The CMO Podcast

Artificial intelligence is reshaping marketing at a pace unlike anything we've seen since the birth of digital. But as today's guests remind us, the fundamentals of great marketing haven't changed.
Recorded live at the Infillion Café during Cannes Lions 2026, Jim sits down with Marie Gulin-Merle, Global Vice President of Ads & Commerce Marketing at Google, and Anda Gansca, Co-Founder and CEO of Knotch.
Marie has spent her career leading marketing for some of the world's most iconic brands, including L'Oréal, Calvin Klein, and PVH, before joining Google to help shape the future of advertising, commerce, and AI-powered marketing on a global scale.
Anda founded Knotch more than a decade ago with a vision of making digital experiences more personalized and measurable. Today, Knotch helps many of the world's leading brands optimize content performance and customer experience, and Anda has become one of the industry's leading voices on the intersection of marketing, data, and AI.
Just days before this conversation, Google and Knotch announced the launch of ACE (Agentic Content Engine), a new AI-powered experience platform built with Google Cloud, Vertex AI, and Gemini. Designed for the emerging "AI-native consumer," ACE enables brands to create dynamic, personalized digital experiences that adapt in real time to each customer's needs.
Together, Jim, Marie, and Anda explore what this next era of marketing means for brands, why relevance has become the industry's most valuable currency, how AI can amplify rather than replace creativity, and why the future belongs to marketers who can unite technology, data, and human insight to create better customer experiences.
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This week’s episode is brought to you by Knotch and Infillion.

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Just days before Supergirl hit theaters—and as Ulta Beauty launched its ambitious partnership with Warner Bros. to bring the film to life through an immersive, 360-degree campaign—Kelly Mahoney sat down with Jim Stengel to discuss one of the biggest transformations happening in marketing today.
Kelly is the Chief Marketing Officer of Ulta Beauty, the nation's largest beauty retailer, with more than 1,400 stores, over $11 billion in annual revenue, and a loyalty program serving more than 47 million members. After more than a decade helping build Ulta's growth strategy and industry-leading loyalty ecosystem, she's now leading the brand into its next chapter.
In this conversation, Kelly shares how Ulta is creating deeper emotional connections with consumers through purpose, creativity, AI-powered personalization, and culture-defining partnerships. She also discusses her unconventional path to the CMO role, what she learned from the late Shelley Haus, how she's building a high-performing marketing culture, and why the future of beauty is rooted in trust, wellness, and human connection.
Recorded during the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, this conversation took place aboard a yacht in the sunny South of France, thanks to our partners at Beanstalk and AppLovin.
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Episode brought to you by Infillion.
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This week, Jim welcomes Grace Kao, Chief Marketing Officer of Snap Inc. Founded in 2011 by Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy, Snap has grown from a simple idea about visual communication into a global platform reaching more than 940 million monthly active users and generating nearly $6 billion in annual revenue.
Grace joined Snap in late 2024 and was promoted to Chief Marketing Officer just months later. Before Snap, she held senior marketing leadership roles at Spotify and Instagram, helping some of the world's most influential platforms connect with creators, businesses, and consumers.
Tune in as Grace shares what marketers still misunderstand about Gen Z, why creativity remains the defining skill of the next generation, and how brands can earn relevance by becoming part of the group chat rather than interrupting it. Whether you're leading a global brand, building a startup, or simply trying to understand where culture is headed next, this episode offers a thoughtful look at the future of marketing, creativity, and human connection.
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We'll be at Cannes Lions from June 22nd to the 26th, hopping up along the Croisette all week. Let us know if you'll be attending too!
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For 24 straight hours every June, the world's greatest endurance race pushes drivers, machines, and engineers to their limits at Le Mans. For Michelin, it's more than a race, it's a proving ground for innovation, performance, and one of the most enduring brands in the world.
This week, Jim welcomes Omer Waysman, Vice President of B2C Marketing for North America at Michelin. Founded in France in 1889, Michelin has grown into a global company with nearly $30 billion in annual revenue. While best known for its tires, Michelin's business extends far beyond the road, spanning brands including BFGoodrich and Uniroyal, the world-famous Michelin Guide, and innovations in fields ranging from aeronautics and healthcare to advanced materials and construction.
Omer's career has taken him from France to South Carolina, where he now leads marketing, brand strategy, and go-to-market execution for Michelin in North America. Before Michelin, he held senior leadership roles at Danone and Microsoft, helping drive digital growth, e-commerce, and transformation initiatives around the world.
Tune in for a conversation exploring one of marketing's most interesting challenges: how do you build trust, relevance, and long-term loyalty in a category where consumers only make a purchase every three to five years?
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The role of the CMO is evolving. Increasingly, it is becoming a pathway to the CEO's office.
Jim's guest this week, Melissa Grady Dias, first joined the show in 2020 as Global Chief Marketing Officer of Cadillac, where she helped transform one of America's most iconic brands into the leading luxury EV brand while navigating a global pandemic and unprecedented industry disruption.
Now she has entered an entirely new chapter. Melissa recently became CEO of Measured Wellness, a healthcare company focused on preventative care, wearable technology, AI powered health insights, and what she calls "care between appointments." It is a model built around the 99 percent of health that happens outside the doctor's office. The company was founded in San Diego by Dr. Michael Kurisu, who specializes in Family and Integrative Medicine.
Melissa is a leader who thrives when navigating transformation, and she simply likes building things. Those are her words. At Cadillac, that meant helping consumers rethink mobility, luxury, and electrification. At Measured Wellness, it means helping people rethink healthcare itself by moving from reactive care to proactive wellness, from occasional doctor visits to continuous engagement, and from treating illness to creating the conditions for long term health.
Tune in for a conversation about leadership, reinvention, wellness, and the growing influence of marketers in shaping the future of business.

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