From Zero Marketing Classes to $50B, Tech CMO Carrie Palin's Unconventional Path at Cisco

Summary

Marketing Vanguard: From Zero Marketing Classes to $50B, Tech CMO Carrie Palin's Unconventional Path at Cisco

Episode Release Date: March 24, 2025

Introduction

In this compelling episode of Marketing Vanguard, hosted by Jenny Rooney from Adweek, listeners are treated to an insightful conversation with Carrie Palin, the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) of Cisco. Carrie shares her extraordinary journey from never having taken a marketing class to leading marketing strategies for a $50 billion tech giant. This episode delves deep into Carrie’s unconventional career path, her strategic initiatives at Cisco, the evolving landscape of B2B tech marketing, the integration of AI in marketing practices, and her personal experiences balancing a C-level role with parenthood.

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Carrie Palin’s Unconventional Journey into Marketing and Tech

Carrie Palin’s career trajectory is anything but traditional. When Jenny Rooney opens the conversation, she highlights Carrie’s impressive accomplishments, prompting Carrie to reflect on her unexpected path into the marketing realm.

Carrie shares:

“I never saw this as my future. If you were to ask my 18-year-old self or my 22-year-old self graduating from college what I was going to do, I thought, oh, I'm getting into sports marketing or possibly PR. The last thing I thought I'd do is get into tech, which I've had 30 years of a tech career, but number two, I never even took a marketing class.” ([00:42])

Carrie emphasizes the importance of stepping out of one’s comfort zone and embracing challenges. Her entry into marketing was serendipitous—hired by Dell straight out of college in a PR role, she was swiftly reallocated to a marketing position within three months due to a company reorganization. This pivot forced her to "sink or swim," a test that ultimately shaped her resilient approach to her career.

Key Career Milestones

Carrie’s career spans several notable tech companies, each contributing uniquely to her expertise:

1. Dell (Early Career): Starting in PR, a reorganization thrust her into a marketing role without prior experience, teaching her to listen more, take diligent notes, and learn from others.

2. IBM (Software as a Service): Transitioning to IBM allowed Carrie to delve into the burgeoning field of SaaS under the mentorship of a leader who had successfully sold a SaaS company to IBM. This role was pivotal in understanding the shift towards software-driven services.

3. Box: As the first CMO at Box, a company that had just gone public, Carrie embraced the challenges of scaling and adapting marketing strategies within a fast-growing environment. Her time at Box was marked by high stakes and rapid learning.

4. SendGrid and Twilio Acquisition: At SendGrid, Carrie experienced firsthand the dynamics of company acquisitions when Twilio announced plans to acquire SendGrid. This period reinforced her adaptability and commitment to seeing projects through transitions.

5. Splunk: Joining Splunk during its meteoric rise provided Carrie with opportunities to lead significant rebranding efforts, further honing her skills in brand modernization.

6. Cisco (Current Role): For the past four years, Carrie has been spearheading marketing strategies at Cisco, focusing on digital resilience and integrating key acquisitions like Splunk to enhance the company's cybersecurity and observability capabilities.

Carrie reflects:

“Marketing all of a sudden matters… Today, marketing has the most insight to these days in most B2B companies. And so that means that we should be business leaders at these companies inside of our executive leadership teams and not just the people who own the brand.” ([07:21])

Educational Background and Early Influences

Carrie credits her education at Texas Christian University (TCU) for laying the foundation of her career. Despite not studying marketing formally, her communication and journalism background equipped her with essential skills that translated seamlessly into her marketing roles.

Carrie notes:

“I went to the Schiefel school of communication and journalism… TCU is a very small school, but it was a great place for me to go learn.” ([05:38])

Her decision to attend TCU, away from her hometown of Austin, Texas, was driven by a desire for diverse experiences, setting the stage for her adaptability and willingness to embrace new challenges.

B2B Tech Marketing vs. B2C Innovation

A significant portion of the conversation focuses on the differences and innovations within B2B (Business-to-Business) tech marketing compared to B2C (Business-to-Consumer). Carrie argues that while B2B tech marketing has historically lagged behind B2C in terms of customer understanding and digital engagement, the landscape is rapidly evolving.

Carrie explains:

“Back up 20 years ago in B2B tech, the understanding of customers was so delayed in their behaviors… Now, because the world is so intensely digital and because B2C companies have made that consumer relationship so instantaneous and gratifying, we've had to catch up in B2B.” ([07:21])

Carrie highlights that B2B tech marketing is now leveraging advanced digital tools and AI to better understand customer behaviors, often surpassing B2C in data-driven insights due to the sophisticated technologies developed within the sector. This leapfrogging allows B2B marketers to create more immersive and effective customer experiences, ultimately driving long-term relationships rather than one-off transactions typical in B2C.

Strategic Initiatives and Achievements at Cisco

At Cisco, Carrie Palin has been instrumental in redefining the company's brand and marketing strategies to align with contemporary demands for digital resilience and cybersecurity. She discusses several key initiatives and achievements during her tenure:

1. Replatforming the Website: Upon joining Cisco, Carrie identified the outdated website as a critical barrier to revenue growth and customer engagement. Taking immediate action, she led a replatforming effort that significantly reduced the 80% bounce rate.

   Carrie shares:

   “We replatformed the website and changed how our customers can engage with us. And my team won a ton of awards for that.” ([11:52])

2. Brand Modernization: Recognizing the need to evolve Cisco’s brand beyond its legacy as an internet infrastructure provider, Carrie spearheaded campaigns that emphasized Cisco’s role in cybersecurity and digital resilience.

   Carrie describes an impactful ad campaign:

   “We put out some ads a few years ago. One was actually up for an award at Cannes… It simplifies what that is. But the whole point was everybody's out there trying to put the fear of God into you around security. What we're trying to say is, hey, when Cisco's got your back… we're going to help you get back up and running.” ([15:01])

   This ad featured a dynamic, Gen Z-inspired visual narrative that effectively communicated Cisco’s commitment to security without relying on traditional fear-based messaging. The campaign was so well-received that it even garnered attention from other major brands like Apple.

3. Integration of Splunk Acquisition: Leveraging Cisco’s acquisition of Splunk, Carrie has integrated Splunk’s capabilities in cybersecurity and observability into Cisco’s broader offerings, enhancing the company’s ability to provide comprehensive digital resilience solutions.

   Carrie elaborates:

   “With Splunk, it's the ability to see anywhere in your hardware, software, out in the ether to understand how to find that needle in the haystack… we own so much of the cyber, we own so much of the observability.” ([09:28])

4. Embracing AI in Marketing: Carrie has been at the forefront of integrating AI into Cisco’s marketing operations, particularly in enhancing customer interactions and lead management.

   Carrie explains:

   “We are using AI in my team to actually front end that… AI is allowing for us to actually have real-time interaction because people don't want to wait 24 hours… it is almost human-like and it's in natural language and it's in their language.” ([16:31])

   This application of AI ensures that customer inquiries are handled promptly and efficiently, providing a seamless and personalized experience that meets the demands of today’s digital-savvy consumers.

Embracing AI and Agentic AI in Marketing

Carrie delves into the transformative role of AI, particularly agentic AI, in modern marketing strategies. At Cisco, AI is leveraged to enhance customer experiences, streamline operations, and drive revenue growth.

Carrie discusses the thoughtful implementation of AI:

“We are doing it in a way that is thoughtful and is intentional and is safe and secure.” ([16:31])

AI-Powered Customer Interaction: Cisco utilizes AI to manage an overwhelming volume of leads by providing real-time, multilingual interactions. This ensures that potential customers receive immediate responses in their preferred language, enhancing satisfaction and increasing the likelihood of conversion.

Carrie illustrates with a real-world example:

“If someone needs to talk to somebody immediately, it's not over text and email, but it is almost human-like and it's in natural language and it's in their language.” ([16:50])

AI Summit and Industry Collaboration: Carrie recounts Cisco’s AI summit held in Palo Alto, which featured prominent industry leaders and highlighted the diverse applications of AI across various sectors. The event underscored Cisco’s commitment to fostering innovation and collaboration within the AI ecosystem.

Carrie reflects on the summit:

“We literally had 12 guest speakers throughout the day… It was so cool to see how AI in every situation is actually improving the human experience.” ([19:45])

Humanizing AI Interactions: Contrary to the common fear that AI diminishes human interaction, Carrie asserts that Cisco’s approach to AI enhances the human element in customer experiences by providing timely and relevant support.

Carrie emphasizes:

“We're putting more humanity in the interaction because we're meeting people where they are in their language, in their time zone.” ([20:53])

Balancing C-Level Leadership with Parenthood

One of the most poignant segments of the conversation revolves around Carrie’s personal experiences balancing her high-powered role as CMO with her responsibilities as a parent. She candidly discusses the challenges, societal expectations, and strategies for achieving work-life balance.

Carrie shares her internal struggles:

“Why am I the person doing this? Why not somebody else? I think it's part of the imposter syndrome with women.” ([22:13])

Negotiating Work-Life Balance: Carrie elaborates on the importance of setting non-negotiable personal priorities and finding supportive work environments. She recounts a significant moment when she successfully negotiated an extended maternity leave, which ultimately bolstered her career rather than hindering it.

Carrie recounts:

“Our SVP came back and said, the hell we can't. This is a man curmudgeony man. But he said, hell we can't… he said, Carrie's earned this. She can have a fourth month.” ([26:37])

This experience reinforced her belief in advocating for one’s needs and finding leverage through demonstrated performance and dedication.

Support Systems and Community: Carrie underscores the critical role of support systems, including family, friends, and professional networks, in successfully managing the dual demands of a C-level position and parenthood.

Carrie emphasizes:

“I have an incredibly supportive husband… friends in my community who look after my kids with me… you will burn out if you don't lean on support.” ([26:51])

She encourages working parents to seek out supportive environments and leverage community resources to maintain their well-being and professional effectiveness.

Advice and Lessons Learned

Throughout the conversation, Carrie imparts valuable advice for aspiring marketers and working parents, emphasizing resilience, clear communication, and the importance of supportive work cultures.

Key Takeaways:

1. Embrace Challenges: Step out of comfort zones and tackle unfamiliar roles with determination and a willingness to learn.

2. Adaptability is Crucial: Each company’s needs and market dynamics are unique; being flexible and continuously learning is essential for sustained success.

3. Integrate Technology Thoughtfully: Utilize AI and other technologies to enhance, not replace, the human elements of customer interactions.

4. Advocate for Work-Life Balance: Set clear personal priorities and negotiate for necessary accommodations to balance professional and personal responsibilities.

5. Build a Support Network: Rely on family, friends, and professional communities to provide the necessary support for managing dual roles.

6. Perform with Excellence: Demonstrate unwavering commitment and high performance to gain leverage in negotiating personal needs.

Carrie advises:

“If you can't negotiate for your non-negotiables, then you're not going to be happy. You have to make it a priority and set the expectation.” ([26:37])

Future Directions and Recommendations

At the end of the episode, Jenny Rooney asks Carrie for recommendations on future podcast guests. Carrie enthusiastically suggests industry leaders like Chris Davis from New Balance and Carlo Hassan, noting their innovative contributions to marketing and their dynamic roles within the industry.

Carrie recommends:

“Chris Davis is so amazing… and Carlo Hassan would be amazing. I got to do a panel with her in Cannes last summer and just think she's so cool.” ([30:03])

Conclusion

This episode of Marketing Vanguard offers a deep dive into Carrie Palin’s inspiring journey from an unexpected entry into marketing to becoming the CMO of Cisco. Carrie’s story is a testament to the power of resilience, adaptability, and continuous learning. Her strategic initiatives at Cisco, particularly in leveraging AI for enhanced customer experiences and modernizing the brand, showcase how forward-thinking marketing can drive substantial business growth. Additionally, her candid discussion on balancing a high-powered career with parenthood provides invaluable insights and encouragement for working professionals navigating similar challenges.

Carrie Palin’s narrative not only highlights her personal achievements but also underscores broader trends and innovations within the B2B tech marketing landscape. Her emphasis on integrating technology thoughtfully, advocating for work-life balance, and fostering supportive networks offers a roadmap for current and aspiring marketers aiming to make a meaningful impact in their fields.

Notable Quotes:

• Carrie Palin: “I never saw this as my future… I wasn't supposed to be in marketing and here I am.” ([00:42])

• Carrie Palin: “Get uncomfortable early and often and do the hard things that you don't think you can do.” ([00:42])

• Carrie Palin: “Marketing all of a sudden matters… marketing has the most insight to these days in most B2B companies.” ([07:21])

• Carrie Palin: “We replatformed the website and changed how our customers can engage with us. And my team won a ton of awards for that.” ([11:52])

• Carrie Palin: “AI is allowing for us to actually have real-time interaction because people don’t want to wait 24 hours… it is almost human-like and it's in natural language and it's in their language.” ([16:31])

• Carrie Palin: “I worked my ass off and I'd performed well… it was a non negotiable for me even before I knew what non negotiables were.” ([26:37])

• Carrie Palin: “I don't do this alone… we can do it as a community together and don't do this alone.” ([26:51])

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This episode serves as a rich source of inspiration and knowledge for marketers, executives, and professionals striving to navigate the complexities of the modern business landscape while maintaining personal well-being and fulfilling family responsibilities. Carrie Palin’s insights and experiences provide a valuable blueprint for achieving success through resilience, strategic innovation, and compassionate leadership.

Transcript

[Jenny Rooney]

Hi, everyone, and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with Adweek and I'm thrilled to be joined today by Carrie Palin. She is the CMO of Cisco. Carrie, welcome.

[Carrie Palin]

Thank you, Jenny. I'm delighted to be with you today.

[Jenny Rooney]

So good to see you. It's been a minute since we were together in person, but I'm really glad that we're able to make this happen for the podcast and something that's been a long time coming. So, look, I would love for you to introduce yourself to folks who, and I would be surprised to know this, don't know you. You've done some extraordinary things in your career. You've had a really interesting career and I would love for you to share what you're doing at Cisco. Of course. But share a little bit about your backstory too, and some of the steps that led you to this place. Yeah.

[Carrie Palin]

Thank you. And honestly, I guess the most important thing to say is that I never saw this as my future. If you were to ask my 18 year old self or my 22 year old self graduating from college what I was going to do, I thought, oh, I'm getting into sports marketing or possibly add pr. And the last thing I thought I'd do is get into tech, number one, which I've had 30 years of a tech career, but number two, I never even took a marketing class. Like I wasn't supposed to be in marketing and here I am. So I think the broad macro theme is get uncomfortable early and often and do the hard things that you don't think you can do. And I think that's been the backdrop of my career. I was hired into Dell out of college and in a PR role, which I had experience in. Three months into that job, they reorged and said, hey, you're going to be an assistant brand manager in marketing for this product line. Go. And I panicked because this was pre Google, pre Internet, really, and pre chatgpt or anything else where you could go learn about something. And I thought, gosh, they're going to know I'm a fraud. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to get fired out of my first job. But that moment and that learning experience set the course of the rest of my career because I had to figure it out. There just wasn't an option. It was either sink or swim. And what I learned was listening more than I spoke, taking fastidious notes, figuring out who's amazing at what I wanted to be amazing at, and emulating some of their greatest attributes. Learning from them and being open to not knowing or having all the answers actually has been the backdrop of my career. And so I took that 17 or so years at Dell. I did a few years outside of Dell in tech sales. Realized marketing is really where I wanted to be. And then I decided after so many years at Dell that I really needed to go learn software and software as a service. And that was the way the industry was going. And had the great opportunity to work for an amazing guy who had sold his SaaS company to IBM. And IBM was standing up their first software as a service division. And he hired me to come in and redo how marketing was done at IBM. And we had the agency to go do that from Ginny Rometti. And he taught me about software as a service. And so he taught me. I did new things with him and that was amazing. And then Box called and offered me a job to be their first cmo. And they had just gone public and it was a 31 year old founder CEO there. And I thought, Gosh, I've done Fortune 50 my whole career, I want to go try something like this. And so my family moved to the Valley. I had two young kids, we moved in three weeks and it could have been an epic disaster. And it ended up being one of the greatest moves of my life. But man, was I scared once because the risk profile for failure was really high. I think that's when I first met you, is when I was at Box. Right.

[Jenny Rooney]

I was just gonna say that's where our world's connected. Cause that's where I met you. And you were at Box. Yeah.

[Carrie Palin]

And I learned so much. And them giving me that opportunity was game changing. And I got to work every day knowing that it was like I carried this little chip on my shoulder of this is sink or swim again. Like those first days at Dell where they handed putting me in a job that I didn't know I was staying. Because honestly, you don't know how to be a CMO until you're in it. Right? Like no one has a playbook for it. And every CMO role is different. That's part of the other thing is you can't take a playbook from one to the other. Every company's needs are different, every CEO is different. Every market evaluation of a company's growth is different. So you have to be super transferable and you have to be able to learn. Box was an amazing proving ground. And then I went to a place called Sendgrid to work for probably the Coolest CEO I've ever known outside of Chuck Robbins and guy named Samir Dalakia in the Valley. But five weeks into there, Twilio announced their intent to acquire us, which was amazing. But when I was there, marketing owned all revenue, which was a cool experience. And I was section 16 officer there. So as a named officer, because we ran all revenue. And that was such a cool experience. Even if for five months. Right. Stayed through the acquisition. And then I went to Splunk, and Splunk was on this meteoric rise. When I went there, they were at 2 billion in revenue and growing like 50% year over year. Something just blisteringly crazy. And that ride was fun, but we rebranded while I was there, which was the first time I had ever done that or led that as a cmo. And that was super fun and exciting and nerve wracking. And then Cisco called. And so I've been at Cisco almost four years now, and it's been amazing. So that's a very long way of saying that's the backdrop to my career.

[Jenny Rooney]

But it's interesting. You fell into marketing. You fell into tech too, because you didn't really. I mean, Dell was your first job. Where did you go to school?

[Carrie Palin]

I went to tcu. Tcu.

[Jenny Rooney]

Okay. I was going to wonder if it was UT Austin, because I've done some work with them.

[Carrie Palin]

Yeah.

[Jenny Rooney]

But yeah, TCU is right there. That's phenomenal as well. There's an ethos, though, of Texas education in Dell.

[Carrie Palin]

Right. Well, my husband's a Longhorn and I grew up in Austin and loved it, but I needed to get out of Austin, just have a different experience for school. And actually, I don't know if you know the legendary broadcaster Bob Schieffer, but he went to tcu.

[Jenny Rooney]

Of course I do. Yeah.

[Carrie Palin]

Like the Schiefer School of Communication and Journalism was where I went and I loved it like that. That was really what I wanted to do. And TCU is a very small school, but it was a great place for me to go learn.

[Jenny Rooney]

That's amazing. So it's just an interesting story that you fell into it and yet you're thriving now. You're at Cisco. You've been there four years. And it's just so interesting that you are a. I would argue you are defining what it means to be a tech CMO and what tech marketing needs to be now. But explain that, because there's plenty of people I talk to who say some of the greatest innovation that's happening in marketing right now is happening in the B2B space and more specifically is happening in the tech space. So why is that? Would you say?

[Carrie Palin]

My husband went and got his MBA at Northwestern, Kellogg, and we've been married for almost 20 years. And he always said when he was at Kellogg all they'd talk about this back in the early 2000s, but is if you want to be a marketer, go B2C. Like don't you know, that's the only that's functioning. And especially consumer packaged goods. Right. So so many of his peers and friends went that route. I will say tech marketing has been a slog for many years. But it's so interesting because back up 20 years ago in B2B tech, the understanding of customer was so delayed in their behaviors. Cause we didn't have the tech to really see what they were doing from a digital behavior perspective. And it was really like you had to talk to the sales teams to understand what they were hearing and marry that with the data that we could get pulled together to try to find some behavioral patterns to then serve those customers better. But it was just the instant gratification cycle wasn't there in B2B tech. Right. And also in tech, it's almost always about the innovation. So it's product first.

[Jenny Rooney]

Yeah.

[Carrie Palin]

And then in B2B a lot of those companies, and then it's sales and then they go to this scale that they realize they can't scale with just a salesforce or the market isn't coming to them because their product isn't quite as competitive at that point. And then marketing all of a sudden matters. Right. And it's everything from brand all the way through to demand. But these days, because the world is so intensely Digital and because B2C companies have made that consumer relationship so instantaneous and gratifying, we've had to catch up in B2B. And yet now we are producing a lot of the tech in B2B that is enabling all of this AI revolution, for instance. And so we have this sort of. We're almost like leapfrogging in the way that we understand our customers, maybe Even better than B2C, I dare say it, in some cases. And now how do we apply that to create an even more immersive and wonderful customer experience and help our salespeople, our customer success organizations, all of the humans that actually touch a customer's experience. How do we elevate that so that this entire life cycle with a customer which can last for years and decades, very different than consumer branding, which is like instantaneous and Then you're gone. It's different. It's a long term relationship that marketing has the most insight to these days in most B2B companies. And so that means that we should be business leaders at these companies inside of our executive leadership teams and not just the people who own the brand. It's very different and our seat at the table is changing dramatically as a consequence.

[Jenny Rooney]

So. Well said. Talk a little bit about against that backdrop, what you have been doing at Cisco, where you are in your journey at Cisco and where Cisco is in its journey because it's a unique company in the tech space itself. So talk a little bit about that.

[Carrie Palin]

Well, a couple of things my father in law has always said to me. He's a really successful man in the commercial real estate realm and he's always like, you always want to follow a non act, right? Like go find your opportunities where there's upside. Right. And so when Cisco called me, I thought, gosh, they're already a really epic eponymous brand. Right.

[Jenny Rooney]

And frankly they were doing consumer brand marketing when very few were.

[Carrie Palin]

That's right.

[Jenny Rooney]

Way back, maybe 10 years. So.

[Carrie Palin]

And a highly valued brand, right? Like inner brands always had them way high up in the rankings. And I thought, where can I go from there, right? Is there really opportunity to. Because I am not happy. I'm not at my best as a CMO unless I know I can make material headway as a contributor to the business. My team can contribute to revenue growth and increasing the value of the brand. And so what was wonderful about coming to Cisco is I had this brand that was trusted, valued, sturdy, iconic in the valley, but where the opportunity was actually educating everyone on this new chapter where Cisco is. Because we are no longer just the company that built the Internet. We have been connecting the world and connecting humans forever. Right. We were the first company that did that, but we have been protecting that connection as well in the background. We've been doing all this cybersecurity work for decades and we weren't talking about it, right. So this whole concept of connected protect was the first foray when I got here. And then we've been using that because now we acquired Splunk, which is first in category with cyber and with observability, which is the ability to see anywhere in your hardware software out in the ether to understand how to find that needle in the haystack. Like for instance, when cyber events happen, if your organization is hacked, Splunk is utilized a lot to figure out where those disruptions are, how to get back on your feet. Because in today's world, cyber attacks are just going to happen. We all know that there's no way to completely thwart them. But how you find out how to recover and being digitally resilient, that is who Cisco is today. Because we own the network, we own so much of the cyber, we own so much of the observability and the ability for you to see where the problem's at in order to fix and diagnose and get back on the mend. And so we take that very seriously. Because being a safe digital world these days, for whether it be for our children or for the federal government, is paramount. And so that digital resilience is where we're moving our brand to. But the other aspect of my job is driving growth for the company, right? And so when I got here we had a 17 year old website that had like an 80% bounce rate which I know will make some CMOs cringe when they hear that. But I saw opportunity. I was like, sweet mother of God, there's real opportunity here, you can only.

[Jenny Rooney]

Go up from there.

[Carrie Palin]

Totally though I was hearing my father in law's voice in my head, the website was a non act, right? Nobody had invested in it. And so I made that part of my accepting the job. I said to the woman I came in to work for who was head of Go to market, I said, listen, I'm a digital marketer, I'm a revenue marketer, that's my lane, that's the one that I'm passionate about. And if we can't replatform this website, we're hemorrhaging cash, putting money in market that is literally falling to the wayside the moment people get to our website. And it's just, it's silly. And so that was part of it. We did the immediate yes, you can do that. So we re platform the website and change how our customers can engage with us. And my team won a ton of awards for that. I'm so proud of the work they did because it was hard flooding. I mean when you're talking about thousands upon thousands of pages that you have to deprecate, get off and have a really smooth customer experience because that's what it was about. We put the customer first, so we started there. We also have been modernizing the brand. We've been doing a lot with the brand, especially in the security space. We started there, but we put out some ads a few years ago. One was actually up for award a line award at Cannes. I mean, when's the last time Cisco had An ad put up for like, you know what I mean? It was nominated for that and I was so proud. But I'll tell you something, when we brought that ad to our CEO, who's an amazing human being, I just, I adore Chuck Robbins. He's a wonderful guy. But, you know, he's roughly my cohort, age wise, and grew up in Georgia and he's a CEO in Silicon Valley. But he said, listen, go modernize the brand. He said, yes. Well, then they actually marinate on what that creative looks like. It could be jarring, right? And so we showed him the finished product of that ad that was up for a Lion Award before it was up for a Lion Award. And he was so sweet. He had his two head of executive comms there. There are both. One's a millennial, one's Gen Z. And he said, carrie, I really like it. I don't know if I'm your target audience. And he looked at both of the incredibly cool, chic, stylish ladies to either side of him and just boss ladies. And he said, what do you guys think? And they both said, we love it. And he said, that's all I need to know. And he looked at me and he's like, I trust you. Go with it. We played it during the college football playoffs that year and our audience was C Suite, right? We really wanted the C Suite to start associating Cisco with security, but digital resilience, right? And you don't even hear the words or see the name Cisco to the very end of the ad. You just see this amazingly athletic, live, beautiful black woman that is dressed in these cool kind of Gen Z clothes. Her whole organization has. It's called Secure Freeze. But basically they've been hacked and everything just stops. Like the record scratches and she's like sort of dancing through this video, this ad, like with this knowing look on her face that I've got this. And at the very end, she like hits this button on his screen that's the Cisco interface. And everything goes back. The business starts cranking again. And yeah, it simplifies what that is. But the whole point was everybody's out there trying to put the fear of God into you around security. What we're trying to say is, hey, when Cisco's got your back, security message going to happen, but we're going to help you get back up and running. And the whole vibe of it was so cool that someone from Apple called our chief product officer and said, was that filmed in one of our stores without our permission?

[Jenny Rooney]

Oh, my Gosh, no way.

[Carrie Palin]

True story. And we said, no, actually, it was in literally like a warehouse in Lithuania that our ad agency just did a really great job of making very Chicago. But it was not an Apple Store. So betc. I love them. They're out of France and they're so cool. They usually do like very high end D R kind of things. They do very high end luxury brands, have forever. But they wanted to try something new, and we found this kinship. So when interviewing agencies, I said, let's do this. And they started in the music industry, and so they do all these original tracks of music to our ads. So there's no human talking. You just hear really cool music, which also catches people's attention. But we believe that's a brand language for millennials and Gen Z because they're the two generations that have grown up with like earbuds in their ears listening to music. Yeah, we started to lean in really hard as we're trying to change a perception of our relevance as a cool brand to things that actually resonate with Gen Z Millennials.

[Jenny Rooney]

Amazing. I can't not ask you the AI question, and particularly the agentic AI. I mean, coming out of ces, you didn't go to CES this year, right?

[Carrie Palin]

I was not there. No.

[Jenny Rooney]

By design, I would imagine. I mean, that's Consumer Electronics Show. So it's just, it's transformed so dramatically over the years. But obviously marketers still go there just to hear what the latest and greatest is. But obviously agentic AI was just on the tip of everybody's tongue. So talk a little bit about this. What do we need to know? What should we ignore? Where's your head on it right now?

[Carrie Palin]

I mean, so Cisco's leaning in hard to AI and agentic. However, I want to say this, and this is very important, that we are doing it in a way that is thoughtful and is intentional and is safe and secure.

[Jenny Rooney]

And you're obviously thinking about it for businesses. But there's also obviously a consumer application.

[Carrie Palin]

We utilize AI in my team to make us stronger, better, faster, and understand our customers better and fill gaps in our business. I'll give you a real world example of that. I have lead development reps all around the world. So when a lead comes in, somebody raises their hand and says, I want to talk to Cisco. Whether it be on our website or somewhere, another cube, they get funneled into real human beings. We cannot scale that. Like, we are $50 billion company on average annually. Right. So the amount of leads coming in is mind numbing. And we need to do it in every local language. Right. Because not everyone speaks English. We want to be sensitive to that. We cannot scale lead development reps in every language in every culture. And AI is allowing for us to actually have real time interaction because people don't want to wait 24 hours till someone gets on a phone ready to talk to them. They need it in the moment. Much like that. Cons, if they just got off their phone ordering shoes on Adidas.com and they turn around and meet something from Cisco, they don't want to wait 18 hours for a sales rep to call them back. Like that doesn't translate. And so we are using AI in my team to actually front end that so that if someone needs to talk to somebody immediately, it's not. It's over text and email, but it is almost human like and it's in natural language and it's in their language. So we meet them where they are until we can get a rep from one of our regions who is up and on the lines to take the call. And then we use real time translation to help them communicate. Right. So there's this continuity of customer experience that AI is filling the gaps that just were impossible to fill with as many humans as you'd need in all those different languages and all the things to actually improve the customer experience. And that has been such a cool pilot that we've been doing. That is it shows me that everybody says AI is going to take the humanity out of interactions. But the example I just gave you actually shows how we're putting more humanity in the interaction because we're meeting people where they are in their language, in their time zone instead of forcing them to wait. Right. So I do believe that there's real opportunity for us to change the way we serve humanity through AI and agentic. We held an AI summit in January in Palo Alto. Cisco did and we announced a new product, but it was. We literally had 12 guest speakers throughout the day. We invited CEOs and CIOs. The place was packed. We only had room for about 140. And then all day long we were getting pinged by people. Our CEO is getting pinged. Why did you invite me to this thing? As the press cycles were rolling. But we had the CEO of Scale AI, we had the COO of OpenAI, we had Arianna Huffington talking about AI in healthcare and how she's trying to transform that. We had the CEO Goldman Sachs in there talking to our CEO about the financial industry. And it was so cool to see how AI in Every situation is actually improving the human experience.

[Jenny Rooney]

So it's interesting. I recently interviewed Alicia Tillman, was ces, and did the press conference from the Sphere stage and made some big announcements that Delta's doing. And a big highlight of that was their use of an implementation of AI. And I had a conversation with her the next day. She said a lot of the same things. This concept of it's actually humanizing the experience and the whole journey that somebody takes when they take a flight. And what I'm hearing from you is like, visually, I see it as it's. And this is not a very deep analogy, but it truly is like a patchwork or it's a quilt, or it's a tapestry, or it's a mosaic, or it's a puzzle where you're just fitting in pieces. And like the human pieces, the literal human beings still have to be there in that tapestry, but you're actually filling in some of those other puzzle piece holes with the AI. The agentic AI, ultimate result of all of it is a much better experience. And a human experience, to your point. Like people aren't just sitting there waiting, which is very. Not organic. And it's not human. It's not part of a typical human existence. So you keep people moving through their.

[Carrie Palin]

Day in a very real way and getting answers when they need it and getting routed to the right human versus just a human that's a warm body because you understand more about what they need before you get them to that human. But yet they feel like they're being treated with a human. There's this way to enable this. Also, by the way, back to translations. Translation services for marketing are so expensive and doesn't matter what company I've been at, all my peers talk about it. We can't service every language on the globe because it's just too expensive. Yeah. With AI, guess what? You can. We can. It becomes infinitely more affordable and it might not be perfect, but if it's 80 of the way there and we can communicate with folks in a more obtuse, less known language because it's theirs, versus forcing them to go read something in French, why wouldn't we do that?

[Jenny Rooney]

Absolutely. I have to ask you this question, Carrie, to just to change tracks and to go very deeply human. I know this is a passion of yours and I'm excited to ask you this question because I do think that there's folks out in our world. And by our world, I mean certainly the marketing world, but the executive world, it feels like being C level is mutually exclusive. With being a parent and being somebody who's hands on and present, I can't believe that challenge still persists, but it does. And I know you have some very strong views on it. So tell me a little bit about that.

[Carrie Palin]

Yeah. Do you ever like have those moments like, why am I here? Why am I the person doing this? Why not somebody else? I think it's part of the imposter syndrome with women. But I have to ask myself, I mean, I don't have a marketing degree. I don't even have my mba. Like, why me? Why am I in this role? Right. And whatever you believe in, the universe, God, I personally believe in God. But like, why did God put me here? How do I best serve the human beings that I serve that are formally in my world, in my organization, at my company, my customers? And then how do I leverage this position, whatever power it may come with, to actually do good? And I will tell you, I too often hear young ladies, women my age saying, I just don't think I can do both. And where I work, they make it very clear that I can't do both. Or I got advice from a mentor that if I said I wanted one more month of maternity leave, that would kill my career and no one would think I was serious about my career. And I've had those experiences too, by the way. This has not been smooth sailing for me. But what I want to say is it's doable and it's. You have to make it a priority in that you have to figure out to work at places that are going to support you as a working mom. Some companies, cultures do and some don't. And you can find out pretty quickly. If the culture doesn't work for a manager, that does. Because managers create their own subcultures at big companies or small companies. So work for the right people, work for the right companies and then work your tail off. Right? And then you have leverage because if you perform, then you can have the conversation of, hey, I am going to work my tail off for you. I will commit to delivering all these things to the company. But I have two non negotiables. One is for very important things for my kids, I need to be present, not for everything, but like if they're graduating from something or they're performing in a massive thing that was all semester long, or they have their tournament game, unless something's on fire, literally, I'm going to be in Austin, Texas or in California or in Minneapolis or whatever. I'm going to be there supporting my kid and say, it up front and set the expectation. And I learned that from a fellow cmo, Shannon Brayton, who is used to be the CMO at LinkedIn, who is one of my best friends in this life. And we met because our kids were in school together. We had no idea. We did the same job, different companies. When I started at Box, and she helped me through all the insanity of early years of being a cmo. And she was the one who taught me about non negotiables. Cause I didn't think I had the right to negotiate for that. And she's like, you absolutely do. She's like, you can't have 10 non negotiables, but you can have two or three and stick to them and make sure you're really clear about them and then go crush your job so that no one cares about your non negotiables. Now, it's not just when you're a cmo, it's when you're at this level too. I actually got that the day I returned from his maternity leave. I was being in the pool of people being considered to be a director at Dell. And I remember going to my leader and I said, hey, I've heard that women have made the business case before that they get an extra month of fraternity leave. This is many years ago when three was the standard. And I said, it's taken forever to get pregnant with this kid and I may not have another. And I really want an extra month of unpaid, unpaid maternity leave. So I wanted four months in totality. Which is crazy to think that people think that's so criminal, right? But my boss, who's amazing and my best mentor ever, but also a realist, looked at me and said, hey, I will 100% support you, but I do need you to know that I've had your name in the hat for a director role. And a lot of people at this company have, I've heard behind closed doors at times, said, oh, not serious about their career because she wants to be home with her kids. He said, so you need to be ready for that. And I said, yep. And I went home that night totally crushed. And I was like, I've worked at this company forever. I've busted my butt. And I was talking myself out of it, and I was like, no. If they say no, then I know that long term, this is the wrong company for me and I'm gonna have to figure that out and move on. This is not important. So I went back that day. He sent the note to our SVP of marketing and our HR business partner. And our HR business partner, who was a woman, came back immediately and said, yeah, we can't make exceptions for this, which was company policy, which I don't blame her. And our SVP came back and said, the hell we can't. This is a man curmudgeony man. But he said, hell we can't. Carrie's earned this. She can have a fourth month. And he said, I approve it. And I don't even know if he could approve it, but he just did. And the lesson I learned there was I really didn't have a ton of leverage other than I'd worked my ass off and I'd performed well. But it was a non negotiable for me even before I knew what non negotiables were. And when I came back, I worked harder and better. And then my career took off in leadership positions because I had that gratitude because they did give me that extra month with my kid.

[Jenny Rooney]

Such a poignant story and such great advice for anybody else who's navigating this right now to see what's possible. So unbelievable.

[Carrie Palin]

Carrie, well, and Jenny, sorry, can I add one more thing?

[Jenny Rooney]

Of course.

[Carrie Palin]

I don't do this alone and I want to make that very clear and I never have. I've got an incredibly supportive husband who is really dialed in with our kids. I'm fortunate, right? I have friends in my community who look after my kids with me. And my husband and I made it a priority early on when we had kids. We sacrificed a lot of other things and decided we're going to retire later in life in order to have a nanny in our life. And she has been with us for 14 years and she is the most amazing human being. She has taught my kids so much about life. She is like their aunt. She's our family. But I don't do this alone. And for people who are doing it alone, it's a very different conversation. And I have crazy respect for them. But don't be afraid to lean on work, friends, other moms who can give you advice, community resources, because you will burn out. But it is doable and we can do it as a community together and don't do this alone.

[Jenny Rooney]

And I love that. And the last thing I'll say too is just ask the question. I remember when I was pregnant with my son who's now 18, and it was before working from home was even a thing, and had a job in the city and I lived pretty far out in New Jersey and I asked my then boss at the time, I'm going to have this baby. I'm going to go on leave. When I come back, I can't come in the office five days a week and stay here till 8, 9, 10 o'clock at night. I'm just not going to be able to do that. I was prepared that the answer might be no and that would have been fine and then I would've gone and found something else to do. But if I didn't ask the question I never would've known. And sometimes I feel like we're just not asking the questions.

[Carrie Palin]

Yes. And we shouldn't have to apologize too. I think that's the other thing. It took me a long time, Jenny. Like I would apologize for asking for those things even though I'd stated they're my non negotiables. And just this past weekend I had planned a year ago to take my 11 year old daughter on a trip with some friends to the mountains and their mothers. And we had planned this a year ago and my kid's not the most social kid. She doesn't have tons and tons of friends so this is a very important weekend for her to socially develop. Right. And I was going to take the time off to do it and I had been on the calendar forever and then on Thursday my CEO texted me and he's like hey, let's get together and talk this weekend about this important thing and he's the greatest guy. But I still was like wanting to apologize and instead I stopped myself and I was like nope, I'm not going to apologize. I'm just explained to him exactly why I text him back. I said hey, I can get on a call with you but I prefer to do it Tuesday when I'm back from President's Day weekend because I am spending the weekend with my 11 year old daughter and we are hosting nine people at our home and I need to be dialed into her and I promised her a year ago that I'd do this trip and I so if you're good with it, I would prefer to do it Tuesday. I did not apologize, I did not shrink. I just said here's my situation and if you're good with it, the presumptive clothes. And he came back and said no problem, we'll talk Tuesday. Have fun.

[Jenny Rooney]

That's great. You have to ask. I agree with you completely. You can't apologize or be respectful and say this is how I feel. This is what I would as you said, I this is what I'd prefer to do. So love it. I love your passion around this And I love that you're telling the story again because I'm sure that there are so many of our listeners who feel like they might be in a similar situation and they're trying to figure out how to navigate it. So thank you for that, Carrie. Absolutely. The last quick question I'll ask is, who's next? Who's somebody that you admire who's doing some pretty incredible things in this industry that you think I should have on the podcast?

[Carrie Palin]

Can I give you a couple? Absolutely. So I think Chris Davis is so amazing in what he has.

[Jenny Rooney]

New Balance.

[Carrie Palin]

I literally am in awe. And by the way, my 14 year old, very stylish son who's super shy, digs his New Balance. I love New Balance. I've been searching for two months for these pair of New Balance that they did a collab with Miu Miu 2 years ago and I can't find the shoes and I want them so badly. But like, New Balance has done this cool stuff, so I think him for sure. And then I think Carlo Hassan would be amazing. I love her. I got to do a panel with her in Cannes last summer and just think she's so cool. But I think the question you need to ask just if I can be so bold being married to a fellow cmo, what are their dinner conversations like? I want to know what's going on in that household at dinner because it has to be awesome.

[Jenny Rooney]

What a mashup.

[Carrie Palin]

Yeah.

[Jenny Rooney]

Amazing. Amazing. Well, if we could all be a fly on the wall, that would be amazing. So. But in the meantime, I feel like you've given everybody listening a glimpse into your world and to the things that you spend time thinking about and talking about. And we've covered a lot of ground in a short period of time and it just means that Carrie have to have you back another time. So thank you so, so much, Jenny.

[Carrie Palin]

You're so awesome. I'm such a fan of yours and the work that you do. Thank you for propelling our community forward and being such an icon and a legend. So thank you so much.

[Jenny Rooney]

I say the same of you. So thank you very much. Very kind. Take care and we'll talk soon.

[Carrie Palin]

You too. Bye.

[C]

Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the Ad Week 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 at Adweek Podcasts. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email at podcast at adweek.

[Carrie Palin]

Com.

[C]

Thanks for listening.