Season 6, Episode 10: Amy Messano, CMCO at Thomson Reuters: Listening, reinvention, and trusted innovation

Ali:
Amy, thank you so much for joining us today.

Amy:
Thank you so much for having me, Ali. I'm happy to be here.

Ali:
Thank you. Well, as you might know, the way we start is by understanding how you came to be the person you are today. So the first question I'd love to ask you is, can you please tell me a story from your childhood that has shaped who you are today?

Amy:
It's a great question. So I was blessed with two wonderful parents and an older sister and we were the best of friends. And I am a child of the '70s, which we basically were free range and Gen X raised ourselves. My sister was a big influence on me as well. I'm from the Detroit area. We spent a lot of time up in Northern Michigan, sort of in the woods, if you will. My parents wanted us to learn all aspects of life and we would just have days of roaming around by ourselves and doing whatever we wanted. There were no cell phones, no TV. So it was really just being alone and having creativity, having independence, depending on someone who was very important to you. And whatever trouble you got in, you had to figure it out yourself. So it could be anything from the dog running off to trying to find the dog, to horseback riding, you know, in your bathing suit after you swim, which sounds funny, but as a little kid, to learning how to drive a Jeep when you're 12, which is completely illegal, but my dad wanted us to do it.

Amy:
He raised us like boys. So it wasn't one moment in time, but just that feeling of being able to grow up in a very safe environment where we were allowed to try and fail and be creative and depend on ourselves. Our parents were like, ‘Go ahead, and we'll see you when it's dark.’

Ali:
That's amazing. I feel like there are three or four brilliant stories in there, but I totally hear what you're saying about that sense of discovering your independence using creativity to solve whatever problems came your way. Did you grow up around a few animals and things? You mentioned a dog running off there.

Amy:
Oh yes, we always had dogs. We had a couple horses. We had a parrot named Peter, whom we got from a grandparent or someone. He was super mean and would try to bite you. We had hamsters and guinea pigs, and I was always the one volunteering to bring the class pet home over breaks. But I'm the kid who had the animal posters, and I think I thought I wanted to be a vet for a long time.

Ali:
That's absolutely brilliant. So you loved animals when you were young. Is there anything else you really enjoyed doing while you had all this freedom around Michigan?

Amy:
Just playing and having fun. I've always been an avid reader, loved to just explore. That was sort of like a portal to another world. So I always loved reading, also instilled in me by my parents. But my sister and I just would get into any kind of trouble that we could. Honestly, we would just have to make fun out of nothing and play with the kids in the neighborhood, make up our own games. We were the only two girls in the neighborhood of all boys. So kick the can and capture the flag and ghost in the graveyard and all those fun games from the '70s and the '80s. I'm dating myself, It was independent play: using your imagination and figuring things out for yourself, really.

Ali:
And were you thinking about what you might like to be when you grew up? I mean, maybe a vet I'm hearing and maybe all sorts of other things like that.

Amy:
I think when I was a really little kid, I really loved animals so much I wanted to be a vet. But when I got into grade school and later grade school, I had this wonderful teacher called Mr. Greeny, and he would give us vocabulary words, and to study them, we had to write stories using those words. And I remember him telling me I should move to Hollywood and be a writer, and telling my mom that because I always made up the best stories. So I really loved the idea of being a writer for a long time.

Ali:
Amazing. And you're painting this picture of a really fantastic childhood. Were there any kind of real challenges that you had to overcome?

Amy:
Oh, of course. I mean, what family doesn't have challenges? As a young kid, I mean, this is not unique to me, but my dad worked a ton. My mom had her own issues. You know, my grandparents, none of them lasted past their 70s, and they were very close to us. Uh, and a little bit later, I would say in college, one of my very dearest friends from first grade on passed away. So that was incredibly difficult. Most of the harder challenges came later in life. I was blessed with a wonderful childhood that I really can't complain too much about.

Ali:
Fantastic. You mentioned your grandparents, you mentioned your parents, obviously. Who else were the biggest influences through your life?

Amy:
So I talked about my sister. She is definitely one of my biggest influences. She's only 19 months older, two school years, but we were always super close. I've been blessed with wonderful friends and my husband, I’ll have been married for 30 years next year, which again—

Ali:
Wow, congratulations. That's amazing.

Amy:
Well, you know, we've known each other since we were 15. So he is my partner in all aspects of life and for sure could not do anything that I've done this far without his partnership. He's a real partner and we kind of grew up together. So he knows me better than I know myself.

Ali:
Very good. Very good. That's a very healthy attitude I think to have in a marriage. Have you got any other passions or hobbies at the moment outside of work?

Amy:
I mean, who has time for hobbies? My children, I have three boys. They're 24, 22, and 12. So most of my time, because I do work a lot and travel a lot, most of my time is centered on my family. I'm not the kind of person that thinks you can have everything. I think you can do a couple of things really well. So I really always focused on my family and my job, but I am unmoored without a good book, and I have to take a walk every day. If I don't take a walk every day, I can get unhinged, I think. If I had time, I love yoga, I love cooking, things like that, but I can't pretend that I have all the time in the world to dedicate to that. But two things that are must-haves are reading and walking.

Ali:
Amazing. And what are you reading at the moment? What's your current recommendation?

Amy:
So I just read a fun book called Mad Mabel. I just finished that. That was good. I read The Calamity Club, which I loved. That's Kathryn Stockett, the woman who wrote The Help. It was very good.

Ali:
Okay.

Amy:
Yeah. I tend to go for historical fiction and fun books. And then right now I just started the book by these two amazing women who wrote America's First Daughter, which I absolutely loved. And so they have another one and it's about Abigail Adams, the wife and mother of presidents. So they do a nice job of sort of making history entertaining and I love history. So that's what I'm currently reading.

Ali:
It's so valuable, isn't it? It's one of the things actually we don't talk about a great deal on this particular podcast, but the value of history and teaching us lessons we can take forward. And now more than ever, it's so easy for us all to get slightly unhinged from the past and feel like everything is entirely new each day that we create it, every day that we encounter it. Whereas actually the people that I read, the people whose opinions I value the most are often the ones who have spent the most time looking at what happens in history.

Amy:
There's always lessons to apply. And I really love female history because I think women were so underrepresented, really still kind of are, and the amount of obstacles that they had to come through. And there's another great book called You Never Forget Your First. It's about Washington's wife, Martha Washington's story, and so sort of the difference between from her perspective, going back in history written from a female author versus some of the ways she has been depicted in history. So I find books like that, you're always learning something.

Ali:
Yeah, absolutely. I'm actually currently on the third book of the Wolf Hall trilogy at the moment, which covers Cromwell.

Amy:
Yeah.

Ali:
Phenomenal. I mean, the writing is just incredible. It's fictional, as much as it is historical, absolutely brilliant. One of the most valuable quotes I find at the moment is attributed to Mark Twain, like about 70% of all quotes are, but it's, history never repeats, but it often rhymes.

Amy:
Yeah.

Ali:
And I feel like that is very useful in the times we live in. So obviously it sounds like, Amy, I mean, you had this fantastic childhood, you're leading this incredible career at the moment, you're lucky to have this incredible family as well. If you could have dinner with your younger self at any age, what would you tell them? Would you have any advice? Yes.

Amy:
You know, I think that I am too practical for my own good. I'm also pretty shy. I'm an introvert, which doesn't seem to make sense for the job I have. So I spent a decade at Microsoft, and when I was there, one of the trainings that I went through, they sort of had you figure out if you're an introvert, extrovert, where you are on this scale. But one of the most powerful things that I learned about that is that even though you are an an introvert, it does not mean you can't speak on stage. It does not mean you can't go introduce yourself to people. It just means that it drains your batteries, so you have to rest. That's where I get my energy from, from smaller, quieter, or being alone, whereas an extrovert gets their energy from other people, so they need to have that to charge their battery. So I've always kept that lesson with me. It gave me the confidence to realize that, yes, I can do those things that I thought in the past were terrifying, or no, I'm not capable. I can do it. I just need to make sure I recharge my batteries afterwards.

Amy:
So that doesn't answer your question, but I guess if I could give myself that lesson earlier in life to give me more confidence, I think that would've been super helpful.

Ali:
It's a great piece of advice. Yeah. And I think it's a great way of thinking about it as well. One of the other ways I think about that introversion-extroversion piece is that we are actually, a lot of how we think, how we behave is governed not just by who we are and the kind of, you know, the lump of grey stuff in between our ears, but actually the context that we're in as well. And I find myself capable of being much more extroverted in certain contexts. And I think so much of that goes underrated when we measure just the kind of the flesh and bone that make us up as well.

Amy:
And I think it also helps you to be more sensitive to other people. And as you become a manager or someone who works with other people and needs to collaborate, I think early on through exercises like that I learned everyone does not bring the same thing to the table. Some people are more afraid to speak up or maybe not afraid, but not comfortable speaking up in a group setting, or if they're in another part of the world and they're on a conference call, they may not feel comfortable, and some people feel like they have to speak. So being able to also take the time to learn about the people with whom you work and your family and your friends, it just helps you to be a little bit more aware of situations and sensitive and empathetic to how people relate to each other and how they bring themselves forward and where they might need support or where you might need to just zip it, listen, that kind of thing. So I find it also helps me relate to people better.

Ali:
So is there anything that you believe that goes against common wisdom? Because you almost had this kind of storybook childhood by the sounds of it in some ways, and you grew up in these fantastic circumstances and made so much of them. But is there anything that you believe that goes against what maybe lots of other people think?

Amy:
I think that's a really good question. I think just the basics. If you think about it from a work perspective, I think there is a working theory out there that legacy companies can't be innovative. I don't think that at all. I don't buy that. I think people are people wherever they are. It's about putting people in the right job and having them bring their right selves forward. And with the right investments and strategies, groups of people can accomplish anything. I think that's one thing. I think there's also This is going to sound weird, but I am from Detroit, and I have experienced— I've worked for some incredible technology companies, incredible groups of people. And I do think there is a— I don't know if you call it elitism or what it is, but I think people think if you don't live in New York or San Francisco, your company might not be brilliant. The people—well, if you were so accomplished, you would have moved. So I think there is some kind of that I've seen over the years of my 30 years of doing this, where I think people are cast as underdogs, and sometimes that helps, simply simply because of their geography or the industry that they're in.

Amy:
And there's brilliant people in all industries, but I think some of the startups and other companies like that get all this buzz and this hype that they're the smartest, coolest people on the planet, where I don't buy into that. I think that every company has an opportunity for greatness if you have the right people in the right places and the right strategy and investments and that kind of a thing. So I think that could be maybe counterintuitive, and that's gained from 30 years of just observing people in different industries and different technologies in different parts of the world. I've had the privilege of being able to have global roles, and in the US specifically, I think that's pretty apparent in a lot of cases.

Ali:
Yeah. It's such an important point that gravity of a couple, two or three focal places, often within regions or within countries, does tend to suck a lot of the oxygen, whether it's capital, press coverage, talent, away from some of the other places. But you're right, there is just massive undiscovered, overlooked opportunity and brilliance so often in these other parts of the country or the regions as may be. Do you think that's changing at all with a move to more hybrid remote work for certain areas of the economy?

Amy:
Oh, I think so. And I think that's kind of a generalisation. I don't mean to sound dramatic, but I think that what COVID did do is open up the doors to remote work. And I think people fled and sort of dispersed all around. However, I do think there's a return to work that's happening, which I do think is important for people to be in the office to learn, especially young people starting out their career. It's very hard to learn a culture of a company if you're not physically there. This is the first time I've ever had a fully remote job. I mean, we're close to our office, here in Ann Arbor, but I work mostly from home and I travel a ton, and it can be really hard to establish relationships with people if you're not in an office. But I think most people recognize greatness wherever it is and see pockets of it, but I think in a world where perception is important, I think some of that still has stuck around.

Ali:
Yeah, very good. Just finally then, on more of the personal side of things, I spoke to someone recently And they said to me, oh, you should ask people what's on their Spotify playlists. So I'm afraid you're the first CMO I would've asked this of, but would you mind telling me what is on your kind of Spotify most liked playlist?

Amy:
Oh, that's funny. So I do listen to audiobooks sometimes when I walk, podcasts I like, but music, so it depends where I am. So my 12-year-old, when I drive him to school, we listen to classical music. It kind of gets him. He doesn't love school, so we found that to be a nice thing that he really actually enjoys. Of course, I love Dolly Parton, God rest her soul. So I've been listening to a lot of Dolly Parton lately, but I actually am pretty eclectic in my taste. I'll just go on and put like random playlists and let Spotify pick for me. But of course, I'm a child of the '70s and '80s, so you gotta love that music. But I really like, and my kids all like different types. My two older boys are introducing me to the kind of music that they like, which is different. So it's pretty all over the place.

Ali:
Okay.

Amy:
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Ali:
Now, if it's okay, I'd love to start talking about your professional career. So in particular, how did you first get into marketing?

Amy:
I learned marketing on the job at Microsoft. So my early career, my master's is in journalism, and my early career was all communications, media relations, crisis communications, PR. Then I got a job at Microsoft in the early 2000s, back when they were expanding their field marketing organization. It was actually a hybrid role that was going to be half PR and half marketing. And then, of course, back in those days, they were constantly reinventing themselves. So I fell into a full-time field marketing job, and it was super fun. But that is how I learned. I learned on the job at Microsoft.

Ali:
And there's an incredible podcast, I don't know if you've heard it, called Acquired that do—

Amy:
I love that podcast. It's a three-part series.

Ali:
It's so good, isn't it?

Amy:
It's so good. It's so good.

Ali:
Well, their three-part series on Microsoft I thought was phenomenal and actually definitely reframed how I thought about it as well. Yeah.

Amy:
Yeah. I was blessed to be there when Steve Ballmer and Bill Gates were both there. And it was an incredible learning opportunity and so many smart people and the energy was contagious. And, truly, people believed their software was going to change the world and the growth and the access. And it was wonderful. I loved it.

Ali:
It seems to me sometimes there are some very special places and moments in which a lot of great talent gets fostered, nurtured, and finds their way beyond then, beyond that moment and that place. Microsoft in the late '90s, early 2000s seems like one of those places. I think Salesforce kind of 10 years later again. I meet a lot of CMOs who somehow were connected to Salesforce around that era. There was the Google product manager course that obviously a lot of people programmed, a lot of people came out of as well to found all sorts of brilliant companies. But yeah, Microsoft around that era seems like one of those places that fostered an enormous amount of talent.

Amy:
Yeah, so many smart people, and they spent a ton of effort training people. I shared that story earlier, and learning from each other, and it was very much a Try and fail, try and fail. And it was still in the early sort of category creation almost. And you had this frenzy, almost rabid fan base of Office, but they were also just trying to get into all these other areas and they weren't recognized for the incredible portfolio that they had, right? They were huge. But the growth was incredible. The global scale was incredible. I mean, I was excited by the channel network. I mean, they do partners better than anyone in the world. And I don't know what it is now, but we used to say for every dollar we make, partners would make $7. So their ability to set up economic infrastructures through their partner and reseller network, and they've got all kinds of different partner channels I won't go into, but they created an incredible economy of scale and distribution through real innovative products. And it was interesting. I was there back in the, you know, when the Mac versus the PC days, and to see that battle between Bill Gates and Steve Jobs was fascinating, and how they respected each other but also went after each other.

Amy:
And it was an invaluable experience in shaping my work life, for sure.

Ali:
Are there any particular lessons you took from that you carry with you today? Sorry, I'm sure there are plenty, but any particular ones you want to mention?

Amy:
Yeah, that's a great question. I think a couple. One is that was the first time I really worked in a global organization, so I just loved that, and I've always wanted to be in global roles because of that, because I felt like I personally learned so much, but it also helps influence your outlook into how you approach what you're talking about beyond a single scale, you know, or single lens. You can, you know how important it is to include other voices so that it's not a flat, one-dimensional story. So, the global storytelling of it, the, as I mentioned, the willingness to invest and move fast. And if you fail, you fail. They used to give an award for who failed the most spectacularly, even organizationally. Like, if it's not working, fix it. Just keep going. The whole progress over perfection, and just what people can do when they work together. I think, you know, it was quite aspirational. And I also, I will say, I was a huge fan of Steve Ballmer's. And I remember that we had these big, at the time they were called MGX, when they'd have all the sales and marketing people come together from all over the world.

Amy:
And the way he would sing, and he would do performances. I remember one year he did Defying Gravity from Wicked. And the way he would get people so inspired, I get it. I get it. I understand how what I'm doing— one important thing was understanding how what I was doing ladders up to the greater goal, but also that he was so passionate about the company that you couldn't help but follow along with that passion and get sort of swept up. So it's that sort of, I think, probably some brilliant HR engineering about how to ladder up individual goals to the company goals and be able to articulate that, but then also have people who were so passionate about articulating that and spreading that sort of fire around to the employee base that when you see those things come together, it was very cool.

Ali:
Amazing. Interesting. That's one of the themes that comes out of the Acquired podcast about what Steve Ballmer brought to Microsoft when he led it. It's amazing to hear your first-person perspective on that. I could probably talk to you about Microsoft at that point for another 3 hours, but— I could do it. If we move on from Microsoft, I'd love to hear about your journey of how you got from there in the early 2000s to where you are today at Thomson Reuters.

Amy:
Sure. So after Microsoft, I was recruited to go to a company that at the time was called Delphi, which was an automotive supplier, which sounds super boring, but they were in this transition. I'm from Detroit, right? I understand what that is. It's a massive, huge supply chain, you know, $18 billion company. And they recruited me and I was like, no, no, I'm happy. I'm happy. Especially as a woman, I didn't want to go into that industry. And they kept coming back and this, the CTO reached out and Steve Ballmer had retired, so I was like, oh, I don't know if I want to stay here anymore. So I thought, okay, I'll talk to them. So they painted the picture of what is now autonomous driving. Your car is a computer, basically, a technology system, a mobility provider. We want to transition from what we are into this, this future of connected cars and autonomous driving. And I met the CTO who I really liked. There was a woman named Eleanor Mascheroni. She was amazing. She was the CMO, and she was flying back and forth between Manhattan and Detroit every week.

Amy:
And so I'm like, why would anyone do that? There's got to be a story there. I always love what the story is. And so I saw this picture of where they're trying to go, and they wanted me to come sort of help lead this, establish the brand. We launched a new company, two new companies actually. We had two startups. So anyways, I made the switch. Microsoft's like, you can always come back. So I'm like, okay, I'll try. Why not? So I went in that time, and we were among the early pioneers of autonomous driving. And people, it was funny, 'cause I'm like, I'm not sure why I'm doing this. And people thought it was bonkers to leave this incredible company. And I'm like, well, I'm gonna just take a risk. That's one thing I've learned is it's okay to take a risk. Like, what I always say, what's the worst that can happen? So I went, and when I first got there, I was like, oh my gosh, this was the dumbest thing I've ever done. I was like hitting a brick wall. But then very shortly through acquisitions, we had one from MIT and one from Carnegie Mellon, both early days of autonomous driving, we were in that white-hot spot of the hottest tech in the world, and NVIDIA, and Microsoft, and Google, and all these people wanted to work with us.

Amy:
So it was kind of this interesting place to be. And during that time, we did the first autonomous drive across the country. So history, you know, very cool. And launched a— we actually split into two publicly traded companies. So lots of experience in branding, establishing brands, telling stories. I mean, back then, this was 2000, mid-2000s, 12 to 14, somewhere in there. I don't remember exactly, but category creation, having to actually explain to the world what is machine learning, what is artificial intelligence, how do they work together, what's a neural network? So this was a long time before where we are now, trying to explain what it is and what it does and the benefits that it can bring. In this case, autonomous driving, the car doesn't get drunk or mad or tired, all those kinds of things. So just being able to storytell what this very complex technology can do for society. So did that, kind of ran it through, and then I was recruited to go to a company called Altair, which was also going the same kind of journey. We're centralized, we want to build a brand. They didn't have a corp comm department.

Amy:
Lots of products; a very cool company that no one had ever heard of. And I was like, okay, your technology, you're publicly traded, why have I never heard of you? What's the story? I met Jim Scappa. He was the founder and CEO. And so I went there and kind of did the same sort of bringing a team together, building a brand, setting up a, just a really functioning, amazing, incredible team. And they were in the world of what's called simulation optimization, which basically in layman's terms, you can only smash a car into a wall so many times for testing. It's virtual testing. So anytime you build anything from your phone to a hockey stick, to a skyscraper, to a car, you test that in a virtual environment. So they were early pioneers in that. And then high-performance computing, because you need so much compute to run these, they have that. And then also hardcore data science and AI. So in that, fast forward six and a half years, we started, when I got there, I think it was $500-some million in revenue, and it was like $23 a share. And six and a half years later, we were purchased by Siemens, their biggest ever acquisition for $10.6 billion and like $113 or $116 a share.

Amy:
So incredible ride, super fun, absolutely loved it, loved the team, full respect for everyone involved in both sides. Then it just came to a point of, okay, what comes next? And here I am, I landed at Thomson Reuters in kind of an interesting little path. I joined as the Chief Communications Officer just in October, so I'm still less than a year in, which I was really excited about just to kind of focus and take a little bit of a smaller role. And then in February, I became the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer. The two segments, the two teams were not connected. So then the business decided the best thing to do would be to join those teams together, which I completely agree with. And here we are.

Ali:
Amazing. So, what a fantastic journey. And to, like you say, to have landed, well, I think to have made your luck in those places as you went through them. But also, I loved hearing your descriptions of these very technical things and how you brought them to life. You know, this is a simulation optimization business, or basically when you're testing a car, you can only smash it into a wall so many times. It's really lovely to hear you say that on the way past. So, now you're at Thomson Reuters, which is a phenomenal business. Could you tell people who don't know Thomson Reuters, or perhaps people who don't know all about Thomson Reuters and who you are today, what kind of a business it is today?

Amy:
Absolutely. So Thomson Reuters is one of those amazing, wonderful legacy brand companies that has been around for more than 175 years in different groups. It has come together through different acquisitions. So most people have heard of Reuters, which is the news service. It is the oldest, most well-respected, largest, I think, wholesaler of news. Globally, they have about 2,700 reporters. I could be wrong, 2,400. Amazing group of incredibly smart people. That's about 10% of the revenue. 90% of the revenue is basically content and AI for professionals. So if you know, if you're a lawyer and you know of Westlaw or Practical Law, that is Thomson Reuters. And then we have products for accounting and audit professionals, and then corporations for things like indirect tax compliance. So we provide software to help professionals do their jobs better is the easiest way to say it. Very state-of-the-art AI, but is built on— we have the thing that I found most fascinating about TR is that we employ the professionals who build the software. So we have about 200 or 300 lawyers who are attorney editors who help actually build the products that lawyers will use. So they understand what lawyers need, and the same goes for accounting.

Amy:
It's this wonderful network of people who work in the professions that use our software. We also have proprietary, sought-after datasets for things like case citations, litigation and legal history, and the same goes for tax and accounting. So it's an incredible group of people who have come together through different acquisitions over time and have adapted over time, keeping pace with and anticipating where business is going. So they've made a shift. At one point, they were a holding company, then they became an operating company. Now we've made this shift to AI while maintaining the integrity of our content. We provide what we call fiduciary-grade AI, drawing on our own datasets for customers. So, it's a pretty special combination of trusted content and AI.

Ali:
What struck me is something that seems obvious but isn't done by many businesses, and has turned out to be incredibly prescient: getting domain experts and practitioners to build the product. Businesses are now investing enormous sums to build that capability. But, as you say, Thomson Reuters has long built its products with professionals: getting people who know how to do the work to build tools that help them do it. And then obviously the second part is, as you mentioned, that dataset. So as a business, it turns out that actually, 175 years' worth of data in a field like law can be incredibly valuable for the next 10, 20 or 50 years, however far ahead you look. Were you aware of that when you joined, or was that something you started to learn about as you were in the business?

Amy:
So, I did a ton of research before I joined, to understand the company and its future. And I used AI and talked to people. I did a lot of research, but I will say I have learned so much and continue to learn so much about the depth and breadth of TR and what it offers since I've joined. Quite frankly, the business is more complex than I understood when I joined. The sophistication of the leadership team and colleagues has been a wonderful surprise. I will say for the marketing communications team, it was already great. Like, I'm not the kind of person that's gonna throw the past under the bus. Like, it's just building. They've done so much good work, but sometimes a company is so big that not all its work gets recognized. You know, so for example, they do a lot to help catch bad guys. So, you know, some folks on our team work with the ESG team, and they just did a thing up in Canada to help catch human traffickers.

Ali:
Wow.

Amy:
We did work around the World Cup because, unfortunately, sporting events can attract this kind of activity. I knew nothing about work like this to help bring criminals to justice. So there are things like that I wasn't as aware of, and I continue to learn. And what's really cool is to be able to hear customer stories of how they're using it, the different pieces of our software. And the thing that we say is our software is for when you can't afford to be wrong, right? It's a very different thing if a lawyer goes in front of a judge with something that's not right. The consequences are too high. When you can't afford to be wrong, you place your trust in a company like TR because it has invested in experts who are your peers, as well as in software and products that work reliably. That's the combination. Our 27,000 colleagues around the globe are brilliant experts in their fields, and their expertise shapes the software and services we provide to customers.

Amy:
And that's a pretty unique offering. I don't know many other software companies where, if you run into a problem, you can call and get help. And I think that's also a unique— you can call and talk to a lawyer. Not enough people can say that.

Ali:
Yeah, what an amazingly unique selling point, really. So, you mentioned earlier that obviously Thomson Reuters itself is undergoing this shift and this incredible growth opportunity. The marketing and communications team have just come together. How do you start to organize a team to take advantage of the opportunity to support growth while also managing that internal reorganization?

Amy:
Yeah, so I think one of the things I was really excited about when the two teams came together was the chance to integrate the storytellers in communications with those in marketing. I've brought these teams together before; perhaps they could once be separate, but now their work belongs together. It's that sort of omnichannel approach. You want to tell the same story, but which levers do you pull, when and how? What are the nuances of telling it across channels? I was super excited for the comms team to come in. The comms team was much smaller than the marketing team. I wanted those colleagues to have more career development opportunities and to see their work amplified. It's really about amplification. So on one side, the work that the comms team was doing, I don't think was necessarily getting enough recognition or amplification. The marketing team can help amplify communications work internally and externally. In turn, the communications team can bring storytelling to some of marketing's more technical stories and tell them in a different way.

Amy:
So the two are so beneficial, and especially in the world of AI, you know, a press release does help LLMs. So like just getting people to think differently. That's how we're thinking about the organization: bringing those worlds together. We're still in the process of figuring it out, quite honestly. We're all in the progress over perfection mode. So I think an org chart is a living, breathing organism that changes as the business changes. It'll never be perfect. It'll never be set. It will continue to move. So right now what we're doing is going through and working out what the operating model should be and agreeing on it. It's a democratic process involving the whole leadership team. We draw on different backgrounds and discuss what has and hasn't worked before. We try things, and if they don't work, we move on. You know, trying to create that culture where it's okay to try new things, and it might not be perfect, and you're okay to fail.

Amy:
We pick up the pieces and keep going. The customer lens is also really important. We want to make it easy for customers to understand our story and do business with us. We need to stay relentlessly focused on them.

Ali:
Yeah, fantastic. There's something in there about telling that story, helping customers understand your story as well. I used to work across B2B and B2C with a lot of luxury and heritage brands. And obviously they have always understood the power of going back to the beginning, to seeing what is that consistent thread through their own development, their own evolution. And I feel like now a lot of brands in the tech space are beginning to understand the power of that as well, which is quite interesting. I've worked with quite a few businesses recently who've started to understand why that's so important. Whereas previously it was, God, what's new this year? What's new next year? It was a constantly shifting brand platform, which never really compounded over time as a result. So interesting. We've covered, obviously we've touched on this idea of AI and what it means for Thomson Reuters at a business level in terms of how it's shaping your products and what it is that your customers need from you. How else is it changing what you are doing at Thomson Reuters internally and externally?

Amy:
Well, we live in this hyped-up world of AI, and I think our role is to cut through the hype. And the interesting part is that our story hasn't changed and our narrative hasn't changed because it is true to sort of what we set out to do, which is to provide software and services that help customers do their jobs and augment their judgment. We're not trying to replace people. We're keeping lawyers, accountants and other professionals in the loop. When a law firm uses software, it has to protect its IP and keep its data safe. It doesn't want others seeing its clients' content. That's a story we've always told. Our narrative hasn't shifted amid everything going on. We are providing this and we haven't had to change from what we really are trying to provide, which is the best answers that are accurate, that are dependable.

Amy:
Again, we call it fiduciary grade AI from our content. Their content will never be used to train our models. It won't find its way elsewhere down the road. We haven't had to change that principle. We stay true to doing what's best for the customer. So that of course means things like expanding our partner ecosystem. Our heritage, time in the market and trust give us a partner network that others can't easily replicate. So we partner with companies like Anthropic. Our new CoCounsel Legal is built on Anthropic’s SDK. But we also use our own. So it's an interesting combination. We certainly aren't burying our heads in the sand. We are out there with Frontier Labs. And we have our own incredible labs. And we have our own model called Thomson, which is a specific LLM for legal that we launched. So we are out there with the best of them. But we stay true to what customers need and deserve.

Amy:
And they decided a long time ago that they had to have this fiduciary-grade AI because the stakes are too high for them to be wrong.

Ali:
I love that. Okay, very good. I mean, I love the focus on what is the core of the value or the story that you can build on over time, not just what was hot last week, which I think is so much more stable.

Amy:
Exactly. And we just launched an advertising campaign, at a scale we haven't attempted before, at least as far as I know. The character is called CoCo. We had a lot of fun bringing her to life. So CoCo is a sort of personification of CoCounsel, the name of our software. But it is leaning back on the heritage of the 175 years of our data and our expertise, but in a modern, fresh way showing the world that we have this history, we honor it, we respect it. We know that we are here because of the incredible history of the folks who came before us. But we are also looking into the future and we are moving forward as fast or faster than anybody else so that we have that rare combination of this trusted heritage and hard-earned decades of respect, but also have the latest and greatest in software offerings for our customers. Yeah.

Ali:
Amazing. If it's all right, I'd like to move on now to hear a little bit more about the people or the ideas that have influenced who you are as a marketer. So you've mentioned you've worked with some fantastic people over your career, but who are your marketing heroes? Who are the people that have influenced the way you think about and approach marketing?

Amy:
You know, I think that's a really hard question to answer. When I look back, I have so many incredible mentors and bosses and managers that have taught me good, bad, and ugly about not just marketing, but as a professional, some of whom I’ve named already. So I think what I've learned from them goes beyond marketing to leadership: how to treat people, grow a business and stay true to who you are. It also shapes which companies I choose to work for. So one of the reasons I chose to come to TR was the leadership team. I very much admire Steve Hasker, our CEO, his leadership style, and the team that he has assembled. My last role, I mentioned Jim Scappa. When I see his story of how he led this company and grew these people, and the loyalty that he grew from his team because of the way he led, he said, 'I've always had engineers'. When I joined there, I was the first non-engineer and also the first female officer that the company had ever had.

Amy:
But he also said, 'I know I don't know enough about marketing, and I need someone to help.' That ability to trust people mattered. But I just love storytelling. I love people who can weave storytelling into their work. I feel like anything can be interesting if you ask the right questions. Curiosity can make anything interesting. So I sort of gravitate towards people who appreciate the art of storytelling and who have given me room to make mistakes while helping me bring people's stories to life. It always comes back to the people. I don't care what you sell or where you live. It's the people who make companies and it's the people who are the ones who should be highlighted. Most companies believe in what they're doing; they have a purpose. How do I show and tell that purpose? I look for people who understand it and support me in doing that.

Ali:
Brilliant. And I'm definitely stealing the, anything's interesting if you ask the right questions. I think that's spot on. It's a lovely phrasing of it as well. Okay, so it's all right. We've got a couple of minutes left. So can we go into our quickfire round? So I'll ask for one- or two-word answers to these, if that's okay. Although these questions often deserve longer answers. So first one, have you got one practical tip that you've learned that could help aspiring CMOs?

Amy:
Yes. One is just listening. I think the art of listening is long gone out the window. I think people are focused on other things, but active listening, not just waiting for the next person to finish so you can speak, but to actually listen and ask questions. And I think playbooks can be great, but also dangerous when you go into a new job and just assume that playbook you have from another company can just be inserted immediately is not the right way to do it. You have to take time to learn about the culture. Culture and people are often underestimated. You have to take time to learn about the company and its culture before you can apply a playbook. So I think that it's not a technical marketing thing, it's understanding people and it's listening and learning about culture.

Ali:
I love that. That's a conversation I'm having regularly with my children at the moment. Complete this sentence: 'The qualities I look for in my next exceptional hire are…'

Amy:
An open heart and an open mind. That's what I tell my kids all the time.

Ali:
Love that. I often say the only problems that worry me are the ones that I can't see. So, I try to be open with my team about any challenges that I have, mistakes that I make, so that they have a space where they're comfortable doing the same. In the spirit of that psychological safety, what's a mistake that you've made in the past couple of weeks?

Amy:
Oh my gosh, I make so many mistakes. This is a funny one. So, when the teams— we have these internal big quarterly meetings with the executive staff, and it was the first time that we were going to do it as a combined marketing and communications team. So it's like, let's make this cool video to open up our session to show like this is a new day and it's going to be, you know, blah blah blah. So we did it and it was like, as my mother would say, you know, went over like a lead balloon. Like it was a complete waste of time for everyone. I wasted everyone's time. They did not care. They're like moving on. I do things like that all the time. But I try, and I made a point of telling the team, look, I tried this. I'm sorry I wasted your time. It was a total mistake. So, I'm also very honest about sharing with the team the mistakes that I make, because I do.

Ali:
Very good. Yeah, we all do.

Amy:
A lot.

Ali:
What is something most people get wrong about you?

Amy:
I think it probably goes back to that shyness thing, especially in a hybrid environment, to try and get to know people. But I think shyness can be viewed as either standoffishness or lack of interest. So I have to coach myself to go raise my hand, go shake hands and say hello. And I love talking to people, so don't get me wrong. It's just sometimes I have to give myself a little extra push. If I sit by myself, people can misunderstand that.

Ali:
Lovely. And finally, just, I'm gonna change this actually slightly versus what I've asked other guests, 'cause I think we've covered some of the answers I would've had already, but what are you most excited about over the next 12 months?

Amy:
I am so excited about the future of, one, TR, and two, the marketing communications team. Like, I feel like we're just kind of starting to unlock the magic and the combination of the two and the art and science of storytelling, because I think TR has an incredible story to tell. And I think that in this, sort of mania around AI and all the hype and fear, that this can be like a sort of a port in the storm of, listen, this is what we've been saying all along. We're not changing. It is innovative. I do not buy into that you can't be legacy and innovative. Innovative, very futuristic as far as the investments and the vision of the technology, but in a way that is usable. And that is applicable now to helping people lead better lives. So I think it's— I say that as a working mom, like, I use our stuff even to be able to manage my sort of outlook. So one is TR, and two is the team, the marketing communications team coming together and being able to really showcase all the amazing work that they do and the brilliant people and the creative people that are on the team to highlight what they can do and help tell the TR story.

Amy:
And some of that showcasing our customers, all the great things that go along with it. But they are making a difference. And I want them to know that what they are doing is heard, is seen. They're making an impact on customers and the business. And unlocking that together, I think, will help TR as a whole, which in turn, you know, right to the reporting of Reuters. I mean, that's also incredibly important. So Reuters is important. The rest of TR and the work that they do and how it's represented along the globe and how it helps people well understand the world in which we live and help them make choices that improve their daily lives.

Ali:
What an amazing place to finish. Thank you, Amy. Well, I mean, thank you so much for taking the time and thank you for being with us today.

Amy:
Thank you so much. Appreciate the time.

Ali:
It was great.