hEveryone knows who the B-to-B marketing CMO stars are—people such as Beth Comstock at GE and Kathy Button Bell at Emerson come to mind. But what about the next generation of talent, people below the CMO level who are having outsized impacts on their companies’ marketing e! orts? People who we very well may be talking about as the CMO stars of 2015 or 2020? Marketing News set out to fi nd them—asking a variety of industry sources. These fi ve are by no means the only up-and-comers out there. But they point the way for others to excel in their marketing posts. Here’s what they’re doing and what they have to say about marketing.BY THE MARKETING NEWS STAFF
Marketers to
Jason L. CordovaAge 31
Company General Electric Co.; Fairfi eld, Conn.
Title Director of Strategic Marketing
Job Description Cordova is responsible for a number of key initiatives, including part-nering with GE businesses to identify and leverage customer insights across GE and enabling the marketing function via an inter-nal professional/social network platform.
Cordova joined GE in 2006 a! er stints at Mentoring Minds, an educational publisher, at IBM and at his own sports management company earlier in his career. He spent two years in GE’s Experienced Commercial Lead-ership Program, learning about a variety of GE businesses. “I love marketing, it’s a great place
to be right now; I just can’t imagine a better function,” he says.
Where do you want to be in fi ve years?In broad strokes, I would love to be in a CMO or leadership role, or maybe a pro" t-and-loss role for one of the GE businesses. I hope to continue to grow and learn and have more responsibility to really create impact.
How will you get there?I’m very fortunate in my current role to work across the GE portfolio and to work with some brilliant marketers. # e real key is to continue to get industry depth and knowledge and to continue learning from those people. # e more we’re able to do that, the more e$ ective we are.
What is the most important thing you’ve done to get you where you are today?I would say the biggest thing that I’ve taken away is just continuous learning, taking the time and understanding from very smart people what you can learn.
REFERENCE“Jason is not afraid to jump into situations where he knows he is not an industry expert, yet he is willing to help,” says Stephen J. Liguori, executive director of global marketing at GE. “He has contributed on meaty marketing projects in GE businesses as diverse as aviation and mining. The fact that he has a good strategic head on his shoul-ders and takes a team-based approach to learning is a large part of what makes him e! ective. He can always be counted on to bring an external customer’s view to the situation with ideas on how to incorporate them.
“What can new marketers learn from Jason? Listen intently to your clients and then formulate an action plan, based on your knowledge and their input, to move the ball forward.”
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Alex BenderAge 42
Company Archer Technologies/RSA (a division of EMC);
Overland Park, Kan.
Title Director of O! er Marketing at RSA, formerly Vice President of Marketing at Archer Technologies
Job description Bender is responsible for leading Archer’s marketing team and all its initiatives, including lead generation, channel and Web marketing and analyst relations. Previously, Bender held senior product marketing management positions at Tripwire, Unicru and McAfee.
When Alex Bender joined Archer Technologies four years ago it was a $10 million company without a de! ned marketing sta" . Today Archer is a $33 million company with a thriving, eight-person team of professional B-to-B marketers whom Bender hired, trained and developed into a results-oriented, metrics-driven sta" . Another big marketing win has been the launch of a 3,000-member online community available exclusively to Archer’s clients, which Jon Darby-shire, Archer’s president and CEO, points to as a big contributor to Archer’s 98.6% product license renewal rate.
# e 170-person company, which delivers governance, risk and compliance (GRC) solutions for information technology to busi-nesses, is currently undergoing an integration with Boston-based RSA, which purchased Archer in January.
Where do you want to be in fi ve years?In ! ve years [my plan is to] de! nitely be part of the RSA marketing team. It’s a great organization and I’ve been really blown away by the talent that is there. # ere is always opportunity, and I have a ! re in my belly. I’ve really enjoyed growing this company and whether I continue to grow this company or stay in a division, there are exciting opportu-nities out there. [RSA is a $600 million-plus business.] It’d be exciting for me to be a part of a business that size again and to be able to leverage my [large company] experiences with Tripwire and McAfee.
How will you get there?I think that one of the things I realized coming into RSA was that [at Archer] we think we ! gured out our target market pretty well. … One of the things we track [at Archer] is what is marketing’s impact to the bottom line? When you are able to understand how marketing has in$ uenced the win rate, it is very important. We’re going to bring more succinct processes on how to create those metrics and trackability to RSA. [To grow my career at RSA,] I would rather do it by proof rather than by force.
What is the most important thing you’ve done to get you where you are today?# e key is that I’m never satis! ed by staying put. I’ve always had drive to grow my knowledge and career. [An impor-tant thing I have done] to get me where I am today has been to align myself with a good company and, more impor-tantly, to get the right peers and mentors in place. A team is essential. Equally important is to have the right metrics to understand what we need to get [to the goal] and be able to provide a lot of proof points along the way.
REFERENCE“There’s no question that Alex leads marketing for Archer and people here know that when they have ideas, questions or concerns, they go to Alex. One of the most impressive things he’s done is he’s built a phenom-enal team—a team of superstars. … We get comments all the time on the things we roll out from customers, prospects and competitors, and they’d be amazed to know [it all comes from] a team of eight to 10 people. In meetings with Alex, it is just evident that he enjoys marketing and really has that passion for it. The team picks up on that and creates quality deliverables. They’re not just pushing things over the fence.” –Jon Darbyshire, president and CEO of Archer Technologies
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Lori Kirk-RolleyAge 43
Company Dal-Tile Corp.; Dallas
Title Senior Marketing Director
Job description Kirk-Rolley leads brand marketing e! orts, including advertising, public relations and other programs, for Dal-Tile’s three target segments: homeowners, dealers and builders, and architects and designers.
Lori Kirk-Rolley says she sometimes gets funny looks when she says her job is to peddle baked dirt. But she insists the challenge in market-ing ceramic tile to di! erent audiences, and her pride in the products, makes her job an exciting one.
Kirk-Rolley has been at Dal-Tile, the largest manufacturer of ceramic tile in the United States, for nearly 15 years. One career high-light: leading a 2005 renovation of product presentation in showrooms that resulted in a 15% sales increase from participating dealers.
Kirk-Rolley received a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Blooms-burg University of Pennsylvania in 1988 and an M.B.A. in marketing from La Salle University in Philadelphia in 1995. She worked at three marketing agencies in the Philadelphia area, including Ketchum Inc., before joining Dal-Tile.
Where do you want to be in fi ve years?I’d like to be in an executive-level marketing position working for an organization that allows for creative thought and expression, values contributions and recognizes success. … I do see myself as wanting to continue to operate in more strategic initiatives and to really have the opportunity to participate in setting the road map for the company moving forward.
How will you get there?It gets back to really understanding the strategic path that the company is on and being sure that every plan and program that we have kind of aligns with that. I think just continuing to focus on meeting the needs of the customers … and being sure the voice we put out in the market-place delivers the right message. If I continue to do that, new opportu-nities will come up.
What is the most important thing you’ve done to get you where you are today?It’s really a culmination of a couple of things. " e # rst thing is I’m a big believer in brands and I think that each of us is our own brand, so the one thing that I really try to do is consistently deliver results. …" e other thing is to have a good understanding of internal or exter-nal customers, and that means listening to what they need and reading between the lines. … It sounds simple but a lot of people don’t take the time to do that.
REFERENCE“I really lean on Lori because of her expertise,” says her boss Joe Lundgren, vice president of marketing. Lundgren himself never received formal marketing training—he started working at Dal-Tile in the warehouse in 1984.
“She wrote the fi rst marketing plan for us,” he says. “She has taught me everything I know about the marketing side of the business and what should be said about Dal-Tile and how to approach a project and how to send specifi c messages out to specifi c audiences and what channels to do that in.
“Her leadership has put us on the road to have a true brand iden-tity for ceramic tile. … Her professionalism, her attention to detail, is second to none.”
Mike McCalleyAge 38
Company Dresser Inc.; Addison, Texas
Title Corporate Director of Marketing
Job description McCalley is tasked with creating and developing marketing functions across this engineering equipment and services company.
Like many industrial companies, Dresser in the past was internally focused on product development rather than looking outward via marketing to gain customer insights.
McCalley was hired in 2008 to change that, says Scott Coleman, Dresser’s senior vice president of marketing and corporate develop-ment. Coleman hired McCalley to elevate marketing’s role within the company. McCalley has done that with programs such as marketing boot camps to train the many engineers at Dresser who # nd them-selves in marketing roles, Coleman explains. One hundred people have passed through McCalley’s marketing boot camps in the past two years.
Where do you want to be in fi ve years?I want to be leading a world-class marketing organization that is purely customer- and market-focused and that is recognized for best practices.
How will you get there?" rough a three-phase approach. It’s having a clear vision that people buy into; identifying the gaps of where we are today; and # lling in those gaps. " e reality of it is that it’s through talent management, it’s always people [# rst, then] process and technology. It starts with having the right people creating the right processes and deploying the right tools and technologies to achieve that.
What is the most important thing you’ve done to get you where you are today?I’ve surrounded myself with world-class practitioners, whether it was internally or externally. [Also] it’s never being satis# ed with the current status quo or the current situation. Even a$ er we’ve done something that’s dramatically raised the bar, we always ask: ‘What can we do better? [What is] better for our customers and better for our company?’
REFERENCE“He’s done a phenomenal job of establishing marketing within the company,” says Coleman, McCalley’s boss. “He’s one of those guys who has great customer insights and really understands marketing. Mike led the charge to really bring customer-led insights [to the company’s product development process].”
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Tom PickAge 48
Company KC Associates; Long Lake, Minn.
Title Online Marketing Executive
Job description Pick’s work ranges from conducting online campaigns incorporating search engine optimization and social media to managing a number of clients for many of their marketing needs.
Beginning his career in engineering technology in 1987, Pick fell into marketing ! ve years later, earning an M.B.A. from the University of Minnesota in Minne-apolis. Since then he has worked in B-to-B marketing at companies such as St. Paul-based digital press equip-ment manufacturer Printware Inc., enterprise so" ware developer So" brands Inc. in Minneapolis and reinsur-ance intermediary John B. Collins Associates Inc., also in Minneapolis, developing a specialty in online market-ing along the way. He landed at KC Associates in 2006, and Pick prides himself on increasing Web tra# c ! ve-fold within a year’s time for record management so" ware provider client SmeadSo" , among other accomplish-ments.
Outside of KC Associates, Pick hosts a blog called Webbiquity (formerly WebMarketCentral.com), which covers B-to-B lead generation, online market-ing and related topics, and serves as advisor for B-to-B-focused social media site FYIndOut.com and B2BMarketingZone.com.
Where do you want to be in fi ve years?$ at’s a challenging question only because of the pace of technology changes. … $ e one constant I have had the last 20 years is to focus on helping B-to-B tech companies market themselves more e% ectively. I anticipate doing that exactly ! ve years from now. … I have a lot of inde-pendence at KC Associates … [and] I’m not sure if I want to change that. … I do some public speaking. $ ere may be an opportunity to do more of that.
How will you get there?It goes back to three activities: networking, taking advan-tage of online media and continuing to experiment on my own whenever possible, so I am bringing in a solid base of knowledge. … Who knows what will be devel-oped technology-wise over the next ! ve years? My hope is whatever new tools come down the road, I’ll be able to help clients with opportunities to make themselves ! nd-able online, to establish their credibility and strengthen their customer relationships.
What is the most important thing you’ve done to get you where you are today?If I had to pick one, I would de! nitely say it was [creat-ing] the [WebMarketCentral] blog, going back to 2005. Putting my thoughts, observations and experiences down in blog form has really helped me make a tremendous number of new connections and to meet interesting people I wouldn’t have met otherwise. … I also developed a lot of experience in online promotions in how to use blogging and social media to further business e% orts … and it has created recognition and given me credibility in terms of social media.
REFERENCE“He’s very good at analyzing things and good at communicating what he’s seeing,” says Pick’s employer Kirsten Chapman, principal at KC Associates. “He treats our clients with great respect and takes the time to explain to them how all this works, how important it is and how it fi ts into broader marketing and PR programs.”
Chapman also praises Pick for putting clients fi rst. For example, Pick took up an opportunity to explore a potential product aimed at automating search engine optimization. “If that actually takes hold, that would eliminate a lot of billable hours Tom might have, but Tom is very interested in knowing what is out there and knowing what is the best thing for clients,” she says. “A lot of people won’t do that.” m
These fi ve are by no means the only marketers to watch out there. But they point the way for others to excel in their marketing posts.
Know a marketer to watch? E-mail us with suggestions at [email protected].
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