Shaping the Future of B2B Marketing

Kari Wiens

Hi, everyone. Thank you for being here. I'm Kari Wiens with The Marketing Practice, and I'll be moderating today's conversation. This isn't your typical marketing panel. It's a real honest discussion with four brilliant women from the future CMO 100. So let's get into it. I'd like to start by letting each of our panelists introduce themselves, tell us a little bit about a typical day, and also one word about how you're feeling about the future of B2B marketing. I'm going to go ahead and start with Alice.

Alice Crook

First in the alphabet. Hi, everyone. Nice to meet you. I'm Alice Crook. I lead EMEA marketing at Splunk. And I would expect there'll be a theme that there is no typical day in the life. It can look like anything. But I think the The 2 key things that kind of distinguish a day in my life are that you're living kind of at the same time in three time frames. So kind of looking back at the past, what worked, what can we learn from how things went, you know, living in the present. keeping everything on track, making sure that we're delivering to plan and then looking ahead, what's next, what do we need to be planning for now to make sure that we're kind of keeping abreast and supporting the business in the right way. And I think the second thing is that there's actually very little marketing in my every day. There is a lot of talking to people. My children absolutely think that I just talk to people for a living. on various video conferencing platforms from my home office. But stakeholder management kind of internally across a big matrixed organization is a huge part of the day.

Kari Wiens

And how are you feeling about the future of B2B marketing?

Alice Crook

I am feeling invigorated. So yeah, there you go.

Kari Wiens

Great.

Rachel Lockwood

Hello. I hope everyone can hear me. Great. My name is Rachel Lockwood. I lead global partner marketing and marketplace marketing for Amazon Web Services. I've been here five years. Before that, I was with a company called SAS doing advanced analytics marketing. So super excited to work in B2B marketing today. Five years at Amazon and there's no typical day. But if you know anything about the Amazon culture, you will know that we read docs, we write docs. PowerPoint, the rumor PowerPoint is banned is not quite correct, but we do read docs. And the doc culture does not come from the history of books, it comes from really being able to anyone and the accessibility. to a topic and anyone being able to look at that topic and understand exactly what the presenter is doing. So today, for example, a typical day, we are going to read 8 docs. So and you will get time to read depending on the length. You can have a two pager, a three pager or a six pager. And then everyone puts multiple things in the appendix. So we will spend usually around an hour, an hour plus on each doc. So that's my typical day. I have four children. One of them is in B2B marketing. I'm my oldest daughter. I have two daughters, two boys. One is trying to be a neuroscientist, so maybe not B2B marketing. And then my son is still at university and the little one is still at school. They sort of know what I do. But when I started working for Amazon, they did ask if I knew the delivery man that came to our house very regularly. Like I'm sure he comes to all of your houses a lot too. So hello and great to see so many people on the call.

Kari Wiens

Wonderful. Thank you, Rachel. Nimmi.

Nimmi Bhalla

Hi, I'm Nimmi Bhalla. I lead the B2B marketing teams at Virgin Media O2. I've been in this role for two years, but been at the company for 16 years across various roles in sales, commercial, strategy, transformation, you name it. I've probably done all of them. What does my typical day look like? I think I would say it's a split between spending time with the actual teams, you know, one-to-ones, reviewing projects, reviewing performance. but also, aligning and spending time with wider stakeholders outside of marketing to make sure, our priorities are aligned, we're pulling in the same direction. Where is our strategy going? How do we adapt our strategy? But then also occasionally, you know, widely, you know, spending time with our vendors and agencies to make sure we keep bringing in that external perspective and not stay in our bubble. So, you know, learning really from what's working elsewhere, what isn't, getting their critique on our plans and helping them improve them even further. So yeah, that's what my typical day looks like. And outside of work, I have a 14-year-old daughter who's going on 24, a dog, and I would say they both keep my evenings very, very busy. So thank you for having me here.

Kari Wiens

Great, we're so glad you're here. And Nimmi, what is one word about how you're feeling on the future of B2B marketing?

Nimmi Bhalla

Optimistic, but also cautious at the same time.

Kari Wiens

Absolutely. Kit, we're going to try going back over to you to see how you're feeling about the future of B2B marketing and to test out that mic.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

Is this any better? We'll try to. I may project a little bit here. The challenges of being a marketer on the road, hopefully this connection holds. So I was talking just a little bit about what my typical day looks like, how I'm driving synergies between some of our ABM teams, where I'm working on marketing messaging for our enterprise and public sector customers. Typical day has me coordinating very much internally among a lot of our marketers. But when I think about what really excites me right now, I feel empowered. And I'm feeling empowered because of the, certainly, and I'm sure we'll get get into it, AI, the tools that are now disposable and available to us. But I'm also feeling empowered because our customers are doing new and exciting things within their business. And as a marketer, there's probably no better time to be out there marketing to some of these really dynamic companies.

Kari Wiens

Wonderful. Thank you. And thank you all for being here. Let's start off our conversation with something every marketing leader is feeling right now, how to focus when everything feels like a priority. So to kick off, what's your approach to prioritizing marketing initiatives when budgets or bandwidth are limited? Their revenue goals remain high and they remain pressured. So Kit, I'm going to start with you.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

Very good. And I'm hoping this might hold. So when budgets are tight, revenue goals stay high, obviously. Marketing is often tasked with doing more with less. I'm sure we have all been up against that. Our departments are really kind of rightly seen as growth engines by our leadership team, by our CEOs. So what do I personally try to do? I'm trying to prioritize initiatives that deliver short-term revenue impact, while also really laying groundwork for long-term growth. We tend to look at both of those things. with a revenue acceleration lens. We're looking at how an initiative maybe impacts pipeline or deal velocity in the near term, but we also are trying to apply a strategic growth lens. We're asking ourselves whether certain programs are going to build equity, whether they're going to deepen customer understanding or affinity. So in prioritizing programs like a vertical or industry campaign or even account-based marketing, we hit on both revenue acceleration and strategic growth. And I should say, I know that we're talking to a group of really dynamic women here. As a woman in B2B marketing, I should add that I also believe in balancing urgency and empathy as we're beginning to do some of that prioritization. So recognizing that both External customer needs and internal pressures are driving some of our stakeholders. So, our C-suite, our sales partners, they're as much a key audience to us for making, making decisions as our technology buyers are. And knowing the pain points of our leadership team is really critical to us. So by partnering with sales and by partnering with our leadership on shared KPIs and agreed upon KPIs, we can demonstrate how those near-term activities tie to pipeline progression while we also position, in my case, Verizon, for future growth.

Alice Crook

I loved what you said there about balancing the urgency and the empathy, because I think often when budgets are tight, the instinct of a lot of marketers is to compensate for tighter budgets with more of their own resource, which is not free and has a cost and a personal impact to it. So when it comes to prioritization, I think it's really important to consider the bandwidth piece as well as the budget piece and make sure that you are prioritizing across both and not just kind of filling one hole with the other. and making space for innovation within that. So I think it's easy to kind of shrink a plan to, the limits of the capacity that you have. But if you don't shrink it even smaller and leave yourself a bit of space for, you know, the inevitable curveball that's going to come your way probably at 5pm on a Friday afternoon, you know, there there's going to be a pinch point at some point for the team members as well. And people need to learn, they need to keep trying new things and they need to be creative and making sure that you've got space for that within a constrained plan as well is really important, I think.

Nimmi Bhalla

I really like the bit you said there about experimentation. Because sometimes we are so much in the weeds, we are doing what we've always done. So for me, it is making sure we've got some room for experimentation and innovation. But when it comes to prioritization, let's just double down on what's working. And, you know, ruthlessly look at the things that you need to cut out. So, if a certain channel isn't working, just discard it out versus continuing with it for the sake of continuing.

Rachel Lockwood

I was going to add also what Alice said on prioritization. I think we have to give people, we can give people the the permission to prioritize, and we can try and empower them. But how many times have we sat there and the priority list is still as big as it was, and what we're going to stop has got nothing on it. And so trying to empower people and trying to instill that you can stop stuff, I think is really hard. And I said to some of my team, not that long ago. I can't be with you every day to prioritize for you. have to, you really have to give yourself a break and feel the right to say no. And know that as a leader, as all of us are, that we've got your back and I will back you to put stuff on that stop list. And it's really, really hard for any of us to do at any level.

Kari Wiens

Yeah. Absolutely. And Rach, just to piggyback off of that and kind of dive more into the personal side of things, can you tell us a little bit about those key moments or inflection points that shaped your career path, led you to where you are today, and that are helping you kind of define some of these moments?

Rachel Lockwood

Yeah, I think I truly believe we learn from our experiences and we learn from the choices we make. And I have a great story. I had an amazing sponsor. And that was my mother. And I say was, not because she's given up sponsoring me. Unfortunately, she's passed away. But she was an amazing career woman and built her career herself from a typist to quite a senior civil servant. But when I was going through my education journey, I took a break and I got married. I got married at 19. I then had a baby at 20. And when I found out I was pregnant, I was worried about telling my mother. My mother, education was a privilege. It set you up for life. And I remember telling her, and she said the most wonderful thing to me. She said, I will support you if you want to stay at home and be a mother. I will support you if you want to go back and continue your studies. And given that choice, and I think it's incredibly important, and often for women, to have that choice of what you want to do. And at that point in my career, I was new, I was still going through my education. I decided to go back. So when Charlotte, my eldest daughter, was 11 months old, I went back to university of my dream to be a chartered accountant and pursued that. And I think because I'd And she'd given me the sense of empowerment and she'd given me a sense of you can do whatever you want. it doesn't matter if you're a male, a female, it just doesn't matter. You do, you do you. And I went off and I got an internship at Coopers and Lybrand as it was. I know that dates me. It's now PWC. I took that internship, but I wasn't 100% and I deferred it. And I deferred it at the time again because I felt supported. I felt I had a choice. And with that choice, I went and temped in B2B marketing and never looked back. I started in technology. I remain in technology. And the choices that we all make, we need support. And my mother supported me not just financially, I went back to college, which I was fortunate of, But really through her time, she put time in, she looked after my daughter. And I think when we look for sponsors in our careers, they need to be people that can help and enable us to get those choices. And whether it's supporting from a family member, whether it's a support from a mentor in an organization or an ally, look for people that can really help give you those choices. Because across our careers, we're going to need to make them, whether they're personal or not. And that's what really shaped my thinking and also shaped my career.

Alice Crook

And I think you need kind of a safe environment to feel like you can take advantage of those choices. And, you know, they might not even be choices that you knew you had necessarily. My career journey started in communications. So I have a PR agency background and moved into B2B marketing really by chance. I was in a comms role and the business was growing and there were other things that needed to be done to support that growth. And I had leaders who just really supported me to give it a go. And I had never really thought about expanding my career, particularly beyond comms. But I found things interesting and I had that support to just try them. And, the kind of confidence that if I didn't get it right or, made a mistake, that it wouldn't be the end of the world. And I think creating that environment is so important to give people the ability to kind of do more than they thought they could or, expand their career in ways that they might not even have thought were possible for them or, even existed, to be honest. before I joined a broader organisation, I didn't give that much thought to marketing. I was focused on what the comms charter was and driving that outcome. And you don't know what you're interested in and what you're good at until you try things.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

Alice, I like that both you and Rachel have touched on the importance of relationships, because I think getting into the industry, and I'm one of those rare marketers, I feel like a marketing Swiss army knife sometimes. I've been in marketing for 30 years and I actually telecommunications or OEM marketing, that has been my career path. But I entered my career path really thinking that I was going to advance through skills. It's really relationships, it's influence, it's timing that help you with career progression. And I really think for me, that kind of inflection point in my career was recognizing it's as much relationships as it is skill sets. Always keep current with skills, always keep growing. But so much is around relationships. And you, Alice, were beginning to hit on the fact that sometimes women don't have those internal networks available to them, potentially in the same way they feel that their male counterparts have. So for me, it's been keeping my network up to date, but not just internally, externally. There are a lot of great marketers out there. are a lot of great female and male marketers out there that can help, you know, if it's not within your organization, outside your organization, help you help you advance. So, staying agile, drawing on past experiences, moving those relationships forward. I think that that's really critical. And I have to thank my network for having faith in me and helping me advance through my career.

Kari Wiens

You've both, well, you've all hit on the importance of kind of building these safe environments and, you know, making sure that women and men have a chance to speak up. But how do you actually build that kind of environment in your organization? What have you done and what has worked to really help folks be able to be somewhere where they can feel safe and take chances? Demi, I'll start with you.

Nimmi Bhalla

Yes, I think it's really about creating that culture of, you know, it's words used a lot, psychological safety. But I think by role modeling that, by being really transparent, with your people on, the whys of decisions. It really helps that. And also, creating that culture of meritocracy, even if it's a junior member of the team, if they've got great ideas and, they are, they have, they hold their merit, that's something we should definitely be looking into. So it's not a case of, you know, what level the idea came from. everybody should feel free to, put forward ideas, think through ideas, present them in senior forums. And I think as a leader, we do have that additional responsibility of making sure that, some of our more junior members, especially who are women, just starting off their career in marketing, get that confidence to be able to put their ideas forward.

Rachel Lockwood

I think it's, I agree with you, Nimmi. I'm going to talk about a failure that was trying to support women and men within the team, telling them it's okay to fail. And so we were looking and listening to, we call them builders in AWS, listening to our teams and people, even though we pride ourselves on having an innovation culture, we have bias for action, don't step over a problem, try something, fix it, you know, try something new and take that, take that initiative. We were, hearing from our builders that actually they really weren't. They weren't taking that. They felt afraid of failing. So working with the team, we came up with an idea that we would talk about our failures and what we'd learned from them. And so to role model it, to your point, Nimmi, I went first. So I said, I'm going to do this. I'm going to kick off this series. I'm going to talk about a failure that was okay and what I learned from it. And it was a terrible failure. It was in my first six months. I tried to write my first doc that went very high up the organization. I did 32 versions of this doc. It was shocking. It was shocking. And so I talked very openly and very transparently to the wider team about this. And then we asked for volunteers of who wanted to go next. And nobody wanted to go next, because it still even, you know, you have to live it to your point day-to-day. You have to roll over. And the word you said, I think, is so true. You have to be transparent. There are times where you can't tell. Maybe something that's happening, but say you can't tell. And I think even if, and so I think that transparency, but it's no good having a program as such. It just has to be a lived experience of that day-to-day. And the fail fast, learn, move on. It's all okay. None of us are perfect.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

Rachel, what I'm liking about what you're saying is not just the transparency, but the vulnerability. And I think that vulnerability is one of those leadership traits that probably isn't celebrated widely enough. You know, I've seen stats out there from the ANA, from LinkedIn's Gender Insights report that women now make up 50% of the B2B marketing workforce. But I don't necessarily know that women have a seat at the right tables in the same proportion. And I might even say, as we're talking about vulnerability, we're talking about transparency. It's really not enough that women just have a seat at the table. They have to have a voice at the table. And, you know, one of the things that we could probably do as women leaders is kind of help amplify that voice, help amplify the voices of the women at the table, even when their communication styles or their ways of presenting don't fit common norms. You know, the story you shared, you had something kind of go up and, you know, it's, you know, multiple, multiple versions. I'm sure that those versions, as they started to get polished, got better and better. But we need to appreciate that some of the differences that women bring to the table can be celebrated while we're beginning to lift them up. So, diversity of thoughts, diversity of representation, drawing out that voice at the table and making it okay will help people advance faster, quite honestly.

Alice Crook

I think it would be amazing if we could get to a point where we can kind of celebrate the mistakes as well. I remember something from earlier in my career that really stuck with me, which was, someone much more senior than me had made a mistake with the budget and, there was a gap and, their peers from across the organisation kind of came together to help, figure it out. And that was highlighted on stage at an all hands. And it was incredibly powerful because this was the leadership team kind of sharing that, they're human, they make mistakes too, things go wrong. And there's that team spirit there to kind of come together and fix it. And, I don't know that everyone was then standing up and saying, oh, I made this mistake over here and I made that mistake over there, but it did just really contribute to that feeling of, safety, that this is an environment where you can try things and you can be human and, that's okay, people are going to understand and they're going to work together to help you.

Kari Wiens

Yeah. Yeah, that idea of normalizing failure and allowing folks to be able to have room to make mistakes and improve on that, I think is very strong and it's very much something that a lot of these organizations, right, are trying to encourage. What are some of the other pieces of advice you would give to women entering a career in B2B marketing? And Alice, I'm going to keep going with you.

Alice Crook

For me, I think it's all about confidence and having as much confidence as you can and investing in building that confidence early on. I think this applies to anyone, but I also think it's particularly something that women can struggle with. certainly when I was earlier in my career, I didn't necessarily feel like I was empowered in myself, not by others necessarily, but I didn't empower myself to speak up in a room and I didn't necessarily understand The value that I had, and even if you are in an entry-level role, that means that you are closer to some parts of the business than anyone else, and you are an expert in whatever you're doing, and that has huge value. to an organization. most organizations don't want lots of people in lots of meetings who aren't there for a reason and don't have something to add. So I think, reminding yourself constantly that you have a seat at the table for a reason. You should speak up if you have something to say. You know, the worst that happens is, people acknowledge it and move on. But in lots of cases, people are going to be, surprised or take something from what you said that they wouldn't have known before. And, the whole organization will be better off for it. So I think the more you can try and build that confidence in yourself and we collectively can, give others the confidence to speak up and create the space for everyone to speak up in those rooms, the better. And I'll actually give a shout out to someone in my team who I think is on the call. But she gave the advice, which I think she got from a Peloton instructor, to kind of clap yourself up before you're going into that situation. And I think that is good advice for anyone who is, yeah, going into a room where they don't necessarily feel they belong.

Nimmi Bhalla

I like that bit you said they're around confidence, Alice. I think, women in general, do feel that they're less confident. And one of the ways that I learned from a previous colleague was knowing what your superpower is, you know, really understanding what your superpower is, you know, are you more curious? Are you empathetic? And if you really recognize your superpower and you demonstrate that superpower, bring it across in all meetings, and that's something you end up getting recognised for. So, you know, when you're speaking in a meeting, you're leveraging that superpower, which helps in building confidence. And I think as leaders, we do have a role in helping our teams, you know, other women in our team, just helping them develop and understand what their superpower is.

Rachel Lockwood

I love that, Nimmi. And what I also think is giving people space to, from what Alice said, from what you've said, to have their voice. I was in a management training and it was about a board. And they said, X person on the board is always negative on this leadership team. It's always negative. And they started by saying, oh, this is never going to work. This won't do it. And what the coach did is said, give everyone, everyone had five minutes to talk. And 5 minutes is a long time. But what it did is the person that came across in the initial minute of being negative, talked around and talked around some of the best and innovative solutions, but they started from their own place. And I think giving people the space and as leaders, it's our job to give people that space to find their voice. and not shut them down and go, oh, no, Rachel, that's really, that's really negative. Do you know, let's move on and listen to what Alice has got to say. It's much more positive. To give people that space often allows them to come to their, come from their start point into the meeting and offer their opinion. And it's something I've tried to do, not always successfully, but tried to do.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

What I really love about this, and to me, kind of going back to that superpower idea, I think so many of us, and it may be a female trait, try to model ourselves on the leaders that we see around us. And that forces some of us into a little bit of a, like, you're already trying to be somebody you're not, but if you can be authentic to yourself, if you can find that superpower, and kind of getting back to a previous thread, have the confidence to allow that to be your superpower. You don't have to be like anybody else. You can do things your way. and be stronger for it. I love that. I do think that there's a huge mental aspect as well. The word confidence has come up so often in this particular thread. It's easy to lose confidence, especially, well, you know, a lot of the decisions that we're making are big decisions for our businesses. And if you lose confidence, you don't show up with the, you know, the ability to lead things forward. So the mental aspect of losing confidence is something that, again, we as leaders really need to care for with our teams and help them get past that. But I'm going to come back to, I love the idea about finding the superpower. Know where your center of strength is and lead from that center of strength. Great idea.

Alice Crook

And I think that can be a superpower, right? the benefit of sometimes not having the confidence is that you tend to be good at embracing vulnerability. And that is a real superpower. Being human and being vulnerable helps you to build connections. You know, that can really differentiate you in an organization and be part of your brand. And it's just, you know, working on the pieces that aren't so helpful and, you know, still leaning into those parts of it that make you who you are.

Nimmi Bhalla

Yeah, I love that.

Kari Wiens

Also, it wouldn't be 2025 without talking about AI. So bringing that confidence into the uncertainty and starting to talk a little bit about, as we're looking at the marketing evolving, our whole market evolving, right, and new tech and new expectations and new ways of working, how do you start to think about where where you're headed in the next five years. What advice do you have as we start to think about the women who are trying to voice out and gain this confidence and now they have to think about new skill sets and a little bit of touching back on the fact of human and authenticity as we start to think about where things are going. So I want to start that conversation off with Rachel. Just talk a little bit about what's next.

Rachel Lockwood

Thanks, Carrie. And I was almost thinking, but perhaps you started with the oldest person so that I could talk about how I've got to embrace those skill sets. I think certainly as we started on the Gen. AI journey, there were lots of use cases around marketing that were put into, you know, put into the environment for us to look at. And, you know, specifically around point to point, like content, you know, building content, you know, doing actual sort of quite small activities that we could do. doc, I talked about doc writing, writing a doc using Gen. AI. lots of, my kids at school, they've had to restrict how they use it because of, they want to test if they're learning. So when I first I thought, this is exciting, but really diving into what some of our customers are doing and Kit talked about earlier about a network, understanding what's happening in the wider environment. I think it's super, I'm super excited about it. And certainly looking, one of the role I'm doing at the moment, we're looking to build a scalable demand engine for our partners. Now, the role of GenAI in that is incredibly important, whether that is curating, actually curating and assessing the capabilities. of the partner so that they can build a plan using Gen. AI, and then they can access our materials to help build that plan and put it together all using Gen. AI. So that process that would have had a lot of manual intervention is now all built on intelligence. But I think what we should not be scared of is that doesn't mean we're removing the humans from it. This is a super project for the team that are doing this. They can curate this. Now, it's exciting journey, I hope, for all our partners. You can come back and tell. I can tell you in a year if they agree with me. But the people in that can curate that journey with this technology to build the best partner experience. I hope the best partner experience. And so they have to learn new skills and they have to have a level of understanding. But 2 things as we go through with this. this is a first for us as a business that we're going to build this. It's a first for many of the team. Don't be afraid to ask for help. I said to the team only yesterday, we're on a call. Let's get in some external help to look or whether that's external help from another function within the business who can, who is an expert, whether that's external help from another team, or whether that's just external help. from an agency, that can really help us what good looks like as we go on this journey. And I think I said to the team, you can't be afraid to put your hand up and say, this is a first. Let's get all the help we can. And sometimes, the pressure is on that we're going to know this, we're going to understand it. This is a marketing use case. But it's not. Lots of us are doing these things for the first time. So my advice is, and my prediction for the future is, curating people and technology together, we can do really exciting things for our customers, and in this case, our partners.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

I think, Rachel, one of the other kind of unique things is, and while it is not, again, exclusive to women, I think that women bring the critical thinking, that curiosity, some of the other essential skills that are needed, that you're kind of talking about, it's that human aspect as we begin to integrate AI into our marketing environments, into our business environments. And AI isn't of any particular use without people to interpret. It is going to advance. It is a fabulous tool, whether we're using it for copywriting or strategy development, or frankly, better, deeper analysis of our, you know, the accounts we serve, the partners that we work with. But the ability to think about how to use AI agents, how to do the querying, how to get really impactful results out of the AI agents is something, you know, yes, we're all going to learn to use it, but I think that women have some innate skills that make us very curious and make us think about how to structure things so that we're getting the best out of the tools that we're using. So I'm going to encourage everybody, as much as you were, I'm just getting familiar with a lot of the tools, but use the tools. Use what your colleague to your left of you, colleague to the right of you are beginning to use. Again, that kind of network idea of let's build one another up and learn some of the best things. But I do think that women have a unique opportunity here because of just where our brains are wired.

Nimmi Bhalla

I like the bit about, I think, building our skill set around how to get the most out of AI is so important. It just makes things move faster. You know, you get done things more quickly. However, I think the bit that we need to make sure that we understand and keep front of mind is not losing that human touch. Because ultimately, right, the goal is to build trust. with the people we're communicating with. And therefore that human element becomes even more important in the age of AI. And that's something that we should make sure we don't lose.

Alice Crook

And it's going to make us more efficient, right? So there's going to be more marketing, just what everyone wants, more marketing everywhere. So I think, you know, that that quality and that human strategy to be different is going to be even more important in the future. And the role that marketing can play kind of across the organization in terms of helping to curate an AI driven customer journey is going to be really key. So I think the future is bright for marketing in the world of AI. It shouldn't be something that we're afraid of. And you know, figuring it out is just the next challenge, right? I mean, when I started, it was still a question, you know, you look at data for marketing and, look how far we've come there. And, this is just the next. And, there's tons of opportunity for everyone, I think.

Rachel Lockwood

I would add, I just would say, we shouldn't be afraid. even if someone said to me the other day, people are now putting Agentic AI agents on the org chart. And I truly don't think this is something we should, because, they could, in theory, govern a whole process end to end. much like the example I gave. And I don't think we should be, to your point, Alice, afraid of it. This is additive. This is additive. It's not taking away. It's additive. And so we can go deeper, better marketing. And so I'm genuinely excited.

Kari Wiens

Great. I know we're starting to get a couple of questions into the chat. So before I move over to Q&A, though, I do want to wrap this section up about all the great advice on more of a personal note. What's 1 commitment each of us can make this year to support other women in B2B?

Nimmi Bhalla

I'll kick off. Give them opportunities for visibility as much as possible, right? We are all in senior meetings. How can you bring our teams into those meetings, get them to share their ideas? and help them build those relationships. I think that would be the one commitment I would make.

Rachel Lockwood

I would add, thank you, Nami. I think that's great and we should all do that. I would add, you know, we can be mentors and I expect most of our companies have mentor programs and that's great and it's good for listening, it's good for coaching, but I think we have to go further. We have to find those people, sponsors, as I said, and allies that really help build their networks, help build them, and give them those opportunities within organization. And I think as leaders, it's our responsibility to support that. Not everyone is a natural builder of that community. Not everyone is a natural voice. So speaking one-to-one is great in a mentor situation, but when you're not speaking one-to-one to them, sponsor them, champion them, you know, give them that allyship.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

What I really like about that, Rachel, that kind of mentoring with intention, right? and intentionality is a word that I use frequently because I think that it's really important in business, but mentoring with intention and working with, whether it's individual career conversations with, our staff or our colleagues, helping organize, navigating like kind of organizational dynamics, advocating for their ideas. some of the other things I think that we can get involved in, you were mentioning, some of the the company-led initiatives. I do really appreciate that many of us work for companies that have women's networks. Verizon has one. I know that I've gotten reasonably involved in that. It's their WellConnect career development program. But working as a crew leader, trying to bring out from people I wouldn't necessarily normally run into in my business environment, kind of bringing out from them some of their career aspirations as well. But really doing that with some intention and getting them to think about the intentionality of their career progression as well.

Alice Crook

I agree with everything that everyone said. I also think it's being generous and kind of intentional with sharing the insights that you might have that other people don't have. And, you know, information is value. And I think sometimes you forget all of the information that you have that maybe other people don't have the visibility of that would really help them to, do their jobs better, understand how things work better, build relationships better. So being generous with that information, I think can make a big difference.

Kari Wiens

Absolutely. I'm going to turn to a couple of the questions that were posed in the chat because they fit really well with what we've just been talking about here. So the one I'm going to start with is, How much of your time do you dedicate to being a mentor versus balancing being a busy executive, especially if you're approached a lot for mentorship and it's hard to balance your time?

Rachel Lockwood

I would say, you know, I think that's a hard question to answer because as leaders, we all have teams. Now, mentor, Mentorship can be in a formal program, as I said, that many of our companies have. And that's where you dedicate time. And that would be a relatively small amount of my day, if I'm honest, because there's only so many people you can mentor. But I think you have a responsibility within your leadership, within your team and your leadership team to offer that mentorship, coaching, guidance, listening. all the time, in every one to one, in every team situation. So, I think it has to go outside of the formal programs. And so that you're spending a lot of your time naturally, if you are a senior leader in a business doing that. So it shouldn't just be about the formal program.

Nimmi Bhalla

I agree. I think in a way, being a leader, it's one of your core responsibilities. to mentor, coach, people that are in your team outside of a formal program.

Kari Wiens

While we're still on the topic of balancing, can you share more about balancing motherhood with your career? This is another question.

Rachel Lockwood

I have four children. Shall I start? You know, not probably the eldest, but also, you know, probably the most children. Four children didn't start off to plan to have four children and balance a career with that. And so many people ask me or say, I don't know how you do it. And I'd recommend a book here. It's not a business book. It's called I Don't Know How She Does It. And it's just a hilarious beach read if you're going on holiday this year. And it's about a career woman and how she does it. And you have to, I think the biggest lesson I had for me, I started life trying to be a perfectionist. It just was in my nature, however I was raised, it just, whatever came, I wanted to be a perfectionist. And through the coaching and mentoring I've had, I've learned you can't do that. You are never going to be great at everything. You're never going to be great. You're not going to be the world's best supermom. At the same time, you've got the world's best career. You know, you're the world's best cook. You're the world's best. friend, you're the world's best sister, you just, you can't do it all. And so 80% or 70% is sometimes just got to be good enough because I think, was it Alice who said earlier, you can only give so much of yourself. And everyone talks about a work-life balance. You have to have your balance. Everyone asks me, what's your work-life balance? Now, my balance will change depending on my priorities. my son has a BBQ for his end of term exams this Friday. I am going to be at that at school. I'm not going to be in front of my computer. So, you know, that will be my balance on Friday and I will reprioritize other stuff. So give yourself a break. You're never going to be perfect at anything, you know, and you have to tell yourself that every day. And, you know, make your own balance and it will change day-to-day, week to week.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

Yeah. I think it's about grace too, right, Rachel? It's like, give yourself some grace. I have two kids. I have a child that's going to be turning 15 this weekend, and then a 17-year-old. And They will at times tell me that I am not doing things perfectly, but you're doing things as well as you can. And it's interesting to me that sometimes I look at other women, I'm like, how do they, like, oh my gosh, I'm failing. How are they doing it? But then I've had other women say to me, how are you doing it? And I'm like, we're all looking around at one another, really just trying to get the wheels on the bus. But we have so much respect and empathy for what others are doing. Give yourself some grace. We're doing as much as we can. How do you do it all? By doing as much as you can and allowing that to be good enough. And hopefully, again, as you were saying, you can't be the best at everything, but prioritize the things that are a priority to you at the moment and lean in on that. Other things will fall into place or they won't. And that will be life and you'll go on and it will be okay.

Alice Crook

And I think to stick to the theme that we've had throughout this about kind of transparency, I always really appreciate it when people reveal how hard it is, to the point that everyone is saying, I don't know how you do it. I find it really helpful when people, just drop into conversation that they've got a kid at home or, they've got whatever going on and, Maybe for some people they find it oversharing, but for me I just find it really helpful, the transparency that actually people don't necessarily have it all together either and you're not alone and no one really knows how they're going to get through the day sometimes when you get a curveball phone call from the nursery and you've also got a really important presentation to the senior leadership team and you've somehow got to figure it out. But being honest and open about that and not just figuring it out and then, showing up seeming like it was no big deal for me is, somewhere I'd like everyone to get to so that we can kind of acknowledge the realities that sometimes are happening just outside the squares of the screen or occasionally, in the screen, as some of the people that I work with will know.

Kari Wiens

To kind of bounce off that too in this whole conversation around prioritization and permission, right? So we've talked at the beginning of the hour a little bit about permission to stop things, right? We talked a little bit about having empathy there and kind of thinking through where to prioritize. Are there things you've intentionally stopped going into 2025 with that in mind?

Nimmi Bhalla

I can go, I've tried to stop a few things, giving teams the permission to stop things. In reality, I'm struggling to stop things. I'll be open and honest there.

Rachel Lockwood

I agree with you, Nimmi. I actually, I wrote a plan that went to our CMO and even reading it, I thought, you know, it didn't say a lot about what I was stopping. And so, you know, and we're halfway through the year And it was a good list. The team, my team had put it together. I hadn't gone and sat in a dark room and put it, we'd all gone, we can do this, we can do that, and we can reshape. And it's good as we look at our operating plan to have that innovation. But now my job, literally, the role I'll be doing is trying to, the advice I was given, what are the three, four? I mean, they could be any number of things. are you going to do and execute with excellence? And so I think every time we look at that plan, what can we really execute with excellence versus go, oh, we could squeeze that in as well. Oh, that's a really good idea. Let's do that. And so it's something to your point, Nimmi, you never, you have to keep, you have to keep working out.

Alice Crook

I stopped joining most calls that are outside my working hours. So, you know, I'm, that was a resolution coming into this year. I'm much firmer about just responding and saying, sorry, this doesn't work for me. Please reschedule. You know, I definitely have a habit of thinking, oh, well, I'm sure I could, you know, do this to make it work. And I don't mind doing this. And, you know, creating that space has been really helpful.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

I think kind of hearkening back to the previous answer, like I think we all overextend ourselves in many different ways. But Alice, that's such a great, It's a great lesson. there are things that you have to say no to, whether, create the boundaries, allow yourself to say no. I appreciate the transparency and the vulnerability that we've all put out there. I'm horrible at saying no. And partly because of, I think, curiosity. Like, you know, I'll have a plan. We'll go into, Tim will go in with a plan, but there's something over here. Oh, that's interesting. Something over here. Oh, that's in, and, you know, trying to re-corral. I do believe that the idea of doing things with excellence, pick a couple, because if you prioritize those, you'll know what to deprioritize because it's not going to get you to your end goal. And be maniacal about focusing on that. Again, it's advice that I could probably take better myself, but that's really, I think, the way to succeed. The way to say no is to have something that you're laser focused on and don't let the other things get in the way.

Rachel Lockwood

Yeah, I agree.

Kari Wiens

We have time for a couple more questions. I'm going to read off this one. The CMO role seems to be the least understood in the C-suite and often has the lowest tenure out of all the C-suite roles. Why do you think that is and how do you address it?

Rachel Lockwood

I mean, is it? I mean, I would be interested in the data. Is it? and understanding why is it misunderstood. I think that's very specific to organizations and very specific to organizations. And because, and I think there used to be, certainly, 20 plus years ago, I won't be as brave as Kit, I have been around in marketing a long time, but 20 plus years ago when I started, you know, I would say, you know, the B2B marketing was quite different from B2C marketing. I think now there is a convergence. And I think, we are saying, humans are humans and we want that best buying journey. So, and the CMOs I listen to, I think, understand that and have that understanding. it's now, we may not have the same sort of brand structure or same brand P&L that you might get in some consumer goods, but certainly as we look, and Alice mentioned data, as we look at the data, we look at crafting those journeys. B2C is actually converging to try and target the end consumer as well directly in most situations. And we are targeting the end buyer, hence the B2B. So and the buying groups keep getting bigger as they are already in B2C. So I think there's a convergence. And so I think it's up to the organization and it's up to the marketing community as a whole to make sure that is understood, what we do, how we do it, and how we're supporting the customer. It doesn't really, I understand, doesn't answer your question, but I just don't feel I have the data to say, is that true?

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

I'll throw out, if we make the assumption that there are some threads of truth there. And I'll be transparent. I haven't thought this through entirely, but I would say marketing is one of the functions that has been most heavily impacted by huge technological shifts. Like how we do marketing has changed radically over the past 20, 30 years. As a CMO, our CMOs are, I mean, our CEOs want marketing to be a growth engine. Our CMOs are held to delivering portions of revenue. steering a group of individuals towards revenue delivery when the tools that they're working with, the technologies that they have, the market shifts, the, one day I'm working on a persona like this and the next time it's buyer groups and the next time it like, there's a lot to corral in there. CMOs have a really tough job. And I'm just kind of thinking about other functional heads. It may be that marketing just has had such shifts in how we do our work, that it's really, like if that CMO is being looked at all the time, they're under a microscope, that may lead to some turnover.

Alice Crook

And I think it's such a broad role and people interact with marketing in such different ways. They tend to have a very specific perception of what marketing does. And when that rolls up to a single leader, I think, you know, it just naturally can cause a bit of confusion about, all of the ways that marketing is driving different parts of the business. I've had some great CMOs who, you know, as a result have had great tenure. So I don't think it's a universal problem. Yeah.

Kari Wiens

I'll wrap it up, a final question kind of playing off with the CMO role one. So with a lot of folks here trying, aspiring to become a CMO, what are some of the skills they should be developing? What are some of the advice pieces around courses or tools or things to invest your time in? What would you tell your younger self?

Alice Crook

I can go with, maybe a little bit of a curveball, which is, even if you're aspiring to be a CMO and you have a sort of path in mind, be open to the journey and kind of open to opportunity and what interests you. And In my experience, that very rarely lets you down. So even if you have a very specific idea of, what your next step is or, where the gap is that you need to fill, like that's great, but don't let that limit you from kind of leaning into an opportunity that you might not be expecting.

Rachel Lockwood

I really agree with that, Alice. I nearly said a very Amazon term. We always say plus one. I truly agree with that. I would tell my younger self, I was always thinking of how did I go up an org and thinking of it very hierarchical. And sometimes your best opportunity is to gain experience and skills by going horizontal. And don't be put off with that. Don't think you've, you know, back in the day, it'd be called a sideways move. Don't be afraid of going sideways or looking somewhere different to get a skill set that will round you off in your experience, may change your direction, but I also help you get to your end goal. So don't be afraid of that is mine.

Nimmi Bhalla

I agree about the being open to other opportunities. You know, while I got a degree in marketing, I started in sales, but I had a mentor, a previous manager who basically pushed me harder to rather than think about my ideal next role. made me think about what are the things in a role that would really excite me? what are the things that I could learn? And that has, that has basically, been the history of my career trajectory of rather than thinking of my next role, I've been thinking about, okay, what would I want the new thing to do to excite me? What else can I learn? And you could discover some new things about yourself then that you might be good at that you would have never thought of.

Kit Haines-Bornheimer

That's actually kind of getting back into that superpower conversation, right? Because the other thing that I think about sometimes is, and I love the advice, it isn't always up, it sometimes has to be sideways or sideways and down to go back up. It's like a, like you're playing a video game. But that's also thinking very kind of, in a weirdly linear way within one organization. There are a lot of organizations out there. And frankly, the role one takes in one organization playing into a superpower may be very different than another. Like maybe your superpower is not recognized within the organization you're in. It's okay to look for that someplace else. We're masters of our, you know, we're responsible for our own careers. So we should be getting out of our careers as much as makes us happy. So kind of, I love that. I kind of come back to that. The superpower idea is going to stay with me today because it's like, what makes you happy? Do you have it in your career path as you work up towards CMO? Or maybe you're better off working towards a CMO career path in another organization that culturally aligns better or tool-wise aligns better or whatever it happens to be.

Kari Wiens

Thank you all so much for sharing so openly. This has been a great hour discussion, and I'm sad to have to leave it already, but look forward to the next conversation that we can have. I know we didn't get to all of the questions, so thank you all for tuning in.