CMO Conversations with Tricia Gellman Drift

We've talked a lot about the silos that exist between sales and marketing. But what about the silos within your own marketing team? On this episode, Tricia brought in a guest who knows how to tackle this challenge head-on – Archana Agrawal, the CMO of Airtable. Archana shares her advice for creating more alignment, cutting down on task volume, executing with more agility, and dealing with burnout.

And one fun fact before you hit play – Archana started at Airtable the day shelter-in-place began due to COVID-19, so she's got some great learnings to share about how she navigated a new role at a new company during a pandemic.

Sometimes it can seem like the role of the CMO is just an impossible list of expectations for one person to carry out. And sometimes, CMOs find out what is really expected of them AFTER they join a new company. So how do you make sure your next role is right for you...before signing on the dotted line? On this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia asks four-time CMO Jennifer "JJ" Johnson to come back on the show to share how she has vetted CMO opportunities throughout her career, her perspective on the evolution (and volatility) of the CMO role, how to interview for the role (including what questions to ask the CEO), and the challenges and opportunities of being the "first-ever" CMO at a new company.
Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and JJ on Twitter @triciagellman @jj_cmo @DriftPodcasts

Whether you have a category or not, you need to have a point of view, you need to be solving a problem, and you need to be solving it in a different way.

☝️ That's what Jennifer Johnson (aka JJ, the CMO of Amplitude) said when Tricia asked her if category design was right for every company. Spoiler alert: it's not. On this episode of CMO Conversations, JJ talks about what happens during each phase of category design, how she got involved with Play Bigger, her advice for working with analysts, and the importance of having a differentiated opinion.

Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and JJ on Twitter @triciagellman @jj_cmo @DriftPodcasts

People talk a lot about the importance of mentors. But they don't just magically appear in the moment you need them. So how do you find a mentor? For Kirsten Newbold-Knipp, it's not about finding one unicorn of a person to fill that role. Instead, you need to build your own personal board of directors. In this episode, Kirsten shares what her personal board of directors looks like, the happy and sad reasons why she learned to advocate for herself at a young age, and how she's paying it forward by being a mentor to others.

Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Kirsten on Twitter @triciagellman @kirstenpetra @DriftPodcasts

We all got used to a new way of working in 2020. But Kirsten Newbold-Knipp? She started a brand new job during the pandemic. In this episode, Kirsten walks Tricia through her path to becoming CMO at FullStory – a journey with as many Zoom meetings as you can imagine, but there was also one very unexpected meeting along the way. Now that Kirsten has been at FullStory for a few months, she shares how she's building relationships with her marketing team and driving alignment with the head of sales.

Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Kirsten on Twitter @triciagellman @kirstenpetra @DriftPodcasts

In 2008, software veteran Lynne Capozzi joined a brand new tech startup called Acquia as its CMO. Fast forward to 2019, and Acquia was bought by Vista Equity Partners for a whopping $1 billion. The Acquia CMO quoted in all the press releases sharing the announcement? Still Lynne Capozzi. On this episode of CMO Conversations, Tricia sits down with Lynne to talk about why she joined Acquia (twice – she left in 2011 to start a nonprofit then boomeranged back in 2016), how to scale marketing at critical growth stages, and how her role has changed over time.

Like this episode? Be sure to leave a ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ review and share the pod with your friends. You can connect with Tricia and Lynne on Twitter @triciagellman @lcapozzi