CMO Relevance Secrets with Sumit Virmani at the World Economic Forum Event

Summary

Podcast Summary: Marketing Vanguard – "CMO Relevance Secrets with Sumit Virmani"

Host: Jenny Rooney (Adweek)
Guest: Sumit Virmani, CMO, Infosys
Location: FQ Lounge, World Economic Forum, Davos, Switzerland
Date: February 13, 2026

---

Overview

This episode of Marketing Vanguard spotlights insights from Sumit Virmani, CMO of Infosys, recorded live at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Together with host Jenny Rooney, Virmani explores the evolving role of the CMO amidst macroeconomic shifts and the rise of AI, the importance of C-suite engagement, and the unique value of events like Davos for marketing leaders. Listeners gain specific, candid advice on CMO relevance, strategy, and growth at a time when marketing is at an inflection point.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Evolving Role of the CMO in the C-Suite

• Marketing as a Growth Catalyst

  • Virmani stresses that marketing should be central to organizational strategy, not siloed.

    “Marketing is the growth catalyst of the organization. Marketing’s rightful place and CMOs rightful place is in the C suite, shaping strategy, debating business challenges, and finding solutions to drive growth.”
    (Sumit Virmani, 00:30)

• Why CMOs Need to Be at Davos

  • Davos is described not just as an industry event, but a confluence of global business leadership. CMOs must participate to remain relevant and effective.

    “Davos is a confluence of C suite. It’s a confluence of business leaders, world leaders. And this is where debate around what’s in the year ahead takes shape. Marketeers should be very much a part of that…”
    (Sumit Virmani, 01:49)

  • Jenny Rooney unpacks the difference between marketing-centered gatherings and broader business forums like Davos, emphasizing why CMO exposure outside the marketing bubble matters.

    “Can is CMOS talking to cmos…it’s still very much a marketing centric event…Davos blows all that up. I mean, this is where you actually, to your point, find yourself talking to people who are not like you…”
    (Jenny Rooney, 02:44)

2. The Strategic Value of Cross-Functional Exposure

• Virmani describes Davos as an opportunity for CMOs to break out of their discipline and learn about trends shaping the CEO’s agenda and cross-functional business priorities.

  “This is an opportunity for truly marketers to come and participate, learn from what’s going to shape their CEO’s priorities for the next year, what are the trends that are influencing cross functional dimensions of your business…it’ll only make you smarter.”
  (Sumit Virmani, 03:44)

• Such exposure enhances a CMO’s credibility and strategic influence back at their own organizations.

3. Making the Case for CMO Attendance at Major Business Forums

• Advice to CMOs who want to attend Davos but may not yet have buy-in:
  • Use AI-driven business transformation as an entry point—demonstrate marketing’s impact beyond the traditional remit.
  • Position oneself as a “transformation partner,” not just the leader of advertising or brand.

  “AI…opens up an incredible opportunity for CMOs to widen the horizon…have CMOs position themselves as the transformation partners, orchestrators of the enterprise strategy…that should become integral…So I would say AI is unleashing a fantastic opportunity to bring creativity, data analytics, tech together for marketers to become an integral contributor to strategy and growth.”
  (Sumit Virmani, 06:18)

4. The Opportunity (and Pressure) of AI for CMOs

• AI isn’t just for optimizing existing marketing—it’s a vehicle for marketers to expand their influence, from product development to cross-functional business collaboration.

  “Don’t use AI to do what you do better…It gives you permission to play in the entire business spectrum, not necessarily in the marketing spectrum. And some of those opportunities will foster collaboration across the C suite, which you should proactively seek.”
  (Sumit Virmani, 08:28)

5. Reframing Marketing Success

• Responding to CMOs overwhelmed by the expanding remit, Virmani challenges the definition of success:

  “If you see marketing success in creating great advertising, you don’t have to really broaden your horizon. But if you see marketing success in driving transformation and driving growth, it’s not optional.”
  (Sumit Virmani, 09:39)

• He urges a return to marketing fundamentals—the full spectrum of the "4Ps" (Product, Price, Place, Promotion)—rather than a narrow focus on promotion.

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

| Timestamp | Speaker | Quote | |------------|----------------|-------| | 00:30 | Sumit Virmani | “Marketing is the growth catalyst of the organization…” | | 01:49 | Sumit Virmani | “Davos is a confluence of C suite…this is where debate around what’s in the year ahead takes shape.” | | 03:44 | Sumit Virmani | “It’ll only make you smarter…and your marketing strategies…will actually see a lot more acceptance and receptivity.” | | 06:18 | Sumit Virmani | “AI…opens up an incredible opportunity for CMOs to widen the horizon.” | | 08:28 | Sumit Virmani | “Don’t use AI to do what you do better…It gives you permission to play in the entire business spectrum.” | | 09:39 | Sumit Virmani | “If you see marketing success in driving transformation and driving growth, it’s not optional.” | | 09:10 | Jenny Rooney | “Yes, all of that 1000% mic drop moment, Sumit. Amazing.” |

---

Practical Takeaways for Marketers

• Advocate for Strategic Integration: Position marketing at the heart of company strategy; build alliances, especially with the CEO, CIO, and other executives.
• Leverage AI to Broaden Influence: Move beyond optimization—bring creative, analytical, and business transformation value.
• Break the ‘Marketing Bubble’: Seek out venues where marketing interacts with the rest of the business world.
• Redefine Success: Judge your impact in terms of growth, transformation, and business outcomes—not just campaign innovation.
• Prepare for the Demands of Davos: For those attending, practical advice includes wearing the right footwear (utilitarian yet stylish boots) and pacing oneself for early mornings and full days.

  “Your boots are the absolute critical accessory because that’s the difference between surviving and actually walking away with an injury…”
  (Sumit Virmani, 13:42)

---

Fun & Insider Advice from Davos

• On Surviving Davos:
  • “Avoid nightcaps. If you really want to be effective on day two and day three…Because you start at like 6:37 and you finish only at 1:00 o’clock in the night.”
    (Sumit Virmani, 14:24)
  • “My day starts at 7 and 7 means I have to be in a meeting at 7…”
    (Sumit Virmani, 14:57)

---

Segment Timestamps

• [00:30] – The CMO’s role in the C-suite and at Davos
• [03:44] – Why break out of the marketing “bubble”
• [06:18] – AI as a lever for marketing influence
• [08:28] – Moving beyond marketing optimization with AI
• [09:39] – Redefining marketing success
• [11:30] – What Infosys seeks at Davos, and the CMO’s dual hat
• [13:26] – Practical and humorous advice on navigating Davos

---

Final Thoughts

Sumit Virmani concludes with a message to aspiring CMOs and marketing leaders: embrace the opportunity to broaden marketing’s contribution, leverage AI to unlock new potential, and engage beyond typical marketing circles. The ultimate CMO is both a creative leader and a strategic transformation partner in the C-suite—roles that are increasingly inseparable in the world’s top organizations.

“Thank you Jenny. Thanks again and all the best for your very first Davos. May this be the start of many more to come.”
(Sumit Virmani, 15:33)

---

End of Summary

Transcript

[LinkedIn Ads Narrator]

Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority, skills, and. Did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get [e-mail] Campaign terms and conditions apply.

[Sumit Vermani]

Marketing is the growth catalyst of the organization. Marketing's rightful place and CMOs rightful place is in the C suite, shaping strategy, debating business challenges, and finding solutions to drive growth.

[Jenny Rooney]

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with adweek and I'm thrilled to be coming to you from Davos, Switzerland. We are in the FQ lounge and we have been hosting the Marketing Vanguard inspiration excursion here in Davos, convening cmos for two days of insightful conversation, deep dives into the CMO role and how AI is transforming all of that. So I'm thrilled to be joined right now with Sumit Vermani. He's the CMO of Infosys. Sumit, welcome.

[Sumit Vermani]

Thank you. Thank you, Jenny, and so great to be here. And I must say, welcome to Davos. I'm told this is the first time Adweek is here. I'm so glad you are actually convening CMOs and giving them a platform.

[Jenny Rooney]

Well, thank you so much for saying that because you, by the way, are no rookie. You are no stranger to Davos. You've been here how many years?

[Sumit Vermani]

I believe 11. This is the 11th one, if my memory serves me right, but definitely over a decade.

[Jenny Rooney]

So listen, you have strong opinions about this. We were just talking about it. Why do you think it's so important for CMOs to be in Davos and why now?

[Sumit Vermani]

Well, Jenny, we've talked about this before as well, but I've always believed that marketing is the growth catalyst of the organization. Marketing's rightful place and CMOs rightful place is in the C suite, shaping strategy, debating business challenges, and finding solutions to drive growth. Davos is a confluence of C suite. It's a confluence of business leaders, world leaders. And this is where debate around what's in the year ahead takes shape. Marketeers should be very much a part of that because marketeers are entrusted with building brands. They're entrusted with shaping growth, and this is where they get to learn it all. And Influence it. So it's good to be at marketing only platforms, but it's great to be at a platform where the C suite converges.

[Jenny Rooney]

And let's talk about that. I mean, by marketing only platform, can absolutely is one of those. And I think obviously, you know, look, that used to be a celebration of creativity. It used to be only the agency community that would go. Obviously that shifted probably 15 years ago and CMOs started to go to can in droves. The difference though, and you've noted this is can is CMOS talking to cmos. It's a very, it's still very much a marketing centric event. Granted it's global, but it certainly pulls heavily from the US it pulls heavily from sort of the, the go to companies and industries and agencies that you would expect. Davos blows all that up. I mean, it's sort of, this is where you actually, to your point, find yourself talking to people who are not like you. They're not CMOs. And so how does being in an environment where you are getting exposed to CEOs and to CFOs and to other world leaders, why is that so important and why do you think that's important for CMOs to get that exposure?

[Sumit Vermani]

I think that that's a great point to debate, Jenny. And I don't consider myself a can pro. I've only been there twice. But it's a great platform. You learn a lot from some of the best campaigns out there in the world. You still continue to celebrate creativity and you get to learn from each other, learn from industries. But it's still a marketing bubble. We're living within the community of marketeers and in real world, in real businesses, in real life, each of us as marketeers, as CMOs operate within the context of the business alongside other C suite leaders. And if we truly have to influence strategic direction, if we truly have to influence company strategy vis a vis geopolitical changes. Marketing is all about listening to the market. And this is where you get an opportunity to do that. This is an opportunity for truly marketers to come and participate, learn from what's going to shape their CEO's priorities for the next year. What are the trends that are influencing cross functional dimensions of your business. It's a fantastic opportunity to, to really break the bubble of marketing and learn from a divergence of voices that'll only make you smarter. And when you go back into your own environment and you're engaging with your fellow C Suite partners, you'll be a lot more informed, you'll have a lot more Context and your marketing strategies informed by this learning will actually see a lot more acceptance and receptivity.

[Jenny Rooney]

That's such a great point, especially love what you're saying about the fact that if CMOs need to be relevant, if they need to be true growth drivers, you have to be 100% aligned with your CEO's agenda. You need to be able to see where they're spending their time, where their headspace is, what big macro forces they're grappling with, and what better environment than Davos. That said, not all CMOs get to come to Davos. I think what we tried to do and part of the motivation in bringing the Marketing Vanguard program to Davos for the first time this year, quite frankly, was to create more access to a wider swath of CMOs. What advice would you give to CMOs who want to basically advocate for themselves to come to Davos or find a true business case for coming, who don't otherwise or wouldn't ordinarily have an opportunity to come, or it wouldn't even be part of the CEO's agenda to have their CMO come with them.

[Sumit Vermani]

Well, I think it's a journey, Jenny. And CEOs are just one critical stakeholders that CMOs have always aspired to work closely with. And frankly, they can't really survive without having a strong partnership with the CEO. But I won't stop at that. I would even say that we are today living in a world of AI. AI clearly has been the narrative, whether it's can or whether it's Davos. It's going for the last couple of years. And I believe that AI in some sense opens up an incredible opportunity for CMOs to widen the horizon, to look beyond their traditional marketing mold and say, how can AI give me agency to widen my influence? And it's very feasible because today AI is giving CMOs access to analytics that was never possible in the era prior to AI. It's giving you sense of deep partnership opportunities on data with your cio. And that should become integral because what you would like to do is have CMOs position themselves as the transformation partners, orchestrators of the enterprise strategy. And that has to happen well before you make a pitch for coming to daos. It should become integral to how you operate as a function. So I would would say AI is unleashing a fantastic opportunity to bring creativity, data analytics, tech together for marketers to become an integral contributor to strategy and growth. And once that happens, participation in platforms like this would be an automatic reality. Not necessarily. A business has to be built I love that.

[Jenny Rooney]

So we are in an inflection point for CMOs. AI is driving that and it's a massive opportunity for the those who get it right. And what I'm hearing you say is you won't have to sort of advocate for yourself or argue that you should be in environments like this as a cmo, because it will just be obvious.

[Sumit Vermani]

But an important point there is don't use AI to do what you do better. That's a given. It's not another technology to automate the marketing life cycle. And tech stack, yes, for sure it does that, but it gives you opportunity to contribute to product development, it gives you wipe coding, opportunities to elevate prototyping, reimagine experiences. So the point I'm making is it gives you permission to play in the entire business spectrum, not necessarily in the marketing spectrum. And some of those opportunities will foster collaboration across the C suite, which you should proactively seek.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yes, all of that 1000% mic drop moment. Submit. So, I mean, amazing. Just because I track that so closely, like I understand so deeply what you're saying and it is such an incredibly powerful moment. You know, honestly, I'm sure there's plenty of CMOs who think about that or listen to that and think, God, I can't handle one more thing on my plate. There's no way I could think about expanding my scope even further from where I'm at right now. What do you say to those folks?

[Sumit Vermani]

I guess the question simply is, where do you see marketing success? If you see marketing success in creating great advertising, you don't have to really broaden your horizon. But if you see marketing success in driving transformation and driving growth, it's not optional. If you seek marketing to have a seat at the strategy table within the organization, the only way you would do that is where marketing's creative genius is being complemented with the AI's analytics genius, the organizational tech stacks, data, standardization, all then contributing to intelligence that helps your organization serve its customer better. That's what marketing has always been about. It's just that somewhere in the journey over the last several decades, marketing became only about creativity and promotion. And we forgot the good old 4Ps. This is an opportunity to possibly gain back some of that opportunity and widens marketing influence.

[LinkedIn Ads Narrator]

Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers, a network of 130 million of them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company Seniority, skills and did I say job title. See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started at LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions apply.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah, how's this week been? I mean, it's still early this week, but how has it been for you? How has it been for Infosys? When you come, what do you seek to accomplish? You know, what does good look like for you coming out of this week?

[Sumit Vermani]

So I'm going to say that wearing my two separate hats, one as the CMO of the organization and one of course, the member executive committee that represents the larger organizational interest, which is also beyond marketing. So from a marketing standpoint, this is a great platform for brand showcase because we are a large organization, nearly 20 billion in revenues, 350,000 people present across 60 countries. It's a great opportunity to showcase a brand to the business leaders from across industries that we serve. So that's why we have a very significant presence on the promenade. If you just walk from here to the Congress center, you can't miss us. So that's one opportunity that we keep creatively taking leaps to ensure we are front and center despite the rather crowded promenade. The second objective is of course, spending time with our customers. A lot of our existing and potential C suite customer leaders are here and we spend a fair amount of time spending one on one conversations with them. And we have an entire portfolio of our leadership who's here. And we do hundreds of meetings in three days. So that ends up becoming a massive priority for us. And lastly, I would say, like I was suggesting earlier, it's a great platform to learn. I mean, where else in the world do you get a confluence of geopolitics, business priorities, technological priorities, and peer learning? I think it's one of a kind. And no wonder, decades after it was conceptualized. I was reading somewhere that this year happens to be one of the largest participations of CEOs and heads of state. So clearly it's, it's a lot to achieve in four days or three days. Three active days, I must say. I mean, divided that it runs from Monday to Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday are the days where all the action happens. So yes, a lot to do in three days, but just getting started, I love that.

[Jenny Rooney]

And by the way, because you've been here so long, what to wear in Davos is quite a thing. So you've obviously figured it out. You have incredibly utilitarian yet fabulous boots that I'm sure you wear. What do you think's the funniest thing that people might not realize about Davos?

[Sumit Vermani]

Well, you know what, having done this for over a decade, as I mentioned earlier, no, Davos is same as the other. So you've got to be very prepared for divorce the first couple of years. You will just learn how to be most effective in Davos. So I would say when it comes to clothing, your boots are the absolute critical accessory because that's the difference between surviving and actually walking away with an injury on the very first day. So I think it's utility number one. The second important learning that I picked up very early in the Davos journey life is avoid nightcaps. If you really want to be effective on day two and day three, they.

[Jenny Rooney]

Do early mornings here.

[Sumit Vermani]

Exactly. Because you start at like 6:37 and you finish only at 1:00 clock in the night. So yeah, I know a lot of people can do that three, four days in a row. I mean, unfortunately I don't. I need to learn how to really pick up on my energy, but till I do that, I avoid nightcaps.

[Jenny Rooney]

That's such good advice. That is one different big difference I've noticed about Davos from Cannes can people don't really get started until earliest is 8 o' clock and that might just be a coffee or breakfast. And then the programming doesn't really kick in until 10 o', clock. So it's a lot earlier morning every.

[Sumit Vermani]

Every day for the next whole week. My day starts at 7 and 7 means I have to be in a meeting at 7. So you realize how early you got to start before that. So yes, I guess it's learning, but then some advantages of coming here for a decade.

[Jenny Rooney]

Well, congratulations to you. If you don't come away from 10 years without some real expertise on Davos, I don't know why it would be effective. But Sumit, this is just so wonderful to talk to you. I know you're going to be part of additional programming here that we're doing as Marketing vanguard here in the FQ lounge over these next couple days. Thank you for being here. It's always a pleasure and I look forward to talking to you again.

[Sumit Vermani]

Thank you Jenny. Thanks again and all the best for your very first divorce. May this be the start of many more to come.

[LinkedIn Ads Narrator]

Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the Adweek Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. You can listen and subscribe to all of Adweek's podcasts by visiting adweek.com podcasts. Stay updated on all things Adweek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter @AdWeekpodcast. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an [e-mail] thanks for listening. Does it ever feel like you're a marketing professional just speaking into the void? But with LinkedIn ads, you can know you're reaching the right decision makers. A network of 130 million of them them. In fact, you can even target buyers by job title, industry, company seniority, skills and Did I say job title? See how you can avoid the void and reach the right buyers with LinkedIn ads. Spend $250 on your first campaign and get a free $250 credit for the next one. Get started at LinkedIn. Com campaign terms and conditions apply.