What does it REALLY take to become a CMO?

I've done every single job in marketing.

My guest on this podcast went from the first marketing hire and employee number four at this startup to now they have 300 employees. She's the CMO. She runs marketing and the company has a $850 million valuation.

I really turned from like execution to leadership. And leadership sounds cool, but it's really hard.

Her name is Sylvia Lapojdevan. She's the CMO at Kanji and we had an awesome conversation about her path to marketing leadership.

It requires you to continually reinvent your Often what it evolves into really is more of a like self awareness, personal reflection, personal growth.

What's actually working right now in marketing?

There's two main ways that I look at the job right now. One is internal marketing and the other is building the team.

She told me about why paid search is working, but she wants to make a big bet in organic but has some hesitations about what's happening with AI. We also talk about the role AI can play for marketing teams and why she thinks she might not have to build such a big team because of what's possible possible with AI for B2B marketers today. It was a great conversation. A little mix of tactical and path to cmo. Here's my conversation with Sylvia Leutevin.