Upcoming Keynote, Jon Iwata, Answers Your Questions!

We are undoubtedly living through a turbulent and pivotal time, and every industry is feeling the impact. That’s why we’re bringing together top marketing and retail executives and academics for two days of peer-to-peer learning, collaboration, and networking. Kicking off the Transformational CMO & Retail Virtual Assembly with a keynote address is Jon Iwata, Former IBM SVP & Chief Brand Officer and Fellow at Yale School of Management.

Jon Iwata is Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management, an appointment he received upon his retirement from IBM in 2018, capping a 35-year career with the company. As IBM Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Jon led the company’s global marketing, communications and corporate citizenship organization for a decade. He was chairman of IBM’s corporate strategy committee for three years.

We’re looking forward to hearing Jon Iwata deliver his keynote on the long-term implications of COVID-19 at this week’s event. In the meantime, we asked him some questions to get a better idea of what to expect. See the full Q&A below!

Q: We are so excited to have you join us this month as our Virtual Assembly Keynote Speaker. Can you give us a preview of your message?

Jon Iwata: It’s tricky, perhaps futile, to try to predict the long-term implications of 2020, but I’m going to take a shot at it. I’ll describe three shifts that business leaders, and particularly Chief Marketing Officers and Chief Communications Officers, should think about. I’ll say in advance that none of them are revelations. They were set into motion before 2020, but the events of this unforgettable year have intensified them.

Q: Purpose-driven marketing has never been more critical to brands’ messaging than it is now. What advice do you have for today’s marketing leaders in light of this?

Jon Iwata: Make your purpose more than a “We’re the company that is making the world _______” statement. Create something more substantive than an “anthem” video that stirs emotions. Do more than storytelling. Advance more than your ‘narrative.’ A company’s purpose is its raison d’être, so get into the hard stuff. Play a role in ensuring that your offerings, operations, culture, policies, governance — all of it is in service of your stated purpose. That will require you to engage leaders across the company. Get really good at that. Be the Chief Collaboration Officer.

Q: You’ve been doing a lot of talks at universities, especially in your current position as Fellow of Yale School of Management. What have you found to be the biggest challenges for marketing executives during this time?

Jon Iwata: Re-inventing themselves fast enough. The profession of marketing and the CMO role are changing so quickly as to be almost unrecognizable. We have to embrace data and digital (which are not the same things, by the way), drive customer-centricity, train our teams to be agile, invest in the new stuff while extracting greater ROI from everything, help the company grow and be true to its purpose. Meanwhile, the CEO is stamping out new CXO roles left and right: Chief Commercial Officer, Chief Customer Officer, Chief Experience Officer, etc. But I’m optimistic. I think this is an ideal time for marketing and communications leaders who revere the fundamentals while embracing the ‘new’ with speed and determination.

Not signed up yet? Go here to RSVP!

Enable & Secure Your Remote Workforce

IT departments are under incredible pressure to maintain the business productivity for an expanded remote workforce that is exponentially larger than it was just a few weeks ago.

As many IT teams work overtime to enable remote workers, maintaining security practices and compliance may not be top of mind, but threat actors are actively seeking opportunities to benefit from current circumstances.

Although enabling a remote workforce is typically a common practice, some particularly urgent and unique considerations are being thrust upon organizations and their employees during the coronavirus crisis.

Find out how to keep remote workers productive without sacrificing security with this guide from our partners at BeyondTrust.

Click here to download the guide

#MillenniumLive on Machine Learning vs. Human Intuition

#MillenniumLive welcomes you to our Keynote Panel series. In this week’s episode, we cover Machine Learning vs. Human Intuition: Finding the Optimal Balance for Successful Marketing Campaigns and Brand Recognition. From analyzing data to voice and payment technology, machine learning has been transforming the marketing industry and the role of the marketing leader for years. Executives continue to balance the use of technology within their teams and consumers are relying more and more on new technology to make their purchasing decisions.

This discussion is moderated by Clarence Lee of Cornell University, and panelists include Shari Hofer of John Wiley & Sons, Kim Schuy of Essilor of America, and Matthew Smith from Sterling National Bank.

powered by Sounder

Go here to listen to the full podcast episode. 

About the Panel

Clarence Lee

clarence-leeProfessor Clarence Lee is an assistant professor of marketing at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. Clarence’s research applies deep learning and Bayesian econometric techniques to digital marketing and customer analytics applications across various industries. He has spent the past ten years studying the drivers behind consumer adoption, usage and purchase dynamics of digital goods and services found in the start-up ecosystems of NYC and Silicon Valley. His latest research interest is to help firms tackle digital transformation, and his most recent project focuses on employing novel artificial intelligence methods to enable customer analytics while preserving customer privacy. He currently teaches Digital Marketing, Data Analytics & Modeling, and the Strategic Product & Marketing Immersion (SPMI) at both the Ithaca and Cornell Tech campuses.

Shari Hofer

shari-hoferAs a senior marketing strategist, I create tactical plans that get company products noticed within target audiences. As an organizational leader, one of my biggest mantras is that excellence can happen without arrogance… by maintaining authenticity internally with staff teams and externally with customers and industry partners, leadership happens by example and genuine rapport with stakeholders becomes a core corporate value. With 20+ years of experience in pioneering corporate brand programs and communications that deliver revenue results, I drive programs through subject matter expertise in building marketing programs that deliver company and product recognition/affinity using emerging technologies. My reputation as a high-energy, resourceful marketing leader with exceptional integrity and passion for problem-solving allows me to achieve organizational goals while generating client demand.

Kim Schuy

Kim-SchuyKim Schuy is the VP of Digital Acceleration at Essilor Luxottica. She also serves as the president of AllAboutVision.com, a consumer website providing comprehensive information about eye health, vision correction, and vision correction products and services. Throughout Kim’s 20 years of experience in various roles and organizations, her focus has been as a change agent balancing both consumer and B-to-B marketing priorities. For her impact at Essilor and Alcon, Kim has been recognized multiple times by Jobson as one of the Most Influential Women in the Optical Industry.

Matthew Smith

matthew-smithMatthew Smith currently serves as the Segment Executive, Head of Direct Banking for Sterling National Bank. Sterling is the sixth largest regional bank in the New York City area in terms of deposits and holds ~$30 billion in assets. In his current role, Matthew is responsible for all direct to consumer and direct to business client acquisition channels, as well as all Banking as a Service strategic partnerships. Prior to his current role, Matthew was the Chief Product & Marketing Strategy Officer where he oversaw all areas of product strategy and marketing including consumer and corporate deposits, treasury management, and consumer lending products. Matthew also managed the launch of Sterling’s first direct-to-consumer banking channel under the name of BrioDirect and took in ~$500MM in consumer deposits within the first 5 months of being in-market.

Digital Workplace Transformation: Understanding and Improving Employee Experience

If you’re responsible for creating a digital workplace experience that supports the long-term success of both the business and the workforce, then you deserve a medal – that’s no easy task.

To help take a little of the stress and uncertainty off your plate, our partners at Workgrid have put together this guide that details:

  • The digital workplace challenges companies face today and why it’s so important to continue striving for the best possible employee experience
  • 7 elements of a successful employee-centric digital experience
  • The path other companies took to achieve employee experience success

Go here for access to the guide from Workgrid!

Jon Iwata Set to Keynote Our Upcoming CMO Assembly!

The Millennium Alliance is thrilled to announce that Jon Iwata, Former IBM SVP & Chief Brand Officer and Fellow at Yale School of Management, will be our Keynote Speaker at the upcoming Transformational CMO Virtual Assembly on November 18-19! Jon Iwata is a true marketing expert with a 35-year career at IBM and numerous accolades to prove it. Since retiring from IBM, he has served as Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management.

Don’t want to miss it? Go here to RSVP for the Virtual Assembly!

About Jon Iwata

Jon Iwata is Executive Fellow at Yale School of Management, an appointment he received upon his retirement from IBM in 2018, capping a 35-year career with the company. As IBM Senior Vice President of Marketing and Communications, Jon led the company’s global marketing, communications and corporate citizenship organization for a decade. He was chairman of IBM’s corporate strategy committee for three years.

Jon is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Cooper Hewitt, Smithsonian Design Museum. He is a director of the Ladies Professional Golf Association.

He is an inductee of the B2B Hall of Fame, the Marketing Hall of Fame, the CMO Club Hall of Fame. He was named a Brand Genius by AdWeek in 2017.

He is co-inventor of a U.S. patent for nanotechnology for semiconductor design and fabrication.

Marketing Innovation Starts Here

Digital Transformation involves ongoing exploration by today’s leaders, and our best advice is to not trek the journey alone. Our Transformational CMO Virtual Assembly coming this November is set to be a groundbreaking opportunity for leaders to virtually connect on the current trends & challenges the industry is facing amid COVID-19. Our assemblies are virtual for the time being, but you can still expect the same high-level discussion & networking as a Millennium onsite experience.

We know what you’re thinking…

This isn’t Your Run-of-the-Mill Zoom Conference.

Our Founders, like many C-Suite executives today, became disillusioned by the slew of marketing webinars, summits and events on the market today that promised “world class networking” opportunities with leading industry decision-makers. In reality, they found that these events had antiquated & impersonal discussion topics, and quite frankly, it seemed like just about anyone could attend the event. 

We’re serious about executive education. Our assembly agendas are data-driven and curated from our industry-expert Advisory Board, a group of 26 industry movers and shakers with a proven record of digitally transforming organizations from the ground-up. Our topics of discussion reflect the most poignant & relevant challenges the industry is facing at the time of the assembly. Our goal is to change the way leaders look at executive education, and you won’t find this level of content, discussion, and networking anywhere else. We’re on the journey to digitally transform the marketing industry with you.

Interested in joining? Reach out to us at info@mill-all.com to RSVP for the virtual assembly!

Buyer’s Guide for Complete Privileged Access Management (PAM)

Today, privileges are built into operating systems, file systems, applications, databases, hypervisors, cloud management platforms, DevOps tools, robotic automation processes, and more. Cybercriminals covet privileges/privileged access because it can expedite access to an organization’s most sensitive targets. With privileged credentials and access in their clutches, a cyberattacker or piece of malware essentially becomes an “insider”.

Controlling, monitoring, and auditing privileges and privileged access—for employees, vendors, systems, applications, IoT, and everything else that touches your IT environments is essential for protecting against both external and internal threat vectors, and for meeting a growing list of compliance requirements.

Go here for the full report from our partners at BeyondTrust

IntelePeer’s Digital Transformation Webinar with IDC

In this webinar, IntelePeer’s Robert Galop and guest speaker, Courtney Munroe Research Vice President, Worldwide Telecommunications Research at IDC discuss how CX-focused companies contact center teams can create the NEW customer experience. They explore industry trends related to business operations and customer experience, the acceleration of digital transformation initiatives and technology platform adoption. They also cover how companies are solving current and future challenges with CPaaS.

Go here to access the full Webinar

#MillenniumLive Talks Re-Engineering Your Security Model with BeyondTrust

Many organizations are still making sense of security in the newly remote workforce. Fortunately, Morey Haber, the Chief Technology Officer and Chief Information Security Officer at BeyondTrust, has some tips to help secure your extended network. He talks taking inventory of assets, removing excessive admin access, pragmatic application control, and more. Check out our latest #MillenniumLive episode to learn more about shifting from a reactive to a proactive security posture to manage vulnerabilities in your remote network.

Watch the video interview below, or go here for the podcast episode.

About BeyondTrust

BeyondTrust is the worldwide leader in Privileged Access Management (PAM), empowering organizations to secure and manage their entire universe of privileges. Our integrated products and platform offer the industry’s most advanced PAM solution, enabling organizations to quickly shrink their attack surface across traditional, cloud and hybrid environments.

The BeyondTrust Universal Privilege Management approach secures and protects privileges across passwords, endpoints, and access, giving organizations the visibility and control they need to reduce risk, achieve compliance, and boost operational performance. We are trusted by 20,000 customers, including 70 percent of the Fortune 500, and a global partner network.

Go here for more information!

Suzette Kent to Keynote Our Upcoming Digital Enterprise & Data Assembly

On February 10th, 2021, our Digital Enterprise CIO & Data Transformation Virtual Assembly kicks off with our featured keynote, Suzette Kent. Kent is a technology and digital transformation expert with a special focus on data & AI. She historically broke barriers by becoming the first female to be appointed as the Federal CIO of the US Government. Today, Kent consults global leaders in the private sector across all industries. If you’re interested in hearing Suzette Kent’s keynote address on February 10th, contact us at info@mill-all.com to RSVP for the virtual assembly.

About Suzette Kent

Suzette Kent is a global transformation executive who for the last 2 and half years served as the Federal Chief Information Officer for the United States. Appointed by the President in January of 2017, she is the first female to hold this role and the 4th person to serve in this capacity. Her career has ranged from Partner in Consulting Firms, Accenture and EY, President of Consulting at a payments software company, and Managing Director at JP Morgan. She has worked with clients around the world, across industries and in public and private sector. In returning to private sector, her focal areas are data, AI, digital transformation and development of the technical workforce needed today and for the future in the US.  

Digital Enterprise Innovation Starts Here

Digital Transformation involves ongoing exploration by today’s leaders, and our best advice is to not trek the journey alone. Our Digital Enterprise CIO Transformation Virtual Assembly coming this February is set to be a groundbreaking opportunity for leaders to virtually connect on the current trends & challenges the industry is facing amid COVID-19. Our assemblies are virtual for the time being, but you can still expect the same high-level discussion & networking as a Millennium onsite experience.

We know what you’re thinking…

This isn’t Your Run-of-the-Mill Zoom Conference.

Our Founders, like many C-Suite executives today, became disillusioned by the slew of technology webinars, summits and events on the market today that promised “world class networking” opportunities with leading industry decision-makers. In reality, they found that these events had antiquated & impersonal discussion topics, and quite frankly, it seemed like just about anyone could attend the event.

We’re serious about executive education. Our assembly agendas are data-driven and curated from our industry-expert Advisory Board, a group of 26 industry movers and shakers with a proven record of digitally transforming organizations from the ground-up. Our topics of discussion reflect the most poignant & relevant challenges the industry is facing at the time of the assembly. Our goal is to change the way leaders look at executive education, and you won’t find this level of content, discussion, and networking anywhere else. We’re on the journey to digitally transform the technology industry with you.

Evolution of the Digital Workplace: Are Digital Experience Layers the Next Frontier?

Organizations are universally struggling with how to deliver digital experiences that can meet the bar set by organizations like Netflix, Spotify and Amazon. It’s hard – but it’s necessary, especially when the business benefits of a good digital experience are so clear – companies that invest in employee experience are 4 times as profitable as those who don’t.

The solution to this problem is implementing an experience layer. Experience layers are a relatively new addition to the EXTech scene, but they deliver exactly the right functionality organizations need to deliver the seamless, intelligent and contextual experience employees expect and deserve.

Check out Workgrid’s blog now to find out how experience layers work and see how they can help your organization build a digital workplace that’s prepared for the future of work.

Click here to read more