Megha Agarwal on Why CMOs Need To Think Like Growth Architects (#020)

What does it really take to become a modern CMO?

In this episode of The Super CMO Show with Swami, Megha Agarwal shares why she calls herself a “non-traditional CMO” — one who goes beyond brand campaigns to think about growth, monetization, P&L, consumer obsession, and business building.

Drawing from her journey across Table Space, WeWork, Unilever and CavinKare Megha speaks about startup chaos, building categories from scratch, the future of agencies, creativity in the AI era, mentorship, leadership, and why marketers must constantly reinvent themselves. A sharp, insight-packed conversation on what marketing leadership truly demands today.

About Megha

Megha Agarwal is a marketing leader, growth strategist, and business builder with close to two decades of experience across FMCG, consumer brands, startups, and enterprise workspaces. Currently the Chief Marketing Officer at Table Space, she has built her career at the intersection of brand building, growth, customer experience, and business transformation.

⭐ 5 Key Takeaways

The modern CMO must understand business, not just marketing: Megha argues that marketers who do not understand P&L, monetization, and cross-functional business impact risk becoming irrelevant in today’s environment.  

Consumer obsession is still the strongest competitive advantage: One of her biggest learnings from  was that true marketing begins with deeply understanding consumers — not through dashboards, but through immersion, humility, and lived observation.  

Building brands from scratch requires a completely different mindset: Moving from FMCG to startups taught her that scaling brands is very different from creating foundational systems, processes, tools, and teams from zero.  

AI will commoditize marketing science — creativity becomes the differentiator: As AI automates research, analytics, and execution, original thinking, creativity, and human insight will become the most valuable capabilities for marketers. 

Sustainable growth requires support systems, not perfection: Megha challenges the myth of perfect work-life balance, emphasizing intentional trade-offs, communication, asking for support, and building ecosystems both at work and at home. 

⏱️ Timestamps

00:03:20 — Why Old-School Marketing Thinking Is Breaking Down
00:09:50 — Brands Are Built in Years, Judged in Quarters
00:12:17 — Nobody Prepares You for Real Decisions
00:13:54 — The Consumer Is Still the Most Important Person in the Room
00:18:01 — Big Brands Cannot Afford Recklessness
00:20:59 — Building Is More Exciting Than Managing
00:23:21 — Growth Fails Without Foundations
00:25:49 — You Cannot Scale Chaos Forever
00:28:19 — Big Companies Hide How Difficult Things Really Are
00:31:52 — Most Career Limits Exist Only in the Mind
00:39:24 — Execution Is Common. Thinking Is Rare.
00:41:45 — The Future Belongs to Hungry Agencies
00:44:35 — AI Makes Creativity More Valuable, Not Less
00:47:31 — Perfect Balance Is a Myth
00:53:41 — The Best Mentors Don’t Give Answers
00:57:44 — Your Strengths Matter More Than Your Weaknesses
01:00:25 — AI Can Analyze Consumers. It Cannot Love Them.
01:02:39 — The Best Marketers Constantly Reinvent Themselves

This episode was made possible by the great folks at MovingWalls. Moving Walls provides a global Adtech platform built by Out-of-home advertising experts, automating the process of planning, buying, executing and measuring OOH campaigns, with a presence across four continents and seven markets. Visit https://www.movingwalls.com to learn more.

🔗 Links & Resources:
ContraMinds: https://www.contraminds.com
Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://blog.contraminds.com

🎧 Listen on Podcast Platforms:
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/4xceASphmwAjJONTlsvo2Y
Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/contraminds-decoding-people-minds-strategy-and-culture/id1485202972

Follow ContraMinds:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/contraminds
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/contraminds/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/contraminds
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/contraminds

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

I was what 8, 10 years into experience and this was a very large role across international markets. I mean one of the one of the bigger roles where I was figuring out every day saying, Karnakya hai like what do I need to do? I don't know supply chain. I don't understand so much about finance. Legal is beyond my understanding. My only conversation with legal so far was please approve the I mean you're you're putting me in rooms with CEOs, etc. We're discussing pieces around whether we should continue the brand, not continue the brand. What do you want me to do? Take notes, come back to you. He's like, take decisions. You are the project lead and you are running the calls, you are running the shots. So you will be working with the various teams, and suddenly um it it just it it was like a switch that clicked in the mind saying often a lot of times our capabilities are limited by us. Grades and designations a lot of times are in our mind. Uh, it is what you do with the role that's given to you, irrespective of the level. Nobody's stopping you to go above and beyond. And you know, I keep having that conversation with my teams, especially the younger ones, saying you don't have to stick to those guidelines, right? Who's stopping you to come up with an idea or a project or a plan? You're starting at a certain grade in an organization does not limit your thinking or capability. That role really taught me that, and that one conversation, you know, opened up everything in my mind, and I did not look back.

SPEAKER_01 1:19

Hello everyone, welcome to another edition of the Contraminds Super CMO podcast. Our guest today is a go-getter, a lifelong learner, and somebody who is willing to question the existing marketing playbooks. She's also somebody who has moved across industries, CPG to new startup categories as a CMO. She has worked with Kevin Kerr, Uni Lewer, VWork, and Mega Agarwal is currently the CMO of Table Space. She is also a prolific writer, she's authored a book, she's also an influential LinkedIn voice. I spoke to her about why she calls herself a non-traditional CMO, a growth architect, and what makes her one. And how she transitioned to different industries, her learnings, her mentors, and what she learned from them. There's a lot more she packed in this conversation. I loved her energy, enthusiasm, and the openness with which she shared her experiences and ideas. Over to my conversation with Mega Agarwal. This episode of the Super CMO Show was made possible by the great folks at Moving Walls. Moving Walls provides a global technology platform built by out-of-home advertising experts automating the process of planning, buying, executing, and measuring out-of-home campaigns. Moving Walls helps leading brands and agencies to move to audience-based planning, improve turnaround times with automated proposals, and implement programmatic digital, out-of-form and verify campaign performances. Moving Walls helps measure, reach and influence moving audiences across the world. For more information, log on to www.movingwalls.com. So one of the things that uh you really uh talk about is the fact that you are a non-traditional CMO, right? And that caught my attention more than anything else. So why do you really call yourself a non-traditional CMO?

SPEAKER_03 3:46

I think it's a brilliant way to start, and somehow I think the personal branding piece is working because you picked up the one word that I wanted uh most people to sort of notice on the profile. And I'll tell you what, uh, you hear the work word playbook a lot mostly from marketeers. I think we are known to create playbooks and abide by playbooks. But I think one thing that most people are missing is their the whole playbook of the CMO is constantly evolving. And as somebody who's worked a decade in a company like Unilever, which is a marketing institution in the country, for most people who've come out of that company will believe and will tell you that uh that is, I think, the shortcoming that people see. You you think that marketing is a parallel track and you keep working on it, you do the 4P, 6P, 7P. The P's keep in uh changing, but uh it is so much more. The the moment the startups came into the country, the moment you see the kind of talent that is in the market, uh growth marketing became a vertical, digital marketing became a vertical, and somehow they were not marketing, they became their own respective verticals. That itself was very early indication that the traditional marketeer who was controlling some aspects of marketing would continue to only control that if they did not upskill in these and start owning them. And I think that's when I realized that I don't want to be the traditional marketer, only holding some aspects of marketing, and um, all my roles, therefore, had an element of very different learning in every role that I took on, and therefore, I'm not your traditional marketer who will only treat myself or my function as an OPEX function, and I think that's that's where the playbook really changed. I'm creating my own playbook. I don't think I'm looking at any specific CMO's journey to say here is a playbook that I want to sort of follow to be a successful marketer.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

When you say that uh you're a non-traditional CMO, and you also tell me that uh you know uh you're not using the similar playbooks. Uh, what does a traditional marketer have as a uh shortcoming? Or if you ask me, uh the importance that uh business ought to give them, and what is it that you are changing in your playbook?

SPEAKER_03 5:52

So I'll give you a very recent example. Swami, I visited my Alma Matter recently. Uh I'd written a book, and a lot of the book had my college and the journey uh sitting there. And uh I'll tell you the most disappointing aspect is the same questions are still in the room. Saying when I join the marketing function, will I be creating the next big brand campaign? Um, what will be the digital marketing strategy? A little bit of AI because such an abuse term, everybody's like, Will I will AI take over my jobs? But I think at the end of it, everybody is talking just the four P's of marketing, saying I will handle the product, I will handle consumer insight and research, I will handle a little bit of distribution, and I will have control on pricing. Beyond this, and a little bit of the entire agency function for anybody who wants to enter that space in the creative side of it. But but that's the understanding on marketing, and the books also capture that. What I have seen uh really is if you're not a marketer who's understanding the PL, uh you've already lost the battle. So that's that's always been one aspect of uh my journey, which is why I took on the role when I got for the GSK merger. While it started off as a marketing role, it was a heavy PMO role where I had to look at functions across board from supply chain to finance to anything that impacted the integration itself. So PL understanding is extremely important. The second piece, which nobody talks about, is how do you constantly understand the pillars that become relevant for marketing? Nobody talks PR enough, uh, and I think it is such a crucial function, lying somewhere between verticals as Marcom and done very poorly in most companies, beginning to start uh you know their journeys. And PR is almost sometimes the least on cost, and uh, if done well, can be your single largest marketing tool, but but not sitting with marketing more often than not. This has been a space that I have been personally investing a lot of time learning over the last four, four and a half years. We don't talk about in uh events enough, we leave it for alcohol and tobacco industries who have to do you know uh a different kind of marketing, but events are so important in B2B and um they are strategic. So whether it is uh a space like workspace where you have to meet key IPC partners who are our broker partners or clients. I mean, in FMCG, I would not even know who my consumers are. It's it's a faceless marketing strategy. Here it is a one-to-one marketing strategy, and I want to meet my consumers or customers in our case, understand what they mean. So events become really important. Nobody teaches you how to do events, and it's left as an agency activation piece, and that doesn't work in most cases. So, over the years, things like events, partnerships, PR, uh, digital marketing in a very strategic sense, growth marketing in a strategic sense, I have added these layers as things that I am really good at, and I don't have to depend on a second person or a second sub-function uh to work this with me. I think that's where the playbook really changes, where you are foreseeing what marketing can influence and take that over. One other piece which I found uh specifically that worked in my playbook is having a very core love for monetization. So, marketing's job is not just to spend. As marketing, we can generate pure gold for the company if done really well, because our activities don't require cost. So, when I activate ANSI revenue at a workspace operator like tablespace, then uh there is no cost. I've already paid for the cost when I built out the workspace. If I'm uh using the space for shoots, events, and so on and so forth, that's extra money coming into the kitty, right? Which nobody has accounted for. My CFO suddenly is very happy, but I don't think more marketeers are thinking like this. And then uh, you know, the the relationship changes. Why does a CMO and CFO always have to be at bull's heads uh on this one? I think I and my CFO get along brilliantly because they are strategic conversations saying I need to spend this to get this. By the way, do you also know that I'm getting in this monetization piece in? It's it's a fantastic conversation, but I think it's it's uh it's so polarized uh in the market saying CMOs and CFOs have to always fight. But uh, I think it's about again defining the playbook and understanding who your key stakeholders in the room are.

SPEAKER_01 10:05

So uh looking at the point that you've been talking about, which is the PL. Yeah, typically brands and brand building is seen as a long-term investment.

SPEAKER_03 10:15

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

But PL is seen as a short-term uh, you know, quarter-to-quarter kind of a focus. So, how do you really balance it? Because it's a tough ask because you'll say, Hey, uh, to build a brand, I need a couple of million dollars over the next you know five years, and you know, you really uh have to put in a lot of money, but you don't get the results immediately, and therefore it sits in the PL as an opex. Yeah so, therefore, when you say you need a PL orientation, uh, what's your conversation like with the CFO on matters like this? Monetization I understand, uh, but uh on you know, I would say qualitative factors, uh, how do you really have the dialogue with your CFO?

SPEAKER_03 10:59

No, I think uh this is where the loggerhead conversation really comes in. And uh I'll talk one part where it's been a blessing that I've been in companies who understand uh the long-term value of investing in brands, whether it was Unilever or VWork, and now Table Space, uh, without a leadership understanding of you know why investment in long-term activities is important, as a function, marketing fails in most organizations. Sometimes you get it as an inherited piece where there's always uh appreciation, and therefore you just take the paid patent and you run. But in um those situations where that understanding is not there, it is it is a big job of the CMOs to educate. And and trust me, you have leaders in the room, have done it uh in organizations and functions and categories that I don't want to detail here. But education is the key, results is the key. So if you're able to demonstrate over long term how this really matters, and now thankfully there's enough research. Byron Sharp has done phenomenal research in this space that beyond a point, if you keep investing in short term, you are not impacting the top funnel. And you will be surprised how many CMOs already know this, and how many CFOs already know this, they just want their CMO counterparts to know this and be able to bring it to the table. Uh, trust me, I think a lot of marketers just assume that the audience in the room will not understand. Uh, it is it is a test for the CMO to land that long-term narrative really well. Once done, I think the audience is smart enough to get it. And and honestly, my experience says that they already know it. They just want uh to get the confidence from the marketeer who is taking on that money, and it is it is a responsibility sitting on their shoulder.

SPEAKER_01 12:36

The other thing that you have done is you have moved industries, right? So you moved from Kevin Care to Unilever to uh you know we work to Table Space Now. So, what's this one disorienting insight uh that your MBA did not prepare you for?

SPEAKER_03 12:53

I don't know how to make it one because there are so many. Uh I I think MBA and any formal education gives you platform frameworks and I think a sense of comfort saying I know some things, but um I think the the biggest thing that hits you once you step out is you have to be really open to learning. One thing that you have to be very clear of is what you've got from college or all the years of education does not prepare you for anything that will hit you at the workspace because every day is a challenge, every day is a new learning, and you're constantly learning. Nobody teaches you for the uh real life decision making that you have to do, maybe sometimes right now, saying, Tell me what to do. And I think that nobody prepares you for, and that's a huge sense of responsibility for the longest time. I think till you're in college and till your first job, a lot of your decisions are taken by people around you. Uh, you are mostly executing them, and maybe you're party to the decision making. But once you're out, that entire piece can be sometimes the most scary for a lot of people, and especially if you're growing really fast, that's one thing that you have to be uh very comfortable in your skin with and be okay with. Good, bad, ugly, I I've taken a call and I'll take full accountability. Nobody prepares you for that.

SPEAKER_01 14:16

So you've been in Unilever, and uh it's almost like Unilever actually you know teaches you the masterclass for uh brand building. So if I were to ask you what is this one uh brand building uh culture that uh none of the case studies or documents uh that you see online that you see in conversations that you believe uh that you picked up, and can you share some uh learnings around that which you believe uh you picked up?

SPEAKER_03 14:48

So for Unilever, I think uh you cannot you can leave Unilever, but you cannot leave Unilever or the Unilever in you ever. It it sort of solidifies all things marketing. I will talk about a concept. Uh I think the slight difference is it is available a lot as content, but nobody tells you how to do it, and I think Unilever does that really well. So everybody talks of consumer love, consumer obsession, and the fact that everything starts with the consumer. There are several uh researchers, several brands who talk about how they obsess over it. But what I learned at Unilever is how, and uh really how do you go about that entire love and affection? So, and then this happened, you know, more by seeing. So, our uh CEO Natin Paranjpe, and I was one of the lucky ones who worked during his tent, he was visiting one of the markets, you know, and he did a lot of these surprise visits. And uh he just walked into uh a shop and started having a conversation about the brand, about how the placements are, who picks up what. He called up the CMI head and said, I want to do some two or three consumer visits while I'm here. And uh, you know, as a very young marketeer at that time, uh, to see the CEO himself, you know, put in that kind of effort, spend some time, listen to stories, the same kind of story over and over again, with so much uh curiosity, genuine curiosity to know you know what happens in my consumer's life who's using a 10 rupee detergent bar. That level of obsession brings insights to life. And I think uh that was a that was a big thing saying at no level, no matter whether you are the CEO or the management trainee of a multi-billion dollar company, when you're with the consumer, he's here, right? He's at the pedestal, and we are here to learn humbly uh from you. And I think that uh is something that I learned, which is very, very precious to me at Unilever. We've seen, as in during my stints, I've seen you know, leadership stand, including myself, watch consumers clean their toilets, understand how it works, uh, clean the homes of consumers to understand how it really works, why is it so difficult, you know, why the 10 rupee soap bar has to do two buckets of clothes at least to ensure that she sees value, not the value that I see in my eyes. So when they say that, you know, companies who operate out of these uh castles, I don't think that's true for Unilever because time and again we are forced and pushed to go live our consumer's life to be able to bring those insights back. That's why they're able to do phenomenal marketing. That playbook uh cannot be taught because you can tell people go do these 500 hours of consumer, etc. But how and you know the eagerness with which you go, that experience stays with you forever. The linked part to this, and I think I'll just end with that, is when you are in rooms, you also become that voice of the consumer. So you bring that learning, you share that learning in rooms, and always share your point of view extremely strongly when there are conversations on cost reductions, formulation changes, and those pressures will keep coming to an organization given the VUCA environment that we are in. But you are the voice of the consumer, and that company gives you the freedom to say it won't work, or do this and only then it will work, or push for the research and the blind test. You are the voice of the consumer, and it is your job to ensure that you put that point of view across so that every decision that the company makes, the finance team, the supply chain teams are doing their jobs. You have to do yours as a marketeer and stick through to that job. That I carry even today, and I think it's become more relevant in a B2B environment where my consumer is sitting right across the table.

SPEAKER_01 18:27

So I have two related questions. I have no doubt the fact that consumer insight uh is probably something that uh Unilever uh has taught has taught many of us, right? It's taught many of us. Uh the challenge that I see is uh sometimes Unilever has been a Lagarde in innovation. Uh it's been a Lagarde in uh you know insights to action. So where do you think uh the challenge of uh the curiosity moving from an insight to an action to an innovation? Where is the breakdown and where does it decouple in your view?

SPEAKER_03 19:11

So it's interesting, right? So while we might call it a Legarde, um I think it is it is the style of operation of an extremely large mothership of sorts. And I think uh we've discussed this in multiple forums. It's not like that Unilever does not know or a PNG does not know that they are these large ships and sometimes they might miss on opportunities because of the sheer process and the sheer rigor they put into every decision that they make. I think the startup culture, and and it is still very new, we're calling them laggards today because we are seeing some companies do it much faster at scale. These companies are willing to take higher risks, maybe uh higher risk of appetite for failure as well, because the damage is only so much as they start. Every decision that goes wrong for a Unilever not just costs them millions, but also impacts their brand at that scale. So maybe for a company like that, uh, that risk-taking appetite the way it is, maybe it's good, maybe it's bad, I don't know. But I know that if something goes wrong there at that scale, uh, and we've lived through some of those decisions. I have seen some big failures because you know we were pushed to the corner saying we have to go fast because market's going fast, and and and those repercussions are not good for a brand like Unilever. And and they have to operate at that might and scale. So it's okay, which is why I think they're right now in the strategy of let's pick uh brands that have really done well and they fit into our strategy, which is why they're acquiring brands which fit into their strategy. They're letting go of brands which they feel right now are pulling them or slowing them down. I think that also works. As long as they're able to stay relevant, it works. But I fully understand and appreciate where you're coming from in the term, in the sense that they are a slow company, but uh you you've lived through that life yourself. The amount of research that goes in gives consumers a lot of confidence when a product comes from that house saying, you know, it is well researched, uh, it is well thought through, it is it is a good product, and so on and so forth. And and you're not so scared. And I think that's important when you're operating at that scale for a brand like Unilever. I'm I'm okay with them being a little slow as long as they continue doing a really good job and staying relevant versus being rash. I think I don't think they can afford to be rash at that scale. Very, very risky.

SPEAKER_01 21:22

Interesting. I think very good points there. Uh what made you switch from FMCG to say uh we work or a table space? Because that's not that's unlike any marketer, right? So, what did you have to learn and uh unlearn and relearn when you did this transition?

SPEAKER_03 21:44

You have no idea how many people have asked me this, Swami saying from Iktowan, you move from FMCG, which is every marketer's dream, to real estate, which not a lot of marketeers go to, and that too from Unilever, which is like this large mothership to a company like VWork, at a time when there Was COVID when people thought Flex is gonna die. I I don't know. It's it's like I said, I I'm running my own playbook. I go on gut a lot as a marketer. So while data is really important, when I decided to move from Unilever, the the reason was around wanting to do different things, adding more to the layer uh of my playbook, saying I I know FMCG really well, I know B2C really well, I've done global, and I think I know certain aspects of marketing really well. I was very interested in uh a pure play PL ownership role. Uh I was very keen on that, and I wanted to add more layers beyond digital marketing and the four Ps of marketing. And when VWork came as an opportunity, it just opened up all of these layers which suddenly looked extremely exciting to me, saying, you know, here is what I get to build. At Unilever, I was working on brands that have been carefully built and nurtured by several marketeers before me. With VWork, I had a chance to, you know, plant my own little plant and then see it grow and hand it over to the next marketeer, which does not come a lot of times. And I think I was ready for that. The GSK role also sort of helped me take that decision because after that, everything seemed small. It was such a large role, it had so much um freedom, it had so much decision-making power that I think whatever Unilever would have given me next wouldn't have satiated my appetite for risk. So, therefore, I think I took the plunge. It was a it was a big risk, but I think one of the best decisions I've taken in my life from a career point of view because uh I I love the space right now. I think I'm loving the fact that I'm building and I've realized that this is the area that I enjoy most. So I'm great at nourishing and maintaining brands, but what I love uh phenomenally is is building, and and this is this is a space that I think I'll continue to be in for a while.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

So, what does it take to build a category like what you're doing now, and what did it take differently to build a category like a uh you know well-oiled FMCG brand? So, what are the rule books that you think you are unlearning or relearning?

SPEAKER_03 24:14

So you've answered it uh in your question, Swami. So I think when I had a brand which was already working, I had to really just follow a very, very well done playbook and ensure that whatever I'm adding, you know, kept adding to an already really good playbook. I had to maintain some things because also I'm not a believer that you have to always rewrite the playbook as a marketeer, especially when things are going really well. But you have to keep adding to it to ensure it does really well, which is what I did through those tense. And when I came to a build role, uh I had to create playbooks, and I think that is a very, very big difference. Suddenly, everything that I had learned was in a lot of ways not relevant, right? Because I was used to having processes, I was used to having playbooks. Imagine walking into a system where you know there is no email marketing tool, there is no uh CRM, broken tools, and suddenly you're figuring saying, I want to, I you know, you have these 1500 ideas saying, you know, we should do email marketing, we should do digital marketing. You realize your GA4 is not set up, and people are asking, what is GA4? So I think uh my big learning on build is to not get too excited about the fact that I have a marketing plan and this is how I'm gonna build. It is about just taking a pause and understanding, taking stock of what you've really signed up for and and and laying the foundation really well. And I think across VWork and Table Space, what I've really done is that so year one, one and a half, eighteen months is about strong foundation building, and then you take off because by then you've got the house in order, you've got the basics in place. On some of the brands that I've worked, uh, there were no logo files, there were no brand playbooks, and therefore, as a mareteer, a lot of times what you get for granted in large organizations, you are starting from scratch, and they are so important, and they also help you build that uh you know strength as a function in these companies, saying, My god, uh this is this is what this function really does, and takes you from zero to hundred really quickly, and from there, then there's no looking back because then you've got your playbook set and and the entire companies and working with you together to scale the function further.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

So, how was it uh you know to build the foundation? Because uh, when you come from an established uh you know marketing company, uh uh you know, a brand book or a brand key or uh you know stuff like that, you kind of access and you get it.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

Correct.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

And suddenly here you have to build it, and a lot more real thinking has to go into it. Yeah, and uh you really also don't have the same kind of talent around you, yeah. Right? So, so what are the frustrations and the joys you went through?

SPEAKER_03 27:01

I I think it was very frustrating initially saying, My god, how can we be operating uh for all of these years without some of these things? Um, but that phase passes very quickly, Swami, because you realize that uh I don't have this, but I need this really quickly. And you know what? As a woman who runs her home, it's like I've got guests coming at home, I don't have XYZ ingredients, but what is the next step? So I've I've gone through the frustration really quickly because I'm expecting people home, and uh it is it is exactly that. So the frustration passes really quickly, and then you get into a very hyper build mode. And I think I thrive in hyper build modes where I then have my own checklist saying here are the 15 things that we need to attack. And you're right on talent. Uh, a lot of places where I started, I didn't have teams to build aspects of the brand that you know needed building. I mean, if those teams were there, I'm assuming those aspects would have been built already, and therefore, I really believe that marketing as a function that way is quite blessed because you can get a partner of any sorts on a on a 24-hour notice if you really want it. And after being in the industry for so long, having worked with brands, um, especially with the Unilever portfolio, I have a very, very strong partner ecosystem, and I've always worked with them as extended teams, and and they really come to your rescue. So the idea is you should know what to fix, and then from there on, you're already sort of on the fixing screen. But identifying that is very important, which is why, to my point, or when you enter a setup where you know, don't start saying here is what I'm going to do from a building-the-brand point of view. You have to figure out whether you have the right tools and the right ecosystem, the right foundation, fix that and then plan. You already know. I mean, as a marketer, you already know what you need to do. It's the standard stuff that you do, but it'll not work till you have the house in order. And then I think with teams, without teams, once that's identified, you can plug-play solutions and take it live.

SPEAKER_01 29:00

So, did you uh you know, did you find it difficult because what you thought was taken for granted? Uh uh, you know, you would actually access it on a central drive and you'll get it. But in the case of say the VWorks and the table space, uh you have to go build it, right? So when you're going and building it, suddenly you realize, hey, I didn't know this. Uh, you know, hey, uh, is this so difficult to do? Because what you thought was like a uh, you know, a couple of days' work suddenly is like a fortnightly work, right?

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 29:33

So did you go through that? Because uh, you know, as an entrepreneur and a startup guy, I went through that because uh I found that uh you know I work in a multinational and I realized that oh, it is so easy to get it overnight. Uh here uh suddenly I realized that I didn't know many things and I had to uh you know be vulnerable to my own team. Did you go through the process?

SPEAKER_03 29:56

So some pieces were actually very surprising so uh and very frustrating, honestly, which is the entire Martech piece. Uh, as a marketeer, you know how to use these tools, but you might not know how to set them up and the complexity required to set them up. And uh across now two organizations, I have sort of set that process, and you know, I really had no idea on timelines on this, and and it impacts a lot of your planning, right? Because you go ahead and commit to the board saying, you know, here is something that I want to do, it's possible in three months, and and it's already six months, and you're still in some processes which you don't know why it's taking that long because honestly, some of these pieces are not your direct control pieces, saying, you know, I get these three people and these two partners, and it's done. The dependencies on multiple functions take a toll, and they were operating perfectly fine without you. You come in, you say here are the five things that I want they're like, and it's not core priority for you. So I think that can be really frustrating. But what I've learned now, given this is the second space, I'm doing it, is you you lobby for it right in the beginning. So it is important that you don't say that you know, here is what I'm going to do, but you take the entire leadership team through your plan, get their sign-ins, and then everybody's aligned saying here are the five things that are hitting three other functions where support will be needed, and that is very important. A lot of times, I think this whole piece around I did it, I won't uh is a huge problem which leads to failure. I am okay if I don't win. As long as the brand wins and the company wins, I'm in a very great space because I mean at a certain level the I doesn't really matter, but I've seen that a lot of failure happens because of the I. And at leadership level, that lobbying, that that landing the information, getting the support is extremely important. Otherwise, no matter what your intent, how deep your pockets, you will fail. And I've I've seen a couple failures happen very, very early on when I was trying to build functions, and I've I've taken big lessons uh from those.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Interesting, brilliant. I think uh very lovely insights and uh some of the points that you said, you know, you don't necessarily need to win, the eye has to be taken away, especially if you're working in marketing. Um what I found one client said was the function that has to be most open uh in my company is the most closed. That's what the CEO said. Okay. So so I think uh for me it was a bit of a shocking moment because he said uh that's really what uh the CEO said. Okay, so so I really love what you said.

SPEAKER_00 32:33

ContraMinds is a podcast dedicated to decoding people, minds, strategy, and culture. We interview and learn from high performers so that you can apply these lessons on your journey to becoming the knowledge worker athlete you were meant to be. The Contraminds podcast is available on all leading podcast players, and if you are interested in revisiting past episodes or taking a look at our show notes from this episode, please visit us at www.contraminds.com. And now back to the show.

SPEAKER_01 33:06

Uh I want to uh you know uh talk a little bit about your uh Unilever GSK integration where you said you played a PMO role, and uh so what did that experience compress in terms of leadership, learning in the few years that you kind of did it? So, what did it take and what did you learn uh that made you think about the new playbook for the CMO and the mental model that you run with today?

SPEAKER_03 33:37

The biggest thing, Swami, and you know, every role has its own thing. Unilever, for all its amazing uh pieces, is also an extremely hierarchical organization, right? I mean, the grades matter, the designations matter, and and and and rightfully so, some of the senior leaders come with a lot of experience. And this particular role, um, I think just broke all of that for me. So, a lot of kudos in my head to Unilever to trust a young resource with something like this. I was what 8, 10 years into experience, and this was a very large role across international markets, one of the most covered pieces on media for Unilever because it was one of the largest integrations uh in the FMCG space. And my initial pieces where I knew you're figuring it out, right? I mean, one of the one of the bigger roles where I was figuring out figuring it out every day saying, Karnakya, like what do I need to do? I don't know supply chain, I don't understand so much about finance. Legal is beyond my understanding. My only conversation with legal so far was please approve the text on packaging, is the lemon size okay on the detergent bar pack, etc. But the complexities of an MA across countries, cultural nuances, and plus it was a food product, so you can imagine the kind of complexities and regulatory requirements across countries, and um I'm just thrown into it, right? And and lots of trust from the organization, which also puts a lot of pressure on you saying I cannot afford to fail because you know I've been handed over this responsibility. And after the first couple calls, when things were not moving, I had this chat with my then boss saying, you know, I mean, you're you're putting me in rooms with CEOs, etc. We're discussing pieces around whether we should continue the brand, not continue the brand. What do you want me to do? Take notes, come back to you? He's like, take decisions. I was like, How can I take decisions? I mean, you know, I mean, it doesn't make sense. At that time, it just seemed like, you know, you're joking, right? I mean, I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do in these rooms. Uh, and he's like, Nigga, your grade is at unilever. That is an internal conversation. From the point of view of the project, you are the project lead and you are running the calls, you are running the shots. So you will be working with the various teams, you will come back with plans and share whether we continue, say, chocolate hotlicks in Africa or or launch a separate product in South Africa. You have to discuss, understand, and come back. So you will have to stop thinking designations or grades, and but think about the role that you've put into and come back and share that uh with the teams. And suddenly um it it just it it was like a switch that clicked in the mind saying often a lot of times our capabilities are limited by us. I don't know if you've seen that, and you know, this Instagram doom scrolling sometimes gives you some very interesting concepts. So I saw this video of this and you know, on a piece of paper, and you keep drawing lines and it keeps going smaller and smaller because it thinks those lines are real fences for it. Grades and designations a lot of times are in our mind. Uh, it is what you do with the role that's given to you, irrespective of the level. Nobody's stopping you to go above and beyond. And you know, I keep having that conversation with my teams, especially the younger ones, saying you don't have to stick to those guidelines, right? Who's stopping you to come up with an idea or a project or a plan? You're starting at a certain grade in an organization does not limit your thinking or capability. That role really taught me that, and that one conversation, you know, opened up everything in my mind, and I did not look back. So through COVID, we handled that, and I think it was the international uh uh the entire international merger was a phenomenal success uh for the company, and and it was that one conversation. So, one I got phenomenal trust from a company like Unilever, which you know, by the way, is a slow company, process-driven company, and then they do things like this, saying, you know, a young resource can handle this, and uh they show such trust in their resources. And second, uh, it's not just trust on paper, they empower you to sort of say, you know, go ahead. You fall, you fail, we are there. Try not to fall and fail. But if you fall or fail, we are right here, and I think uh that has been uh a phenomenal piece for me. I don't think a lot of people get the opportunity and the right bosses, and I think I've been blessed, and that's very important. So, in marketing, also being at the right place at the right time is very important, and I think I've been lucky that way.

SPEAKER_01 37:57

Very interesting. So, when your boss said take decisions, yeah, uh, so how did you go about it? Because you may not know a market, you know, you may not know a category, you may not know a consumer need, yeah, uh, you may not know the competitive uh you know uh uh forces uh in these categories. So, how did you go about taking those decisions?

SPEAKER_03 38:23

I think that's where the marketeer piece comes in. So once you're pushed to a corner, Swami, I mean I was I was somebody who had handle brands, so I've built uh a beverage category at Cavin Care, I've launched uh categories for Cavin Care, I've built RIN, scaled RIN, I've worked on Purifies, which is one of the most difficult categories in India. So it's not like I didn't know how to do it, it was just about uh a limitation in my mind on I can't do it. I'm supposed to be doing PMO, but uh launching into markets, expansion, or killing categories is my core forte. I'm a marketer. So I think even the company is smart, right? They they hire for skill and they hand roles basis skill. And this role, while it required a large part PMO, had a very, very strong marketing requirement in terms of what do we do with portfolios across markets. And and the playbook was very simple, right? I mean, once I knew I had to take decisions, then my PMO narrative shifted from just uh project management and timelines to sitting and spending time with the marketeers on the other side of the table and taking their view because they understand, like I said, it's not about me, right? They know their brand best. So it was it, I was a sponge, I was absorbing what works, what does not work. Talk to the sales teams. I spoke to multiple people who influence and live the brand on a day-to-day basis, and then we came up with our plans, our recommendations as Unilever, who's the most structured organizations. We layered our strengths, saying, you know, if I have to kill something in a market where it is not working, it's not working because of, say, distribution. Unilever's largest strength is distribution. So we technically don't have to kill it. The moment Unilever takes it over, the distribution takes over and the brand can still work. So it's about figuring out uh what was working, what was not working, layering our strengths and weaknesses, and then submitting my decision or my plan to the board uh on this side. And then, anyway, it was something that was close at an overall level. But then the direction was very important, saying I know exactly what I need to do, and this I know how to do. So it was about giving that power to the person, saying, come back with your plan, and then that also puts a lot of pressure. So a lot of research went into all of this before the plans could be submitted to the category leads on this side.

SPEAKER_01 40:36

Interesting. Uh, you call yourself a growth architect, and uh literally one thing that uh I picked up was if you're a growth architect, the way you touch a brief, the way you handle a budget, yeah, must be very different if you really have to architect growth. So, how do you really approach it?

SPEAKER_03 41:00

So, I think one of the things that works when you say you're a growth architect and and we bring the word brief to it. So, my briefs are very unconventional, right? Uh, a lot of and let me take an example. So, a lot of agencies have very standard brief templates saying, you know, tell me what you want to achieve, which category, uh, is it a short-term thing, long-term thing? I mean, it's it's like the standard stuff that you fill in and share. Now, all of that is basis a current understanding, a current requirement that you're really looking for. A lot of times the impact pieces that we're looking for don't come from uh these briefs because if I had it all stitched up in my head, I would get the ideas and I would just go say execute. A lot of my briefs are open briefs, saying, you know, here are three or four large challenges that we are seeing as a brand, or here are three or four large areas that we're seeing globally as growth, but we are not seeing it for ourselves, or trends that I'm seeing, but you know, we're not doing much about it, and and push the challenge to teams and agencies, and then the ideas that they come back with. So it is about boxing them and saying, Is my ideas lay out? Or you give them a problem statement and trust them to come with solutions. A lot of times we think we know all the answers and we want a plan around a solution or a plan that we've already thought of. We want execution folks. I want my partners to also think, you know, because I think that's the difficult part. Execution beyond a point between multiple agencies, they'll figure it out, and one will do slightly better than the other. But thinking is what gets the needle moving. And some of the best ideas for me have come when I have issued briefs like this saying, here is a problem that I'm facing, or here is an opportunity which I think I'm not tapping. Come back and tell me how do we uh you know open up this entire space for us. And I think that's where uh I think I call myself a growth architect because it's not about tying and expecting people to work in a certain way, but getting them to work with us. And I'll tell you what, these briefs the agencies take very seriously because they love to think, they're not allowed to think enough. So, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:06

So, uh a related question that I have is uh how are agencies prepared for this change? Because the agencies that I have seen to the agencies that are there today, uh they are so verticalized. Uh, you know, uh, pretty much the CMO, in my opinion, is almost like the zoom in meta, right? You have to orchestrate everything because they don't know what they are doing with each other, right? So uh so therefore, uh the agencies of today uh you know uh the right partners in your thinking, and what do you think the agencies need to do to really be relevant for the now and for the future?

SPEAKER_03 43:52

So, Swami, I think I'm I'm sort of gonna contradict my entire point of view earlier on the whole laggard versus quick piece. So, right now Given I'm in a very startup space, I don't think the traditional agencies, and which is why we're seeing stories of agencies shutting down, exactly for your reason, they've not figured a way to grow and evolve to this startup thinking. I still believe while we are a very large, upwards of 3,000 crore company today, we still work like a startup. High hustle. And we we don't have the liberties of a Unilever, for example. We we're not that large yet. And therefore, everybody in this space, the category is about 10, 12 years old, and therefore we need hustlers. I work with very young agencies. Agencies who are extremely hungry, agencies who want to be treated like uh extended marketing functions and who want to do a lot of very interesting creative work, whether it is AI, whether it is you know creating IPs, whether it is creating absolutely new stuff in the market, which is award-winning, is extremely exciting to this band. So I work with young hustler agencies, and trust me, the kind of work that they pull out is phenomenal. They just need uh confidence from the brand side saying, you know, we're listening to their ideas, willingness to spend, willingness to experiment, and and they're able to uh do a phenomenal job. I have tried briefs with the much larger agencies, especially on the creative side. I think on the media we're good because you know that that that playbook works at scale. But for creative, I have struggled with the larger agencies, and I think uh it is it is best to work with smaller. I've tried, and uh I think from an agency point of view, what they need to do is really learn from some of the younger agencies and not just be paranoid about uh them because they're doing some jolly good work. Most of the awards today are also being won by some of these younger agencies who are doing such good work in the IP creation space, virality, social content, they understand the consumer of today and are able to work accordingly. So I think I think that's what's working for us. I don't work with large agencies on the creative thinking uh aspect at least.

SPEAKER_01 45:59

So, one of the challenges that I see with the agency, and somebody who is experienced as you on the marketing side, yeah, the typical remuneration model does not work, right? We are it's a cost plus model, and IPs are not paid for by clients. So you actually have a valuation model, okay, and you basically go out and become a billion-dollar unicorn, right? And uh, and I'm not saying you, but I'm saying a lot of startups, yeah. Uh, the agencies uh have not learned the art of valuation, right? Of their ideas. Uh, so have you kind of worked on a different uh business model or a remuneration or a uh you know revenue model with the agency so that you build unicorn agencies?

SPEAKER_03 46:49

So to be honest, not surely, but I have um worked with an agency partner who's working exactly on the thinking that you just mentioned, and I think their agency stands out because of that. They actually go out and say no to clients that they don't want to work with. And I am seeing three, four agencies pick this up, and and that's the future, really. I don't want to name any because you know everybody's got their own commercial model going. But uh, as a marketer, I think it's phenomenal. At the end of the day, especially with AI and to all the conversation on AI, everything will become the same. What you are saying, what I am saying, or any other marketer, because everybody is using these tools. So, what will stand out is creative thinking. You know, I keep telling people who talk about AI so much, saying we keep talking about marketing as art and science. And I remember my time at Unilever where the science part of it was really valued, saying, How much can you do quant research? How much can you do data? The art was there, it was it was assumed that it is there, and and you know, that's the that's you need to have that to be a marketeer. But the science was really upped. Now the science is becoming the common piece because all the AI tools are doing that for you. The creativity has never been more important because that's what I don't think an AI tool can do today. So agencies need to understand this entire piece because honestly, they are the creative brains that work with most functions and and figure out monetization accordingly and work with clients. Somebody being on the other side as a decision maker and the one holding budgets, I'm open to a conversation, especially if I'm getting something which is completely breakthrough. And and I can work on that same thing with the kind of agency uh commitment. Also, the whole IP model brings in commitment from both sides. It's not somebody who's just taking retainer or a cost plus approach. It's like a labor job, right? Where I'm paying for the R's. It doesn't matter beyond a point. But here I'm paying on a project where there's ownership and suddenly it works really well for both you and uh the agency. So I think uh there's a lot of meat there. Am I trying it? No. But um the smarter agencies who know they have the talent, they are already doing this, and and and God bless, I hope we see more of these.

SPEAKER_01 48:59

Uh as a CMO, one of the big uh you know uh difference that I saw in your uh body of work, if I were to call it, is you write a lot, uh you are uh you know influential LinkedIn voice, you've written a book. Uh so what is one thing, if I were to call it, uh which you wrote, which resonated with uh you know practitioners, which even surprised you saying, hey, I didn't think this will kind of resonate uh with uh my audience and uh you know with my uh I would say uh you know fellow practitioners. So anything that caught your uh caught you by surprise?

SPEAKER_03 49:44

So I'll tell you what, uh I've not written a lot about it, but it is sort of the foundation of my book, but I've not articulated in in such a way. You know, when I was a child, let me child meaning maybe I was in early college. One of the visuals that caught my eye during I think maybe I think it was Women's Day, where you know, you see this beautiful format of the woman, like the Indian goddess with multiple hands, one holding the laptop, one feeding the child, one cooking. That visual um got me very annoyed. You know, I think it it still irks me when people use that visual. And uh, I've spoken about it in forums and I've spoken about it in uh my book in some form. I mean, it's it's the basis for this entire thing. Saying this whole multitasking thing, whether it is woman or man, I mean, today even men are doing this uh where you know they are single parenting or whatever, is such a false uh depiction of anybody because you are putting this societal pressure on somebody to be handling it all, you know, this whole juggling the balls and never being able to drop it. Only the Joker can do it because he's practiced that over the years, try doing it, it's not possible. So, why are we expecting somebody to be able to do all of this perfectly and not fall? You know, the cases of depression or the cases of you know anxiety, postpartum, all of that happens because there is so much pressure, and and it links back to the four-burner theory as well. So there's a scientific explanation of that as well, saying you will have to, and when you see the stuff, all flames don't run equally. So if you want one to burn really high, you have to compromise or slow down the other so that that one flame burns. So if you want to commit those extra hours at work, you are missing the time to maybe read that story to your child because the child is slept by the time you come back home. And you should be okay with that because you took the call to stay those two hours at work. And I think that education, especially as a leader, to your teams, to your partners, to people around you, your family, is extremely important. I think when educated well, it resonates, which is why I wrote the book. She asked for it, saying you have to ask. Don't assume that people around you will understand why you can't balance everything because everybody has been taught that you can balance it. And uh the book is just about that. And it's resonated very well with people who've read. They appreciate the fact that you know you have to ask for help, you have to tell people that you know what, I am going to be late, pick up my son, uh, and build that ecosystem uh around you so that people understand what you do. So, my children, for example, you know, they're they're seven and twelve. I have a son and a daughter, and when I'm in meetings or when I'm taking calls, they understand and they know that mama works really hard. And that's important to educate them, right? So they appreciate what I do, they appreciate I work and they don't take it for granted. I've seen families where, you know, where the fathers come back from work, the children are like, Dad's tired. Mum, can I get a glass of milk? No, I think it has to be fair, it has to be equitable, and and that happens at home. You have to educate your children at home because otherwise you're setting the same precedence around uh you know expectation from family. That that concept now has shaped my life significantly. And I think I have been successful uh because you know, my spouse understands, my family understands, and and that's because I've asked for it. If I don't, then I can't blame them saying I don't have a supportive husband, I don't have a supportive family. You never asked for support. So whether it is for uh support at home or your preferred job at work, you have to ask because even the role that you spoke of, the GSK role, I had to ask for it. I was not the preferred candidate, I was somebody who came back from Mat Leave. Uh, and this job required a lot of travel, it was a global job, it had really bad working hours, uh, and therefore I was not. So HR clearly said, Nika, this is not the role where you know we would recommend you. They were coming from the right space in their hearts, saying, You're a new mother. They are right in their piece. I wanted this, I wanted my career to fly because this particular role was a once-in-a-lifetime role, and then I was willing to make that sacrifice, but I had aligned everybody at home saying, I want to do this, I will need the support. So at every given point in time, you have to, whether man, whether woman, depending upon where you are in your life stage, ask, balance. There's nothing as such as perfect balance. You can try at best, and that's where you're happy, which is why I love what I do, right? I'm able to bring my 100% because I don't carry guilt. I love building, I love my work, I love building the brand, I love uh growing my children. It's it's it's everywhere, but I know at some times I will falter, but that's okay with me. I'm not perfect, I'm not expected to be perfect. So I think that's one piece that has shaped my life. It resonates very well when explained well to people, and then suddenly it's not a conversation about bias and women and inclusion. No, it's not about that, it's just about letting people know what is possible, what is not possible, because then you're able to bring your 100% without guilt, and therefore you're so much more productive.

SPEAKER_01 54:49

So, yeah, I can keep talking about it. You know, it's beautiful, it's beautiful. I think uh uh so you're really not talking about uh the mythical work-life balance to actually saying, hey, it's about work-life integration.

SPEAKER_02 55:02

Yes, yes, right?

SPEAKER_01 55:03

So, therefore, that's something something that you talk about. Very nice. I'm gonna ask you uh from whatever I hear and whatever I heard and whatever I see, uh, there are people, mentors, sparring partners, adversaries could have shaped what you are today. And uh, what did you learn from them? And can you share uh you know what was the interesting moments that made you stop, made you reflect, and you continue to actually uh apply many of their principles even today, or maybe you've uh you know added a lot of learnings on top of them?

SPEAKER_03 55:47

Swami is such a beautiful question, and uh, you know, I can't emphasize the importance of mentors, coaches enough in your life, especially as a woman leader, because you know what? I think we don't spend enough time in building the right networks, the right mentors, coaches. I I think men do it a lot better, and there's a lot to learn from them on how they do this over casual conversations, they take advice really well. I don't think women do enough. Uh, I I have been lucky. I think at every stage of my life I've had somebody who's always been a bouncing board, and one of the things that I've learned is none of them ever told me what to do. Uh, and that's brilliant, and I carry that with me till today. They they spoke to me, they heard me, I think heard me more than they spoke to me, and and laid out options and directions. And the decision always was left to me. That's very powerful. Uh, we all love to advise, we all love to tell uh what to do. But I think some of the most amazing coaches, mentors that have encountered, uh they just they just listen to you and uh basis their experience, share what all is possible and and leave it to you to say now you know what is best. And and that that's been very powerful for me. And I think important that you stay in touch with people, at least the ones that you know will listen to you unbiased, will not judge you. And you need to have different kinds of people. Uh, that's also very important. So there are people that I reach out to uh for career advice, for uh, you know, how do I manage my teams or when I am stuck with a difficult decision at work, you know, and and and you are put in some difficult spots, you might have to let go of somebody that you might not agree to. And there are there are complicated pieces, you've you've you've been through all of that, I'm sure, and therefore you need somebody who can just listen to you and and you know play part in what you should technically do, and you also need uh a very strong personal uh support system where you can reach out when you're feeling overwhelmed at work or at home, because you know, a lot of times, and and this has been my experience, and I've seen enough people go through depression cycles, anxiety cycles, it's more common now than ever. And I think a lot of time it's because people don't have the right ecosystem where they can have open conversations, get guided. Uh, and if if you don't have that, have a have a medical practitioner work with you, it doesn't matter, but have that safe space to have conversations which are troubling you uh because today it's very competitive. I mean, my my seven-year-old son and my 12-year-old daughter are sometimes discussing what we'll do in the future. I'm like, my god, you guys are so young, and they worry about things like this because some of their friends have already got things figured. But that's the environment that we are living in, and I think most organizations, leaders have to sort of guide you know their their teams, their peers to sort of have these two ecosystems at place where they can have both kinds of conversations and be guided. Um, and and don't live in your own silo. I know work is important, success is important, it's very important to me, but at the same time, taking care of yourself, uh, your personal happiness is extremely important. Otherwise, um you can run only this fast, even in marathons, you you are successful when you're able to do the longer run at a certain place. The the quick run will not do much for you. But a lot of people don't understand, they don't get the guidance. So, through my learnings, through the mentorship that I have got, I just try to pass this piece on to more people.

SPEAKER_01 59:18

Any names that come up to you saying, hey, this is somebody that I I really think changed something. You use a you used Nitin Paranchpe's name, which I think uh he's a phenomenal guy. Yeah, uh, you know, and obviously he's very, very senior, and you know, ones whom you work closely with, some names you think and I don't want you to you know say it if you are not comfortable, but somebody who you think you learned the art of negotiation, the art of uh asking questions, the art of uh you know brand building. Okay, so some names that come to you, uh, the art of distribution.

SPEAKER_03 59:58

I've been actually uh quite open about it. So the the now CEO of Unilever uh Priya Naya is somebody that I've worked with directly. Uh, she was a category head when I was uh on RIN and one of the first woman leaders that I worked with, and she is uh a force to reckon with. And I think in a lot of ways, she has shaped my um thinking on leadership, thinking on how to sort of present your POV in rooms where your POV matters the most. She's also shaped a large part of me being an extremely confident leader in rooms because when you see her leadership style, and and I had a chance to work with her for three and a half full years very, very closely, and uh I have all love and respect for her. She she comes down to your personal level and puts in the effort to understand and shape you. One of the first ones who told me that a lot of people, Nika, will you know tell you that here are your areas of weakness, fix them. And she told me that, you know, here are your areas of strength, become so good at it that you know nobody else can, you know, tell you that here are weaknesses that you need to manage your weaknesses, they should not come in your way. But you know, become so strong at what you do that you are the person that people call on to when that happens, and that becomes your differentiator. And I think that's shaped everything that I've done from there on, really. And which is why the growth architect, which is why the non-traditional CMO. I think some of those things which she said, uh, you know, as somebody who worked with you, she I don't think even she realizes the impact of those words uh on me. I was a very young uh brand manager at that time, one of the only girls in the team, and and she treated me with so much love and affection. I think it's really shaped uh the person that I am, and I only have a lot of love and respect for her. And she's also one of the names that I've spoken about in the book, and uh one of the ways that I've expressed my gratitude to her in terms of shaping who I am.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:57

Fantastic. Uh I think no conversation ends with uh the impact of AI and marketing. So, what's a part of uh AI in marketing that can never be automated?

SPEAKER_03 1:02:12

No, like I said, I I think creativity uh will singularly be the most important piece that marketeers bring to the table. AI can't love consumers, and uh it's very important that you know there is that we've spoken about it at length around consumer love and obsession. AI will use math to sort of come to decisions, suggestions, product ideas. You know, oftentimes we tell that, you know, consumers tell you what they want. I mean, they don't tell you, tell you. They will they will say multiple things around you know problems that they are facing or something not working, they will never tell you that they need a product, right? It goes back to the whole conversation on how cars happened. If we asked consumers, they would have asked for faster horses, not a car, right? And and I think that's the thinking that a marketer brings to the table because AI is today working on existing knowledge, it is not creating anything new. Cars didn't exist. Claude or Gemini or Perplexity will say horse, it will not say car, right? So I think that aspect very truly stays with marketing. I'm sure there will be uh evolution in this space, maybe to start playing creative as well, but that also pushes us uh to keep working harder in this space. One of the other things that I would want to add here is you know, when industrial revolution happened, you know, people thought, oh my god, uh all the jobs are gone because suddenly manual is becoming uh industrial, da-da-da. There was a whole conversation. When the internet came, people were worried. When modern trade came, people thought the general trade will get over. E-com came, people thought something else will get over. The point is we are evolving uh uh as a as a community, as human beings, and something new will always keep coming. It pushes us to keep getting better and keep expanding what we are really capable of. So maybe AI will become more creative like humans. By that time, humans will also have become better at something else, which AI can't. We created AI, we should not be scared of it. We'll create something else. So I think that's my view on AI. Uh, we should not be scared of things that we ourselves create and and figure out how we continue using them so that we can do our job a lot better. We created it for exactly that.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:20

What do you think the next generation of uh marketers uh need to prepare for the new environment, the environment that's going to be there in the next couple of decades? Yeah. So, what would you think are the three or four uh I would say uh roots or pillars that uh will stand the test of time?

SPEAKER_03 1:04:44

So one would be uh I think we'll start with the consumer saying you know, always keep your consumer at the center of everything and keep building around that. Because I think today it's become very difficult to be a marketeer. Uh, the pressure from ever-evolving tech to CFO pressures to pressures on speed, time, show me result now. So it's never been more difficult to be a marketeer. So, therefore, keep your core very, very intact to consumer because that's the only narrative that will win you in the room. Second, keep evolving. Uh, I think you will have to believe that no playbook is a constant, and therefore keep challenging your own playbook before somebody else comes and challenges you because it's it's better that you're challenged by yourself than somebody else and you're caught off-guarded. So constantly keep innovating, constantly keep working on this space. And third, build a very strong network of partners, teams, etc., which sort of work with you on your vision. I think having the right team and the partner ecosystem is extremely important because you alone can't do uh anything, and therefore spend time on grooming your team, spend time sharing your vision with the team and partner so that you know whatever you're planning actually comes to life. So I think I think these three uh come top of mind to me, and I'm sure there are a lot more, but these three in my head. Non-negotiable.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

Thanks, Mega. On that note, it was a lovely conversation. It was uh strapped with insights, so many uh you know thoughtful comments and experiences, and uh some of the mentors and their advice and insights that you shared were really really valuable, and uh it was a very engaging and I would say involved conversation that I've had with a CMO. So, thanks a lot. It was lovely having you on the Super CMO podcast.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:32

Thank you so much, Swami, for having such a lovely conversation. I think I've not had such an open conversation on marketing and life in general, so thank you so much. Phenomenal opportunity for me. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:42

Thanks. Thanks for listening to this episode. For selected links and detailed show notes, visit www.contraminds.com. Follow Contraminds on social media and let us know who you would like to see next on the podcast. If you are listening to Contraminds on Apple Podcasts, do share your comments and give us a rating. We are keen to know what you're thinking. Contraminds is also on YouTube. If you are listening to the podcast on YouTube, hit the subscribe button and stay up to date on all our releases. Thanks for listening and stay safe.