The Data Foundation

Speaker 1: Welcome to the Business Marketing. My name's John Horsley, I'm the host of today's episode. Um, today I'm absolutely delighted to be joined by Denise Persson, who is Chief Marketing Officer at Snowflake. Welcome to the show.

Speaker 2: Thank you, John. Great to be here with you.

Speaker 1: What'd be really great to understand is, you know, what was that moment, you know, the younger Denise, as it were, that, uh, brought you into the world of marketing? Was there something that caught your attention, you felt, "Wow, this is, you know, this is a part of myself"?

Speaker 2: I think what caught my attention was going to the movies and watch the commercials. Now we're going all the way back, you know, to the '80s. So I grew up in Sweden. We didn't have commercials on, on television back then, so we all went to the movies to, to watch the commercials. Uh, so I grew up watching the Levi's commercials, the Juicy Fruit commercials, and loved that lifestyle advertising-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... that was created back in the, in the '80s. So I always thought that I would go into a career in B2C marketing. I mean, tech was something completely, you know, unfamiliar to myself back, back in, in the '80s. And my, my biggest dream was essentially to become a, a product manager at Procter & Gamble. That was kind of the big goal that I set for myself. And, uh, at that time, again in the '80s and the '90s, I was always, um, looking at ads. I was always analyzing the billboards. In Sweden, we have a, an advertising magazine called the Resume that comes out every week. I was reading it from, from cover to cover, you know, ev- every week, just so... I was just so energized about the extreme, you know, creativity and, um, how that creativity was sort of connected, you know, with the consumer. So that's kind of how I grew up.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And then, then by accident I ended up with a tech company, um, called Commodore. I don't know if you will remember, you-

Speaker 1: Very well.

Speaker 2: Yes, remember the-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... the Commodore C64, et cetera. So now we're talking 1993, and, uh, again by accident I ended up with, uh, Commodore, and, um, this whole world of technology opened up, you know, for me. I got my first, uh, own, you know, computer. I mean, this was a time people didn't have computers at home, right? We didn't have, you know, our own phones, our own cell phones, you know, back then. So again, this whole new world opened up for me and I was like, "Wow, you know, tech is pretty exciting," and that's kind of how my journey began. So that's, uh, 33 years ago now.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Wow. Yeah, I, I remember the Levi's ad very, very well. And I've, I've almost-

Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah

Speaker 1: ... got it in my mind now s- speaking with you. Uh-

Speaker 2: Yeah, one of my favorite campaigns was the billboards when they had the real, uh, 501s up on the billboards and it said, "Stolen" on top of the, of the, uh, jeans.

Speaker 2: Right? And people kind of ripped those off and they were wearing those jeans. And I mean, it's just unbelievable creativity.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, you've had a, a very illustrious c- career, certainly as a tech marketer. Um, along that journey there must've been a, a number of learnings, uh, that have informed your practice and where you're at today. Uh, with the benefit, I guess, of hindsight or, or you know, that, that vantage point, what is it that you've taken a- along the, the journey with you that's remained consistent?

Speaker 2: I mean, tech, uh, specifically, it's really about putting the customer at the center of everything you do, also putting the customer at the forefront of your marketing as well. Especially in the tech world, customers trust their peers. They don't really trust the vendors that much. They wanna learn from your, from your peers, essentially. So the more you can put the customer at the forefront of y- the story, that brings a lot of value to your customers. But constantly kind of thinking about yourselves in the shoes of your customers, and that's incredibly hard, uh, at a tech company. 'Cause tech companies, we're so obsessed about what we can create with the technology, right? That's what it's all about, how, how we're pushing the limits in, from a technology perspective. But we don't think enough about what customers can achieve with it. And in the end of the day, that's the only thing customer cares about, is really what are their business outcomes? What can they achieve, you know, with, um, technology? And that's the, I think the struggle we as tech marketers are faced with, uh, every day, uh, to really think from the outside in every single day.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Excellent. And y- when you moved to Snowflake, what was it in the first place that attracted you? 'Cause 2016 it was, it was clearly a startup business.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: But what, you know, what was that special thing that made you think, "Actually, Denise, I'm gonna... I, I've gotta join this business"?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, back then Snowflake hadn't done a million in revenue in, in total.

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: We had about 40, uh, customers. We had been in the market for 10 months, so it was a very small company. It was the smallest company I have ever, ever worked, you know, for.

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: And when they first contacted me and, and, uh, about this company called Snowflake, I was like, "Snowflake? I mean, who, you know, who, who names a, a company Snowflake anyway?" And, uh-

Speaker 2: ... you know, I was, you know, a little bit skeptic in-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... in, in the beginning. But there was something, uh, about the company, uh, that kind of draw me to, draw me in, essentially, to have, uh, uh, the first conversations. And the biggest challenge I had in marketing back then, again, now we're going back over 10 years, was the fact that everything in marketing had become highly digitalized. You know, clearly we had been-

Speaker 1: Sure

Speaker 2: ... through that whole digital transformation for the last, uh, uh, 10 years.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: But the data infrastructure had not, you know, followed. So for us as marketers, right, all this data we have was really fragmented across all these dig- different digital channels. So it's very, very difficult to, to measure, uh, the impact, you know, of your marketing. You could, uh, measure individual channels, but you couldn't look at the whole mix and how it kind of worked together. You couldn't do things like, you know, attribution, and you certainly couldn't do any optimizing in, in real time.

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: So when I heard about Snowflake and the mission about really, uh, allowing everyone to work with all your data, you know, in real time, all of that, and I, I really felt that, okay, this is really gonna happen. It will change, you know, everything for, for everyone.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: And that's kind of how, um- Kind of the story, you know, un-unfolded

Speaker 1: That's also making me think, though, um, you could almost describe a business like that as a Swiss Army knife. You know, everything to everyone, and this utility-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... can do many things. How did you manage to keep the, the, the story, as it were, narrow enough for people to be able to understand, grasp the concept, and make those, uh, early day sales?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think the thing that has stayed pretty constant at S-Snowflake is the fact that we always put the customer's problem at the center of everything we do. We have been highly focused on, on the business, you know, outcomes. Again, we started talking about how hard that is, but we kind of challenge ourselves to do that, you know, every day. The other thing is that you really need to understand what is your true purpose and, and your mission. You can talk about the Simon Sinek's The Why, what is your why, and our why has always been about helping organization unlock their full potential with data and AI, so we, we're kind of staying focused on that. Since 10 years ago, of course, you know, our, our mission and capabilities have expanded. So in the early days was very much about unlocking your data so you got, uh, real-time intelligence, right, about everything that is going on in the enterprise. Today as well, that data foundation you built has now become the data foundation for, for, for agentic AI, for instance, within the enterprise. We've expanded. We've always stayed kind of true to our core, which is really about helping customers with their entire data life cycle and, and, uh, get more value out of their, uh, data.

Speaker 1: Yeah. So my, my understanding is this, that you started working initially with the data people within the business, the, the CTO, the CIO perhaps, uh, and other individuals involved with-within that particular area. Uh, and now you're transitioning, um, as you obviously have a proposition for marketing people as well. Why is that? What does that look like?

Speaker 2: Yeah, in the early days, of course, the people with the most pain was those, um, on the, on the data teams, right? The data architects, you know, the business analysts who needed to serve the business, right? The business, like myself in the past, right? I was sitting there on the market side. I couldn't get the data I needed. I was knocking on IT's inner door. So we really helped IT and the data teams to solve that challenge, to really bring data out to, to the business. But now, of course, we more and more run on, on data, right, um, in, in all organizations, and data and your enterprise context is really becoming your most important asset, especially in this world of agentic AI. So marketing departments are now clearly want to be able to build those agentic, you know, journeys, you know, for their, for their customers. They wanna do things like, you know, personalization. They wanna be able to do real-time optimization of, of their entire marketing in a channel, you know, mix. So for them, data now is becoming so incredibly important. Uh, on the sales side, uh, uh, salespeople want, you know, customer data, customer context in real time so they can go in and be a lot more relevant in every cus-customer conversation they're having. Of course, on the, on the finance teams, they wanna be able to close the books, you know, faster. So again, data is really becoming, um, the core asset of every single function. So we really moved from, again, uh, solving kind of the core data infrastructure challenge for the IT and data departments, and now really working closer with the, um, with the line of business as well.

Speaker 1: Yeah. What I feel that we're talking about here is sort of data, knowledge, and intelligence, and it's the intelligence, isn't it, that's actionable by those functions.

Speaker 2: No, exactly. That's what you're looking for i-in, in the end. It's really, the data is, of course, the raw material. You need to have all that data and, uh, enterprise context in, in available to you so you can bring that intelligence, you know, um, uh, from it.

Speaker 1: Yeah. In terms of the customer journey, it's obviously was never linear to start with. Um, the funnel thinking is, is completely wrong, frankly. Um, but it's an easy way of people to better understand things. Uh, now we have, um, AI. Uh, we have the expanding buying committee. Some businesses might have 20-plus decision-makers. Um, spoke to one of my clients recently, and they feel that they've got about 24 decision-makers now i-in the pro-- in, in the process, whereas five years back it was about eight to 12, so it's, it's hugely expanded. Those decision-makers have got, um, I'm gonna call them co-pilots, AI co-pilots, life pilot, however you wanna describe it. Um, they all have different biases, um, different requirements, um, and they're looking to gain advice maybe from a, a GPT or from some other AI that they use. How should marketers be thinking about that customer journey and, and how it's evolved?

Speaker 2: No, I mean, it's changing, um, rapidly, you know, at this time. Things like agentic search, uh, is of course becoming incredibly important. And in the past, right, with things like, you know, SEO, you could have one, uh, team essentially accomplishing that on their own. But when it comes to agentic search, essentially the entire marketing department needs to be involved with everything from the work that your communications department i-is doing to your content team. All of that is, of course, impacting agentic search. And as agentic search is really becoming, you know, a cross-functional discipline, you need to have someone, of course, who owns- But it really now involves everyone across the marketing department, which has been a big change from how we operated, um, you know, in the, in the past.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, yeah, I'm thinking about this. Um, and, uh, not, not dropping, but trying to find a balance between brand and performance and demand marketing.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, how, how do you feel that, uh, marketers should be looking at it, you know, trying to... in terms of trying to find and discover what that equilibrium looks like?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, it's im- important, uh, to invest, uh, in both. Demand generation is really more about harvesting and identifying those who are looking for, for, for your products today, essentially, right? So it's really about, uh, uh, again, making sure you can, uh, uh, get in front of them before your competitors essentially gets them into, into their, into their, you know, journey. But the brand is really about, um, investing, you know, in, in the future and making sure you're, you're top of mind of, of those who might look in the future, you know, essentially.

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 2: So I mean, it's important to have, um, that, uh, mix, and I think, yeah, tech companies, often we tend to kind of move too much into demand generation. Both our most important objective is really to help, you know, build, you know, the sales, you know, pipeline, so that's kind of where the pressure is. It's also very easy to measure the performance of performance marketing-

Speaker 1: Sure

Speaker 2: ... or growth marketing while, you know, things like investing in your brand is a little bit harder to measure, you know, short term. So, uh, but, uh, I think if we look at those companies that are really building durable growth, it's not just about making your numbers this year, right? It's about making your numbers in the future, right? You truly need to invest in both.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: And also from a brand perspective, that's also kind of where you're really building that trust with your audience that, uh, continued in a long-term trust, and I believe that trust is going to be the most important, you know, currency, um, uh, moving forward. Again, it's gonna be important, um, for customers to be able to, um, have more data, you know, from their customers, right? We want our customers to be able to be willing to share more data with us, so we can provide those personalized experiences, right? That is the promise, you know, of, of, of AI.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: But if a com- uh, if a customer don't trust you, they're never gonna be willing to, um, to share information, share data with you. So again, you're never gonna be able to kind of, uh, you know, deliver on that, uh, promise.

Speaker 1: Yeah. In terms of... Actually that's, that's a really interesting point in itself-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... in terms of sharing data with you. Um, I believe that most businesses, and, uh, uh, they still are frankly, uh, are siloed in terms of data, where it resides, understanding and respect for data. I think the, probably the respect for data is increasing as well. Um, in the past it may not have been there. It could be a bit scrappy. I mean, let's be honest, all businesses are messy in some areas or, or, or another. Um, and there's been a race as well to put AI into the business. Um, people looking for performance, efficiency, various other things. Can this individual now kind of be super powered and be able to do the job of 10 people and, you know, so on and so forth. Um, and just be much more predict- you know, much more productive. But I'm looking at it thinking perhaps the decision-making's being affected because perhaps they, they're just looking at data in, in pockets and if that might be actually quite good quality. Perhaps the data isn't such great quality. Um, and that's impacting where they're placing their, their bets, how they're making decisions, um, how they operate. What's your point of view on that and what, what are you seeing out there in terms of the market, and how are you helping these types of businesses?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, there is a race, uh, among all marketing departments who really own their, their customers' first party data-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... essentially, right? In the past we've had, uh, again, data owned by advertising companies. It's been sitting in ad tech, uh, platforms. We've used, you know, media buying agencies who've essentially been managing the data, you know, for you.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: And now marketers really want to have all of that, uh, data in-house so they can do more things internally. They wanna be able to fully understand their customers. They wanna understand the journey, you know, their customers, you know, are, are going through.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: And I think the difference where we are today, uh, compared to just a few years ago, is that this needs to be a partnership with your centralized data, uh, and AI, you know, governance, you know, team, right? In the past, on the marketing side, we were able to buy technology on our own, implement it without IT's department. That is completely shifting, you know, this, this time. If you wanna do anything from an agentic standpoint, you wanna be able to do that on your enterprise data and, and, and, and context. Someone needs to own that to make sure that the, the quality is there. The thing is with AI, right? I mean, AI will only be as good as the data that you're feeding these models, you know, with. So if you don't have your data in order, you're never gonna be able to, um, uh, harvest from the full potential of AI, you know, essentially. So, um, that partnership at this time in, is incredibly important.

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 2: Marketing clearly understands the business problem. What are we trying to solve, you know, for our, our customers? So you need to have a level of data and AI fluency on your marketing team. But the, the, uh, who owns the data and who makes sure that the data is at the level of quality it needs to be, making sure that, um, you across the enterprise have the same view of what a customer is, for instance.

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 2: Exactly. That needs to be at the central, um, level, so that collaboration is gonna be incredibly important.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: I spent a lot of time with, uh, CMOs myself, and the, the, the two things that those companies that are truly now being able to become more agentic enterprises have in common. One is that they have their data and, and enterprise context, you know, in order. You know, it's, it's, it's governed, it's, it's, it's safe. They have all the, you know, the, the privacy compliance in, in place. And second is that AI is a top priority for the company at the, at the CEO level.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: You can't delegate AI innovation or, uh, innovation culture to someone else in the company, right? You will only succeed if it really comes as a mandate and, uh, priority at the highest level of the organization right now.

Speaker 1: Yeah. I also believe that businesses don't necessarily know or understand where knowledge resides. So what I mean by that, for instance, their salespeople might have been using Zoom as an example, uh, and there's transcripts out there.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, there's call centers, as you say, that could be outsourced, that could be owned. There's call recordings there. Um, they might use Slack or other forms of communication.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: There's knowledge and information there. There's data there. Um, they no doubt are gonna have customer studies. Uh, they perhaps have ran God knows how many surveys over the last few years, um, that may have been used to generate a really nice report, uh, and then it's forgotten about. Uh, they may have been at one of our events, Cannes Lions, as an example, and had 50 CMOs that they interviewed during the course of the week and recorded those conversations, put them out online, great video content. But again, there's a, a wealth of knowledge and, and information there. Um, so I would argue it's a, a case of being able to identify all of those pockets of-

Speaker 2: Mm-hmm

Speaker 1: ... of knowledge and information and be able to gain insights from that, that can be transposed into useful content that supports the customer at every stage of a journey from prospect through, um, through retention.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, and, uh, increasing lifetime value as well, the relationship with, with your customers. Um, are you seeing, so the companies that you're working with, the ones that are really getting it right, are they thinking this way? Are they, um... Yeah, is, is that what they're looking at? Is, is that pro- some of the problems that they're trying to solve, identify that information first and then understand what they can do with it?

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, again, it's all about, you know, capture that intelligence that you have.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: Like you mentioned, the Zoom, you know, transcripts, if those are maybe conversations, you know, with customers. Also in the B2B world, a lot of, uh, sales organizations are using Gong, for instance.

Speaker 1: Yep.

Speaker 2: And they're actually recording with, of course, the customer's, you know, consent. They're recording those, uh, conversations. So it's really about capturing all those intelligence on an account. We were talking before about how complex the buyer's journey is in-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... in B2B, you know, for instance. But if you're able to capture all that intelligence on that customer, it makes it so much easier for you to become relevant to that customer, right? So, uh, so for instance, if you are an a-account manager for an account somewhere, with all that information, you know, captured, it's so incredibly easy to understand, "Okay, what is my next best step, you know, here for a next meeting? What is it that we need to focus on at the next meeting, you know, with this customer? Are there other people in this organization that needs to be involved?" All that information you have captured, right, when you have that at, uh, accessible to you, it's very easy to kind of determine what that next step is going to, um, be. Just the ability today, um, preparing for your next, you know, customer meetings, right? That, that takes a lot of time in the B2B world. You know, a sales rep can spend days, right, on preparing for that pitch they're going to make.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: But now with all intelligence, you know, captured and available, you know, you can pre... you can pre-prepare those, um, um, sales decks in minutes.

Speaker 1: In terms of where A-AI sits within a business, I believe that many enterprises have gone, "Hmm, well, it looks like a tech thing. It should sit with IT." Um, do you feel that it needs to sit across the enterprise, i.e. you should have perhaps have departmental AI leaders who really truly understand it, get it, um, and some form of structure, some form of hierarchy? What, what's your point of view on that?

Speaker 2: I mean, you need to have both today. Again, you need to have that centralized functions who make sure that your data is, again, you know, governed, you know, across, uh, the, your organization. You need, uh, to have a data catalog, right, uh, for your, your company data and context, you know, catalog, so you know exactly where does all the information, you know, reside, who should have access to this information-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... is this information correct, right? That has to be done at the central level. But at the department level, you need to have those who fully understand, "Okay, what is the problem we are trying to, to solve here? What can we achieve, you know, with all this, uh, data? What matters to our, to our customers here?" So there needs to be someone who can really help translate, "Okay, here is the business problem we're, we're trying to solve here," and work with the centralized team.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: And also, I think moving forward, we're gonna have this function of, um A-agentic workflow designers essentially within mark-mark-marketing. And if, if marketing have access to all the curated, again, certified data and context, we are gonna be able to do that agentic workflow design at the departmental level. So I think that's a new-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... uh, function we're gonna see within marketing. We are gonna build things that will do the work for us. In the past, we've been doing the work. Now we're all about, "Okay, how can I build this agentic workflow that does the work, uh, for us?" And we're really at the point where we're really seeing that start happening right now.

Speaker 1: Right. And, and what does that look like in practice?

Speaker 2: So in practice, I can share an example at, uh, at Snowflake, for instance. I mean... And we started talking about, again, that a lot of companies have been in that experimentation phase, adoption phase. We've been looking at the early wins, and everyone should, of course, you know, do that. But at the same time, you also need to look at, okay, what is the hardest problem we have as a team? And if we can solve that with AI, what will that unlock, you know, for us? So an example I think that a lot of, um, marketing teams can, um, uh, identify themselves with is that your brand and creative team is often a bottleneck in the, in the company-

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm

Speaker 2: ... because they have to spend so much time on production, right? So let's say at, at Snowflake, right? We need help, um, resizing, you know, a banner-

Speaker 1: Sure

Speaker 2: ... and, um, a campaign 100 times.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: Right? They're spending so much time on that production, resizing, going back and forth, right? If we can fully automate that process with AI, that would be a huge win for us.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: From a time perspective, it means that our, our campaign managers can put the campaign into market immediately instead of waiting for a brand and creative team. Our brand and creative team are gonna be able to focus on the things that they love the most, which is really being, being more creative, right? So-

Speaker 1: Sure

Speaker 2: ... focus more on what's uniquely Snowflake, right? What is our differentiation? Focus on making that much better than spending time just on production.

Speaker 1: Mm. Yeah. I mean, I should... Yeah. I mean, that's, that's a given, isn't it, for sure?

Speaker 2: Yes. But it's, uh-

Speaker 1: And it is-

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah

Speaker 1: ... sat there just waiting-

Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah

Speaker 1: ... you know, clearly waiting to happen and, and you... Yeah. I mean, you, you, you obviously need to identify these things and think about how are we gonna-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... how are we gonna solve for that? Um, in terms of the CMO, so the, the role of the CMO, how do you see that evolving?

Speaker 2: I mean, we have to have AI fluency and, and data fluency as, uh, as CMOs. We need to, uh, be on top of that, you know, ourselves, which is very, very hard, you know, for mar-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... many marketers to do right now. But you, you cannot expect your team to become AI fluent or data fluent if you're not willing to do that yourself.

Speaker 1: For sure.

Speaker 2: So I think you need to lead, you know, from, from the frontier. You need to set AI and, and data as a priority, you know, for your organization. You need to jump in your, your, yourself and, and experiment with it. And that's not only for CMOs. That, uh, applies to CEOs as well.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: If we look at those companies that are really successful from an AI adoption standpoint right now, the CEO is there as well, sitting in hackathons, you know, building, building agents, having fun, experimenting with it-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... just learning about it. So we cannot shy away ourselves from understanding, uh, technology at, at, at this time. In the end of the day, you know, marketing's core responsibility is to be the, the steward, you know, for the customer, of course, understanding the market, making sure that we're applying these technologies to the benefit, you know, of, of the customer.

Speaker 1: Mm. Yeah, fantastic answer. No, I was speaking to somebody in Cannes, and um, I think they were going for a new role, and, um, they were saying what they're asking for doesn't exist in one person. And he... She, she felt that they were looking for, you know, chief marketing technology creative strategy, you know, yada, yada, yada-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... officer. Um, and she was terrified. And she was saying she felt that was due to the, you know, different expectations or perhaps how expectations have been set and managed on the board. Um, do you see that in terms of what people are looking for now and why?

Speaker 2: Yeah, I think it's, uh, extraordinary expectations on, on CMOs, uh, today. And clearly you cannot be an expert in all of those areas. So I think as a CMO, it's incredibly important that you can sort of also lean in on your own superpowers-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... whether that is that you're an incredibly creative, you know, marketer, you know, for instance. But then it's of course super important that you have someone, right, you have a wingman on your team-

Speaker 1: Sure

Speaker 2: ... then who is equally strong at the technology side.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: So, I mean, the, the most important, um, uh, number one job you have is to assemble that team of experts, uh, in the-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... these different, you know, fields. So, um, I, I see myself very much as a, as a team, team coach.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: Um, you are a conductor of an orchestra, getting all these things, you know, work together. So I think, again, you cannot be, um, an expert-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... at every single discipline in marketing, but you need to understand that all these disciplines are very important at the moment, and you really need to fill down those positions with people who have the core expertise in these areas.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: That, that's, that's what you need to do.

Speaker 1: I'm just thinking about the board as well.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: So, you know, if you look at boards of businesses worldwide, I wanna say it's around about two and a half, maybe 3% have- ... marketing representation on the board. Do you feel that that might change?

Speaker 2: For, for CMOs to, um, be at the board level, you need to think as a business leader.

Speaker 1: Sure.

Speaker 2: I think that's the difference, right? When you are at the board level-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... you're truly thinking at, at the business, you know, first. Marketers might tend to think very much about, you know, their function, think very much about the customer, which of course incredibly important. But to be a really strong CMO and then one day belong at the board level-

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm

Speaker 2: ... it's all about the business as a whole, not marketing as a function.

Speaker 1: I agree. And do you think that marketers sometimes demote themselves i- in, you know, in terms of how they show up and how they present themselves, so the board looks and go, "Yeah, but they, they're kind of the, the promotions department" or the CFO might look at them that way. Is that because they're perhaps not equipped with the right language or that they're not so proficient at building the business case?

Speaker 2: Most, most likely, and I think, again, when you're a CMO, you have to understand that your team number one is the leadership team that you are with. It's not, again, your function. It's really around, again, what is the finance organization, you know, looking at, right? You need to understand financial, you know, metrics. I think that's... And it's so easy today-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... to learn about that, right? Back in the days you had to go and get an MBA to understand what matters to, to a business, right? Today, all that information is so accessible. You truly need to understand kind of what matters to the finance organization. Clearly in B2B, your most important business partner is the sales, you know, organization. So you really, again, n-really need to kinda put that hat on of, uh, I'm a, I'm a business leader now and again just not this, um, uh, function that I'm, I'm leading.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, gonna change the topic just slightly. So I'm looking at agencies, um, looking at other businesses as well in general, um, in the UK market. Hey look, this is where I'm from, but I, I know it's the same globally. Um, so companies have obviously put in AI. They've searched for efficiencies, cost savings, and so on, and that means... And, and automation as, as well. So that means that many of the junior roles are not available at this point in time, um, but you always need entry level. Otherwise, you don't have, you know, a, a future leader. Um, you don't have progression and, and various other things. What's your take on that, and how do you feel that needs to be addressed?

Speaker 2: I think it's going to be a challenge because what's most important today and moving forward is judgment, things like, you know, creativity-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... really, um, co- the common business, uh, uh, sense, right? Things like integrity.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: Um, what is the right thing to do, you know, for the customer, and that takes a lot of time to build that, um, uh, experience, uh, for sure. So I think-- I don't, I don't think the challenge is here today.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: But I think in the next, you know, five years it's, it's gonna change, and, um, we need to relook at them. I mean, it's gonna be, um, uh, companies gonna have to take some sort of responsibility to, to bring in kind of the next generation.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: What I really like about the US market is the focus on internships here.

Speaker 1: Okay.

Speaker 2: Uh, in Europe, uh, don't know exactly how, how it looks like in, in, in the UK right now, but in many other markets i-in Europe we don't have internships. It's very easy-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... difficult to get into a business. So I think we need to create more of those opportunities for people to come in and learn, like more internship-

Speaker 1: Mm

Speaker 2: ... type of programs. Maybe internships will be longer, right? They're not just three months, six months anymore. Maybe an internship will be, you know, two years. You're gonna have to really come in and, and, uh, need some more time to prove yourself, more time to come in and learn essentially.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: So I think those are things we're gonna have to look at moving forward 'cause for many companies today, right, you have a set, you know, of, of, of headcounts, right? You can have, let's say, whatever it is, 100, 500, whatever the size of your company, and of course, um, it... You, you wanna bring in experience, um, um, now, right?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: Say first and foremost. At the same time, the younger generation is coming in with a lot of AI fluency, right?

Speaker 1: This is what I'm thinking, yeah.

Speaker 2: So that's the kind of benefit that, that they are bringing in.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: So if they can bring that into the organization, that's very important, um, as well.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: But it doesn't matter what your AI experience is if you don't have the judgment or experience in really understanding truly what matters to the customer, and that takes a lot of time to, long time to understand.

Speaker 1: Yeah. That's, I mean, that's exactly what I'm thinking.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: I'm, I'm looking at it thinking we've, we've gone through it before, right, with digital native and so on and thinking, yeah, younger people, AI native.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, they, um, are more adapt to perhaps experimentation and various sort of things, whereas perhaps some older leaders within a business there's, there's probably more resistance there as well.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, and it's, it's about getting that, that balance right and, and, and working out and frankly reinventing the workplace.

Speaker 2: Yes.

Speaker 1: I think that's what's gonna happen as you touched on in terms of the five-year point.

Speaker 2: And also again, what's different this time as well is that we learn a lot from our peers.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: In the past you could go out and send people to some marketing academy or there were a lot of, um, um, training, trainings you could send people to outside your organization.

Speaker 1: True.

Speaker 2: It doesn't exist at this time, you know, uh, yet, right?

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: All the learnings is really kind of built up within the organization. We're learning from each other in the office. All the learning and development that we do at Snowflake on marketing is all built by, uh, marketers, you know, on the team.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: We're doing our weekly, um, lunch and learn events. We have, you know, weekly enablement sessions, you know, hackathons, those things. They're all internal. It's what's gonna be important to come into an office, right? We're learning from the people sitting around you. Someone who just, "Hey, I found you can do this now. I just saved me five hours- Of this, you know, process.

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: It cannot wait for a formal, uh, enablement session happening once a month or something like that.

Speaker 1: Mm.

Speaker 2: So, um, I think coming into an office is gonna be important as well.

Speaker 1: That's really interesting. Um, I lo- you might tell this, but I love my sauna. Um, so I went to a sauna on the weekend, and I ended up chatting to this woman. She was a, a lawyer, and she was talking about problems that they've experienced with, you know, AI in the hands of juniors there and, and various sort of things. Um, and she said they're actually now gonna change their working policy so there's gonna be less remote working to make sure that people are in. Exactly that, so that they can share, that they can develop, that they can-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... um, find, um, problems that could be solved, how that they can better empower the, the junior workers within, within their business to help-

Speaker 2: Yeah

Speaker 1: ... support the seniors, um, how they can transfer knowledge between them and so on. Um, and that there's people there who are in essence, you know, marking their homework but with the person. Um, so yeah, I, I totally buy into your point. Um, just to start, you know, winding up, I guess, and, and bring things to a bit of a close, I'm gonna ask a, a couple of quickfire questions. So firstly, is there a, a brand or a business out there that you particularly admire at this point in time? Do you like the way that they show up or perhaps the, the way that they go to market?

Speaker 2: I'm a massive fan of, uh, Red Bull. I think what they have done is-

Speaker 1: Oh, yeah

Speaker 2: ... absolutely incredible for, um, uh, from a marketing perspective. I mean, they have, uh, created all these brands that essentially are, are, are, are driving its own marketing. In the end of the day, right, they wanted to drink more, more cans, but they're creating all these franchises, everything, of course, they've done, you know, in sports, the media companies, and they're essentially, they're creating and owning their own marketing. I think that's pretty incredible. I will always be a huge fan of, uh, of Red Bull.

Speaker 1: Yeah. Um, I, I totally agree. I love it. The, the experience is incredible that they've created around the brand.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Um, a go-to resource, so, you know, in terms of staying sharp, is there a, a particular resource for yourself, or perhaps actually it's important to unwind as well and, and, you know, and de-stress and, and let things go. So yeah, is there a resource perhaps to stay sharp or, uh, a go-to place? It c- could be a place, it could be something else for you, um, to help you in terms of inspiration and b- better thinking.

Speaker 2: Yeah. I mean, first of all, we talked about, again, the demands that are-- you have on the, on the CMOs right now. I mean, I tend to learn a lot from the people that, um, work on my team. So I mean, I, I'm hiring people that I can learn something, you know, from essentially. So I would say a lot of, um, where I learn from is coming from the team, and I'm, um, spend a lot of time with other, you know, CMOs. Uh, that's kind of how I learn. And, um, recharge for me now is spending more time in, in nature.

Speaker 1: Beautiful.

Speaker 2: That I think is kinda where my, my brain is, is healing-

Speaker 1: Yeah

Speaker 2: ... from all this craziness that we're, we're going through.

Speaker 1: Love that. Uh, and then lastly, advice that you'd provide to a younger individual who's perhaps looking at the world of tech or media or marketing, uh, who's at either an early stage of their career or thinking, "Well, actually, this looks attractive to me. Um, what's the starting point? How should I be thinking about this?"

Speaker 2: First of all, I think the best careers I've, I've seen happen are discovered. They're not being planned for. I think very few people have planned their career when they're 15. Maybe those who want to be a doctor or something like that, right?

Speaker 1: Yeah.

Speaker 2: They have their view, uh, and, um, uh, dream set, if you will. But in the world of business, the best careers I've seen have been discovered, so I think you need to be really open just to try something. It's gonna be important if you're younger just to get in somewhere, start learning somewhere, because you don't know what you don't know yet. So I think the most important thing is to, for you to find out what are your individual strengths. And I think as a 15-year-old or 18-year-old, you don't know that yet. So you need to start somewhere and really get on that journey of self-awareness and self-discovery to truly find, okay, what are my strengths? What are my passions? And today more than ever, it's gonna be important to keep that, uh, curious, uh, mind going. You need to be a constant learner today. So that, that's-- And if you-- I think if you focus on something you're passionate about, you want to do that. You want to learn.

Speaker 1: Mm-hmm.

Speaker 2: You want to get better at that, so there's no more impor- nothing more important, I think, is to really kind of find what is the right path for you. How can I really, um, leverage my own, uh, superpowers every day?

Speaker 1: Yeah. No, we're gonna be working for a long time, so you're-

Speaker 2: Yes

Speaker 1: ... gonna be doing something you love and have a passion for. Totally agree.

Speaker 2: Yeah.

Speaker 1: Well, look, thank you so much for your time today, Denise. You've been a fantastic guest on the show.

Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.

Speaker 1: You're welcome.