#56: Building a global B2B marketing strategy with Sangeeta Prasad, Slalom

Summary

Podcast Summary: B2B Agility with Greg Kihlström™: MarTech, E-Commerce, & Customer Success

Episode #56: Building a Global B2B Marketing Strategy with Sangeeta Prasad, Slalom
Release Date: August 12, 2025

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Introduction

In Episode #56 of B2B Agility, host Greg Kihlström engages in a deep conversation with Sangeeta Prasad, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Slalom, a global business and technology consulting firm. The discussion revolves around building and executing a global B2B marketing strategy, overcoming common misconceptions about marketing, fostering internal cohesion within a sprawling organization, and integrating emerging technologies like generative AI into marketing practices.

Guest Background

Sangeeta Prasad brings over three decades of marketing experience, having worked with industry giants such as Procter & Gamble, American Express, and Chase. As the CMO of Slalom, a company boasting $3 billion in annual revenue and a presence in 53 offices across 12 countries, Sangeeta has been instrumental in not only crafting impactful marketing campaigns but also in cultivating a culture that recognizes and leverages the true power of marketing within the organization.

Notable Quote:
"Great marketing doesn't just tell stories, it creates believers."
— Sangeeta Prasad [02:33]

Overcoming Misconceptions About Marketing

One of the primary challenges Sangeeta highlights is the prevalent misconceptions organizations hold about the role and investment in marketing. Having been the first CMO at two different organizations, she identifies three major misunderstandings:

1. Marketing Investment:
   Many believe that hiring a marketing team is the end of their investment. In reality, marketing involves significant ongoing investments in campaigns and initiatives beyond just personnel.

   Quote:
   "Marketing is not like sales or finance where the people are. The investment in marketing people are less than half of the investment. The rest comes in the campaigns and the work you do."
   — Sangeeta Prasad [02:57]

2. Role of Marketing Teams:
   There's a tendency to involve marketing at the end of projects, treating them merely as executors rather than strategic partners.

   Quote:
   "We're partners from strategy to execution and the results will be better if you don't tell us what to do, but tell us what your problem is and let us help solve it."
   — Sangeeta Prasad [04:02]

3. Website as Sole Outcome:
   Building a website is often misconstrued as the end goal of marketing efforts, whereas it should serve as a foundational tool for driving campaigns and conversions.

   Quote:
   "The website is the foundational element for marketing. It is not the outcome of marketing. It is just what you build in order to do campaigns and have somewhere to land."
   — Sangeeta Prasad [04:03]

Aligning Global Marketing Strategy While Maintaining Local Context

Slalom's expansive global footprint requires a delicate balance between maintaining local relevance and leveraging global expertise. Sangeeta emphasizes that their approach focuses on enhancing local contexts as they expand globally, ensuring that each local market retains its unique identity while benefiting from the collective strength of the global organization.

Quote:
"At Slalom, we believe we work at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity. ... We never lose that aspect of being very connected to both the local customers and the local community."
— Sangeeta Prasad [05:36]

Internal Team Cohesion in a Distributed Model

Managing a distributed marketing team spread across 53 offices in 12 countries presents significant challenges in fostering a unified team spirit. Initially, local marketing teams operated in silos, leading to fragmented efforts. Over four years, Sangeeta has worked diligently to bridge these gaps by demonstrating the amplified impact of collaborative efforts, thereby building trust and encouraging a more integrated approach.

Quote:
"The impact of investment is much greater when you do it in a connected way... communicate, communicate, educate."
— Sangeeta Prasad [07:04]

Internal Education and Building Trust with Sales

A critical aspect of Sangeeta's role is educating internal stakeholders, particularly bridging the gap between marketing and sales teams. By presenting clear data on ROI and actively supporting sales efforts through materials and resources, Slalom has been able to foster a collaborative environment where marketing is seen as a strategic partner rather than just a support function.

Quote:
"If we can show we're helping them win, I think we are. We're making great. We're going in the right direction."
— Sangeeta Prasad [10:09]

Keeping Marketing Teams Updated and Agile

In an ever-evolving marketing landscape, continuous learning is paramount. Slalom's strategy includes cultivating a learner mindset, hiring specialized talent, and encouraging marketing evangelists within the organization to disseminate knowledge effectively. This approach ensures that the marketing team stays abreast of the latest trends and technologies, maintaining agility and relevance.

Quote:
"Keep a learner mindset... we have a very strong leadership team passionate about their specific areas of marketing."
— Sangeeta Prasad [11:45]

The Impact of Generative AI on Marketing

Generative AI (Gen AI) is transforming how marketing operates, but Sangeeta cautions that it's not a standalone solution. Instead, it's a powerful tool that, when integrated thoughtfully, can enhance strategies and execution. Slalom focuses on using Gen AI to improve content creation and creative processes, while also addressing the cultural and educational aspects necessary for effective AI adoption within the organization.

Quote:
"Gen AI is not the solution, it's the tool to get to the solution."
— Sangeeta Prasad [13:02]

Staying Agile in the CMO Role

Agility, as defined by Sangeeta, is the ability to pivot quickly while staying true to strategic goals. She maintains agility by fostering a continuous learning environment, engaging with industry peers, attending conferences, and leveraging diverse marketing tools. This proactive approach enables her to adapt to changes and lead Slalom's marketing efforts effectively.

Quote:
"Agile doesn't mean faster. Agile means the ability to pivot quickly while keeping true to your strategy and focus."
— Sangeeta Prasad [15:09]

Conclusion

Sangeeta Prasad's insights provide a comprehensive look into the complexities of building and managing a global B2B marketing strategy. Her emphasis on education, collaboration, and strategic use of technology underscores the essential elements required for modern marketing leadership. By addressing common misconceptions, fostering internal cohesion, and embracing emerging tools like Gen AI, Sangeeta exemplifies the qualities of a forward-thinking CMO poised to drive Slalom's continued success in a competitive global marketplace.

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Learn More:
To delve deeper into Sangeeta Prasad's strategies and Slalom's marketing initiatives, follow the links provided in the show notes or visit B2B Agility.

Transcript

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[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.

[Podcast Host]

What's harder? Building a global marketing strategy from scratch or educating your organization on why it matters in the first place? Today's guest has done both twice. Sangeeta Prasad is the Chief Marketing Officer of Slalom, a global business and technology consulting firm with $3 billion in yearly revenue and a presence in 53 offices in 12 countries. With three decades of marketing experience across brands like Procter and Gamble, American Express and Chase, Sangeeta has spent her career not just building campaigns, but building belief in the power of marketing. Sangeeta, welcome to the show.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Greg, thank you for having me. It's my pleasure.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Looking forward to talking about all this with you. Before we dive in though, why don't we start with you? I know I gave a little background there, but you know, give a, give a little more background on yourself and your, and your current role at Slalom.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. And I have spent 30 years plus in marketing across big and small companies. B2C. B2B global US. And I have learned through that that I'm really a marketing evangelist. That's what I think of myself as being. Not just a marketer, but a marketing evangelist. And I say that because I believe that great marketing doesn't just tell stories, it creates believers. And my job as a marketer is to turn skeptics into champions and to show the real measurable impact that marketing has. And so, you know, as you grow up in a marketing organization, it really feels like you're doing a lot of work. That is day to day work. And then as you become a cmo, you realize a lot of what you do is converting people from where they are today to where you need them to be.

[Podcast Host]

That's a great segue to. You know, the first thing I want to talk about is so you've been the first chief marketing officer at two different organizations. You know, so speaking of evangelism, you know, a new role to the organization and playing that twice. What's the, you know, from your experience, what's the biggest misconception that people have about what marketing can or should do when you step into a brand new role like that?

[Sangeeta Prasad]

It's a really good question, Greg, because being a first CMO twice is making maybe being a glutton for punishment, but I just love the challenge. And let me talk about maybe three misconceptions. The first one is that once you've hired a marketing team, your investment is done. I think what companies don't realize who don't have CMOs is that marketing is not like sales or finance where the people are. The investment in marketing people are less than half of the investment. The rest comes in the campaigns and the work you do. And that has been quite an education evolution for companies that I've been at. Maybe the second misconception is bring marketing in at the end, tell them what to do and make them execute. I think that's how people think of marketing. And what my team and I are on a path to doing is explaining that we are partners from strategy to execution and the results will be better if you don't tell us what to do, but tell us what your problem is and let us help solve it.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

And maybe the third one, which I've experienced over and over again, which is that once you build the website, people will come. No, no, you have to bring people to the website. The website is the foundational element for marketing. It is not the outcome of marketing. It is just what you build in order to do campaigns and have somewhere to land. So maybe those are the three biggest ones.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And I mean, it sounds like, you know, obviously there's, there's a high degree of trust in the individual. You know, you got put in the, the CMO role, but there's maybe lack of understanding and lack of trust in the process of marketing, just probably just due to lack of experience with it. Right.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Is that 100%. I think first of all, everyone thinks they're a marketer. Right. You run an event and you're a marketer and so you come into an organization where everyone thinks they know what, what you should be doing. The technical and the science part of marketing is so, so hidden, I think from everyone in what they do that they have no idea that there's actually some stuff that goes on behind the scenes. And so you're absolutely Right. It is a challenge to get people to understand what you're doing and why you're doing it a certain way.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. And then, you know, so in a, in a company like Slalom, you know, a global organization that's grown, it's grown organically and intentionally, you know, how do you align marketing around such a broad, you know, global footprint without losing some of that local context that got it. Where it. You know, where. Where it.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Yeah. You know, we, we think of it as enhancing the local context as we expand our global reach. At Slalom, we believe we work at the intersection of business, technology, and humanity. And humanity is a really important aspect of that, because when we work with customers and clients, we work at a one on one level. And our company has been built on the premise that our consultants work in the locations where they live, and so they're really part of the community. So we never lose that aspect of being very connected to both the local customers and the local community. At the same time, as we grow globally, we bring in expertise and enhancement that you wouldn't otherwise have. But at the center of it all are the humans. And we call ourselves human, fiercely human. And we do that because we really bring our head and heart into everything we do. And we, I, I think we've done a good job of keeping that local specialness with the global reach. And even when we have global campaigns for marketing, we always customize it, personalize it at a local level.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. And then so from the internal perspective, you know, so that's, that's kind of the, the external view of, of keeping it local and yet, you know, adhering to the brand and everything. How do you maintain that internal, you know, team feeling when again, you're Also, you're in 53 offices in 12 countries and, you know, how do you, how do you balance that part as well?

[Sangeeta Prasad]

I think that's probably the biggest challenge any CMO has in a distributed model. And we, when I first joined, there were marketers in each office doing exactly what they wanted with no connection. And that has been great for our local. We call ourselves Local Soul and Global Reach. So it's been great for our local soul, but it's not been great for marketing, which is all about cohesion. And the impact of investment is much greater when you do it in a connected way. And so it's been like four years of me working with my stakeholders to help them understand and to show them results when we do things together. Look at how much greater the impact is. The good news is that the marketers in the local markets all want to work together because they realize how much more we can do if we work together. So we're in the process of, I would say, connecting more and more, bringing everyone together. And I think, I would say now we are probably at the close to being as connected as we're going to be.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. And I mean that's really just, it's a product of organic growth or even through acquisition. I mean this stuff, that's how it happened. You, you do what you need to do in your local market and then you kind of grow and expand and all that stuff. So it's, it's part of that organic process. But it sounds like the CMO role has really helped, you know, solidify kind of that, that more cohesive approach. Is that, is that safe to say?

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Yes, yes, I think that is, that is safe to say. It's also safe to say that my first year I was not successful doing that because you have to build trust, show some short term results, show the quality of your work before the local leaders say, okay, I think this is going to be good for me. And so it has been a little bit of a, it's building up trust, building of relationships and showing results. The combination has really helped us bring everything together. And, and I think the things that I really believe in, keep it connected, are communicate, educate and connect. Right. So communication, you can never over communicate. I always think, oh, I've communicated this so many times and people have still no idea what I'm saying. So communicate, communicate, educate. Marketing is changing so much. It's probably the function that's changed most over the years. So we have to continually educate our leaders and our marketers on what to do and then they all need to feel part of a whole cohesive group. And I think that's what we're working on doing right now.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And if you could talk a little bit more because I know, I know there's a lot of organizations that kind of struggle with that internal education. You know, there's so much time is spent, you know, trying to educate the market to, you know, to hire the company and buy products and services and all that. And yet educating internal stakeholders. I would say, you know, in my experience, B2B is unique in that way as well because there's such a sales culture in so many organizations as well. So that when sales and marketing work together well, it's amazing. But you know, kind of understanding, you know, kind of getting up to speed with that can be, you know, can take a bit of Education, what kind of activities or, you know, how do you approach, like education in that way about, you know, getting everybody on the same page?

[Sangeeta Prasad]

That's a really good question, Greg, because that is probably the single biggest challenge that all marketers have. And what we're. The approach we're taking is show as much data as you can. So everything we're doing, we're showing ROI or measuring ROI behind that. And now we actually have campaigns. We can show the marketing lift of sales motions. So when marketing is involved, you get x percent more than when marketing is not involved. And, you know, sales just wants to win and win more. And so if we can show we're helping them win, I think we are. We're making great. We're in the. Going in the right direction. Think I wouldn't say we are there at Slalom yet, but I think we're coming closer and closer. The other thing we've done is we've actually stepped into where sales has gaps for the short term or the medium term, say, building sales enablement materials. Sometimes our sales folks don't have the resources to build those materials. Materials. And so we're raising our hand saying we can help you here, even though we know it's not part of what marketing typically does. And I think doing all of these things builds trust, builds relationships, shows results, and that's the only way I think you can get really close partnership with sales.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, Yeah, I love that. And so how do you then and your, your marketing teams make sure that you are keeping up to, you know, there's a lot of moving pieces there. Right. So, you know, you're educating internally, externally, but you've also got to educate yourselves as marketing teams. So what do you, what do you do and what do your teams do to make sure that they're, you know, up on the latest and greatest.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Yeah, another good question, because marketing keeps changing. I think the first thing is, and this is one of Slalom's core values, is keep a learner mindset. And so we all in our marketing team and across Slalom believe that we can learn more every day. And so we stay curious and keep a learner's mindset. The other thing I have learned is hire really good people better than me in their specific areas. I have a very strong leadership team passionate about their specific areas of marketing. And they are keeping up on all the evolution that's happening around Gen AI and ABM and everything else that's going on. And I think that's really important. And then have a few marketing evangelists in your Organization who can go and share it outside what I've noticed, it's kind of contradictory. But marketers are not great at marketing themselves.

[Podcast Host]

Right.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

And so how do we create this motion where we naturally can speak, where we can actually speak to our stakeholders in their language, not marketing speak, so they understand what we're doing and how we're impacting what we're doing?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah. What, what impact is. You know, you mentioned generative AI and you know, some, some other things, you know, what impact has that had, you know, on your. How you approach marketing?

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Well, I think everyone is dealing with what is Gen AI and what impact does it have. And I think one of the things that I've been telling my team is that gen AI is not the solution, it's the tool to get to the solution. So what is our strategy, what is our outcome? And how can Gen AI help us get x percent better, y percent faster, more efficient and we're still learning? I don't think I could say that we have an answer, but I will say in some areas where doing more than others. So I think everyone will say this is content is an area where gen can really help do the first draft, work through different drafts, etc. Creative is another area. So we're exploring how Geni can help us, but more importantly how our humans can work more impactfully with gen AI. And it's really, I think adapting an organization to use AI is much more difficult than just bringing AI in. And there are so many people who are just are not comfortable using it. And I believe that the next big challenge for companies is getting their organizations educated and trained to use the tools that we're giving them.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. And I mean it sounds, you know, it's about integrating it in a meaningful way, not just kind of, you know, add some AI to it or whatever. And, and it sounds like that, you know, being thoughtful, in other words, about how it's integrated with the teams is how you're approaching it. Is that, is that.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

Yes, I would say integrated and train.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah.

[Sangeeta Prasad]

We're doing apprenticeship models, we're doing training, we're doing sit around and put in different words and phrases and ask them to generate. I see the result. The prompts make a big difference. So I think what we've seen is just integrating AI is a good ask. Training people and removing the fear is really the big, big win for anyone using AI.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah. Yeah. Love it. Well, Sangeeta, thanks so much for joining today. Really appreciate all your ideas and insights here. One last question before we wrap up what do you do to stay agile in your role? And how do you find a way to do it consistently?

[Sangeeta Prasad]

How do I stay agile in my role? So to me, agile doesn't mean faster. Agile means the ability to pivot quickly while keeping true to your strategy and focus. And I think what I try to do is learn from the best. It's back to that learner mindset. I attend conferences, I read, I listen to podcasts, I learn from my team, I talk to lots of people, to lots of CMOs. And it's just the desire to sort of the thirst to learn more. The desire to learn more and keep on top of things. And as you know, there are hundreds and hundreds of marketing tools available out there to learn more, to listen more. And I try to be diverse in my ability to take advantage of all of them and I find little nuggets in different places.

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, yeah, I love it. Well, again, I'd like to thank Sangeeta Prasad, CMO of Slalom, for joining the show. You can learn more about Sangeeta and Salalam by following the links in the show notes.

[Greg Kilstrom]

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 access more episodes of the show at www.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.

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