I’m pleased to invite you to our private CMO breakfast on September 25 to help you accelerate your career. This is an exclusive gathering in Bethesda, Maryland, hosted by Walker & Dunlop.

You’ll meet Chip Conley, my good friend and fellow author. He is joining us from San Francisco, CA. Chip will share his career and life lessons from his Airbnb experiences. We will also celebrate the launch of his newest book, Wisdom@Work….

It’s Independence Day in the United States…although I prefer the term “Interdependence Day.” We cannot thrive without creating unique development opportunities, and collaborating with like-minded leaders and creatives.

When I spend time with leadership luminaries and marketing trendsetters, it’s electrifying. You may be preparing for your own “electrifying experiences” this week…fun food, friends, and fireworks. We are too—except the fireworks will be continuing into the fall months for our community.

If you are experiencing isolation as a marketing leader, or love to learn from some of the world’s top business luminaries, then join us for some of these exciting fall events….

I recently learned a new term: liminality. It’s defined as a quality of ambiguity or disorientation that occurs in the middle stage of rituals. In today’s working world, it’s common for people to change jobs over a dozen times in their lives. And some can be significant career shifts, not lateral career moves. Yet many of us rush to the next “new thing,” never allowing us to feel complete and whole with our past.

If each of us can expect to change jobs over a dozen times, and be truly present in our new role, we must embrace that temporary period of liminal life….

I’m keeping this update upbeat and short…and to give you a moment to just reflect and take a break from holiday fatigue. To just BE.

At our 3rd annual CMOs Leading Innovation Conference, Jeff Perkins provided our group with 7 modern marketing strategies to think like a “Startup CMO.”

Featuring Stuart Foster, VP of Marketing of Luxury and Lifestyle Brands at Hilton Worldwide

In his presentation at our recent CLIC’ 15 CMOs Leading Innovation Conference, Stuart Foster described his fresh new vision of targeting consumers based on mindsets, and the results this “mindful marketing” has generated at Hilton. You can watch the first part of his presentation below.

Finding your ideal customers’ state of mind is essential for today’s brands to position themselves effectively….

What are the innovation opportunities and challenges today’s marketing leaders face?

I was honored to be asked back for a second interview with Spiral Marketing, a podcast that helps current and future business leaders, marketers and entrepreneurs elevate their brand. (Their first return guest!)

Host Karl Boehm and I discussed the recently released 3rd Annual Energize Growth CMO Report, From Fledgling to Falcon: How CMOs Make the Leap from Order Taker to Innovator….

What a whirlwind year! Our dynamic CMO community continues to thrive and doubled in size since 2014.

Many members celebrated professional milestones which have propelled them forward. I’m proud to share ten highlights here, proving that there’s power in numbers:…

Jen Kern dazzles modern marketers at Inbound15. Over 850 attendees learned what it takes to build lasting bridges with your Sales organization. Using jazz as the underlying inbound marketing metaphor, Jen’s audience rated her session one of the most pragmatic and valuable at the HubSpot conference.

Today’s marketing leaders can recite the ABCs of social media: content marketing, revenue performance management, and branding. Yet when it comes to conversations with their C-suite peers, they often speak in another language.

In 2014, the Project Management Institute revealed that 44% of strategic initiatives are unsuccessful. Why? They discovered the main reason is a lack of organization alignment at around 58%. In other words, unsuccessful projects are not highly aligned to a company’s strategic goals.

If you are an executive responsible for driving growth, it’s tempting to be distracted by the myriad new marketing automation tools and marketing cloud applications at the expense of strategic priorities….