Welcome to this episode of the Advertising Vanguard podcast. At the moment, Jenny Rooney speaks with Sangeeta Prasad, chief advertising and marketing officer at international enterprise and expertise consultancy Slalom, about her distinctive journey from traditional shopper merchandise advertising and marketing to B2B transformation management.
Sangeeta shares her experiences transitioning from well-established manufacturers like P&G, American Categorical, and JPMorgan Chase to turning into the primary CMO at skilled providers corporations.
She explains why she calls herself a “advertising and marketing evangelist” reasonably than only a marketer, emphasizing her function in changing organizational skeptics into believers. The dialog explores the distinctive dynamics of B2B advertising and marketing versus B2C, significantly in skilled providers the place belief, credibility, and relationships are paramount.
Sangeeta’s earlier expertise contains main advertising and marketing at Russell Reynolds, an government search agency. Her profession started in traditional shopper advertising and marketing with important roles at P&G, American Categorical, and JPMorgan Chase. She holds an MBA from Chicago Sales space Enterprise College.
Episode highlights:
02:12 — The Advertising Evangelist Philosophy: Sangeeta explains her distinctive perspective on the CMO function: “I’m a advertising and marketing evangelist reasonably than only a marketer as a result of I do imagine that we’ve got to be evangelists to transform the skeptics in our organizations into believers, and that’s one thing that I take quite a lot of delight and fervour in doing.” She emphasizes that B2B organizations typically have sturdy gross sales cultures that may be skeptical of promoting’s worth, requiring CMOs to actively exhibit advertising and marketing’s partnership function reasonably than substitute perform.
08:34 — From Value Middle to Income Generator: Sangeeta discusses a vital organizational shift at Slalom: “At Russell Reynolds, I used to be in the associated fee heart. At Slalom, we’re now within the buyer group. So we’re the income group. Every thing we’re doing is with the lens of ‘how a lot are you producing?’” This transfer from being considered as a price heart to being a part of the income group basically modified how advertising and marketing is perceived and what it may accomplish, together with a lot nearer collaboration with gross sales groups.
12:09 — The “Fiercely Human” Differentiator: Sangeeta explains Slalom’s distinctive positioning: “Now we have this factor referred to as a buyer love survey that we do yearly to inform us what our prospects consider us. I don’t know another firm that measures buyer love. And love is a really deliberate phrase there as a result of we actually need the journey to be joyful.” She describes how this emotional connection interprets to sensible enterprise outcomes, with prospects typically expressing real disappointment when initiatives finish and powerful word-of-mouth suggestions.
19:13 — AI’s Speedy Transformation of Advertising: Sangeeta addresses the unprecedented tempo of change: “Advertising is already being disrupted by AI. It’s not a future factor. It’s occurring right now. I’ve by no means seen issues change this quick. And my greatest problem is getting my group to maintain tempo with the change that’s occurring.” She emphasizes that AI enhances reasonably than replaces advertising and marketing judgment and technique, however requires a learner mindset to harness successfully.
25:20 — 2026 Priorities: Trying forward, Sangeeta outlines two key focus areas: “One is personalization at scale. I feel AI is permitting us to do issues that we couldn’t do earlier than. The second half is round gross sales and advertising and marketing. In B2B world, we’re on separate practice tracks. I would like us to grow to be one practice monitor with one practice in order that we’re really working synergistically collectively to ship outcomes.”
