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Forbes
11 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
Forbes Unveils Its 13th Annual List Of The World's Most Influential CMOs
NEW YORK/CANNES – June 19, 2025 – Forbes today released its 13th annual list of the World's Most Influential CMOs List, recognizing the 50 chief marketers from around the world whose work is not only driving the trajectory of their brands and businesses, but often reshaping the cultural landscape as well. Marian Lee, Chief Marketing Officer of Netflix, tops the list for the second year in a row, with Chris Davis of New Balance and Asmita Dubey of L'Oréal Groupe making up the top three. The chief marketers featured on the 2025 Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list represent companies with a combined market cap of nearly $14 trillion, as of the close of markets on June 6th, an increase of 28% compared to the previous year. The Forbes list is data-driven, analyzing 10 billion data points from the past 12 months to get from an initial eligible universe of marketers from nearly 3000 companies to the 50 chief marketers recognized. Alongside this annual list, and for the fourth year, Forbes is inducting six CMOs into its Forbes CMO Hall of Fame, recognizing those who would have appeared on the World's Most Influentials list five times. This year's inductees are Enrico Galliera, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer of Ferrari; Carla Hassan, CMO of JPMorgan Chase; Greg ('Joz') Joswiak, EVP Worldwide Marketing of Apple; Alex Schultz, CMO and VP Analytics of Meta; Alicia Tillman, CMO of Delta; and William White, CMO of Walmart. The market capitalization of the companies represented by these six Hall of Fame CMOs, adds another $6.35 trillion to an aggregated valuation exceeding $20 trillion. 'These 50 CMOs are the ones who pull ideas, people, resources, and strategies into their orbit,' said Seth Matlins, Managing Director of the Forbes CMO Network. 'They shape decisions far beyond the traditional remit of marketing. They eschew the mere idea of marketing's traditional remit in times that bear no similarity to anything once, now quaintly, resembling the traditional.' Forbes also named Donald Trump as the 'Unofficial #1' on the 2025 list for his singular influence over and responsibility for global uncertainty and its consequences. Matlins commented: 'Regardless of your politics or nationality, it seems fair to say that no one and nothing is having a greater cause and effect relationship on what does or doesn't come next for global consumers, CMOs, and the companies they help steward, than the current American president.' You can see this story here. The Forbes list is data driven and along with the company's primary research partner, Sprinklr, and with essential supplemental data and analysis provided by LinkedIn. This year's honorees will be celebrated at Forbes' World's Most Influential CMOs Luncheon in Cannes, bringing together the global marketing community's most influential thinkers and doers. Adobe and Salesforce are the Partner sponsors of the World's Most Influential Luncheon. Acxiom, McKinsey & Company and Valtech are the Supporting Level sponsors. To see the full World's Most Influential CMO list, visit: The 2025 Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs List and for the complete Forbes CMO Hall of Fame list visit: Introducing The 2025 Forbes CMO Hall Of Fame Inductees. Forbes Media Contacts Christina Vega Magrini, cmagrini@ Feryal Nawaz, fnawaz@ Europe Media Contacts Charlotte Juckes, Johanna Pemberton,
Forbes
12 hours ago
- Business
- Forbes
The 2025 Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs List
Not ha-ha funny but rather the hard-to-define, hard-to-precisely-quantify, kind of funny, like how the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle is funny. In our world, which is to say the world of business globally and marketing specifically, influence often hides-in-plain-sight, and can be confused with visibility, or a type of popularity measured by follower counts, 'likes', or the stuff of performative thought leadership. And while these can provide and be platform for the exercise of influence, in and of themselves, they're not proof of it. They're optics, and as the unreliable testimony of an eye-witness proves, optics can distort. The most influential CMOs are not necessarily those posting or speaking on panels most often. Theirs often isn't the loudest voice in the room, because sometimes like that not done that not said speaks volumes. As we at Forbes consider the evolving nature, impact, and measurement of influence, we offer that nothing is as influential as impact. We are certain that the ultimate measure of influence is not about the spotlight but a CMO's commercial impact on the business and brands they help steward, and the marketing community globally. We are certain the most effective exercise of a CMO's influence lies in their ability to change the attitudes and behaviors of others—the 'consumers' and 'customers' they court externally and, as surely, their C-suite colleagues and teams internally. We know that not every job brilliantly done necessarily gets recognition, and that the measure and impact of a CMO's influence amongst their global peers—the kind that moves markets, companies, culture, and behaviors in service of commercial returns—doesn't always announce itself. Which is why, in partnership with Sprinklr and with supplemental data provided by LinkedIn, we take a broad, multifaceted, rigorous, and data-led approach to our evaluation. Beginning with an eligible universe of over 1500 CMOs from industries around the world, using 20 proxies for it, and through an analysis of 10 billion data points (up from 9 billion YoY), we concern ourselves with what can be seen, understood, and evaluated. (For more detail on the methodology—including our 20+ indicators of influence, the data sources and scoring frameworks—see Sprinklr's companion report here.) Of course, like the job of the CMO itself, the nature of influence itself continues evolving. As marketing authority becomes ever more decentralized, distributed, and democratized, so too does CMO influence. That which once flowed top-down, is now networked, lateral, circular, ambient. The tools of marketing influence are now in everyone's hands, sentient and not. Brand-building and, sometimes brand-tearing-down, has become a shared exercise among stakeholders inside and outside any given company—across the C-suite, business units, customer support, comms, operations, employee advocacy, and every keyboard with or without a corporate login. All of this and the shifting sands of consumer sentiment, tech acceleration, geopolitical unrest, economic uncertainty, the absence of understanding of what marketing truly is and does from CEOs and CFOs without experience in the practice, cultural fragmentation and 1000 other things, makes the effective deployment of a CMO's influence more complex than ever. It also makes the achievement of being recognized on a list measuring it even more meaningful. The 50 chief marketers on the 2025 Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs list, along with the six 2025 Forbes CMO Hall of Fame inductees, are shaping the companies they serve, the character and destiny of industry, and in ways that might not yet be recognizable, the world itself. They are influencing others through word, work, actions, inactions, culture, peers, platforms, partnerships, and impacts—not hierarchy. They aren't just influencing what a brand says but shaping how a company thinks, what it does, and when, why, and how often others buy. They aren't just steering creative—they're stewarding growth. They're leading from the center, even if their titles—and/or CEOs and Boards—don't always put them there. Individually and collectively, their influence and impact deserve our appreciation, and their examples our consideration. The Forbes CMO Hall of Fame The 2025 Forbes CMO Hall of Fame inductees represent the fourth class since the Hall's inaugural one in 2022. Created to recognize those chief marketers who, in 2022, had or in all subsequent years, would have, appeared on our World's Most Influential CMOs list five times. Given the massive changes to the landscape in which these CMOs compete and operate, being recognized on this Forbes list five times is an extraordinary achievement and testimony to their talents and contributions. Entering 2025, ten chief marketers had been recognized on the list four times previously and were thus eligible for induction. Of these ten, it is our privilege to induct six into the Forbes CMO Hall of Fame Class of 2025. These six join the 20 chief marketers inducted previously, each and all of whom are recognized for the enduring influence and impact they've had on the brands and businesses they've led, on our industry, commerce, and, often, on the cultural landscape itself. Read more about this year's Forbes CMO Hall of Fame inductees, as well as those from prior years, here. The Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs List: 2025 Marian Lee CMO of one of the world's most culturally influential brands, and the largest entertainment company by market cap, Lee's work has global visibility and influence. The breadth of her remit includes full responsibility across the streamer's global and local campaigns, experiential activations, social storytelling, B2B marketing and in-platform advertising for Netflix's scaling advertising business. With a nearly $2 billion annual advertising budget, Lee's work plays a pivotal role in shaping how and where Netflix shows up for the audiences of its TV series, films, reality competitions, sports, and gaming efforts. No longer just a content platform, Netflix has become a brand with massive influence over how people's time, attention and conversation is focused. Over the past year, Lee and her team launched massive integrated campaigns for the NFL including 'The Beyonce Bowl,' returning mega-franchises like 'Squid Game' and multi-national favorites including 'Bad Influence.' Lee's conviction that one size does not fit all and that 'fans don't just want to watch a show, they want to live it,' drives a strategy designed to blur the boundary between viewer and participant; as a result, Netflix's marketing events, from immersive fan experiences to location takeovers, including their tentpole Tudum fan-festival, have become cultural moments in their own right. Her fan-first, culture-forward approach is helping drive not just tune-in but momentum across Netflix's advertising business, which now has 94 million monthly active users, an increase of 20 million since just November. Lee is only the third CMO to be recognized as number one on this list in consecutive years. As of June 6th, the company's stock was up over 93% year-over-year (YoY). New Balance Davis's influence is shaping more than a brand but also a category in flux. Responsible for New Balance's brand strategy, product and demand creation initiatives around the globe, Davis is driving the company's cultural relevance and commercial returns by elevating the brand's appeal and affinity through global creative, unexpected partnerships, and consumer-focused commercial strategies. The privately held company's brand ascension and approach have become a case study across the broader marketing community, as Davis has positioned New Balance as a global challenger brand—one equally credible on the runway, in the locker room, and on the street. Davis's marketing framework prioritizes long-term cultural resonance over short-term hype: In the past year, the brand expanded its global footprint with talent and storytelling that span both performance and lifestyle. A mix of collaborations both short and long-term—from Shohei Ohtani to Loro Piana, Miu Miu, Coco Gauff, Bayer Leverkusen, and number one NBA draft choice Cooper Flagg—demonstrate a values-based approach to partners and the diverse audiences they reach while reinforcing New Balance's selective distribution strategy, all of which serve to elevate brand perception globally. In FY2024, New Balance reported a record $7.8 billion in revenue, marking its fourth consecutive year of 20%+ growth. Asmita Dubey Dubey leads brand strategy, digital innovation and consumer engagement globally for the world's largest beauty company and its portfolio of brands, including category icons like L'Oréal Paris, Maybelline and Lancôme. Overseeing a marketing budget exceeding €13 billion annually, Dubey has deepened L'Oréal's commitment to 'beauty tech' by integrating AI-powered diagnostics, virtual try-ons and personalized routines across key brands. Such tools that have significantly enhanced customer engagement, with the company reporting over one billion virtual try-ons across its portfolio. Dubey's influence is evident not just in the growth of the French conglomerate, but the behaviors of the category worldwide. In the past year, L'Oréal launched CREAITECH, an in-house generative AI beauty content lab, announcing a partnership with Nvidia to super-charge it with never seen before beauty experiences, just last week. Dubey has also partnered with Google to integrate its Imagen 3, Gemini and Veo 2 AI models into CREAITECH, creating some 50,000 images and 500 videos monthly, streamlining content production and allowing for rapid localization of marketing materials. Dubey has also transformed L'Oréal's influencer marketing strategy, expanding collaborations to over 60,000 creators: The extensive network has contributed to L'Oréal achieving a 30% share of global beauty influence. L'Oréal Paris was again the leading beauty brand on social media last year and closedQ1 2025 with a 4.4% increase in sales YoY. Marcel Marcondes Marcondes has influence and oversight over the world's largest brewer—parent to eight of the 10 most valuable beer brands worldwide, including Corona, Budweiser, and Michelob Ultra—spanning more than 500 brands sold in over 150 countries. With a conviction that creativity is most impactful when applied to solving business and consumer problems, Marcondes ensures the company's marketing engine drives volume through brand equity, creativity and culture amidst changing consumer attitudes and behaviors. While the company's portfolio is huge, Marcondes focuses on a 'megabrand' strategy, which concentrates marketing investments behind a select group of scalable, emotionally resonant labels in order to build premium stature and global brand consistency. As but one illustration, over the past year, Marcondes's vision has materialized in the global rollout of Corona Cero, the company's alcohol-free variant, in more than 40 markets ahead of the Paris Olympics. Marcondes has also broadened the reach of AB InBev's CreativeX system, a Cannes-modeled internal training and recognition platform that is reported to have measurably improved marketing quality, effectiveness, and creative confidence across regional teams. In June, and for an unprecedented fourth consecutive year, AB InBev was named the world's most effective marketer by The Effies. As of June 6, the company's stock was up more than 42% YTD. David Sandstrom Sandström is rewriting the rules of marketing and marketing organization design in the AI era for the Swedish fintech giant, which serves over 150 million users in some 45 countries around the world. With oversight of Klarna's global brand, creative and consumer strategy, Sandström's remit also extends into full-stack operational reinvention. Sandström isn't just using AI to optimize workflows; he's building an entirely new model for how marketing teams think, create and move at scale, and the broader marketing world is paying attention. Under his leadership, Klarna has embedded generative AI across every stage of its marketing process—what Sandström calls 'AI copilots'—with more than 300 custom GPT-powered tools for everything from ideation to insight generation, enabling Klarna's marketers to function like engineers—faster, leaner, and more iterative than ever before. Through such innovations, Sandström and his team have reduced image production costs by 50% and cut campaign development timelines from six weeks to days, helping save millions annually in sales and marketing spend, while transforming a transactional payments platform into one of the most culturally agile and technologically advanced brands in finance. Sandström's work has also helped shift the brand from financial utility to cultural relevance. This past March, Klarna partnered with DoorDash to bring its flexible payment tools to everyday categories like grocery and meal delivery, reframing buy now, pay later as a convenience driver, not just a credit alternative. Sandström has helped Klarna become a brand that moves with culture, not behind it. In 2024, the company reported revenues had increased 24% YoY. Asad Ayaz With three titles and three distinct but integrated remits, Ayaz holds one of the most influential marketing roles in entertainment, and shapes how Disney shows up across culture, commerce and marketing storytelling. With oversight spanning global brand strategy, digital engagement, franchise synergy and marketing across Disney's core content engines—including Pixar, Marvel, Lucasfilm, 20th Century Studios, and Disney+, in the past year, Ayaz brought together Disney's two internal creative agencies, Yellow Shoes and The Hive to unify brand and experiences campaigns across parks, streaming, and theatrical content—just as Disneyland enters its 70th anniversary year. He also led the buzz-heavy campaign for 'Deadpool & Wolverine,' reframing the R-rated entry as a cultural reset for Marvel with Comic-Con stunts, K-pop integrations, and irreverent global storytelling. Other standout moments include the viral 'Apes on Horses' activation for 'Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes,' the integrated Hulu-on-Disney+ campaign that merged iconic franchise quotes with surprise character crossovers, and a reimagined D23 fan event that expanded into Fortnite and debuted globally in Brazil. With three billion-dollar films and over $5 billion in global box office, as of June 6, Disney stock was up more than 12% YoY. Tim Ellis With oversight of brand strategy, fan engagement, content and international growth, Ellis leads marketing for one of the world's most influential sports leagues, and the most dominant sports and media property in the U.S. Overseeing a cross-functional team spanning marketing, social, partnerships, media and international, Ellis is focused on bringing new audiences to the game, growing the league's global reach and ensuring its continued cultural relevance. In the past year, his influence extends across marketing for the NFL's most ambitious international slate to date, as international outreach included regular-season games in São Paulo, Madrid, Dublin, Berlin and London. To recruit, retain and engage fans, Ellis deploys a 'helmets off' strategy, one that has been emulated by other leagues, in order to humanize and personalize the game's biggest names. Under his influence, campaigns have gone beyond the game and sport itself and have included those spotlighting mental health and youth empowerment. The League's 'Every Kid Can Be Somebody' campaign aired during the AFC and NFC Championships and Super Bowl LIX and was one the showcase's best received and reviewed spots. These efforts, along with others like growing category interest and participation by championing flag football, support the league's push to build emotional resonance with fans across generations and geographies. Just weeks ago, the League announced NFL players could play in Flag Football's Olympic Games debut in 2028. The business results speak volumes: for the 2024 fiscal year, the NFL's total revenue is reported to have grown 13% YoY. Kofi-Amoo-Gottfried Amoo-Gottfried's influence is reshaping DoorDash—which currently has a dominant 60% share in the U.S. meal delivery market and is aggressively expanding international operations—into a cultural and commercial powerhouse. With an expansive remit leading the company's brand strategy, creative, media and customer engagement, expanding category awareness and brand affinity are among the areas where Amoo-Gottfried's influence is most visible. His approach blends cultural fluency with performance rigor and reflects a conviction that "a brand is the sum of all interactions and associations that people have with your product, service, company.' Focused on redefining how the company's three principal constituencies—consumers, providers and delivery Dashers—think about the brand he stewards, Amoo-Gottfried has helped embed DoorDash as a part of daily life for tens of millions around the world. For the twelve months ending March 31, 2025, the company handled over 2.6 billion orders, reflecting YoY growth of 19%; and in May, DoorDash announced its agreement to acquire U.K.-based Deliveroo for £2.9 billion ($3.86 billion USD), expanding its reach to over 40 countries. As of the close of markets on June 6, the company's stock was up over 92% YoY. Colin Fleming Fleming is responsible for the global marketing strategy and growing brand recognition worldwide for the $230 billion enterprise software behemoth, with a global remit spanning brand, demand, content, and events. Over the past year and since becoming CMO, Fleming has overhauled the company's marketing engine, driving a shift from a product-first mindset to a bold, brand-led strategy, elevating storytelling, cultural relevance and emotional resonance in a category not traditionally known for the same. This repositioning, and the approach surrounding it, has included halving the company's agency roster (an initiative named internally after Marie Kondo to reinforce the joy and efficacy of less) while doubling down on global activations with audience-relevant cultural currency. Under his leadership, marketing has become a strategic partner to the sales organization, rather than the lead factory it had long been. Fleming is helping position ServiceNow as not just a category leader, but a cultural force. His influence extends beyond the company and is found in his recent provocation to the B2B marketing world at large, arguing that it is time enterprise marketers stop marketing with fact-deficient, obfuscating generalities and attribution models and start marketing to humans again, including ditching acronym-heavy language in favor of customer clarity. Kantar recently named Service Now the 41st most valuable brand globally, representing a 57% increase in brand value YoY. As of June 6, the company's stock was up over 47% in the past year. Lennard Hoornik Over the past year, Hoornik orchestrated one of the most attention-getting brand refreshes globally and is steering both Jaguar and Land Rover through high-stakes transformations. With oversight of the British multi-national company's global sales, marketing, brand positioning and customer experience, Hoornik's remit is central to JLR's "Reimagine" strategy, which aims to redefine modern luxury in an automotive category being reshaped by electrification. Hoornik led the much-discussed rebranding of Jaguar, signaling a clean break from the brand's heritage cues and launching the provocative 'Copy Nothing' platform. The campaign, which debuted in two phases with a teaser trailer, immersive installations at Miami Art Week, strategic influencer drops, and a media buy spanning art, design, and tech publications, introduced the company's Type 00 concept car: a low-slung, all-electric grand tourer embodying Jaguar's new design philosophy. The rebranding sparked controversy and ignited global discourse, nowhere more than in the marketing world. Discourse aside, the move anchors Jaguar's plan to go fully electric by 2026 and recalibrate toward design-led, next-gen luxury. Under Hoornik's marketing leadership, and driven by strong demand and sharper brand differentiation, in FY25 JLR posted record Q3 results, its ninth successive profitable quarter. Claudine Cheever At the helm of marketing for the world's largest retailer, Cheever oversees 11 global functional teams spanning brand, media, measurement, creative and insights, powering Amazon's connection with hundreds of millions of customers across an increasingly diversified portfolio, from Prime and retail to healthcare and AI. Cheever has continued pushing Amazon's massive owned ecosystem—boxes, trucks, devices—as a media platform, creating one of the largest and most efficient out-of-home networks on the planet. Under her marketing influence and leadership, Amazon's in-house agency was named Ad Age's 2024 In-House Agency of the Year, reflecting work that balances performance rigor with scaled brand storytelling. This includes emotionally led campaigns like 2024's 'Midnight Opus,' which aired across the U.S., U.K., Germany, and Japan. Cheever is also steering brand expansion into sectors like pharmacy and telehealth, where trust and clarity are critical to adoption. With an annual budget in the billions, she's building a high-impact global marketing engine that flexes to local markets. Amazon's brand value rose 50% year-over-year in Kantar's latest rankings, making it the fourth most valuable brand globally; as of the close of markets on June 3, Amazon's stock was up nearly 17% YoY. Pinteres With a remit spanning marketing, communications, insights and product design, Mallard is shaping Pinterest, one of the world's most popular social media brands, into the rarest kind of platform: one that grows by making the internet feel better, not louder. Mallard's remit is unusually broad and deep, as she leads an integrated product, design, research & insights, marketing, communications and creative team to deliver exceptional end-to-end customer experiences. Her influence across the company and category is equally expansive, helping Pinterest become a case study in how to scale without compromising trust or values: With some 570 million global monthly active users, the platform has had so great a surge in Gen Z engagement that the user segment is now the fastest growing and most active in Pinterest's history. Over the past year, Mallard has advanced Pinterest's 'positive personalization' strategy, leveraging AI and design to surface relevant content tailored for individual users without triggering the social comparison loops that plague much of social media. This ethos of prioritizing utility over virality continues setting Pinterest apart as other social platforms face heightened scrutiny over mental health impacts, misinformation and aggressive monetization tactics. Mallard also continued to evolve Pinterest Predicts, transforming it from an annual trend report into a dynamic business intelligence tool that not only forecasts but increasingly fuels advertiser strategy across fashion, beauty, home and retail sectors. The result: marketers are using Pinterest not just to see what's coming next, but to act on it. In Q1 2025, Pinterest reported a 16% YoY revenue increase. Frank-Cooper Cooper is redefining the role of marketing at Visa—the world's largest payments network, facilitating over $12 trillion in annual volume—and the financial services sector broadly. Overseeing brand strategy, global campaigns and customer engagement across more than 200 countries, Cooper's influence is witnessed in his work to evolve the positioning of the iconic brand from a transaction facilitator to a catalyst for economic empowerment. In the past year, Cooper used the high-profile Oscars telecast to launch Visa's global Typewriter campaign, a narrative-driven initiative that reimagines Visa's role in enabling personal growth and opportunity—aligning with the brand's 'Everywhere You Want To Be' ethos by positioning Visa as a partner not just in purchases but in the milestones, ambitions and life moments those purchases make possible. The campaign marked new territory for Visa by leaning into emotionally resonant storytelling that shows how its products, including Visa Direct and Visa Installments, can help people reach personal goals. And while the company's product teams developed innovations like Visa Intelligent Commerce and Flexible Credential, Cooper has shaped how they're positioned and marketed globally, framing them as tools that make everyday commerce more personal, intelligent and secure. These strategic efforts have reinforced Visa's category dominance, and its global market share is nearly double that of its nearest traditional competitor. In Q2 2025, the company reported a 9% YoY revenue increase, and as of June 6, the company's stock is up more than 32% YoY. Zach Kitschke Instrumental in steering Canva's evolution from a consumer-first platform to an enterprise-grade design and productivity suite, Kitschke has helped lead the company's shift into its next growth frontier: B2B and enterprise teams. Since joining the Australian company as its fifth employee, Kitschke has overseen brand, communications, product marketing and go-to-market efforts, shaping how Canva promotes a design-led ethos and scales its influence globally. Over the past year, he drove the launch of Canva's largest brand campaign to date, 'Love Your Work,' reframing design as a daily advantage for any professional, not just creative ones. Timed to coincide with a major platform overhaul and the introduction of new collaboration and brand management features for business teams across marketing, HR, and sales, Kitschke has also led Canva's expansion into non-traditional sectors including education and nonprofits, all supporting a broader community-led growth strategy, and has influenced company efforts to ensure product storytelling and customer insights are aligned. The privately-held company with a valuation near $50 billion, now has 170 million users across 190 countries. Over the past year, the company passed $3B in revenues for the first time, and Kitschke's influence helped contribute to Canva's reported 35% revenue increase YoY. Noel Mack Mack isn't just steering Gymshark's growth; he is helping architect it. A driving force behind one of the world's most dynamic apparel brands and one of the U.K.'s only 'unicorns,' Mack is helping transform Gymshark into a global brand and business by blending cultural and consumer savvy with an approach redefining the balance and interplay between the digital and physical. While other brands chase broad lifestyle relevance, under Mack's lead, Gymshark remains unapologetically focused on just one thing: the gym. With a community-and-social-first mindset, Mack's work finds the brand becoming something of a movement among Gen Z and Millennial consumers for whom going to the gym is not just a routine but an identity. With influence over all brand, marketing, creative and consumer-facing strategies, Mack has been building both the brand and business on social media and with creator partnerships long before they became industry standards. His early embrace of digital community-building wasn't just a marketing decision; it was and is a business engine. When the brand's recent release of its cult-status Onyx collection was hijacked by bots, Mack led Gymshark's response with nothing but the consumer in mind, turning what could have been a crisis into another chapter in its storied community-building work. Gymshark's "We Do Gym" platform reflects Mack's laser-focused brand philosophy; while competitors expand laterally into lifestyle categories, Mack keeps Gymshark's identity ruthlessly specific, making it more resonant, not less. That clarity, paired with grassroots digital storytelling, has set a new standard for how brands build relevance without traditional advertising. In FY2025, the privately held company reported a revenue increase of over 9% YoY, and a bootstrapped valuation now exceeding $1.5 billion. Michelle Graham Clare With oversight of the iconic brand's international marketing (i.e., outside the U.S.), Graham-Clare's influence and remit extend across creative strategy, brand development and customer engagement for the world's largest QSR company by market valuation. Over the past year, Graham-Clare has launched another chapter in the company's fan-first strategy and platform, 'Only at McDonald's,' the global evolution of a U.K. campaign celebrating real customer rituals, and which has since inspired activations in Canada, Germany, and Australia. Under her marketing leadership, culturally attuned work like the U.K.'s 'Gift of McDonald's' holiday spot—directed by Gold Lion award-winner and Danish film-maker Nicolai Fuglsig—was named one of best campaigns of the year, showcasing how locally rooted storytelling can elevate brand meaning and emotional connection at scale. Beyond brand building, Graham-Clare is scaling loyalty and digital engagement through app-based experiences, limited-edition merch drops, and real-time activations meeting customers where they are. Graham-Clare is helping ensure that the iconic global brand stays emotionally relevant, digitally fluent, and locally loved. As of June 6, the company's stock is up nearly 20% YoY. Charlie Smith Smith's influence is redefining what luxury marketing looks and sounds like in the modern age—and how luxury brands behave across culture. In steering the LVMH-owned Spanish fashion house (and one of the world's oldest luxury brands) into a new era, Smith is elevating Loewe's profile and creating a new playbook for luxury storytelling, blending high-craft heritage with an internet-native wit not typical for luxury brands. Under his marketing leadership, Loewe has become one of fashion's most digitally fluent and culturally resonant brands, known as much for its ironic tone and sharp social media presence as for its meticulous craftsmanship and bold creative direction. Smith oversees all aspects of Loewe's brand and consumer communication, leading a global team across marketing, digital, PR, events and celebrity/influencer strategy. His remit spans traditional brand building and future-facing cultural invention — from the recent Crafted World exhibition in Tokyo (a multi-sensory showcase of Loewe's craftsmanship that drew tens of thousands of reservations in days) to the brand's viral TikTok strategy, which has attracted a new generation of fans. Loewe's campaigns now regularly feature a mix of high-fashion polish and unexpected levity, including casting creators and memes alongside red-carpet celebrities, resulting in both virality and brand heat. The impact has been both reputational and financial: Loewe is one of the fastest-growing brands in the LVMH portfolio and, in the first quarter of 2025, sat atop the influential Lyst Index. Cristina Diezhandino With global oversight of marketing, innovation and digital transformation for the world's fourth-largest alcohol and spirits company (based on market capitalization), Diezhandino's influence is shaping the trajectory of over 200 brands sold in over 180 countries across the company's portfolio. Over the past year, and as the category continues to shift and respond to forces ranging from changing consumption behaviors amongst younger generations to tariffs, Diezhandino has reorganized her global team into agile brand communities built for experimentation and speed. Over the past year, to accelerate brand and volume growth in the premium sector, Diezhandino has launched the Diageo Luxury Group to unify its high-end spirits portfolio and drive brand and strategic consistency globally. She has also introduced a virtual studio to better scale content and creative production, while also leading Diageo's largest-ever consumer data initiative and establishing a global partnerships lab to unlock untapped growth through cultural collaborations. Guided by a mindset of possibility and a belief in progress over perfection, Diezhandino is reshaping how her teams understand and influence the future of socializing, long a category reference point, placing celebrations and cultural relevance at the center of every brand experience. Under her marketing leadership, inclusivity has become a hallmark of brand storytelling so to better reflect a more representative vision of modern drinkers. Nicole-Hubbard-Graham Since rejoining Nike in early 2024, Graham has led the brand's marketing revival at a moment of existential reckoning. After years of revenue declines, stalled innovation, and an overcorrection toward direct-to-consumer sales and performance marketing, Nike is reorienting around brand storytelling, and Graham has been central to that pivot. She helped conceive and lead the 'Winning Isn't for Everyone' campaign, a bold return to high-impact, athlete-driven storytelling that launched around the Summer Olympics and culminated in Nike's first Super Bowl appearance in 27 years. The work marked a decisive shift back to the brand's competitive DNA, earning widespread acclaim and restoring creative credibility. In May, Graham was promoted to EVP and CMO, expanding her remit to include oversight of storytelling across the Nike, Jordan, and Converse brands. She's also deepening integration with product and design teams to reestablish cultural heat across categories. While Nike continues to face headwinds, recent campaigns have fueled renewed consumer engagement and helped slow its stock's decline following years of erosion under previous leadership. In Q2 FY25, the company beat earnings expectations and maintained strong margins, signaling early momentum in its turnaround strategy. Manuel Arroyo Arroyo steers one of the world's most iconic—and valuable—CPG brand portfolios at The Coca-Cola Company, the largest non-alcoholic beverage business globally, with more than 200 brands sold in over 200 countries. He oversees marketing for all five beverage categories, along with Human Insights, Integrated Marketing Experience (IMX), Marketing Operations & Capabilities, and Marketing Performance. Over the past year, Arroyo has accelerated Coca-Cola's transformation into a data-powered, AI-enabled marketing engine designed for speed, scale and connection with modern consumers. Focused on driving increased brand strength and creative innovation, the company now delivers personalized, real-time content, powering global efforts like the 2025 return of 'Share a Coke,' refreshed for Gen Z, and large-scale activations across Asia-Pacific for Lunar New Year. Campaigns like 'Shades of Red' in Mexico—honoring Coca-Cola's century-long partnership with local small businesses—and Powerade's 'Pause is Power' films, starring Spanish and Brazilian soccer stars Lamine Yamal and Rodrygo Goes, reflect Arroyo's emphasis on human-centered storytelling that connects globally and hyper-locally. As of June 6, The Coca-Cola Company's stock was up over 15% YTD. Mathilde DelHoume Delhoume-Debreu holds one of luxury's most culturally consequential marketing roles, stewarding marketing excellence for a portfolio of more than 75 maisons spanning fashion, jewelry, beauty, and spirits at the world's most valuable luxury group. Her remit encompasses global brand image, content, media strategy and consumer insight, all funneled through a central 'maison of expertise' that helps each LVMH brand—including globally resonant and iconic ones like Louis Vuitton, Moet, Hennessy, and Celine, and Sephora— translate heritage into contemporary and cultural resonance and relevance. Over the past year, Delhoume-Debreu played a pivotal role in activating the Group's unexpected and pioneering Paris 2024 Olympics sponsorship, transforming the Olympics into a global luxury showcase and bringing its 'Art of Crafting Dreams' ethos to life through headline-making moments like Dior-designed performance outfits, Louis Vuitton-crafted medal trays, and Moët Hennessy activations across hospitality spaces. Just as influential is her commitment to innovation and sustainability, and her leadership of the LVMH Innovation Award. She is also helping shape how LVMH's maisons respond to macroeconomic turbulence, empowering each brand to lean into creating desirability and distinction and never discounting. Her work is less about uniformity and more about cultivating excellence through shared creative intelligence, enabling legacy brands like Dior and established acquisitions like Tiffany & Co. to evolve without losing their identity. Esi Eggleston Bracey Eggleston Bracey oversees marketing for a global portfolio of more than 400 brands—including icons like Dove, Hellmann's, and Magnum—for the world's fourth-largest fast-moving consumer goods company. With a remit spanning marketing, innovation and category growth, Eggleston Bracey's influence is central to Unilever's shift toward building brands that sit at the intersection of personal care, wellness and sustainability. Bracey's helped accelerate Unilever's adoption of AI-powered 'digital twins'—virtual replicas of products used to simulate packaging, claims, and creative in-market before launch—cutting production costs by up to 55% and slashing campaign development timelines by 65%. This tech-forward pivot is freeing creative teams to focus on high-impact storytelling while ensuring consistency, speed and cost-efficiency at scale. Bracey also introduced and scaled Unilever's new 'Culture to Cart' strategy—an end-to-end approach that fuses brand storytelling with frictionless commerce. The model is designed to convert cultural moments directly into sales by linking campaigns to omnichannel buying paths. Recent executions include Dove's Serum Shower launch, which paired wellness influencers with live-streamed tutorials and one-click product links; and Hellmann's 2025 U.S. Super Bowl campaign, extending a broadcast ad to interactive recipe content, TikTok partnerships and integrations on Instacart, Walmart and Amazon. By collapsing the gap between culture and conversion, Bracey is reshaping how Unilever brands show up in the world—and in the shopping cart. As of June 6, the company's stock was up over 13% YoY. Mark Weinstein A driving force at the helm of Hilton's global marketing, brand, partnerships, digital innovation and loyalty strategy, Weinstein's influence is shaping the future of hospitality for the world's second-largest hotel company by market capitalization. With 24 distinct brands in its hotel management portfolio—including Hilton, Waldorf Astoria, Conrad, and Motto—and with more than 8,600 properties operating across 139 countries and territories, Hilton plays a central role in the travel experience for millions of consumers. Weinstein has continued building equity in Hilton's 'For the Stay' platform, evolving it through culturally resonant campaigns, including a wellness-focused integration with Calm and a new partnership with The Football Association that positioned Hilton as the official partner of Wembley Stadium and the England national teams. Weinstein has also expanded Hilton Honors into a cross-market growth engine, launching a first-of-its-kind integration with China's DiDi Mileage to offer reciprocal status benefits and seamless travel experiences across platforms. Now totaling over 200 million members, Honors saw double-digit year-over-year growth in 2024. Hilton was just named one of Kantar's 100 most valuable brands in the world, the only hotel brand to make the list—recognition driven by the consistent stay experience across its portfolio and Weinstein's global storytelling. Hilton closed 2024 with record system-wide revenues, up 12% YoY. As of June 6, the company's stock was up more than 25% YoY. Sumit Virmani Virmani's influence extends across oversight of brand, communications, digital experience and strategic partnerships in 56 countries for the IT behemoth, recently ranked one of the world's most valuable IT service brands globally. With a focus on ensuring marketing and reputation align with and drive business growth, Virmani has helped solidify Infosys's identity as an 'AI-first, always ethical' partner. A new global brand platform, and the work of bringing it to life, emphasize the Indian multinational's commitment to trustworthy, responsible innovation. This is an especially pointed stance as generative AI continues to shake industries, practices and, in some instances, confidence across sectors. Beyond positioning the enterprise for growth, Virmani is scaling the company's presence in cultural arenas that intersect with its tech-forward ethos. He expanded Infosys's high-profile sports-marketing footprint, deepening data-driven fan engagement strategies through partnerships with the ATP and the Mercedes AMG Petronas F1 team, including metaverse activations and AI-powered analytics dashboards. In the past year, he's also elevated the Infosys Springboard learning platform, embedding it into the brand's narrative as a global commitment to digital upskilling, with measurable impact across India, Africa, and the U.S. This multi-pronged strategy has helped Infosys maintain relevance and trust in a volatile tech landscape. Marc Speichert Speichert leads global marketing, sales, revenue management and brand strategy for one of the world's most storied luxury brands, overseeing nearly every touchpoint of the Four Seasons guest journey. As the brand evolves from hotelier to holistic luxury ecosystem, Speichert is helping shape that future, not just marketing new offerings but driving the commercial strategy behind them. This includes improving the performance of the brand's 128 hotels and resorts. In the past year, Speichert and his team overhauled commercial operations to better support hotel growth, introducing a 'mirror organization' model that embedded subject-matter experts regionally and empowered local teams to act with agility. At the same time, Speichert is expanding Four Seasons into new territory. in 2025, their Private Jet Experience is pacing ahead of 2024 bookings, buoyed by high repeat rates and 100% guest satisfaction. Speichert is also leading the launch of Four Seasons's first luxury yachts, redefining ultra-luxury cruising with residential-style suites. Culturally, what began as a COVID-era location deal with White Lotus has grown into a three-year, business-driving platform, with triple-digit spikes in web traffic, increased occupancy in suites featured on-screen, and high-profile activations. This past season was also the first where Four Seasons secured the rights to use the fictional brand name for its own marketing. With a robust development pipeline, Four Seasons plans to solidify its position as the world's largest operator of luxury properties under a single brand. In the past year, the privately held company reported record financial performance, with continued gains in occupancy, average daily rate (ADR), and brand preference—especially among top-tier travelers. Vineet Mehra At Chime, one of America's fastest-growing fintechs, Mehra is leading a marketing transformation in a category long constrained by regulation and sameness. The veteran of Walgreens, Johnson & Johnson and Ancestry, Mehra has rebuilt Chime's marketing organization into a performance storytelling engine—dismantling silos between brand and growth, embedding data science and AI fluency across teams, and designing cross-functional squads that align marketing, product and finance against shared business outcomes. At the heart of his strategy is an unapologetically commercial view of brand: one that treats marketing as capital allocation and measures ROI with the same rigor as R&D. Under his influence, The privately held company has ramped up creative output in the past year, launching a stream of social-first campaigns tailored to Chime's digitally native, youth-skewing audience. That strategy has made Chime not only Instagram's most-followed U.S. banking brand but also one of the best-loved across categories, with a referral rate 5x the national average and 1.5x higher than fintech peers. As Chime files an IPO estimated to be worth more than $20 billion, the company reported a 38% year-over-year revenue increase, driven by strong customer acquisition, high engagement, and sustained LTV-to-CAC efficiency. Ariel Kelman Kelman is shaping the next era of intelligent, trust-first marketing at Salesforce, the world's #1 AI CRM platform and one of the most valuable enterprise software companies globally. Since rejoining the company in 2023, Kelman leads global marketing strategy, brand positioning and go-to-market efforts combining Salesforce's cloud, data and AI innovations across industries. He has driven a comprehensive overhaul of Salesforce's marketing attribution model, transitioning from a traditional last-touch approach to a deep learning–based system. This new model assigns weighted credit across multiple marketing and sales interactions, providing a more accurate representation of marketing's contribution to pipeline and revenue growth. Kelman's focus includes accelerating adoption of AgentForce, the Einstein 1 Platform and Data Cloud, three pillars of Salesforce's strategy to deliver real-time personalization through unified customer data. Kelman's marketing organization has placed sharp focus on differentiating Salesforce's AI as natively integrated and context-aware, contrasting it with generic, standalone AI tools in competitor platforms. These strategic and operational shifts have revitalized Salesforce's go-to-market engine and elevated its brand positioning as the leader in AI-powered CRM. In Q1FY25, Salesforce reported an 11% revenue increase YoY, and as of June 6, the company's stock was up over 13% in the past year. Nikki Neuburger Neuburger has been instrumental in evolving Lululemon from a yoga-focused brand into a global performance powerhouse. With influence and oversight of the iconic brand's global marketing, creative, communications and sustainability, Neuburger is driving the company's storytelling and elevating its brand efforts across more than 700 stores and a growing international footprint, as its competitive set expands to compete increasingly with giants like Nike and Adidas across running, training, tennis, golf and footwear. Over the past year, the former Nike Global VP and Uber Eats marketer has pushed to build deeper brand intimacy and broader cultural traction across global markets. Her team's 'Live Like You Are Alive' platform framed 2025's brand voice around purposeful, joy-driven movement, creating connective tissue between product, ambassadors and campaigns. In China, Neuburger helped guide the brand's important Lunar New Year activation, featuring top regional talent to increase local affinity and spotlight limited-edition collections that blend traditional aesthetics with modern performance. Neuburger's approach has helped Lululemon scale with intention expanding the brand's reach while preserving its premium, community-first positioning. Don McGuire McGuire's remit spans global brand strategy, product marketing, creative and partnerships for both Qualcomm, the $168 billion wireless technology giant, and its consumer-facing semiconductor brand, Snapdragon. With a focus on driving growth by elevating Qualcomm from a behind-the-scenes chipmaker to a visible force shaping the future of tech broadly and on-device AI specifically, McGuire's influence extends to reimagining how the company's B2B and B2C brands drive resonance, relevance and growth. Over the past year, these efforts are seen in his marketing of the consumer-facing Snapdragon brand, Qualcomm's premium system-on-chip used in flagship smartphones, next-gen PCs, XR headsets and, increasingly, connected vehicles. While Snapdragon is technically a product line, McGuire has positioned it as an aspirational platform for AI innovation, debuting features like offline voice translation and generative image tools. His marketing has brought these capabilities to life through strategic integrations with Microsoft and Meta and expressive brand work, including a new sonic identity and CES activations with BMW and Louis Vuitton. Recently, McGuire has doubled down on Snapdragon's luxury-meets-tech positioning, launching campaigns that merge AI storytelling with high-performance experiences. Under McGuire's marketing influence, Qualcomm isn't just marketing technology—it's shaping two connected but distinct brands for the AI era. For the quarter ending March 2025, the company reported revenue growth of over 16% YoY. Eduardo Parra/The largest bank in continental Europe and the 18th largest globally as measured by market capitalization, and under Cendoya's leadership, the Spanish financial services brand has evolved from that of a regionally recognized retail bank to a unified, innovation-forward global financial institution. Cendoya has been instrumental in this shift, aiming to position Santander not just as a banking giant by size, but as a modern, digitally driven brand aligned with global growth ambitions. Over the past year, he consolidated the bank's media and creative operations under a single holding company to streamline messaging and accelerate transformation. He also spearheaded a global partnership with Formula 1's Williams Racing, a strategic move to raise visibility among younger, digitally native audiences, especially in the U.S. market. These efforts helped Santander attract nine million new customers, bringing its global total to 175 million. As of June 6, Banco Santander's stock was up over 84% YoY. jim Mollica Mollica oversees the iconic audio brand's strategic and creative direction, as well as its connection to consumers across all platforms and touch points. In the past year, he has also added oversight of the company's Luxury Audio group—which includes prestige brands like McIntosh, Sonus faber, and Classé—to his remit, stepping into the dual role of CMO and President of Luxury Audio. Mollica drives Bose's cultural and commercial relevance through noteworthy partnerships that fuse product innovation with cultural cachet, from diamond-studded earbuds with Maggi Simpkins, which were spotted on Travis Scott and NBA All-Stars, to a reimagining of the iconic 901 speakers with Kith's Ronnie Fieg. By debuting Bose Luxury Audio at High End Munich and amplifying the brand's automotive presence with Porsche and Lamborghini at CES, Mollica positioned Bose as a serious player in the ultra-premium sound space, bridging its consumer and luxury lines while expanding its influence in lifestyle-driven innovation. Across both mass and luxury channels, Mollica is scaling AI-driven content creation to deliver over 10,000 personalized assets monthly, fueling a surge in younger consumers and creator-led storytelling across platforms like YouTube and TikTok. Mollica has driven the brand's fastest growth among 18–24-year-olds and increased brand consideration by a reported 32% YoY. Kellyn Smith Kenny Smith Kenny has been pivotal in reshaping how the U.S.'s largest telecommunications company shows up for and connects with consumers. With a broad remit and influence across brand, media, performance and retail, Smith Kenny is positioning AT&T as a culturally fluent brand in a historically transactional category. In January 2025, she led the launch of the AT&T Guarantee, a bold shift toward radical transparency and accountability, and the first program in the telecom category to proactively offer bill credits for service disruptions across both wireless and fiber. By reinforcing reliability as a core brand promise rather than a reactive customer service measure, the AT&T Guarantee is a strategic shift in a sector long plagued by fine print, opaque pricing and churn driven by dissatisfaction. Backed by omnichannel marketing and frontline integration, the platform is designed to create differentiation in a category that has historically competed on the same terms, while building trust at scale. Smith Kenny's influence has also advanced purpose-driven work for the iconic brand, through projects like 'Route to Connection,' a short documentary on the digital divide in Amarillo, Texas, and Shine Away, a multiplatform collaboration with Hello Sunshine spotlighting women in technology. as of June 6, AT&T's stock was up more than 55% YoY. Shubhranshu Singh Singh is proving that even utility-first commercial vehicles can achieve cultural relevance, emotional storytelling and digital scale. Overseeing the Indian company's Commercial Vehicles Business Unit, Singh has re-architected the group's marketing engine around constant iteration, real-time responsiveness and regional resonance. Over the past year, Singh has championed a shift from campaign bursts to an always-on model powered by AI, influencer-led content in 11 languages, and a Salesforce-backed customer-data platform that ingests over 80 core data points to generate more than 150,000 unique customer profiles. Singh has also overseen a YouTube strategy that succeeded in driving more than a million subscribers and 450 million views, using micro and regional creators to humanize vehicles and spotlight the communities they serve. Singh has led the rebranding of Tata's EV arm as helping the brand command 70% of India's EV market and make electrification both aspirational and accessible. From blockchain-based fraud prevention to a fixed-ratio programmatic buying model split evenly across Meta, Google and aggregator platforms, Singh is building a marketing infrastructure that's transparent, traceable and engineered for performance. In FY2024, Tata Motors's Commercial Vehicles Business Unit saw revenue growth of over 11% YoY. Phil Cook Cook is helping drive one of the most dramatic brand transformations in modern sports: Shifting the WNBA from a purpose-first property into a culturally resonant, commercially scaled sports and entertainment brand. With deep roots in storytelling and athlete-first brand-building from his time at Nike, Cook brings a global mindset and a sharp commercial edge to the WNBA's next chapter. With a remit spanning brand strategy, fan experience, content and revenue-generating partnerships, Cook is helping position the league as both a business force and a cultural bellwether. In the past year, he has harnessed the momentum of breakout stars like Caitlin Clark, Angel Reese and A'ja Wilson to craft narratives extending far beyond the court, redefining how fans engage with the league—which has witnessed a 93% increase in ticket sales and a 500% surge in merchandise sales. In order to energize younger and more diverse audiences, Through cross-platform campaigns, including the recent 'More Than Game' and 'Viewer Discretion' initiatives, Cook has exerted significant influence, not just on the WNBA but far beyond: As the architect of the league's broader visibility surge, he's become a central player in the rise of women's sports fandom by converting cultural relevance into commercial growth across the sports ecosystem. In the past year, the league secured a landmark $2.2B media rights deal—its most lucrative to date—and league revenues reached a record high. Lorenzo Bertelli At Prada, one of the most influential fashion houses in the world and a cornerstone of Italian luxury, Bertelli oversees global brand strategy, media, digital and sustainability initiatives, positioning Prada at the vanguard of creative innovation and ethical leadership. Bertelli is reimagining what a legacy brand can look like in the age of conscious consumerism and digital acceleration, leading the brand's continued push into immersive digital storytelling—amplified through Prada's dynamic Milan runway shows and content-rich campaigns—and reinforcing its appeal to the Gen Zers and millennials central to its future growth. At the same time, Bertelli advanced Prada's ESG commitments, including expanded traceability in its Re-Nylon collection and the launch of the Group's DE&I advisory council. Under his stewardship, Prada has deepened its already rich cultural cachet through high-profile collaborations, such as its ongoing partnership with the America's Cup and an acclaimed art film initiative during the Venice Biennale. Despite difficult times for many in the luxury business, in Q1 25, the Group reported a 16% YoY revenue increase, with Asia and the Americas driving growth. Microsoft Numoto leads end-to-end marketing for Microsoft's $270 billion business, overseeing global brand, product marketing, commercial go-to-market and customer engagement across a portfolio that includes Azure, Windows, Surface, Microsoft 365, and Copilot. His scope spans enterprise, developer and consumer audiences, unifying messaging across sectors and scaling the adoption of Microsoft technologies worldwide. Since the debut of Copilot, a generative AI assistant that helps users write, summarize, analyze, code and create using large language models and Microsoft's proprietary data, Numoto has led its rollout across core products like Word, Excel, Outlook and Windows, including the release to a billion Windows 10 users last fall. Numoto's marketing emphasizes innovation and impact, spotlighted in campaigns like 'Work Trend Index' and 'Future of Work with AI' and real-world stories like the 500 public school teachers in Lima, Peru, who now use Copilot to design lesson plans and improve classroom engagement. At this year's Microsoft Build, Numoto is also helping drive developer excitement around new tools like NLWeb and Windows AI Foundry, positioning Microsoft at the center of the agent-powered future of work. For the Quarter ending in March, Microsoft reported revenues had increased nearly 14% YoY, and the company's stock was, as of June 6th, up over 12% YTD. Todd Kaplan Kaplan is leading the creative and commercial reboot of one of America's most recognizable food companies—a $22 billion portfolio including iconic brands Heinz, Kraft Mac & Cheese, Oscar Mayer and Philadelphia Cream Cheese. Since joining the company in mid-2024 from PepsiCo, Kaplan has driven a mix of cultural fluency and business discipline. Focused reestablishing the company's brands as category leaders by modernizing its marketing engine and balancing emotional relevance with everyday utility, Kaplan oversees media and digital efforts, including the in-house content studio, "The Kitchen," and managing strategic innovation partnerships with NotCo and Just Spices. In the past year, he spearheaded one of Kraft Mac & Cheese's most buzzworthy campaigns to date: a limited-edition 'Forever Macaroni Necklace' made of 14k gold, launched in partnership with luxury jeweler Ring Concierge for Mother's Day. Priced at $25—a nod to Kraft's legacy of affordability—the necklace was positioned as the only "blue box" moms needed, turning a childhood staple into a lifestyle statement and elevating the emotional role of the brand in modern family life. Kaplan's approach prioritizes high-impact storytelling and cultural specificity while reinforcing measurable outcomes. He advocates for marketing strategies that drive both long-term brand equity and near-term ROI—an increasingly essential balance in a tariff- and price-sensitive grocery landscape. Fabiola Torres With oversight of marketing, creative, visual merchandising and retail experience across Gap's portfolio, Torres is leading the marketing charge to restore cultural heat and relevance to one of the category's most iconic brands. Drawing on her marketing leadership experience at Nike, PepsiCo and Apple, Torres is reclaiming Gap's creative legacy through campaigns like the recent 'Feels Like Gap,' a nostalgia-tinged but still thoroughly modern anthem fronted by Parker Posey, reinforcing the brand's celebration of individuality and ease. Torres has also doubled down on fashion and cultural relevance through buzzy collaborations with Malbon, Harlem's Fashion Row and the return of Gap x Dôen, which helped introduce an expanded menswear and baby apparel assortment while showcasing gender-neutral silhouettes and vintage-inspired denim, all produced through Gap's gender-equity-focused RISE program. As the eponymous cornerstone of the company's portfolio (which also includes Banana Republic, Athleta and Old Navy), Gap is gaining cultural and commercial momentum: In Q1 2025, the company reported its 6th consecutive quarter of positive comparable sales. Mike Katz Katz has oversight of how, where and when America's second-largest wireless carrier by market share delivers products, experiences and messages across its digital, product, supply chain, and wholesale platforms. Reinforcing T-Mobile's position in the telecommunications industry while also extending its influence beyond wireless and into adjacent sectors like retail media and advertising technology, Katz has leveraged the company's scale to create a marketing engine that's measurable, modern and built to compete well beyond telecom, merging brand, data and retail with precision. In the past year, he's overseen the introduction of restructured wireless plan architectures, replacing legacy offerings with simplified tiers bundling premium streaming, high-speed hotspot data and satellite connectivity, anchored by a five-year price guarantee. This not only sharpened T-Mobile's value proposition but also elevated wireless from a utility to a lifestyle offering, anchored in perks that drive customer retention and brand differentiation. Katz has also accelerated the company's media ambitions through T-Mobile Advertising Solutions, building on its $1 billion-plus ad business with the acquisitions of Vistar Media and Blis. These strategic moves expanded T-Mobile's digital out-of-home and omnichannel capabilities. A Google campaign utilizing T-Ads's near-store activation strategy drove a 52% increase in Android device sales. In Q1 2025, T-Mobile reported a 7% revenue increase YoY. Ulrich-Klenke Klenke oversees global brand strategy, marketing communications and media, and is shaping one of the world's most valuable telecommunications brands into a cultural force grounded in purpose, clarity and emotion. Under his marketing leadership and company influence, the German company has taken bold stances on social issues, most recently with the 2025 'Against Hate on the Net' campaign featuring Holocaust survivor Margot Friedländer, which reaffirmed the company's human-centered approach to brand-building. He's also sharpened Telekom's presence at the intersection of media, sport, and technology: MagentaTV has secured exclusive rights to all matches in the 2026 Men's and 2027 Women's FIFA World Cups, backed by German household-name presenters Johannes B. Kerner and Wolff Fuss. Klenke has prioritized storytelling that resonates across Europe while maintaining a unified global identity, enabling the brand to stand for something greater than connectivity. Deutsche Telekom's brand value surged 44% year-over-year in the 2025 Kantar BrandZ ranking, making it not only the most valuable German brand, but the top-ranked telco brand worldwide. Nicole Parlapiano Parlapiano's influence has helped transform Tubi, part of FOX, into the most-watched free streaming service in the U.S. With creative courage and a viewer-first mindset, Parlapiano is creating new standards in the streaming space, redefining how and where a modern media brand engages its audiences. Over the past year, she's amplified Tubi's disruptive brand identity through risk-taking campaigns that treat marketing as entertainment, not interruption. She's expanded Stubios—Tubi's incubator for underrepresented creators—with new mentorship tracks and original short-form content, and led genre experimentation across the platform, tapping into niche communities through data-driven programming and culturally specific campaigns that speak directly to underserved audiences. In the past year, her team also activated high-impact tentpole moments around everything from horror drops to Black cinema, amplifying Tubi's brand voice through partnerships, audience-resonant stunts, and social-first storytelling. Under her marketing leadership, Tubi's monthly active users grew from 50 million (2022) to 100 million (as of June 2025), and the streamer now commands a greater percentage of total U.S. TV viewing time than Max, Peacock and Pluto TV. As the audience has grown, so have ad revenues, up 10% YoY for FY24. Jill Kramer With a remit spanning brand, advertising, content, media, sponsorships and performance marketing, Kramer leads a global team of more than 2,000 marketers for the world's largest consulting firm by revenue and one of the largest and most influential operations in professional services. In an era defined by disruption, Kramer's influence cuts across the firm and its clients. Over the past year, she has continued evolving the firm's 'Let There Be Change' platform, introducing AI-powered creative tools that deliver dynamic storytelling tailored to industries, clients and cultures worldwide. She's also elevated Accenture's cultural visibility with strategic media integrations and high-profile partnerships—like the firm's sponsorship of 60 Minutes's climate reporting and its World Economic Forum activations, featuring immersive demonstrations of responsible AI and sustainability at work. As a sponsor of Team USA at the 2024 Paris Olympic and Paralympic Games, Kramer and Accenture highlighted the intersection of human potential and cutting-edge technology, helping reinforce the company's position as a transformation partner to some of the world's most ambitious organizations. For the quarter ending February 2025, the company reported YoY revenue increase of more than 5%. Sophia Colucci The architect of Molson Coors's North American marketing transformation, Colucci leads brand strategy, creative, innovation, insights, digital and experiential across a portfolio that spans core beer giants like Coors Light and Miller Lite, heritage labels like Blue Moon and Coors Banquet, and a fast-expanding slate of spirits and non-alcoholic offerings. At the world's fourth-largest brewer, Colucci has helped reposition the company as a more modern, culturally fluent beverage player, sharpening its creative edge and deepening its relevance across generations. In early 2025, Colucci transformed a deliberate misspelling in Coors Light's advertising—"Refershment" instead of "Refreshment"—into a multifaceted Super Bowl campaign. Embracing the concept of a "Case of the Mondays," the campaign featured limited-edition "Mondays Light" packaging, a Peloton partnership, and viral merchandise like the "Chill Face Roller," resonating with consumers experiencing post-Super Bowl sluggishness. The campaign culminated in a Super Bowl ad starring sloths navigating a slow Monday. Colucci also spearheaded a collaboration between Coors Banquet and Wrangler to produce "Beer Wash Jeans,' a limited-edition denim infused with Banquet beer that features co-branded details. This move reinforced Banquet's Western heritage and contributed to its third consecutive year of growth. Looking ahead, she's orchestrating a U.S. relaunch of Peroni, including domestic production and a campaign tied to Formula 1 and its 0.0% alcohol offering. Under Colucci's marketing leadership, Molson Coors continues sharpening its creative standards and pushing into new categories. in Q1 2025, the company reported sales had increased over 4% YoY. Will Brass Brass has helped the Premier League become a magnet for the world's most iconic brands, deepening the cultural reach of the game well beyond the pitch. Overseeing all global commercial partnerships and media rights, he's the architect behind the return of Coca-Cola as Official Soft Drink Partner starting in the 2025/26 season, a wide-ranging deal activating across Coke's top brands and delivering exclusive fan experiences across the UK and Ireland. Just ahead of that, he helped secure the league's first-ever global beer partnership with Guinness, a four-year agreement launching in the 2024/25 season and tapping into the brand's storytelling prowess to amplify match-day rituals worldwide. With games now broadcast into 900 million homes across 189 countries, Brass's commercial playbook continues to elevate the Premier League as both a sport and a global entertainment property. That strategy is paying off: League revenue rose 4.1% over the previous year, with commercial income rising 9% year-over-year thanks to expanded sponsorships and global activations. Bernd Körber At BMW, the world's third most valuable car brand and a global benchmark for luxury automotive performance, Korber is redefining how brand and product come together to shape the future of driving. With oversight of global brand strategy, portfolio planning and experiential innovation, he's integrated marketing and product development into a single strategic pipeline, ensuring every model, from concept to showroom, is built not just to perform, but to tell a compelling, values-driven story. This philosophy was on full display with the recent debut of the BMW Concept Speedtop at Concorso d'Eleganza Villa d'Este. Positioned at the crossroads of heritage and modernity, the shooting brake design blended performance engineering with elegant craftsmanship, including bespoke Schedoni luggage, while Koerber made headlines by confirming a limited production run of 70 units. At CES, Korber also unveiled the Vision Neue Klasse X and next-gen iDrive platform, showcasing how BMW is merging generative AI, adaptive UX, and immersive in-car entertainment to define mobility's emotional, digital future. Korber's product-led brand strategy—where each launch functions as both a technological showcase and brand statement—has helped modernize BMW's tone and broaden its appeal. The approach is delivering results: in Q1 2025, BMW posted record EV sales (up 27.9% YoY) and, as of June 6, the company's stock was up nearly 10% YTD. Lisa McKnight McKnight is steering Mattel's transformation from toymaker to IP-powered cultural force, redefining how legacy brands thrive. She has oversight of global brand strategy, creative, insights and licensing across the company's entire portfolio, including for iconic brands like Barbie, Hot Wheels, UNO and Masters of the Universe. Under McKnight's leadership, Mattel has adopted a newly flattened, collaborative model that fuses marketing, media, and design from the earliest stages, resulting in integrated brand narratives that build brand equity by updating the cultural context in which the individual equities show up. From viral Ken doll moments—such as the LeBron James 'Kenbassador' collaboration—and Barbie's art-world crossovers, to Hot Wheels' limited-edition drops with artists like Daniel Arsham and MSCHF, and UNO's resurgence fueled by TikTok debates and creator house rules, McKnight's fan-first, multi-platform strategy taps into nostalgia with fresh creative energy. The result is a slate of reimagined brands that feel both timely and resonant, telling new stories that connect across generations. Her push into experiential marketing, design-driven collectibles via Mattel Creations, and premium brand partnerships has unlocked new revenue streams and pop culture traction, especially among kidults, who are now the company's fastest-growing audience. In a market where many brands are retreating, McKnight is advancing Mattel's brand purpose by repositioning toys as art objects, cultural statements, and vehicles for self-expression. As of June 2, Mattel's stock was up 4% YoY. Elizabeth Rutledge With oversight of the iconic financial services brand's global brand strategy, media, sponsorships, and customer marketing, Rutledge's influence has sharpened the company's all-important brand and identity around service, trust and small business support. Under her marketing influence and leadership, American Express has been building on a legacy purpose-led strategy to drive deeper customer connection and brand differentiation, extended its longstanding support of small businesses with grants delivered through their 'Backing Small' platform, helping thousands of independent businesses rebuild from natural disasters and grow for the future. Over the past year, Rutledge has also continued advancing American Express's presence in sports and entertainment with efforts that serve both B2C and B2B interests, including the brand's high-visibility F1 Academy partnership, which spotlights women-owned businesses; and a revitalized NBA All-Star experience, including the debut of the company sponsored Community All-Star Award. Beyond cultural moments, Rutledge is ensuring American Express continues showing up in times of need, most recently by coordinating with Hilton to provide 20,000-plus free room nights to wildfire evacuees and first responders in California. The company closed Q1 2025 reporting a revenue increase of 9% YoY, and as of June 6, its stock was up 30% YTD. Mayur-Gupta Gupta is helping Kraken, a crypto-trading platform, usher in the age of crypto consumerism—at scale. As the company evolves from their origins into a full-fledged financial services brand, Gupta is steering a marketing strategy that's equal parts performance engine and brand storyteller. At the heart of his approach is a product-led growth model tied tightly to data: Every user cohort, funnel stage and lifecycle trigger is measured, tested and optimized to drive accountable growth. This discipline has built trust internally, unlocking the ability to invest in brand-building moves that defy easy quantification, and ranging from emotional storytelling to high-profile cultural moments, like Kraken's partnership with UEFA Europa League champions Tottenham Hotspur. His remit spans the entire marketing stack, blending PLG, lifecycle, performance and brand to create a unified growth system that resonates with crypto natives and newcomers alike. In the last year, Kraken's revenues increased 128%. Patricia-Corsi Blending creative audacity with sharp commercial instincts, Corsi is reshaping how Kimberly-Clark's iconic brands show up in the world. Under Corsi's marketing leadership, the $20 billion global consumer goods giant—home to category leaders like Huggies, Kleenex, Kotex, and Poise—has seen its marketing engine evolve from a traditional, regionally siloed model to a more unified, creativity-led global one. Corsi has driven the company's largest U.S. expansion in three decades while championing standout work that fused purpose and performance, like Huggies's emotionally charged North American campaign with NBA star Giannis Antetokounmpo celebrating everyday parenting wins. Poise confronted healthcare inequality with its powerful 'Drops of Hope' initiative, and Kotex deepened its global effort to dismantle period stigma through locally resonant storytelling. Under Corsi's influence, the company has retooled its global creative model to better unite design, brand-building, and business outcomes. Her ethos reflects a culture shift where high-impact creative, not hierarchy, leads decision-making. As of June 2, Kimberly Clark's stock price was up 5% YoY. Jill_Hazelbaker Hazelbaker is steering one of the world's most recognizable and widely used tech brands through a new era of reputation, regulation and relevance across the company's ride-hailing platform, delivery services and freight transport operations. Hazelbaker leads an integrated marketing function designed to ensure Uber shows up with one consistent voice across audiences and markets, and brings marketing, communications and public policy together—a rare structure among global tech firms. Over the past year, Hazelbaker led the launch of Uber's first global brand platform, 'On Our Way.' Debuting during the Paris Olympics with a 90-second in-house spot and a new sonic identity unifying the company's rideshare and delivery businesses, the campaign marked a continuing shift in Uber's marketing from more tactical, product-led messaging to emotionally resonant storytelling speaking to riders, regulators and the press alike. Her leadership and influence reflect a broader brand evolution, reframing Uber from a transactional service to an essential part of everyday life. For the quarter ending in March, Uber reported revenues had increased nearly 14% YoY. As of June 6, the company's stock was up over 35% YTD. For a look at this year's Forbes World's Most Influential CMOs List: By The Numbers, click here. To see who we named this year's The Unofficial #1 on the World's Most Influential CMOs list, click here. With additional reporting by Laura Ratliff.
Forbes
3 days ago
- Business
- Forbes
3 Clever Ways To Immediately Increase Your Influence At Work
Orange colored paper boat leading a white paper boats. Business Leadership Concept. In every workplace, there seem to be people who have an uncanny ability to get things done through others. Their ideas get implemented. Their opinions carry weight. Decision-makers actively seek their input. Meanwhile, equally talented professionals struggle to get their voices heard or their proposals approved. What's the difference? It often comes down to being able to influence others through strategic communication. Many of us think of influence as some dark art of office politics or manipulation. But the good news is that it isn't some innate charisma you either have or don't. The most effective communicators aren't playing games or putting on an act. They're thoughtful, observant professionals who've learned to articulate themselves in ways that resonate with higher-ups. They understand the psychology of how people process information and make choices, and they use this knowledge responsibly. Whether you're pitching a new initiative, advocating for resources, or simply trying to get your expertise recognized, small adjustments in how you communicate can dramatically change how your message lands. Here are three powerful strategies that can help you become more influential at work, starting with your very next conversation. Decision-makers are drowning in information and short on time. When you take too long to make your point, you risk losing their attention and undermining your own credibility. Instead of building up to your main message, lead with it. Then follow with supporting details as needed. For example: Before any important meeting, write your key message in two sentences or less. This forces you to get crystal clear on what matters most. Ask yourself: "If my stakeholder only remembers one thing from this interaction, what should it be?" That's your lead. The most persuasive people don't just present good ideas. They go out of their way to show their ideas solve specific problems their audience cares about. Instead of saying "This automation will save 20 hours per week," try "This solution will let you deliver client reports three days faster, giving you more buffer for review cycles." Even when pushing back on a deadline, focus on how it will help the person reach their goals in the end. For example, "To give you the most useful data for your board presentation, I'd need until Thursday to compile the full analysis." The key is to understand what actually matters to your audience. For a CFO, consider how your proposal affects costs or reduces financial risk. For a Product leader you might frame your solution in terms of it improves user experience, whereas for a sales leader you'd emphasize how it would help close deals faster. Small language shifts can dramatically impact how your message lands. Replace tentative, passive language with more active, definitive phrasing. For instance: Don't choose fancy words or corporate jargon to sound impressive. In fact, simpler language often carries more weight. The more concisely and elegantly you can convey a concept, the more it suggests you have mastery of it. Try taking the last important email you wrote or presentation you gave. Highlight every qualifying word or phrase ("just," "maybe," "I think," "sort of"). Then rewrite it without those words. Notice how much stronger your message becomes.
Bloomberg
5 days ago
- Business
- Bloomberg
The Tragedy of the Mekong River Has More Than One Villain
The race to harness the powerful waterway has no real umpire, but the US could temper China's influence … if it wanted to. Save This is the Weekend Edition of Bloomberg Opinion Today, a roundup of the most popular stories Bloomberg Opinion publishes each week based on web readership. New subscribers can sign up here; follow us on Bluesky, TikTok, Instagram, LinkedIn and Threads. Read the whole thing for free. Before it's here, it's on the Bloomberg Terminal
Wall Street Journal
10-06-2025
- Business
- Wall Street Journal
U.S. Agencies Tracked Foreigners Traveling to See Musk
Several U.S. government agencies in 2022 and 2023 tracked foreign nationals coming and going to Elon Musk's properties, according to people familiar with the matter. The investigation included the Department of Homeland Security and the Justice Department. It focused on people visiting the tech billionaire, from countries in Eastern Europe and elsewhere, who might have been trying to influence him. Until last week, Musk was one of President Trump's closest advisers.
