The B2B CMO Podcast with Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan

Jon Miller & Sydney Sloan
  • 5.0 (1)
  • Marketing

Welcome to The B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. Join Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan every week as they talk with the very best Chief Marketing Officers who are navigating the modern marketing playbook and positioning themselves as strategic leaders. Each episode, we unpack what it really takes to lead through complexity, earn trust at the strategy table, and shape the future of growth. We’re building the community, research, and frameworks CMOs need to reclaim their strategic role and drive sustainable growth. For more marketing leadership resources, visit [b2bcmoproject.com](http://b2bcmoproject.com/).

  1. 6h ago

    How to Justify Brand Spend in the Dark Funnel with Kimberly Storin

    Kimberly Storin is the CMO at Zoom, the AI-first work platform for human connection. Kimberly leads Zoom’s brand, communications, product marketing, enterprise marketing, and regional marketing teams. Previously, she was Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Zayo, and also spent time as a consultant with Deloitte. Kimberly joins Sydney Sloan to discuss how to build your brand in the era of the dark funnel, how to fight for end-user mental availability, and why B2B marketers need to leverage some of the key learnings from B2C marketing around creative. Episode Takeaways Kimberly's B2B brand-building framework has four components: Be Found, Be Present, Be Believed, and Be Preferred. This model helps sales leaders, GMs, and the CEO understand why 75% of GTM effort must happen before a buyer ever raises their hand, since B2B buying now happens almost entirely in the "dark funnel."Vet leadership's view of strategy before accepting a CMO role, not after. For example, Kimberly Storin talked to 50 customers and presented a hypothesis-level 30/60/90 day plan before accepting the Zoom CMO job, using the board's reaction as a litmus test for whether they'd actually let her bring market insights to the table. When evaluating new roles, treat the interview process as a strategy audit, not just a culture check.Fight for communications to sit inside marketing's remit. Organizations that treat communications as a strategic lever of marketing rather than a separate function, because it lets the CMO shape narrative at both the corporate and go-to-market level. Marketing leaders should push to consolidate brand, comms, and demand under one strategic view rather than let them fragment across silos. Standout Quote “I believe that owning that narrative and really understanding marketing as a reputation driver as well as a brand and pipeline driver is the right strategic view.” - Kimberly Storin Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimberlystorin/ Zoom Website: https://www.zoom.com/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    How to Justify Brand Spend in the Dark Funnel with Kimberly Storin

  2. Aug 11

    Breaking the Growth-to-Hire Curve in the AI Era with Latané Conant

    Latané Conant is the Chief Market Officer of Parloa, AI agents that turn customer conversations into lasting loyalty. Prior to Parloa, she led both global sales and marketing teams in both CMO and CRO roles at 6Sense, Appirio, and Ariba. She wrote the book No Forms. No Spam. No Cold Calls. Latané joins co-hosts Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan to discuss how being a sales leader can make you a more empathetic marketing leader, why benchmarking and research are key to building the business case to invest in marketing, and what you can do as a marketing leader to upskill your team and attain outsized results. Episode Takeaways Win the stage, not the deal. Marketing leaders should map their specific sales process stage-by-stage and ask "what needs to happen to win this stage," rather than focusing only on closing. By treating each stage as its own objective, it lets marketing provide targeted "air cover" instead of generic support, at the right time.Pre-socialize big asks individually before the board meeting. Rather than pitching a major brand investment cold, secure CEO or CFO support first, then bring specific, but not overly prescriptive, pillars to the board. Bring enough detail to justify the spend without inviting a free-for-all of opinions on every channel or influencer choice.Formalize AI accountability with quarterly benchmarking. Centralize AI enablement function so you can benchmark every function's AI usage each quarter, and have team members report progress against what's "possible" in their QBRs. This creates structured pressure to actually adopt AI tools rather than treating them as optional.Redesign org growth curves around AI leverage, not headcount. Rather than rebuilding a large functional team from scratch, instead hire one senior leader per function with the expectation they operate with heavy AI assistance. Output can now scale without linear headcount growth. Standout Quote “ I don't believe in making small plans.” - Latané Conant Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/latane-conant/ Parloa Website: https://www.parloa.com/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    Breaking the Growth-to-Hire Curve in the AI Era with Latané Conant

  3. Aug 5

    AI Won't Save Bad Marketing, Creativity Will, with Kyle Lacy

    Kyle Lacy is the Chief Marketing Officer at Docebo, an AI-First LMS for Enterprise Learning & Skills. Kyle led global content marketing at ExactTarget before its acquisition by Salesforce, helped build Lessonly from the early days through its $300 million acquisition by Seismic, and went on to serve as CMO of Jellyfish. Kyle joins co-hosts Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan to discuss why AI can’t replace human creativity in marketing, why modern CMOs need to think about their personal brands, and why sales and marketing really don’t belong under each other.  Episode Takeaways Keep marketing and sales as separate organizations unless you have an exceptional CRO. Folding marketing into sales often strips out the creative and brand elements marketing exists to deliver, since sales is mostly science while marketing involves taste and creativity.Collect concrete "surprise and delight" stories as evidence for marketing's non-pipeline value. These proof points resonate with executives even though they can't be attributed in a pipeline report. Marketers should proactively document these moments (LinkedIn buzz, unsolicited CEO/investor mentions) as a standing evidence file, not something they scramble to recall in a budget meeting.Match your AI investment to workflow automation, not wholesale system, team, or function replacement. For example, Docebo's tech stack "doesn't look that much different" than before AI, the big changes are in automating existing manual workflows like lead routing and content production, and they hired a dedicated AI operations role specifically for marketing rather than relying solely on a central AI team.  Standout Quote “ When everybody has the same tools, your only competitive advantage is you're human.” - Kyle Lacy Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kylelacy/Docebo Website: https://www.docebo.com/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    AI Won't Save Bad Marketing, Creativity Will, with Kyle Lacy

  4. Jul 27

    Pipeline Gives Permission to Invest Big on Brand with Jennifer Johnson

    Jennifer “JJ” Johnson is the Chief Marketing Officer at CrowdStrike, the Agentic Security Platform; unified and built to secure the AI revolution. Jennifer has been a CMO for more than a decade, leading global marketing strategy and execution, and building high-performance teams for some of the fastest-growing and most trusted brands in cybersecurity. Before joining CrowdStrike, she led both Amplitude and Tenable to successful IPOs as their CMO, along with leading Coverity to a successful acquisition. Jennifer joins Co-Hosts Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan to discuss how to build an AI transformation center of excellence in-house, why focusing on pipeline gives CMOs permission to invest in big picture brand strategy, and the operating timeline methods of the clock and the stopwatch.  Episode Takeaways Leaders with consulting DNA, not just marketing chops, make great candidates for driving AI transformation. For example, Jennifer brought in someone from Boston Consulting Group's Go-To-Market practice specifically because she needed change-management expertise, not just tool knowledge. Peers should look for candidates who understand both marketing function and structured process transformation; the technology piece is the easy part.Tackle AI transformation one workflow at a time, end-to-end. Rather than boiling the ocean across every marketing function, pick one process, execute it completely, build a playbook, and then repeat.Treat "pipeline is permission" as the operating principle for earning strategic latitude. Consistently hitting core pipeline numbers is what earns a CMO credibility to pursue brand investments, category creation, or other "non-trivial" bets. Successful execution funds strategic ambition, not the reverse.Build brand budgets in parallel with demand, never as an afterthought. Brand and demand leaders should each build their own plans and asks independently; demand should never get "first pick" of budget with brand receiving leftovers, which leads to underinvestment in brand.Balance "calendar" moments with a "stopwatch" rapid-offense capability. Predictable moments (product releases, major conferences) anchor planning, but CrowdStrike also runs a rapid-response content engine reacting to real-time market signals and competitor moves; treating both cadences as complementary, not competing, priorities. Standout Quote “ I think every CMO needs to have someone in their leadership team that is accountable for driving AI transformation.” - Jennifer Johnson Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jjcmo/ CrowdStrike Website: https://www.crowdstrike.com/en-us/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    Pipeline Gives Permission to Invest Big on Brand with Jennifer Johnson

  5. Jul 23

    “Write for Humans, Optimize for Agents” with Chris Koehler

    Chris Koehler is the Chief Marketing Officer of Twilio, the platform for conversations in the AI era. Chris has over 25 years of experience in leading marketing, sales, and product teams across companies like Adobe, Box, and E-Trade. Lately, he's been chasing a question Jon Miller happens to care a lot about: what happens to discovery, to personalization, and to the CMO's mandate itself in the age of AI.  Chris joins Jon to discuss his four-pillar framework for strategic marketing, how his marketing team is approaching the seismic shift from SEO to AEO, and why the future of GTM belongs to teams bold enough to reimagine their workflows entirely, not just optimize them. Episode Takeaways Eliminate marketing jargon such as MQLs, SQLs, or marketing-qualified pipeline from executive and board communications. Focus on speaking in terms of revenue, profitability, and growth coverage. CMOs should translate all reporting to C-suite language and save marketing metrics for internal scorecards, where they belong.CMOs need to own the revenue number alongside the CRO. If sales misses the revenue target, that's marketing’s fault too. Marketing teams shouldn’t blame sales or product; instead, frame marketing as a co-owner of pipeline and revenue. GTM leaders should build formal shared accountability structures with their CRO rather than treating revenue as someone else's problem.Treat AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) as a company-wide imperative, not solely a content team task. AEO isn't just an extension of SEO, it requires every team to rethink how content is structured, formatted, and prioritized for both human readers and AI agents. GTM leaders should run a company-wide AEO education session to get ahead of executives sending panicked "we're not showing up in ChatGPT" messages.Pipeline is the path, not the destination; so stop celebrating it as a win. Delineate clearly between pipeline (a means) and revenue (the goal), and frame everything through the lens of revenue outcomes. Write for humans and optimize for agents. AI agents are not a new persona, they act on behalf of humans, so the content you create still needs to serve human intent, just formatted and structured for how AI models surface and cite information.  Standout Quote “ At the end of the day, we're selling to humans, and it's relationships and building trust. So let's have some fun with that.” - Chris Koehler Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ckoehler/ Twilio Website: https://www.twilio.com/en-us  Mentioned in this Episode Stephanie Carullo: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephaniecarullo/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    “Write for Humans, Optimize for Agents” with Chris Koehler

  6. Jul 8

    Leading Marketing Change at a 140-Year-Old Enterprise with Chris Bontempo

    Chris Bontempo is the Chief Marketing Officer of Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization. Prior to joining Johnson Controls, Chris worked his way up at IBM from an Analyst to become the Chief Marketing Officer, IBM Americas. He’s especially passionate about how AI changes the marketing operating model and how marketing can own market intelligence to shape strategy. Chris joins Jon Miller to discuss the exact frameworks he uses to win C-suite trust, defend the marketing budget with the CFO, and turn agentic AI into a genuine competitive advantage. Episode Takeaways Marketing must own the "voice of the customer" function, not just demand gen. back into the company, and being an energy supplier to the ecosystem. Representing the voice of the customer back into the business is what earns marketing a seat at the strategic C-suite table.CMOs should focus on the real business conversations, it's whether marketing, sales, product, and services collectively drove a revenue outcome. CMOs need enough financial acumen to defend budget in "secured revenue" terms with the CFO, not lead-volume terms.Accept a certain amount of chaos as the price of AI experimentation. 100% success means you aren't taking enough risks. If every AI pilot succeeds, they aren't pushing hard enough. Leaders should explicitly normalize this with their teams so people aren't punished or discouraged when early AI pilots fail.Shift the unit of work from "the tool" to "the workflow," using agentic frameworks to orchestrate multiple tools. Move away from evaluating individual platforms and instead map full processes and let agents determine which tools to invoke. Pair marketing AI engineering talent directly with field marketers, sellers, and service teams to rapidly prototype these workflows together. Standout Quote “ You have to be able to hang with your CFO in the conversation around secured revenue.” - Chris Bontempo Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-bontempo/ Johnson Controls Website: https://www.johnsoncontrols.com/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    Leading Marketing Change at a 140-Year-Old Enterprise with Chris Bontempo

  7. Jul 8

    Building Your AEO Strategy to Win the AI Citation with Amy Cook

    Amy Cook is the Co-Founder & CMO of Fullcast, the Go-to-Market Cloud built for RevOps leaders by RevOps leaders. Over Amy’s career, she’s led multiple companies through successful acquisitions as a CMO at companies such as Simplus, PathologyWatch, and nClouds. Amy joins Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan to discuss why she ditched MQLs for pipeline-first metrics, turned radical transparency with her CRO into a trust-building strategy, and used AI tools to reposition her brand for the AI answer-engine era. Episode Takeaways Get as close to revenue as possible. Marketers should actively pursue ownership of pipeline reporting, customer-facing work, and even partnerships/alliances rather than staying siloed in brand and demand gen. This proximity to revenue is the single biggest lever for earning a strategic seat at the table.Treat individual LinkedIn thought leadership as brand infrastructure for AI answer engines. AI answer engines cite individual LinkedIn profiles far more than company brand pages, so CMOs have an "obligation" to become visible thought leaders themselves and to push their C-suite to do the same. Teams should also prioritize presence on YouTube and Reddit, since both are heavily cited by answer engines.Treat AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) like the early days of SEO, meaning fast-moving and testable. Google's newly released AEO optimization guidelines (bullet points, short sentences, structured answers) are fundamentally similar to classic SEO/outline writing.  Standout Quote “ This is our time as marketers to become like the most valued and most trusted person on the C-suite” - Amy Cook Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyosmondcook/ Fullcast Website: https://www.fullcast.com/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    Building Your AEO Strategy to Win the AI Citation with Amy Cook

  8. Jun 22

    How to Embed AI into Your Marketing Team with Wendy White

    Wendy White is the Chief Marketing and Partner Officer at Daxko, where she leads marketing and partnerships for the platform that's powering the member management and operations engine behind so much of the fitness industry. Wendy has been a CMO for a number of companies and held globe-spanning marketing leadership roles at giants like Microsoft and Intel. Wendy joins Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan to discuss how to lead an organizational AI  transformation, what it means for a CMO to lead as a business-first executive, and why a new brand measurement matrix is needed for an era where LLMs, not search engines, are where buyers do their research. Episode Takeaways CMOs should position themselves as business executives first, and functional leaders second. Strategic CMOs actively weigh in on customer success strategy, sales org structure, and software procurement, which are all outside the traditional CMO scope. The modern CMO who earns a durable seat at the table does so by demonstrating strategic fluency across the entire business, not just owning the marketing lane.Treat AI adoption as a cultural mandate, not just a tooling decision. This means changing job descriptions, updating career ladders to include behavioral AI capabilities, and making it explicit company-wide that AI is not a choice. Leaders who treat AI as optional will fall behind those who structurally embed it into how people are hired, evaluated, and promoted.The "follow the sun" model, combined with AI, creates a continuous marketing execution engine. For example, Wendy's team has roughly half of its FTE headcount in India, with AI tools trained on brand guidelines, Gong calls, and campaigns. The result: Wendy wakes up to approval requests, not project kickoffs. This compresses execution timelines dramatically and is replicable for any GTM team willing to invest in AI-enabling offshore talent.After years of decline, PR is becoming a top priority again for marketers, specifically because LLMs are trained heavily on authoritative published content. Getting your company cited in industry and trade press is no longer just a brand play; it directly influences how AI systems describe and recommend your product. GTM teams should re-evaluate PR investment through this lens immediately.Brand measurement must be rebuilt for the AI era. Wendy introduced a new brand matrix that includes AI-driven sentiment monitoring (Reddit, G2), direct referral traffic as a brand signal, earned media share, and LLM citation share. CMOs should proactively introduce these metrics before the board asks why brand spend isn't measurable. Standout Quote “What a modern CMO needs to do is to be really deeply integrated into the overall market and business strategy of the company. Don't sit back and wait for it to be about like, what's the next trade show?” - Wendy White Guest Links LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendywwhite/ Daxko Website: https://www.daxko.com/  Mentioned in this Episode Guillaume "𝑮" Cabane: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cabane/ Matt Heinz: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattheinz/  More from The B2B CMO Project Website: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/b2bcmoproject/ Jon Miller: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonmiller2/ Sydney Sloan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sydsloan/ More Episodes: https://www.b2bcmoproject.com/podcasts

    How to Embed AI into Your Marketing Team with Wendy White
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Welcome to The B2B CMO Podcast, a show for marketing executives who are redefining what it means to be a strategic leader. Join Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan every week as they talk with the very best Chief Marketing Officers who are navigating the modern marketing playbook and positioning themselves as strategic leaders. Each episode, we unpack what it really takes to lead through complexity, earn trust at the strategy table, and shape the future of growth. We’re building the community, research, and frameworks CMOs need to reclaim their strategic role and drive sustainable growth. For more marketing leadership resources, visit [b2bcmoproject.com](http://b2bcmoproject.com/).

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