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LinkedIn Advertiser
Are your ad campaigns lighting up the dashboard but not the pipeline? That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in dashboard confessions.
Michael Lacaraza
My boss asked for results so I
Jenny Rooney
opened my dashboard for the only positive sounding metric I had. Impressions.
LinkedIn Advertiser
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Michael Lacaraza
Have the utmost commercial mindset. Understand how the company makes money in the P and L and the drivers of the outcomes. Understand what your customers expect from you.
Jenny Rooney
Hi everyone and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard Podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with adweek and I'm thrilled today to be joined by Michael Lacaraza. He's the Executive Vice President and CMO of US Bank. Michael, welcome.
Michael Lacaraza
Thank you. Glad to be here.
Jenny Rooney
Jenny, it's great to see you and I'm excited. I feel like this has been a long time coming and I know that we almost saw each other this summer didn't happen, so I'm excited that we're now having this conversation. And as with all Marketing Vanguard podcasts, it really gives me a chance to really dive into not just the work you're doing, but the person behind the title and who you are and really a little bit about your background and what brought you to this role. And let's start there. I mean, I would love for you to just introduce yourself to folks and share a little bit about your career path. And as I like to ask people, what's your brand story, what's your origin story? And then we'll get into your current role.
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, I'm happy to share, hopefully an abbreviated version of that. Since it's been over multiple decades, my career has been one where I've had the opportunity to work across a number of different categories. I started in the automotive business at Lexus and Toyota in various roles there. I think it's the kind of company where you rotate around a lot. So I had, I think six roles in the 11 years that I was there. And then from there I moved to the east coast to work for Marriott hotels. I went to a hospitality category from automotive and then I worked in real estate. And then I was on the agency side at Digitoff in Boston and then my first entry into financial services was at TN Air Trade in New York and then from there to Wells Fargo. And as I, as I was getting kind of later in my tenure at Wells Fargo. I spent about a decade. One of the areas where I made a conscious effort in the growth of my career was this desire to pivot to be a CEO coming out of the CMO spot. And so I invested a fair amount of time from a skill set perspective, from a networking perspective, how to translate what I learned as a marketing leader. And I had that opportunity to lead a private equity backed turnaround consumer technology company in between Wells Fargo and US Bank. And then I had an exit there which was pretty cool. And then as I was thinking about what to do next, then the US bank opportunity presented itself. And it's such an amazing storied brand. So it was a really easy call actually to come here.
Jenny Rooney
There's so much in that to unpack. So my wheels are turning. Goodness. I mean, so first of all, I'll start with the fact that the big brands, right? I mean, it's a lot of big brands. It's a lot of big brands that people know and love, right? So Lexus, Marriott, even in the financial services category, Wells Fargo, TD Ameritrade. So you know what working for big brands with big footprints and big awareness looks like. And I sort of underscore that because the consistency of that is something. There's a lot of pressure in those environments. No doubt they're largely pretty big matrix organizations pivoting then to a PE backed company as you're the CEO, Correct?
Michael Lacaraza
Yes.
Jenny Rooney
Such a departure. So let's just start for a minute. Let's reflect on all those sort of quote unquote, big brands that you worked at. What was sort of the through line, what was sort of the progression of knowledge or understanding that you took from those experiences?
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, let's see if I start with my experience in the automotive business at Lexus. And the last rule I there had there was running national advertising. But I did several things along the way. My one big learning coming out of that organization was the value of customer centricity and putting the customer front and center of all your decisions. And it sounds maybe sometimes a little bit trite, but it's absolutely kind of foundational to who I am as a leader and how I think about my world. And one of the most, I guess, prolific stories or that I was got to be a part of that kind of galvanized that for me was I think back to the early days of Lexus. It was positioned as a very high quality product, you know, the relentless procedure, perfection. It's positioned around quality. And we had our first major recall with our flagship product where we have a brake noise problem. And you can imagine if you had a brand that was positioned around quality when you have your first recall how that could be super damaging, what might happen. And I was in charge of, you know, I had a, an analyst role, I would say, and bringing to life the voice of the customer. And run some models to give a prediction about the potential downside to our J.D. power scores based on what customers were telling us about their experience. And a guy who was running all of customer service at the time of being with Dick Chitty, he was like my boss's boss's boss at the time, made the call based on the data and based on what we were hearing from from dealers, that we were all not going to just send a customer a letter and offer to fix their problem. We would go to their house or their office, pick up their car, drop off a loaner car and then return it when repairs were complete. And it was certainly a more expensive option at the time for what was a kind of large scale startup brand. But it also had the effect of turning what was potentially really negative experience with the brand into legendary service and kind of cemented the brand firmly in the space of being customer friendly, customer centric.
Jenny Rooney
And then obviously the financial services category is so unique and now you find yourself back in that. Talk about that real quick.
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah. So a few things are really attractive to me about the category that we work in. The first is as I've progressed through my career, I found that I get a lot of energy from complexity. And there's no shortage of complexity being a series of regulated businesses, multiple customer profiles, from mass market retail through high net worth, to corporate, institutional banking, wealth management, government institutional, et cetera. And to constantly be on this learning journey of unpacking what's important for our clients. How do we improve our offering, our customer experience and delight them and how do we grow the business? At the end of the day, that's ultimately one of the key metrics for us. And the other thing about our category that's really exciting for me is that we play a really important role in people's lives, in the lives of company. It's much bigger than just a for profit institution. We have responsibilities to make communities healthy or economy healthy, to raise economic empowerment for the geographies where we serve. And so there's a mission to what we do as well. It's not just about making money. And so I feel like I'm a part of something bigger rather than just selling widgets.
Jenny Rooney
Absolutely. I mean that's the Upside of working for something that is so complex. Right. It's sort of, you know, you have to work complex in order to also have frankly the platform influence and ability to do and be more for the communities. It goes so much more beyond the bounds of the blocking and tackling, day to day tactical work that you do at the company. Two other things you said in your career journey. One was you worked at Digitas. You said I did. So you took a departure there. By the way, there are a lot of very famous and well regarded brand side marketers out in the world who did some time at Digitas. And correct me where I'm wrong, I think Norm Degrev, Tony Weissman, Scott Donaton was there for a bit. And anybody who kind of tracks movement in this industry might know who those individuals are.
Michael Lacaraza
I've worked with all of them. So yes, yes.
Jenny Rooney
And what was it about Digitas that was such a magic in a bottle, if you will, for marketers on the brand side?
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, well, you know, for me, I had, prior to joining Digitas, all of my experience had been client side, had not been on the agency side of the equation. And when I was reflecting on my next move, as I was coming out of a kind of a risk reward, real estate CMO role, I did a lot of soul searching on what I thought I really needed to do in order to get to that next level of development, personal, professional development. And one of the big, I guess, vacancies in my resume was the fact that I hadn't worked at an agency and I thought there was so much to learn. There was. The second piece of this was, this was kind of mid-2005, I think is when I started Digitas. So 20 years ago and two years before the iPhone. But Google was exploding. The whole digital customer experience was coming to life in a new way. And what better place to be than the largest digital advertising agency in the world to just accelerate your learning? So in the time that I was there, I probably got 20 years worth of learning in the four years that I spent there. And it was actually not a vertical ascension in my career. It was, you know, at best a lateral move, maybe even kind of a step back from the level of seniority or the Thor decision making authority that you have in a client role as a CMO or a senior leader versus being someone that's in service of clients. At the same time. I knew it was the right call because it would ultimately prepare me for something bigger in the future.
Jenny Rooney
So, so smart. That was ahead of time. The early 2000s into mid 2000s. I mean just the world is exploding. I mean we think it is now with AI and everything else, which it is, but because I was reporting on the industry during that time and by the way, I was covering interactive agencies, which was a thing and this was even pre use of the word digital advertising. This message is brought to you by Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising. And this is more than an ad. This is an invitation to be part of the stories the world can't stop watching. To connect with moments that dominate the conversation. To participate in culture, not just advertise around it. With the most sought after ip, passionate audiences and an advanced AI powered foundation, WBD Advertising transforms attention into influence and impressions into outcomes. This is innovation. This is impact, this is opportunity. This is Warner Brothers Discovery Advertising. Visit advertising.wbd.com to learn more. Right.
Michael Lacaraza
And during that timeframe it was the birth of Twitter, the birth of social media. At that time, Facebook was still, I think, part of some sort of social media network inside of colleges. And we saw where that story's done.
Jenny Rooney
It was really an incredible time. So yeah, that's very interesting and I'll flag that. And then this move to a PE back company I also find very fascinating. More and more I'm having conversations with CMOs that it feels like there's an interest or curiosity around what is it like to work for a PE back company? What does it mean to be a CMO at a PE backed company? What are the expectations on that role? Tell me what you experienced through that transition. And also I'm curious why. I think I know the answer based on your experience, but why the CEO role as opposed to a CMO role on that company?
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, absolutely. So, well, part of what I was thinking about when I set out on a goal to be able to position myself, to be available to work in CMO roles was really more about career longevity and progression. And then second about, you know, where do you go from here? Like where do you grow into? And then how can you harness the power of what you've learned to maximize the value of your contribution to an organization? And so when you get your first role, like it's usually a situation where there's some distress and you're coming into kind of a turnaround situation, which is the way it was for me. And they're taking a little bit of a bet on you because you haven't sat in the chair before. But there were so many parallels in terms of what the business problem was to be solved in my prior experience and as I Met the board members and the principals at the private equity firm. One of the things that was maybe a differentiator for me in the process and maybe ultimately helped land the role is I created a thesis and maybe a 10 or a 12 page PowerPoint deck with my hypothesis on how that business would be turned around and what the levers were, what the drivers were. It had a little bit of financial information that they had shared, but you had to think beyond just what was on the paper for what that strategy would be and what kind of magnitude of outcomes that you might expect if your thesis is right. And so that was, I think, the key differentiator for me in that process of being selected and it created the most confidence with the search team and the board.
Jenny Rooney
So fascinating. Again, I think that's a whole area that is worth the whole podcast conversation because I do think that that is uncharted territory for a lot of people. Do you also have any words or sort of perspective on that transition from CMO to CEO? I think we're seeing more and more of that happening in the industry. I've been kind of tracking it for a bit and I don't know, I think we're up to maybe like 40 people that I could name in a list who have actually done that progression, whether it's to another brand or smaller mid size or anything else. Single biggest piece of advice is any CMO who aspired to move into a president or CEO role.
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, and it's interesting and I would give the same piece of advice for anyone moving into a CMO role because there's so much parallel which is have the utmost commercial mindset, understand how the company makes money in the P and L and the drivers of the outcomes, understand what your customers expect from you and those skills apply in this role as well. When we have a conversation with and we maybe discuss this a little bit later. But one of the foundations of success, I think with my role at US bank and other places, is having radical alignment with your business partners, which means foundationally understanding the P and L, how the company makes money, what are the drivers of the business outcomes. And you have to step outside of the language and the vernacular and the operational metrics of what you might see traditionally in marketing into how does this translate into growth, how does this translate into customer counts, how does this translate into margin expansion, all the kinds of underlying expectations and roe and the foundational financial metrics of running a business. And then the second piece is maybe somewhat similar, which is the team that you cast around you. It's even more critically important in the CEO role than it is, than it is in probably a functional role. Because as a functional leader you may have more expertise, more broader expertise in the function that you can somewhat cover up on some level as you need to along the journey. But I've not been a general counsel. I don't have experience as a lawyer. My father was a lawyer. That's probably the, so we, I learned how to argue really well at dinner table. That's probably the extent of my lawyering ability other than the sort of the business exposure that I've had.
LinkedIn Advertiser
Right.
Michael Lacaraza
But it's not the same thing as being an actual real lawyer. And so you have to really cast your team well to have the right sort of talent and mentality and cultural fit and so forth. So how you build your team around you is critical. And then like the third thing is just execute. You've got to execute with excellence. You're ultimately accountable. There are no excuses, there's no one to blame. You're the one that's on the line. It's, you know, the buck stops with you. And so you've got to execute flawlessly your plan. And I think in a private equity backed situation too, that communication with the partners and being transparent about where things are, how they're doing when you need help is super valuable as well. Because they want to help, they want to, they've, they got an investment, they've got a five to seven year horizon where they want to exit and they have resources that are maybe a little bit beyond from an analytics perspective, other places where they can help lean in or connect you with other businesses or partners. So the way that you interact with those private equity partners has a major impact on the trajectory of the outcomes.
Jenny Rooney
100%. Yeah. It's so fascinating. It's just a different sort of lineup of stakeholders. Right. And people that each year you're in close communication with, close comradery with to drive the business forward. Now I would love to switch to talking about your current role and before we get into that, we'd love for you to share a little bit about US bank for folks who aren't perhaps not as familiar with its journey and story.
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, absolutely. So we have some international business, but it's primarily a US based business. We're the fifth largest bank in the US and we serve a very broad client base from mass market retail up through high net worth on the individual side to corporate institutional banking, governments, et cetera. So it's a very broad based portfolio of businesses which is One of the values of the franchise. Because as you might have experience observed in financial services, depending on what's going on with the cycle of the economy, certain businesses rise or fall in terms of emphasis and the role that they play in your portfolio. So not everything's always firing on all eight cylinders. Some businesses are doing better than others. And that diversified portfolio helps you maintain a really healthy franchise and have provide steady growth over time. The second thing is about this company is it has this really powerful and historically underutilized brand name. I mean, it's U.S. bank, right? So I think about, and I don't mean this in a kind of like derogatory way, but there are a number of other banks out there that have kind of manufactured names. And you got to just imagine what does it take to explain one of those is it's got to take a lot more effort and there's not necessarily a connection of the name to the business. I mean, bank of America is the only other company that has something similar in the space that we do with relative to our name. So we actually launched a new brand campaign in 2024 and leaned into the power of what the name can deliver US bank. And then can we flip it on its head? It's the power of us, which is all about working together as this combination of how our people show up to help our clients. And so that is a really powerful asset for what we have to bring to bear. And then the third thing I'll mention is that we have a new CEO in Gunjunkedia who started in her role in April. She's not new to the company, but she's relatively new in the role and she's leading a really exciting time for us where we're focusing more acutely on how we're going to grow the business, leaning into that investor stakeholder a little bit more than maybe we have in recent years, because maybe prior to that we were in more of a invest in the customer experience to get caught up type of place. And now we're able to take more of a leadership role and have growth that exceeds on some level the GDP of the overall economy. We want to do better than that. And so she's raising the bar in expectations for how we lead, for how we serve our clients. We're being more customer centric and my team has marketing, customer experience and enterprise analytics. So we sit at the nexus of the voice of the customer. And we now have shared goals in terms of customers, customer experience, benchmarks with our business partners. We're not just Measuring them and recording out on them. We're jointly working towards getting to goal outcomes which then translate into lower attrition, growing your client counts, growing the value. So it's probably one of the most exciting times to be here because we want to grow. We have fresh leadership that's pushing us and we have a team underneath that is really energized to move the ball forward. And what my group is doing is at the center of, is one of the major levers, I think, in how we're going to grow the company and where we're actually investing more as well.
Jenny Rooney
So your customer, your consumer customer. So you said there's enterprise customers and then there's consumer customers. Obviously as the younger generation comes into kind of ages into an area of focus for you. Right. So a lot of competitors out there, you know what I mean, in just category, especially for the younger generations who are thinking about navigating, well, where do I go, what do I do, what brand do I attach myself to, et cetera? Because I mean, same as any other brand, there's a lot of sort of what do I identify with, what do I trust? How are you thinking about the ever shifting consumer landscape that you have to stay on top of?
Michael Lacaraza
Yes, it's a wonderful question. A few different ways. The first is for a consumer franchise. One of the important tenants of health for the future is how you attract and then grow and maintain the next generation of folks. And there's surprisingly. Well, it's easy to point out, I have a Gen Z son at home. It's easy to point out. So how we're wired differently, right. I'm Gen X, what's different about us. But there's also a lot of commonality in terms of what our needs are as humans, as you know, our financial needs. And so it's a combination for us, I think, of leveraging what's common and consistent. But then how do you present yourself in a way and design your experiences in a way that exceed the expectations of that cohort? And how do you evolve your playbook for it? I think one of the things that we're observing right now, which I think is to our advantage, is that there's been so much fragmentation with people using bespoke apps for individual parts of their financial lives. Like you open up their mobile wallet or their wallet on their phone and the finance category, like 10 apps and they have one to transfer money and they have one that maybe they trade on and one they gamble on and one they save on. And there's a lot of frustration with that in terms of trying to navigate, do everything yourself piecemeal. And one of the ways that we can add a lot more value is to piece it together. And so that if your money is in, you know, more of that, of your money is in one place across the various domains, we can make it work harder for you and we can help integrate that for you. So it's a major competitive advantage that we have over time versus say kind of point solutions which can grow really quickly, but then they kind of, they might tap out in terms of the value, the ultimate value that they can provide.
Jenny Rooney
Absolutely. Now, of course there's always this sort of top of funnel, the way you're getting the brand out there. The creativity piece and I referenced this summer where you did something incredibly creative with Happy Gilmore 2 by Netflix. I love this. And this was a strategy you employed to reach a younger generation. So talk a little bit about that.
Michael Lacaraza
Yes. So I guess the way the story begins is we've historically as a brand had some presence and investment in golf from a media perspective, from a client perspective. And also we sponsor Colin Morikawa as one of our brand ambassadors. We have this kind of legitimate experience or presence in the golf world. And we had this opportunity with the release of happily Gilmore 2 to have a brand integration which was essentially sponsoring the Tour Championship tournament inside of the film. So it was this like fictional tournament, but sponsored by US bank. And of course the film, we expected it. And as it delivered the scale of hundreds of millions of views that people consume, this was just globally amazing. Right. So for us, we made a modest kind of, I guess what you call more of like a media investment. And then we worked with the production company that produced the Happy Gilmore film and their producers to actually do the co marketing campaign. So they produced our ads. So we just got Blue gilmore access to IP and. And ultimately we were something like 10 or 11 minutes of time inside the film that our brand was organically present. It wasn't just a mention or a logo. It was really being part of the film and the experience which lives well beyond the original launch of that. So we found that we were at an event. I wasn't there, but one of my colleagues was at the British Open in Northern Ireland hosting some clients and people in Europe were talking about the US bank integration with Happy Gilmore. It's even a place where we don't even have a retail presence. So it really did take on a life of its own. And it's become maybe a little bit of a template and a model for us, for how do you think about organically integrating yourself into a cultural moment and then scaling it in a really big and authentic way?
Jenny Rooney
So I love that. I mean, I just think that obviously when brands make big swings, take big steps, especially to embed their brands in culturally relevant moments or moments of great entertainment, as you did with Happy Gilmore too. It just sort of. There are so many learnings that can come from that. And I love your point about it isn't just a one and done. It's not just do it. You have to think about what follows from that. Any advice you'd give to other brands who are thinking about doing something similar that might on the face of it, look like a departure for their brand, but actually could reap some pretty great rewards.
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, a couple things come to mind for that, Jenny. I think one of the big learnings for us was the value of working with the film creators in the marketing work that we did. So the same producer and one of Adam Sandler's prior directors and that production company actually produced our video for our commercials. And so it gave us a really unique creative perspective from inner circle, if you will. And it also unlocked perhaps access to IP that we might not have otherwise been able to secure had we been trying to work through an intermediary, through agents, through the platform and so forth, and kind of playing this game of telephone back and forth between the creative teams for the film.
Jenny Rooney
I love that. And that's a departure for many brands. You know, just thinking about what resources do you need to pull in to bring something to life? Well, we're coming down to the end of 2025. Obviously 2026 is on the horizon. I mean, I'm sure you, as all brands are deep in planning. What can we expect to see? Anything early you want to flag for us and what should we be looking for from the brand and business as we move into next year?
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah, a few things to share about 2026. The first is we began this journey of broadening the storytelling around the different audience profiles that our brand serves, from just kind of mass market retail to more sophisticated clients that we serve in the institutional, corporate, institutional space as well as investing. And I would expect us to see even more expansion in that area, like a broadening of defining who we are as a company and leaning into the way that we give advice across all the segments that we serve in a more kind of direct, meaningful way. And the kind of the nature of our storytelling, the sophistication and tone of the work that we create. We will Have a new round of brand work coming next year as well, and the kind of the next evolution of our storytelling. And one of the things that's been really powerful for us this year, or maybe for the last 18 months, is, is the way that we've been integrating the content, the media planning and the measurement from both the brand work as well as the product marketing, performance marketing work. The synergies that we're getting by planning those things side by side.
Jenny Rooney
AI obviously is such a big topic among marketers right now. What's your personal take and sort of how are you thinking about making sure that it's integrated in a meaningful way either from the production standpoint or customer service standpoint or anything else?
Michael Lacaraza
Yeah. So we have multiple dimensions where we're leaning into AI. The first we've discussed previously, which is around accelerating the strategic development and creative development through synthetic audiences and other tools that we have. So that journey continues. That platform has been built and so it's kind of embedded into the cycle now. We're also using it to provide greater personalization and experiences on our own channels, in particular on our mobile app and our website for clients and also for potential clients. The other area that we're going to be leveraging it for is process automation. So to take kind of low value processes that can be automated and putting them into agents so that our teams then focus their energy on things that are higher, better use of their skills.
Jenny Rooney
It's exciting. I mean, I just think so much more to come next year and it'll be interesting to see what comes in all the different realms that it can manifest for marketers. Last, two quick questions that I ask of all of my guests. The first is, as a leader, what would your team say about you?
Michael Lacaraza
Okay, well, here's what I hope they would say about me. I don't know what they really say about me, but I hope they would say that I give people the Runway to be creative, to be bold and daring, to make decisions and to be accountable for those decisions. And the second thing is, I hope that they would say is that I have their back and I provide the air cover necessary for this team to be able to lean in and be brave.
Jenny Rooney
I love that. And the last good question is, who's next? Who's somebody I should have on the podcast? This can be a CMO that you admire from afar, can be somebody you know very, very well. But in any case, you admire the brand work they're putting out in the world and it's inspiring to you.
LinkedIn Advertiser
Wow.
Michael Lacaraza
I mean, you pretty much had everybody on the show. I don't know where at the beginning. I'm going to have to get back to you offline on that one.
Jenny Rooney
Okay, very good. That's fair. You can take the pass and we have a lot of guests. We have a lot more to come. I'm excited, but in the meantime, I'm thrilled to have had you on Michael. It's a really great story of the innovation and frankly, risk taking and bold moves that you've done for U.S. bank. I'm excited to see what comes next year and I look forward to the next time we can be together and talk some more.
Michael Lacaraza
Sounds wonderful. Thank you for having me. Jenny. 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 at Adweek Podcasts. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email@podcastdweek.com thanks for listening.
LinkedIn Advertiser
Blowing ad budget on metrics that look great till the CFO sees them. That's bullspend and marketers are calling it out in Dashboard Confessions.
Jenny Rooney
I remember telling my boss it'll be
Michael Lacaraza
good for the brand when leads were slow.
Jenny Rooney
Yeah, it wasn't.
LinkedIn Advertiser
Cut the bull. Spend LinkedIn lets you target by company, job title and more. Advertise on link LinkedIn spend $250 on your first campaign and get a $250 credit. Go to LinkedIn.com campaign terms and conditions apply.
Guest: Michael Lacorazza, EVP & CMO, US Bank
Host: Jenny Rooney, Adweek
Date: June 18, 2026
This episode of Marketing Vanguard dives into the professional journey and leadership philosophy of Michael Lacorazza, CMO of US Bank. Jenny Rooney explores Lacorazza’s trajectory through some of the industry’s best-known brands, his leap from CMO to CEO and back, the commercial mindset needed for board-level influence, the challenges and advantages of working with a PE-backed company, bold recent marketing activations, and where US Bank is heading creatively and technologically—particularly around AI and cultural integration. Through this candid conversation, Lacorazza offers actionable advice for CMOs and brand leaders navigating transformational roles and market pressures.
[01:35 – 03:37]
Career Overview:
Key Quote:
Michael Lacorazza [03:51]:
“My one big learning coming out of that organization was the value of customer centricity and putting the customer front and center of all your decisions... It’s absolutely foundational to who I am as a leader and how I think about my world.”
[03:38 – 10:40]
Customer-Centricity at Lexus:
Complexity & Mission in Financial Services:
Agency Experience at Digitas:
Notable Quote:
Michael Lacorazza [07:58]:
“I probably got 20 years worth of learning in the four years that I spent there... It was the right call because it would ultimately prepare me for something bigger in the future.”
[10:40 – 15:56]
PE-Backed CEO Role:
PE Companies vs. Corporates:
Key CMO/CEO Transition Advice:
Michael Lacorazza [13:18]:
“Have the utmost commercial mindset—understand how the company makes money in the P&L and the drivers of the outcomes, understand what your customers expect from you... Step outside of marketing vernacular into how this translates into growth, customer counts, margin expansion.”
[16:17 – 19:29]
US Bank at a Glance:
Notable Quote:
Michael Lacorazza [17:13]:
“We actually launched a new brand campaign in 2024 and leaned into the power of what the name can deliver—US Bank. Can we flip it on its head? It’s the power of us.”
[19:29 – 22:11]
Attracting and Retaining Younger Customers:
Key Quote:
Michael Lacorazza [20:04]:
“There’s so much fragmentation with people using bespoke apps... One of the ways that we can add a lot more value is to piece it together...that is a major competitive advantage.”
[22:11 – 25:12]
Cultural Integration Playbook:
Advice for Other Brands:
Michael Lacorazza [24:29]:
“The value of working with the film creators in the marketing work...unlocked perhaps access to IP that we might not have otherwise been able to secure had we been trying to work through an intermediary.”
[25:35 – 26:43]
[26:43 – 27:41]
[28:00 – 28:25]
On Board-Level Influence:
[13:18]
“Have the utmost commercial mindset, understand how the company makes money in the P&L, and the drivers of outcomes…” – Michael Lacorazza
On Agency Learning:
[09:20]
“I probably got 20 years worth of learning in the four years that I spent [at Digitas]...” – Michael Lacorazza
On Brand Integration:
[24:29]
“Working with the film creators in the marketing work that we did... unlocked access to IP…” – Michael Lacorazza
Throughout the episode, Michael Lacorazza exemplifies humility, strategic clarity, and passion for bold moves and commercial impact. The discussion is candid and advice-laden, balancing the practical (P&L fluency, team-building) with inspiration (betting on learning, cultural engagement, and bravery).
This episode is a goldmine of marketing wisdom for leaders aspiring to greater influence—whether at the board table, as CEO, or by embedding their brands into the heart of culture. If you're considering how to elevate marketing’s impact or your own, Lacorazza’s journey offers both roadmap and motivation.