling lonely and a bit isolated," she told Business Insider. Earlier in the year, OKCupid launched political filters for users. "If you care deeply about reproductive rights, for example, then you should not be matched with people that believe the opposite," Hobley said in an interview with Axios. "And call that a bubble, but I actually call that respecting and creating technology that supports that view."
#30 Jennifer Sey
CMO Global Brands, Levi Strauss & Co
Sey, senior VP and CMO at Levi Strauss & Co., has over several years worked to solidify Levi's hold in culture as a storied, progressive brand that stands for inclusion and self-expression for a new generation of consumers. This year, under her leadership, the company unveiled 5:01 Live, a series of daily Instagram performances held at 5:01 p.m. and announced $3 million in charitable giving to support communities affected by Covid-19. In a June post on the corporate website, Sey called for Facebook to end hate speech on its platform, joining the #StopHateForProfit campaign, pausing all paid Facebook and Instagram advertising globally and across its brands.
#31 Kieran Hannon
CMO, Openpath
Openpath is a keyless door access control system. As CMO, Hannon led his team in developing a social distancing index that anonymized Openpath customer data and presented a picture of social distancing adherence in different states and industries, based on office occupancy rates. It was a needed public service at a trying time for businesses. Pivoting to new messaging and content became key for all marketers; in a Siegel + Gale report, Hannon explained, "We've even changed some of our landing pages to be more appropriate to someone's state of mind, and highlighting our touchless, frictionless capability, where you never have to touch anything. We don't say germ-free, but we are using hands-free in our vernacular now."
#32 Stephanie Buscemi
EVP and Chief Marketing Officer, Salesforce
The technology company established a Racial Equality and Justice Task Force to guide its approach to hiring, philanthropy, and purchasing, and to guide its efforts at policy advocacy. It also donated $1 million to the NAACP and contributed another $500,000 to the BET/United Way relief fund. Speaking with Forbes in June, Buscemi spoke directly about racial justice. "Our Black community is grieving right now and rightfully so, after a reality of allowed systemic racism for hundreds of years. Now is the time to confront it by leading with empathy, open ears to listen deeply, and action, even though we are already so raw due to the pandemic." Buscemi led efforts to create a resource center and event series aimed at helping organizations navigate the transition to distributed work.
#33 Jill Baskin
CMO, Hershey
Hershey launched a campaign for Ice Breakers—"Mint Before You Mask"—that was tied to our new coronavirus times. She's also been driving investment in gaming, esports and streaming, she told Brand Innovators in May. Hershey also joined with other marketers for the Stop Hate for Profit boycott of Facebook and paused its advertising on the platform.
#34 Diego Scotti
Exec VP and CMO, Verizon
Verizon kicked into high gear when the lockdown hit. In fact, it was ranked No. 1 on the Forbes Corporate Responders ranking in May. Scotti has long been a driving force at Verizon, prioritizing advertising lauding first responders and building diversity and inclusion programs and priorities at the company. Speaking to Business Insider, Scotti said that though Verizon's responsible business plan—"Citizen Verizon"—was in the works prior to Covid-19 and BLM, those events accelerated efforts. "People are fed up of BS, of companies selling, selling, selling," he told Business Insider, adding that what's important are "companies providing value that is real, with stuff that is true, and with stuff that makes a difference."
#35 Sally Susman
Executive Vice President and Chief Corporate Affairs Officer, Pfizer
Susman has been an important voice on Covid-19 vaccine development, striking a communications balance between offering hope for early vaccine development with the "Science Will Win" ad campaign and explaining the importance of rigorous trials in the vaccine-approval process. As reported in PR Week, Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla promised a vaccine in under a year and is relying on Susman to communicate the effort to audiences.
#36 Sara Spivey
CMO, Braze
As reported in Forbes, in early June, Spivey, CMO of marketing technology company Braze, tweeted that she was "reallocating dollars planned for Facebook to other places" and called on "fellow marketers" to follow. "I won't fund an org that fails to act against divisiveness and hate, hiding behind 'freedom of speech,'" Spivey wrote.
#37 Kevin Warren
CMO, UPS
Warren is a strong proponent of diversity in the workplace. He credits mentors to give him the "tools of trade" to navigate business nuances and become a successful marketing leader, but in an interview with Bloomberg TV he said it was "still too hard" for many people of color to advance to c-level positions. Warren praises UPS for its own leadership diversity, citing that six of 11 executives are either women or African-American and one is Hispanic-American. He is a member of the Executive Leadership Council, which supports the development of Black executives. In June UPS announced it would provide $3.2 million for programming to support employment, education, small businesses, advocacy and reform with partners including the National Urban League, the NAACP and the United Negro College Fund.
#38 Michelle Peluso
Senior VP of Digital Sales and CMO, IBM
Peluso has long been a proponent of an agile approach to marketing. In a recent interview with WARC, Peluso said of IBM's response to the pandemic, "We're thinking about this on multiple fronts. First, we're thinking about our people: making sure they are safe and healthy, and rapidly evolving our Agile capabilities and tools to make this period work." IBM initially paused advertising, then introduced a new campaign as Covid-19 hit, shifting budget away from traditional out-of-home strategies to digital.
"A new ad campaign to be 'in the moment,'" she said. And on Twitter, Peluso shared a personal pledge to not remain silent and better understand the Black experience: "Been thinking a lot about the past weeks & how I can be a better Ally to the Black Community & the actions I want my kids to see. Here's my pledge and what I'm committed to doing myself. @IBM #Inclusion #BeEqual."
#39 Ravi Santhanam
CMO, HDFC Bank
Santhanam is a marketing leader who prioritizes personalized and relevant customer experience and believes that machine learning and data science are critical tools for marketers; he expressed so in a recent Netcore Solutions blog. And he led the Indian bank's response to the coronavirus outbreak, launching the #HDFCBankSafetyGrid campaign to help people keep safe distance in public.
"As social distancing is the need of the hour to fight Covid-19, we want to use our logo to send this important message across to the people. The cause that we are fighting for today is much greater than any marketing rules and norms, and every effort or contribution counts," he said in an interview with Financial Express. He also led creation of the inspirational "Hum Haar Nahi Maanenge" music video about overcoming adversity, featuring Indian musical talent.
#40 Heidi Browning Pearson
Exec VP and CMO, NHL
In the age of Covid-19 Pearson got creative in keeping hockey personal: As thousands of fans, no longer in seats lining the ice, watched from home, the NHL held player conversations with ambient mics in arenas. And as the new season got underway in August, Browning announced a new partnership with Twitter and Disney Streaming, designed to make remote viewing more engaging and interactive.
#41 Morgan Flatley
U.S. CMO, McDonald's
Flatley shared with WARC a snapshot of her leadership amid the pandemic: "We've gotten into a really powerful rhythm of frequent communication [among the executive team] that's helping us be much smarter and much more connected, solving the business problems." The company offered meals to frontline workers and promoted contactless ordering and pickup, and in early June released an ad in support of Black Lives Matter that simply listed the names of seven Black Americans killed by police or shot while unarmed. McDonald's announced a partnership with rapper Travis Scott this summer in which it created a combo meal named after him; Scott sells McDonald's-themed merch from his website.
#42 Meredith Verdone
CMO, Bank of America
In March, the financial-services company donated $100 million to coronavirus relief. A few months later, they announced investment to combat inequality, including programs to provide health services, job training, small business support and affordable housing. It also announced a new partnership with iHeartMedia to launch the Black Information Network (BIN), an all-news audio service dedicated to informing the Black community. "When we can invest in opportunities that genuinely serve communities, like BIN, we are living up to our values and achieving the highest and best use of our resources," Verdone said in a statement.
#43 Vineet Mehra
Global CMO and Chief Customer Officer, Walgreens Boots Alliance
Committed to democratizing health and wellness, per Mehra prioritizes data-based, personalized shopping and experiences for Walgreens and Boots customers. In an interview with tech partner Microsoft, he said, "The recent events around the racial equality movement are showing there are 'haves' and 'have-nots' in our society. Your postal code, in some cases, dictates your health outcome more than your genetic code.
We have pharmacy deserts in America. We have food deserts. We have areas without access to health care. But imagine if we knew who you were, we could offer those experiences to you in multiple ways. We can offer up an experience to deliver it direct to your door. And we'll set up delivery lockers in certain neighborhoods where people can pick things up."
#44 John Dillon
Chief Brand Officer and Exec VP, Denny's
When takeout became de rigueur during the lockdown, Denny's—and Dillon—were at the ready. He led efforts to make it easier to do contactless ordering via the Denny's app—"Denny's on Demand" platform, including curbside pickup and grocery offerings. In a Forbes interview, Dillon shared brand priorities: "Our mission is to be America's Diner for today's America, an America that is wonderfully and beautifully diverse. We fully support the ongoing fight for racial justice in the U.S. Our work is focused on several key areas we've identified including supporting organizations that directly address racial inequalities, promoting education, and creating economic opportunities for minority businesses."
#45 Jen Rubio
President and Chief Brand Officer, Away
Away has had its share of good and bad news. Last year reports surfaced of a toxic work culture and a controversial CEO departure. Still, Rubio, named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list and CMO Next list, has remained steady. While Away had to suffer furloughs and layoffs as a result of the drop-off in travel during the pandemic, Rubio touted Away's efforts at supporting its staff. The company provided severance for each employee, extended healthcare coverage and offered job-seeking assistance. Rubio and partner Stewart Butterfield, CEO of Slack, committed to donating $700,000 to organizations like Black Lives Matter.
#46 Nick Ragone
Exec VP and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Ascension
Named to the Forbes CMO Next list in 2019, Ragone is part of the leadership team that drives strategy and vision for Ascension, one of the largest nonprofit U.S. healthcare systems. An outspoken proponent of "a world-class consumer experience in healthcare and the importance of data in better understanding the consumer journey through our system," he is working to create an integrated brand experience to go along with a now-national Ascension brand following the rebranding of 2,700 care sites. In spring 2020, news broke that Ascension was one of several health systems that had accepted federal bailout funds. In a New York Times article, Ragone said the funds "facilitated our ability to serve our communities during this unprecedented time," adding that Ascension had not furloughed or laid off any workers and wouldn't do so for "as long as possible."
#47 Rick Gomez
Chief Marketing, Digital and Strategy Officer, Target
Gomez has for years been a steady and influential force at Target, prioritizing diverse and inclusive creative and messaging, both in-store and in media, as well as the health and welfare of the company's employees. In the early days of Covid-19, Gomez was focused on safety and responding to employee and Target "guest" needs. The company reportedly raised its minimum wage from $13 to $15 an hour and offered new and extended healthcare benefits in light of Covid-19, including free virtual doctors' visits.
#48 Gerri Elliott
Chief Sales and Marketing Officer, Cisco
Elliott tweeted April 3, "No one should have to feel compromised using collaboration technology. I'm proud of what the #Webex team has done to step up and help our customers, partners and communities! #LoveWhereYouWork @Cisco #lifeonwebex." In fact, Elliott is prolific on Twitter, sharing company updates and sharing her perspectives on cultural and societal issues with her 10.5K followers. "We are never 'one and done' @Cisco. We are proud to do our part beyond just the initial response to challenges and injustice, and hope to drive long-term impact on an individual and global level. #InclusiveFuture #CiscoLive"
#49 Deborah Wahl
Global CMO, GM
In the early days of the pandemic, Wahl, a prominent member of some of the industry's foremost leadership groups, including the Association of National Advertisers, very quickly took to social media to share the work GM was doing to use its manufacturing facilities to create valuable healthcare equipment, including ventilators. She also lead the company's "Shop. Click. Drive." program, enabling people to make automobile purchases almost entirely online amid the pandemic and beyond.
#50 Marcel Marcondes
U.S. CMO, Anheuser-Busch
AB InBev, like many other brewers and distilleries, converted its breweries to make hand sanitizer for healthcare workers in the early days of the pandemic. As reported in Forbes, it also teamed up with the Red Cross to donate $5 million for converting 20 stadiums across the country into blood-donation centers. This was a part of ABI's One Team approach that's a collaboration with teams and leagues alike. "We're not in advertising mode right now," Marcondes said to Forbes at the time. "That's the most important thing. We're acting on a relevance and action kind of mode."
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