← B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success
B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success
#54: Building a world-class brand from scratch with Maria Winans, Kyndryl
00:25:29
What if rebranding wasn’t just about a new logo and tagline, but about transforming an 80,000-person company’s entire culture and strategy? What if brand became one of your most valuable tools for business reinvention? Today, I’m joined by Maria...
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- [00:00]
Ryan Reynolds
Everyone's loving family Freedom from T Mobile. We'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom. Up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone16128GB8999 eligible trade in eg iPhone11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact.
- [00:28]
Maria Winans
T Mobile Phone this episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states. The Agile Brand.
- [00:57]
Greg Kilstrom
Welcome to the B2B Agility Podcast where we look at the factors that drive success in B2B marketing with a focus on the people, processes, data and platforms that make B2B brands stand out and thrive in a competitive marketplace. I'm your host Greg Kilstrom advising Fortune 1000 brands on MarTech marketing operations and CX best selling author and speaker. Now let's get on to the show. What if rebranding wasn't just about a new logo and tagline, but about transforming an as in person company's entire culture and strategy? What if brand became one of your most valuable tools for business reinvention? Today I'm joined by Maria Winans, Chief Marketing Officer at Kyndryl. After nearly three decades at IBM, Maria took on the monumental task of launching Kyndryl as a standalone brand following its spinoff. With a workforce of over 80,000 people across more than 60 markets, Mariah Maria has redefined what it means to build a world class brand from scratch. One that's people centric, culture driven and positioned for growth. Maria, welcome to the show.
- [01:59]
Maria Winans
Well, thank you. I'm excited to be here. Thank you for the invitation.
- [02:03]
Greg Kilstrom
Absolutely, yeah. Looking forward to talking about this with you. Definitely a great story to be able to share here. But before we dive in, why don't you start by giving us a little background on yourself and your current role at Kyndryl.
- [02:15]
Maria Winans
Yeah, well that's a great way to start. So as you said, I've spent 20 years, 29 years at IBM and in my last role in various roles, I started in sales, found my way into marketing and found that niche of the analytical business side and the creative side. And it became kind of this unicorn of an opportunity to really lean into the marketing profession. In my last role, you know, at IBM, I was the CMO for IBM America. So really driving our major market activities and initiatives for IBM across the Americas region. And now I had the incredible opportunity to be part of what we call one of the largest, you know, spinoffs in technology. So my current role is CMO of Kyndryl and I lead all of our global marketing, our brand, our advertising, our country field teams, our account teams and you know, marketing, you know, in the field content marketing and digital. So the full, call it end to end. And in being part of this job from the very beginning I had the opportunity to come create and we'll talk a little bit more about that, the brand, the brand identity, the voice, the market presence to truly establish a services led brand coming from a product. So I'm really passionate about the opportunity, I'm passionate about being a data driven marketing kind of organization and team thought leadership, you know and really outcome based storytelling where we put the customer at the end, at the end in the beginning and very focused on, on the opportunity to really empower our teams in the field in our global marketing centers and our global marketing markets to really surround the customer and to ensure that we show up at our best in our messaging and our value propositions.
- [04:01]
Greg Kilstrom
Great, great. Well, yeah, let's, so let's, let's dive in and maybe let's, I know you touched on it just then, but let's start at the beginning here and you know, what was it like to, I mean you'd been at IBM for, for 29 years, so technically, you know, not a stranger to the company, but you know what to step into the role of building this completely new brand for Kyndryl after it's spinoff from IBM.
- [04:23]
Maria Winans
Well I, you know, I think I won the jackpot. I mean it was one of those career, you know, kind of once in a career opportunity. I had an amazing career at IBM but when this opportunity to do something very unique, building from my past and everything I've learned from, you know, my, my, my, my career at IBM and now being able to have the opportunity to say, you know, how do we do something very unique? Building the, bringing the best of what I had learned and experienced but the opportunity to create something new, the opportunity to be part of a historic moment to really take the world's largest. I mean overnight when we went public, we became the world's largest managed infrastructure services company. $18 billion, you know, 90,000 employees around the world, 60 markets. And to me this was like, wow, I get to be part of this historic moment and get to start from the very beginning. You know, I was very uncomfortable. It was one of those like what, what an incredible opportunity. But at the same time in my gut it was like, wow, I've never done this before. This is something completely different. And it really pushed me to get to lean into that discomfort, you know, and think about how do I take this moment to really think bold, you know, as we think about what we needed to become from product centric to a services led company, to really challenge some of the traditional norms that existed in my prior company and to really build something that was going to be. And I say to the team, historic. And what we were to embark on it was, I knew it was a journey. I knew it wasn't going to be something that was going to be short term. It was a journey to really take this great, amazing opportunity and be part of a transformation story.
- [06:11]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yeah. And so having started a few companies in my, in my career, I would say the least, my least favorite part of that is the name of, of creating, like going through that process. So it's fun when you get the name and you're, you're happy with it, of course, but it's like it's, there's a lot of pressure there because you're. And again, I've worked with very large companies, but I haven't been responsible for naming a 90,000 person company. So I can imagine the pressure to, you know, get, get the details like the creation of the name. Kyndryl. Right. So to speak. How do you approach something so fundamental as a name and you know, how did you make sure that it reflected the mission and the culture that you wanted to build?
- [06:55]
Maria Winans
Yeah, well, actually I was, I'm in the completely the opposite. I think this is one of my favorite moments, nice favorite moments of being part of. Wow. I get to create something. I get to create the brand, I get to position the company from the very beginning. So when I look back I say, wow. You know, it goes back to that career kind of only opportunity. What cmo, what marketer doesn't want to be part of creating something that you know it's going to stand history and time. So when I, when I came on board, I had two jobs, two jobs at the very beginning that I had to really grasp on and tackle. One was create the brand. And we'll talk A little bit more about that. And then the second was, how do we motivate 90,000 employees who had built their career in our prior company to get excited about this journey? And so what that led me to believe and to understand, more importantly than anything was that the brand had to have purpose. It had to be intentional, and it had to humanize what we need. We were what we needed to do. So think about, we come from a technology company, very historic, long legacy, but it's a product company. And overnight, we again became the world's largest infrastructure company, a services company. And at the core of a services company is our people. It was our. It's our people. That's what our customers trust us to do. That's what our customers say. You know, your experts are core because they run the mission critical of my company. And so it was very intentional and very purposeful from the very beginning. We had to empower and we had to put the people at the center of the name of the company and the purpose of the company. And as you said, naming is very difficult because, you know, to trademark for a company of the size of what kinder was to become. We had, you know, we started out with looking at name, I mean, and I'd have to say, Greg, over 200,000 names. And when you start to really work the funnel and say, okay, not that one, not that one. That can't. That's registered, that's trademark. You can't go there. The narrower the final became, it just became obvious that we weren't going to be able to take a term or a word that existed in what we. So that gave us a creative moment to say, okay, we get to make up a name. We get to make up a name that's going to be uniquely ours. But it had to mean something. And so we started to explore what I call territories. What is it that we do? What do our customers trust us for? What does this brand need to represent? How do we show up in a modern way, in something different? And how do we really lean in not only to acknowledge where we are today as a company day one, but our ambition of what we wanted to become. And so two things stood out to. To us and, you know, as a team. One was our customers trusted us. Our customers said, whatever happens in this spin, make sure that your expert is part of it, because that's why trust. So this notion of kinship, the word kinship really started to resonate with me. Been saying your best of kins are people that you trust. Your best of kins are People that are close to you. And then the notion of growth, we needed to grow with our customers together. We had a very ambition, you know, ambitious goal to really grow this company, to become a leading services company from that, not only what it does today, but to what we wanted to move into. So this notion of a tendril, you know, this plant that grabs onto something and grows and grows and grows. So we took the word kinship for partnership with our customers, our people, and the word tendril that symbolizes growth, and we put it together and we said, ta da, It's Kendryl. And then of course, we played with the eyes and the ways and we said the word had to would be inviting. It had to be about co creation. We went with lowercase, because when you, when you're in lowercase, you know, when you send a text and you want to make a point, it's capital letters, it's big. We didn't, you know, we said no, it had to be inviting. And then no acronyms, no acronyms. We come from a world of a lot of acronyms. We wanted to be inviting and we wanted to have a conversation, you know, with our customers that allowed us to say, hey, Kyndryl is about you. Kyndryl is about the relationship we have and the growth that we can bark together. So that's kind of the history. And as you can tell by my voice, Greg, I'm very passionate. It is an incredible memory. And every time I get to talk about it, I feel like, you know, I get goosebumps because it was such an incredible experience and it's been tremendous to watch the brand grow with our employees and our customers and really start to build to what, you know, the ambition that we have as a company.
- [11:32]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, that's amazing. And kudos to finding that. Right. Because again, to your point, while 200,000 names, that's a lot to. That's a lot of things to go through, but, you know, to. To get to that point and to come. Come out of it with something that's meaningful and that, you know, can be part of the. I mean, to go back to your point a little bit, you know, part of. Part of the challenge here. There's the external part of the brand, of course, that, that you're going to market with, but there's also that internal aspect of, you know, motivating the people internally. And, you know, I want to get back to that point a little bit. You know, you mentioned that, that transition from, you know, IBM very product centric to not only service centric, but, you know, people centric as, as you touched on as well. So, you know, a lot of companies struggle with that for and for good reason. You know, what were some of the key steps that you took to make, you know, to help make that transformation from, you know, again, not only product to service, but to really a people centric transformation.
- [12:32]
Maria Winans
Yeah, and this is, this is a very important because not only was it part of, you know, when you asked me earlier about joining this mission, it was one because I get to be about, you know, be part of something so historic, so unique from the very beginning. And then the second thing was the notion of we always knew from the very beginning, motivating 90,000 people, you know, having our people really see themselves in the brand and then being, you know, being that the brand was a services company, it had to be at the core of the people. We knew that this mission was going to be a cultural transformation mission. You know, we knew that culture would be part of what would set us apart in where we came from and what we needed to become. So our early focus as a brand and mission was to really signal to our people that this brand is you, this brand is you. You know, I can do the best job in marketing, positioning and give it all the great meanings and all the great, but at the end of the day, what we sell and what is core to our value to customer is you, the people. So we had to make statements in our purpose and we had to be very. And again, I used the word purposeful in everything that we did. So first, you know, our value proposition and what we call kind of our purpose mission led with something like together, each of us, you know, advances the vital systems that power human progress. And the words together. And each of us were very purposeful. It wasn't together, it wasn't you, each of you, it was together, each of us. And it really started to signal this notion of it is our company, that together, each of us are going to move forward in this mission together. So everything that we did prioritize words around purpose around, together around intentional paths forward. The second thing that became very important is we had to very early on establishment our cultural platform. And what that meant was we had to really introduce language around the behaviors and around the way that we will operate and organize ourselves. And we called this the Kyndra Way, you know, not the old way, the Kyndra way. And the Kyndra Way is our cultural platform. And we introduced three real purposeful behaviors that we wanted to instill. And they were words like restless as an Example. And restless is a very different word than we had ever used before. And when you think of restless, it's about, how do I anticipate the next, how do I work with our customers? And I'm always having a pulse on what's emerging in technology. I'm thinking ahead. If we wanted to be a strategic partner, we had to work and anticipate and help our customers navigate the complexity of the today. So restless, the second word was around empathetic. You know, one of the things, you know, Greg, I didn't say early on, but we launched Kyndryl in the middle of COVID We created the brand in the middle of COVID We were motivating and bringing people and saying, this is, you know, come in this journey, be part of this during COVID So the notion of being empathetic, listening, understanding, sympathizing, being able to really take, you know, listen more than speak, was emotion that we wanted to really instill. So restless, empathetic. And then the last word, very powerful. Devoted. Not committed. Committed. I'm committed to my customer success. I'm committed to the company. It's great. It's more business term. We wanted the word that came from the heart. There's no notion of I am devoted to our success together. I am devoted to my customer success. So the Kindle way became our cultural platform is starting to signal words and behaviors like restless, empathetic and devoted. And then the notion of organizing ourselves to move at speed and being agile. We needed to be flat, reduce hierarchy. We needed to be fast remove, and we needed obstacles and we needed to be very focused. So that was one. It was the early positioning of the brand Kinder Away as a culture platform. And then the last is the notion of investing in our people and the, what I call the employer brand. We leaned into our talent journey. And what that meant is that each Kindle, what, you know, we talked about their purposeful path at work. You know, how do they. They achieve their ambitions and really how do they thrive in their adventure in a career at Kendryl. And we, and, you know, we started to talk about it, this notion of progress with purpose. Join us, be excited about your talent journey. We're investing in you. We're going to be upskilling our people. And this was an organization that we really didn't invest in. So signaling to our people that we're investing in your journey, in your career, in your progress. And when you work at Kyndryl, it is about progress with purpose. So I would say that that is what comes to mind. You know those signals of growing together and being in this path is our path together.
- [17:35]
Greg Kilstrom
Lets map out this week's amazing destinations and travel tips.
- [17:39]
Maria Winans
Honestly Will, I didn't plan any trips but I did switch to T Mobile with their new Family Freedom offer.
- [17:46]
Greg Kilstrom
That's not the itinerary we're following.
- [17:49]
Maria Winans
Well, I'm departing from ATT and embarking on a new journey with T Mobile. They paid off my family's four phones up to $3200 and gave us four new phones on the house. Bon voyage.
- [18:04]
Ryan Reynolds
Introducing Family Freedom. Our lowest cost will switch our biggest family savings all on America's largest 5G network. Visit your local T Mobile location or learn more@t mobile.com familyfreedom. Up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phones via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement eg Apple iPhone 16128 gigabyte $829.99 eligible trade in eg iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due. If you pay off earlier, cancel contact T Mobile.
- [18:30]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah, that's great. So I want to talk a little bit now the customer side of this. So you know, building the internal, the most very important. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So you know, spinning out of a company like, like IBM, you know, there's always, you know, I've been part of launching products and services at very large companies. Good. Even, even if there's a good perception of that brand, there's still, you know, baggage. I mean baggage can be good, you know, can be positive but still kind of filter the way that people look at a, at a company. So how did you, you know, how did you keep and grow those customer relationships while introducing Kyndryl as an independent brand as, as the service, service based brand?
- [19:15]
Maria Winans
Yeah. So it was an incredible opportunity to really rethink our marketing model, you know, versus a very broad demand generation. Let me get, you know, as many eyeballs and go out there with mass marketing. What we did is we said we needed to surround our customers, we needed to be very purposeful, very focused, you know, who are our top customers, our most important, you know, that do business with us today across the 16 markets that we, that we serve. And we needed to be very targeted in our approach. So we introduced this whole notion of account based marketing. And truly, you know, I mean when, when I say account based marketing is that one to one relationship with our most important customers, one to few in the industries that we serve and very purposeful in how the Brand showed up. What we needed to do is ensure that the brand still was what we've always done, you know, for our customers, mission critical, the work that we've done. But we needed to surround them in the new, you know, now being part of an independent company, joining a broader ecosystem of partners, being able to grow in new spaces, we needed to ensure that the marketing and the marketing function, you know, introduce that with our customers in a very targeted way. We were primarily talking to the it. How do we expand our relationships outside of just the IT into the line of business. So we organized the marketing function around accounts and then also around our core capabilities and specifically around the. The. The new and, you know, in where we were investing for growth. So again, targeted focus and very much about, you know, kind of hand, I would say hand holding, but aligning our marketing to our most important customers.
- [20:54]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah, yeah. What were some of the maybe challenges or even surprises that you encountered while launching this. This new brand? And how did you overcome them?
- [21:04]
Maria Winans
Yeah, and I would say challenges and surprises, but really it was one of those, Aha. That our people were so passionate about what they did. Our people were so passionate about the work that they did. You know, they almost felt like, you know, I work for the customer. I am part of the customer's organization because that's what, you know, they are. They were trusted, you know, because of their passion and their expertise, the customer. I remember my first conversations with some of our customers when we were interviewing them and. And we said, you know, we're going to be part of this. The company. We were kind of setting what was happening in the spin. And they said, the number one thing they said to. To me was, whatever happens in this spin, bring your expert. This is who I trust. This is who I trust. And, you know, and that is what I want at the core of whatever happens in the forward. So to us, it was a surprise, but I wasn't, you know, it was. And I say it's a surprise. It was just incredible to see the passion of our people and the pride in their work. And so one of the things that we did in order to really kind of put the people again at the center, it goes back to launching the brand is this. We had a signal to our people that they were the founders of the company. So think about 90,000 people day one. You're part of this new company. One of the things that we said, how do we tell our people that they are the company? And we did this thing where we said, you are founders. You are founders. And Part of the growth of us together is we did this very. It was very simple but very touching. We planted a tree for every individual, every person in the company. We said, because you're a founder, we're all putting roots on the ground together on day one. And we planted trees which signaled, you are the root of the company, you are the trust of our customers, and you are a founder. And you cannot imagine, Greg, the emotion, the I, you're right, I'm here at the very beginning. And then even when we spun, we did a huge social campaign that said thank you. And we did a reel on LinkedIn that said, thank you, Maria. Thank you, Greg. Thank you. You know, Susan, we put everyone's first name of 90,000 names and we said, thank you. Wow. And then the last thing that I'll share with you, we also, in our New York Stock Exchange, we wanted to invite everyone to be part of that moment. And so we did a big virtual broadcast. And I remember this New York Stock Exchange, we were never, ever done. We've never done this before. You know, we're going to break the Internet. I'm like, no, we have to make this work because I want every single Kindle to feel that this is their day. And we brought in, we connected people around the world. We had people physically there ringing the bell at the New York Stock Exchange, but we had a whole program that we created where everyone had to participate and virtually ring the bell. So again, you know, surprise for me was the passion and it's the little things that matter that made those signals. Like, yeah, I'm a founder. I'm part of this very beginning.
- [24:02]
Greg Kilstrom
Yeah. Yeah. That's amazing. Well, you know, as, as we wrap up here, a couple, couple questions for you. First one, you know, certainly there lots, I'm sure there was lots of learnings along the way and lots of, lots of insights gathered. What advice would you give to other CMOs or leaders who are about to embark on a rebrand, a spin off a brand transformation? You know, what, what advice would you give to them?
- [24:25]
Maria Winans
I would say, listen, don't be afraid to feel discomfort. You know, like I told you at the very beginning, it was my first opportunity to be a public company CMO and to, to build a brand and do an amazing thing. I had a big gut in my stomach and I felt very uncomfortable. But when you're uncomfortable, you grow. And so don't be afraid to feel discomfortable. You know, when you take on these projects. And don't be afraid to be bold. Be bold. You have an Opportunity to do something very unique. Don't play it safe. Don't play it safe. Really kind of ask those bold questions. Embrace the risk, embrace the moment, be open to what's next. And really for the lesson, it's not only been a lesson for me in this opportunity with Kyndryl, but throughout my career of really, you know, I've, I've never feared, you know, taking risk. I've, I've actually feel regret. And what I mean by that is the regret of not being bold enough. So that's my advice to every CMO out there. Take a moment and when you're not discomfort, when you're not discomfortable, you're not growing. And so use an opportunity, like to do what I had, you know, to do something like what I had to do and embark on a brand or rebranding and people be bold.
- [25:32]
Greg Kilstrom
Love it. Love it. Well, Maria, thanks so much for joining today. Very last question for you. I like to ask everybody, what do you do to stay agile in your role and how do you find a way to do it consistently?
- [25:42]
Maria Winans
Yep, I think it's very simple for me. I stay very close to the market. I'm always learning, I'm always curious. I talk to analysts, talk to customers. I stay very closely aligned to our sales team. You know, they're always bringing in sentiment from, from the outside. You know, I always test and learn. I tell my team, like, test and learn, try new things. You know, let's pilot new things. Let's continue to be, you know, curious. And I think my last thing that I would say, you know, always be curious. I find myself asking questions, always trying to learn because a curious mind stays agile, it innovates and it stays competitive. So that's for me, you know, kind of at the core of being able to stay agile and live and learn.
- [26:22]
Greg Kilstrom
Love it. Love it. Well, again, I'd like to thank Maria Winans, Chief Marketing Officer at Kyndryl, for joining the show. You can learn more about Maria and Kyndryl by following the links in the show notes. Thanks again for listening to the B2B Agility podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please take a minute to subscribe and leave us a rating so that others can find the show more easily. You can actually more episodes of the show at www.b2bagility.com. That's B2B agility.com while you're there, check out my series of best selling agile brand guides covering a wide variety of marketing technology topics. Or you can search for Greg Kilstrom on Amazon until next time. Stay focused and stay agile.
- [27:08]
Maria Winans
The Agile brand.
- [27:13]
Ryan Reynolds
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- [27:15]
Maria Winans
With the price of just about everything going up, we thought we'd bring our prices down.
- [27:19]
Ryan Reynolds
So to help us, we brought in.
- [27:20]
Maria Winans
A reverse auctioneer, which is apparently a thing.
- [27:23]
Greg Kilstrom
Mint Mobile Unlimited Premium wireless everybody get 30, 30 better get 30, better get 20, 20, 20 better to get 20, 20 every get 15, 15, 15, 15. Just 15 bucks a month.
- [27:31]
Maria Winans
So give it a try@mintmobile.com save upfront.
- [27:35]
Ryan Reynolds
Payment of $45 for three month plan.
- [27:36]
Maria Winans
Equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow after 35 gigabytes of network's busy taxes and fees extra. Cmintmobile.com.