The 10 Influential Marketing Leaders 2019

E Improving Profitability of Businesses through Effective Marketing

M

arketing is one of the essential components of business growth. It plays very important role in imprinting the value of the brand on the customers. Marketer leaders are the one who ensure and decide marketing goals for the business and its accountability. To be effective market leader, it is essential to understand the needs of the buyers.

Leader should market something as a solution to the problem of the customers. The quality of the marketing is been judged by the customer’s satisfaction. Influential or impactful marketing is the art of communicating to vast amounts of people, in a simple and easy way to understand, what one’s products or services are and how they can make their lives better.

Being a master marketer requires potential to increase the overall productivity of any business. We live in a time where any business can become a brand if executes all marketing effectively. Marketing leader should be able to motivate and inspire to others in the team and he/ she should also be able to guide them for the efficient marketing so as to reach out to larger people with something valuable. Life is about interacting with others and the task to be influential marketing leader is to be able to convince people the merits of one’s products and services in a meaningful and graceful way.

If one is able to master the art or skill of marketing, one can have a shot at winning at life, because through this way one has the potential to create impact in the lives of the people. People are always ready to trade their money for the things they find more valuable than spending money somewhere else. To be effective marketing leader one should also utilize latest technology, social media strategy, consumer research, consumer management strategy to one’s advantage. One should be prepared to adapt to the evolving trends and should be flexible in one’s approach and strategies to incorporate the most effective ways into one’s marketing strategy.

The most essential component of being influential marketing leader is to have excellent oral communication skills. Excellent communication skills have the potential to develop the affinity between the marketing person and customers. Language

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To be effective marketing leader one should utilize latest technology, social media strategy, consumer research, consumer management strategy to one's advantage.

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Sharad Chitalkar creates affinity; therefore one should be able to communicate with people in a language understandable by them. One should be able to build a rapport with the customers and one should be trustworthy. If people see the quality of trustworthiness in a marketing person then people naturally gravitate to listen to that person. This gives one opportunity to convince people the importance of one’s products and services. Trustworthiness, ability to utilize all resources to one’s advantage, character, and integrity of the person make one effective marketing leader.

In order to acknowledge the contributions of some influential marketing leaders, Insights Success has enlisted “The 10 Influential Marketing Leaders, 2019”.

Featuring as our Cover Story is a notable marketing leader named Patti Girardi. She is the CMO of Valet Living. She is known for motivating her team members to get the best results out of their performance. She has served in multiple companies where she has helped to increase sales and create a brand name. With her stellar leadership skills, she is setting benchmarks in sales and marketing.

Also, make sure to go through the articles, written by our in-house editorial team as well as CXO standpoints of notable industry personalities to have brief insights of the sector.

Let’s start reading!

CONTENTS

Cover Story

10

Patti Girardi Reforming the Marketing Craft through Consistency

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36

Tech Advice

Expert’s Outlook

The Fuss about AI

Living Through Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abdul Sani Abdul Murad Sharply Exhibiting Role of Business Marketing Leader

18 Andrea Saravia Exemplifying Enthusiasm and Proď€ ciency Together

26 Marianne Späne Hard working, Persistent, and Passionate Leader

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Articles 16 The Art of Leading

22 Imparting Wisdom Sustaining Entrepreneurial Spirit in the Modern Era

Attributes of a Good Leader

32 Imparting Wisdom Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

Editor-in-Chief Pooja M. Bansal Managing Editor Anish Miller

Executive Editor

Assistant Editors

Bhushan Kadam

Jenny Fernandes Rohit Chaturvedi

Visualizer

Art & Design Director

Associate Designer

David King

Amol Kamble

Kushagra Gupta

Co-designer Asha Bange

Senior Sales Manager

Business Development Manager

Kshitij S

Peter Collins

Marketing Manager

Sales Executives

John Matthew

David, Kevin, Mark, Vishnu

Technical Head

Business Development Executives

Jacob Smile

Steve, Joe, Alan, Anup

Technical Specialist Aditya

Digital Marketing Manager Marry D'Souza

SME-SMO Executive Prashant Chevale

Research Analyst Patrick James

Database Management Stella Andrew

Circulation Manager Robert Brown

Technology Consultant David Stokes

sales@insightssuccess.com May, 2019 Insights Success Media Tech LLC

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The

10 Inuential Marketing

Leaders 2019

Patti Girardi CMO Valet Living

Cover Story

Patti Girardi Reforming the Marketing Craft through Consistency

Your job as a marketing leader is to elevate the discipline to an art and a science that is rooted in strategy, measurement and results.

The most important mark you can leave on an organization is results.

Cover Story

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arketing is the bridge between a product and its target audience, and marketing leaders are the ropes strengthening it. A marketing leader is always focused on making his/her products and services more approachable, and for that he/she needs a set of skills and determined teamwork. Along with the many other qualities a marketing leader requires, a management competency for the performance assessment further helps in ensuring excellent teamwork.

Management competency helps to understand the true capacity of employees and how to encourage them to perform at their best.

Patti Girardi, CMO of Valet Living, is one such leader who is known for motivating her team members to get the best results out of their performance. She has served in multiple companies where she has helped to increase sales and create a brand name. With her stellar leadership skills, she is setting benchmarks in sales and marketing.

Her interview with Insights Success exhibits her inspiring journey as a marketing leader and portrays her commitment to Valet Living.

Below are the highlights of her interview: Kindly elaborate on your journey in becoming a marketing leader.

As hard as it is to believe, I actually found marketing by accident. I joined Cox Communications, the 4th largest cable operator in the United States, directly from business school as Manager of Special Projects, which at the time, included launching all of the new cable offerings consumers have grown accustomed to today: digital cable, high-speed internet, and digital telephone service. But as these strategies developed into tangible product offerings, the need to market them was calling, and I transitioned into a brand management role, which I

connected with in a way that I had never experienced professionally.

Cox’s explosive growth afforded me the opportunity to move into a number of field and corporate positions, culminating into the opportunity to lead web strategy and e-commerce during a transformative time for the industry – during this period, we grew Cox.com to surpass call center traffic as the company’s primary service channel, something naysayers said couldn’t be done.

residents front and center to make their lives easier than they could have ever imagined. As Chief Marketing Officer for this amazing brand, I’ve been able to expand the scope of my leadership across branding, creative services, lead generation, inside sales, marketing communications, database marketing, e-commerce, mobile marketing, product marketing, public relations, research, social media, event/trade show marketing, web strategy, artificial intelligence and sustainability.

From there, I moved over to the programming side of the cable television business as Vice President of Affiliate Sales and Marketing for Fox Cable Networks. This role brought not only the challenge of aligning sales and marketing initiatives to consistently outperform aggressive sales targets, but also heightened visibility throughout the media industry and access to bestin-class leadership programs like the Betsy Magness Leadership Institute for Women.

How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

Valet Living is the only full-service amenities provider to the multifamily housing industry. It arrived at its industry-leading position through a crystal-clear understanding of its competitive advantages and intimate knowledge of the apartment industry.

Valet Living’s wide range of services include doorstep waste and recycling collection, apartment turns (preparing apartment homes for new residents), maintenance (supplementing onsite maintenance teams with additional labor or “porter hours”), pet solutions (pet parks, waste and wash stations) and its resident-facing amenity services offering called Valet Living Home™.

Valet Living’s core competencies of its proven track record and pioneering edge in the multifamily space have allowed the brand to set the standard for residential living in each of these verticals. In particular, Valet Living Home’s resident-facing amenity service solution - offering home cleans, pet walks, package delivery, wellness classes, and laundry pick-up - is truly unique in that, although powered by technology, these amenities are delivered by the best people and processes in the business. As the above amenities include B2B, B2C and B2B2C services, the challenge for marketing is to approach each one with strategies that are most suitable for each respective audience.

The opportunity to marry my life-long passion for the culinary arts and career goals arrived when Compass Group, the world’s largest foodservice provider, presented the opportunity to lead marketing for its domestic college foodservice division and the challenge of rebranding the business for Generation Z -- the 8-23-year-old cohort emerging as the most coveted youth demographic -- overtaking Millennials in both size and influence.

This industry-leading rebrand infused “gathering” into traditional foodservice as a way to transform the college dining experience into a vehicle for promoting high-intensity relationships – much like the pre-technology experience of sitting down to a family meal.

And then, there was the offer I couldn’t refuse – the opportunity to fundamentally disrupt the multifamily housing industry through a major rebrand for amenity service provider Valet Living that puts multifamily

For people seeking excellence in a property management partner, Valet Living is the tried and tested resource that supports communities where people want to live and that improves property value.

What attributes are required to overcome the challenges faced in Marketing?

Your job as a marketing leader is to elevate the discipline to an art and a science that is rooted in strategy, measurement and results. Since creative without strategy will almost never triumph over personal opinions; research, testing and fact-based analysis are truly the most effective ways to engage internally so that programs can succeed externally.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle the competition in the market?

I’m a big believer in classic frameworks like SWOT analyses and Porter’s Five Forces model. Once you’ve established a brand identity that is driven by strategy using these timetested tools, it is then critical to stay loyal to the brand. If your brand truly promises differentiation in a way that others can’t, it’s not necessary to attempt to “one-up” the competition at every turn. But it is necessary to own your differences.

What are your insights on the implementation of technological advancements in Marketing?

Technology is amazing – as long as it truly furthers a connection with your target audience. Amazon has done an incredible job of using technology to personalize the digital shopping experience – expressing both warmth and competence with every click in a way that even some of the most sophisticated call centers cannot. But technology gone wrong - the implementation of live chat applications with one-week response

times, for example - only damages a brand’s relationship with consumers.

According to you, what are the key factors that a Marketing Leader should consider while deriving comprehensive marketing strategies?

By far and away, the most important factor is having a crystal-clear understanding of the organization’s business objectives. From there, it’s about developing strategies that connect with your target audience to over-deliver on these goals and then applying marketing fundamentals like the classic 4P framework to reach your target audience. With the Valet Living portfolio comprised of B2B, B2C and B2B2C services, there is no one single approach that works for all. Before making any final decisions, I’ve found that there is also no substitute for gathering input from the leaders of each business line as well as field representatives on the front lines.

How do you keep up with volatile trends in the Marketing discipline, pertaining to your expertise?

It’s easy to be distracted by the latest buzzwords and the temptation to treat all challenges with a tech-forward solution. But at the end of the day, marketing is really just about connecting with consumers. The classic marketing rules of effective design and the 4Ps of marketing live on today for good reason – they work!

The question is, how can technology complement marketing fundamentals to further business goals?

What are your future endeavors/objectives, and where

does Valet Living see itself in the near future?

Valet Living is disrupting the resident amenity space, and it is truly exciting!

Although there are other mobile applications in the amenity services arena, there is nothing like Valet Living Home. While powered by technology for the convenience of our residents, amenity services like home cleans, pet walks, and package management are delivered by W2, uniformed background-checked associates who are trained by hospitality experts. Valet Living Home is tech-enabled, not tech first. This ensures a consistent, highquality experience that is unmatched by any other solution in the marketplace. As we continue to bring Valet Living Home to additional communities at a rapid clip, I will continue with relentless focus to bring Valet Living’s vision to life – driving resident usage of the platform and ensuring that residents choose to live at a Valet Living community above all others.

What is your advice for budding/upcoming Marketing Leaders?

The most important mark you can leave on an organization is results.

Drive results, and find ways to communicate them across the organization that aren’t overly selfpromotional. And recognize that marketing is still very much a science that must be learned. It’s important to step out of the “flyer-making” mentality and learn from those who have invested decades in perfecting the marketing craft.

Cover Story

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Attributes of a Good

Leader

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The Art of Leading

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eadership is about using the power of a position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A leader’s task is to implement the plans that usually look good on paper, through a delegated team, in a specific time with an ongoing motion. She/he may use the traditional method or may think out of the box. It depends on the leader as how to do it; the ultimate motive is to get the job done.

Although, each and every individual has a different approach on leadership, some might say it is about setting examples, some might say it is about sharing the authority; what matters is, taking the right decision when it is most needed.

Leadership varies from one organization to another. An organization is a dynamic body and creates new probabilities every now and then. And with new probabilities, come new challenges.

Although, it is impossible to overcome every challenge, the business environment has adopted certain leadership styles for the efficiency of business: The Participative Leader Participative Leadership is the process of sharing authority with the work force in order to get optimum efficiency. The team, after getting access to certain powers, works responsibly to accomplish the goals set by its leader. The shared leadership also helps in case of any requirement of change, as the employees adapt quickly in such environment.

Incidentally, this style of leadership fits best in a scenario when there is a limitation of time.

The Transformational Leader A transformational leader inspires the team through effective communication and an intellectual environment.

However, these individuals require more detail oriented managers to May 2019|

successfully implement their strategies.

Transformational Leadership is considered among the most effective employees of the organization. One of the examples of this type of leadership is when a leader is assigned on a higher level for effective environment.

The Transactional leader The transactional leadership, as the name suggests, enables the leader to incentivize the team corresponding to their performance. The team gets rewarded when it attains the goals and the Leader has the power to review the results and act accordingly when the team fails to do the same. The goals and the strategy to attain them are decided by the leader and the team itself.

The Situational leader Situational leadership is a theory that the best leader will adapt to the required leadership style according to need of the hour. A Situational leader may adopt democratic style while discussion business with senior executive, but may switch to transactional at the time of team review. However every individual has a natural style of leadership and it may be difficult to switch roles at a certain point of time.

Qualities of a good leader There is an old proverb that says, “Give a Man a Fish, and You Feed Him for a Day. Teach a Man to Fish, and You Feed Him for a Lifetime.” So is the case with leadership. One of the basic qualities of a Leader is to pass on the leadership skills.

Following are some of the qualities of a good leader: Communication Skills Communication is the basic requirement for efficiency in a business. As the level of hierarchy elevates, the requirement of communication grows. Especially, Ÿ

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when it comes to leadership, there is no scope for lack of communication. A Leader who fails to develop this skill is looked up as incompetent, because it is his job to send the message loud and clear. Although, it is also important to listen as it is an integral part of communication.

Integrity C.S. Lewis said, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” Be it giving credit to one of the team members or be it admitting a mistake, a leader wears integrity as a badge of honor. They do what is right, no matter what.

Empowerment Ÿ

As mentioned earlier, Leadership is about using the power of one’s position to empower a group of people in order to attain a common goal. A good leader shares his authority with the team in order to get the job done. By doing this, he shows confidence in the team and obliged by the gesture, the team works with full enthusiasm to accomplish the goal.

Decision making There is risk in decision to making.

Great leaders take great decisions when the stake is high and it is the success of those decisions that make them great. To add up, a good leader takes right decision at the right time.

In conclusion, a good leader can be defined by the dynamics of his style in leadership, the values that he brings to the organization, the methods he uses to make the best of the resources, and the kind of decision he makes in the given situations. At the end it is about the attitude of an individual to bring the change for good. Ÿ

The

10 Influential Marketing

Leaders 2019

Abdul Sani Abdul Murad

Sharply Exhibiting Role of Business Marketing Leader

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arketing is vital for businesses to create a level of intimacy between the customer and the brand.

Marketers are the one who ensure and decide marketing goals for the business and its accountability. One such marketer is Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, the Group Chief Marketing Officer at RHB Banking Group who is leading the company’s brand marketing and is responsible for its media strategy, consumer research, consumer management, and marketing strategy.

In an interview with Insights Success, Abdul Sani shares the insights about his RHB Banking Group and its services that create the fast and seamless customer experience.

Considering his resilience and inspirational aspects, Insights Success recognizes Abdul Sani Abdul Murad, as one of the influential marketing leaders to watch in 2019.

Below are highlights from the interview conducted between Abdul Sani and Insights Success: Give a brief overview of your background as an influential marketing leader.

I am a true blue marketer who started at one of the world’s largest fast moving consumer goods company, Unilever, as their marketing scholar. I managed various business categories for 10 years and helped grow a number of them into market leaders before joining Malaysia’s largest foreign bank, HSBC in 2008, as their Marketing Chief, for 9 years. We were awarded by the HSBC Group Headquarters for being the best marketing team in the Asia Pacific in 2010 for producing the best marketing campaign in the HSBC world in 2009.

Subsequently, I joined one of Malaysia’s largest banking group, RHB in 2017, as their Group Chief Marketing Officer.

It was truly humbling when I received the marketing distinction recognition in 2013 and was awarded the Malaysian CMO Award for being the Best Marketer in Influencer Marketing in 2018 by Marketing Magazine.

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We need to create an environment where people feel safe to take risks because there isn't any failure in trying, simply because you could either succeed or learn.

Abdul Sani Abdul Murad Group CMO RHB Banking Group

instead. Brands need to connect with customers simply by being more human in how it engages them.

How do you diversify your organization’s offerings to appeal to the target audience?

In a growing digital economy, our research provided insights into how people are using the digital tools at their disposal to run their lives. Through this, we saw an opportunity to build better trust and bolster relationships with our customers by diversifying our offerings into the digital channel.

How do you strategize your game plans to tackle competition in the market?

RHB has been around for more than 100 years and we want to be around for several hundred more. We believe we have been around for that long because we have been in tune with society by focusing on delivering our brand’s core purpose. We take the outside-in perspective by taking customers’ point of view and becoming an advocate for customers within the organization.

One of the many digital banking initiatives we have rolled out is called ’banking by your doorstep’. It is an offering which enables customers to open their bank account online and have it delivered at the comfort of their home or office. The proposition of having the bank officer come to you to do the regulatory KYC verification and delivering your banking account serves time-pressed customers well. Customers do not need to set foot in the branch anymore when opening a bank account. This unique offering is one of its kind in the market we serve and has seen a strong adoption rate with over 75% of our total banking accounts being opened online.

Where do you see yourself in the near future and what are your future goals?

I do wish to see more marketing leaders taking on leadership roles in successful organizations. It will be a great fulfillment if I can play a part in providing a conducive training ground for young marketers who share the above inspiration. As they say, to be a good leader, you have to breed other leaders.

What were the past experiences, achievements or lessons that have shaped your journey?

In the early years, we often see shampoo advertisements showcasing beautiful models with beautiful hair to entice customers’ purchase intent. This is almost a must-have ritual when marketing a shampoo. However, we defied the marketing norm by producing shampoo advertising aimed at Muslim women who wear headscarves without showcasing hair. We took an emotional approach instead, by leveraging on strong consumer insight and stitched a well-crafted brand story to deliver the message, which won the hearts of many people and took market share leadership from another shampoo brand that has been a market leader for decades.

What is your advice for budding and emerging marketing leaders?

We live in a technology world that’s changing at breakneck speed in a business environment that’s highly regulated and bound by commercial constraints. However, the marketing future still depends on how well marketers build strong emotional bonds with customers. Just be warm and human; do not allow yourself to be sucked into the technological quicksand that could cost you to lose your human touch. After all, your customers will never get tired of being romanced by the brand they love and this feeling will never run out of fashion. Remember that if you’re not romancing your customers, someone else will.

This experience taught me that people don’t buy products anymore because they buy into emotions and experiences May 2019|

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Sustaining Entrepreneurial Spirit in the

Modern E a

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usinesses operate, survive and progress in a highly dynamic economy, where change is the rule, not the exception. The change may be slow, sudden or almost extensive. One of the important forces of change is the change in technology. Most of these changes are used to enhance human capabilities to accomplish meaningful work. These changes are sometimes thriving on the entrepreneur. A successful entrepreneur works to visualize these future changes rather than waiting for it and create a more desirable environment in the organization.

Technology is helping us solve problems where human power alone is not enough. Different types of businesses require different technologies, but again, it is impossible to solve all integration needs with a single technology. This article will help you understand, that technology is only the part of the original solution and how in different sectors the entrepreneur's surrounding really matters.

Accounting Technology allows us to complete tasks faster. It replaces the tiresome tasks of manually storing, compiling, sorting, etc. and the ability to use data with a simple digital solution. For example, Sales ledger in the early days was time-consuming, expensive and all paper-based process.

Technology helped increase productivity with the development of spreadsheet software like Microsoft Excel. Employees today are far better at finding what they need when they need it. Though only this will not achieve the outcome. Here, let's take a clear look at how the entrepreneur's spirit is really helping to achieve the desired goal. Ÿ

Technological breakthroughs do occur and it takes courage for an entrepreneur to accept the change and its implication. Technology breakthroughs like computers, color television sets, electronic sets, fuel-efficient vehicles, etc. have encouraged entrepreneurs to manufacture these products. Thus changes in technology from time to time pose several alternatives before the entrepreneur. This is an ongoing process in which the entrepreneur sets goals and strategies to meet changes in technology. But for strategies like marketing, human resource, supply chain, financial and legal strategies, etc. connection with people is important. Entrepreneurs define the formal relationships among people and specify both their roles and responsibilities. Because the end product is an integrated system of people & technology and to administer these systems, entrepreneur is required.

Technology is good for bringing the change not forcing it.

It cannot make employees more efficient. Yes, the right technology can help to make the work easier, but if an employee is truly falling behind or is just inefficient, all the technology in the world will not solve this situation. The

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truth is such employees can be sometimes inefficient due to either inexperience or laziness. An entrepreneur can identify this problem by improving communication in such departments. This explains why human interference is important to address this situation, where technology is just a bandage, fix the problem for a short time. Adding new and faster technology will not fix the problem. While a better solution is sitting the departments down together and talking about the problem with the entrepreneur will be a real solution.

Because a customer's shopping experience is more important than price and product quality. Entrepreneur encourages employees to use their creativity to ensure every customer experience is memorable. Entrepreneur's human interaction adds the value to the company and maintains loyal customers.

Communication In virtual workplaces, employees can interact and develop ideas by connecting through the use of video conferencing.

This may include training and important meetings from far places to the employees. Technology can also be used as real-time feedback from the employees which allows the entrepreneur to improve the needs of the employees.

Entrepreneur's good communication is necessary to allow efficient flow both internally (among employees) and externally (using technology). Ÿ

Retail Technology allows retailers to be available day and night interacting with customers how, when and where they are ready to shop. Retailers depend on technology to manage inventory, track customer-purchasing habits, predict trends and deliver goods and services. Wireless communication, QR codes and Augmented Reality are some of the changes in technology to the retail industry.

Ultimately, the entrepreneurship element remains central even if it is embedded within AI, advanced analytics, etc. Ÿ

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Automation The robots are coming and can actually help us, to be more productive, freeing us from most of the time-consuming Ÿ

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and repetitive tasks. One of the most important areas of a p p l i c a t i o n o f a u t o m a t i o n i s c o m p u t e r- a i d e d manufacturing. Today CAD/CAM technology has been applied in many industries including machine components, electronics products, and equipment design.

Even banking and financial institutions have embraced automation technology in financial transactions. But just because technology is advancing it does not mean it will replace human. Technology can do an adequate job, but we still need humans. It is certain that people to people communication remains fundamental where the entrepreneur's contact in the various stages is required.

effective and convenient to the company management and employees can access data from anywhere by just using a device that can access the internet. It helps entrepreneurs to trust these technologies and build a strong trust among internal management of the company.

Overall Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain technology, Cloud Computing, Internet of Things, 3D printing, etc. today are helping entrepreneurs to use this technology in every field to grow their businesses. But technology alone cannot create a company culture, where human interactions are valued. Because it is people who are assigned to work on this technology and to encourage them the entrepreneurs keeps their spirit alive. By creating an interested working environment, interactive dialogues among employees, support and motivation to the employees, reward system, etc. reflects the culture of the company. It is an entrepreneur who understands what the needs of the company are, by creating a connection with all the stages of management that brings the desired output.

Hence, entrepreneurial spirit and technology should go hand in hand. Therefore we need evolving technology as well as intelligent humans. We need guided missiles as well as guided men to create the better world.

Security Technology becomes even more critical when operating the business online. It is important to protect the businesses from cybercriminals who could steal data or lead to website downtime. Encryption and decryption protect information from being accessed by a third party or cybercriminals. It takes only about a minute without slowing down any file or document. Ÿ

Storage Technology has led to the development of cloud computing to store business information and has been accepted by many in the world of business. Cloud Computing is cost Ÿ

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The

10 Influential Marketing

Leaders 2019

Andrea

Saravia

Exemplifying Enthusiasm and Proficiency Together

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including advertising, PR, law, interior design, magazines, nutrition, and telecommunications, which she has loved most.

arketing has come so far with the new advancements in technologies such as AI and automation. The job of marketing has become more convenient as well as cumbersome at the same time, as marketing leaders have to perform several tasks to reach out to their potential customers. Despite these differences of modern and traditional marketing practices, many leaders have smoothly carried out all the marketing functions and achieved the desirable results. With intent to recognize their significant contributions, Insights Success has compiled its list of The 10 Influential Marketing Leaders, 2019.

Andrea started working very young, at the age of 18. She did not have any experience before. The job in the advertising agency was very stressful and she had an important overload of work. She did not know at the time how to manage her emotions, the pressure and her time. It took her many years to know herself and find the best way to get things done without losing control. Later, she learned not only to get through every single obstacle that came her way, but even crave them as they make her life much more interesting and challenging.

This list is incomplete without the inspiring work of Andrea Saravia, the Global Marketing Director of Ufinet. Andrea has been a marketing and branding specialist for 24 years now and possess an MBA specialized in business leading and marketing from ESIC, Madrid, Spain. She has been Ufinet’s Marketing Director for 5 years now, and has tackled many challenges ever since, such as positioning Ufinet’s brand in a difficult and ever-changing market as is the telecommunications sector.

Source of Inspiration There are various factors that inspire Andrea the most. She firmly believes in a phrase which states, “do what you love, love what you do”. Being able to do this has given her the opportunity to tackle all the challenges that come her way and grow as a professional leader.

Another subject for Andrea has always been learning new things every day. In her opinion, people would be surprised knowing all the hidden treasures they can find by just opening their mind. Having a work-life balance is a key matter, enjoying both professional and personal life with family and friends. Few other additional moves that have inspired her to raise includes giving the extra mile -always; working smart, not hard; taking risks even though you may fail; and finally challenging yourself to dream.

Started Young Andrea started her career in 1995 as an Executive Key Account Manager in an advertising agency. Since that moment she knew she was made for marketing. Being able to get to know many company’s profiles and businesses at their core and to embrace the knowledge that every sector had to offer, allowed her to grow in a very integral way, opening her path to achieve results no matter what the segment she worked with. She has operated in many sectors

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Be resilient and embrace change with passion – it’s the only way you will be able to grow as a person and a professional.

Andrea Saravia

Global Marketing Director

Ufinet

company with an additional hands-on approach, as it gets to know and fully understand their most important needs and obstacles.

Repositioning as a Big Player In 2014 a private investor bought Ufinet from Gas Natural Fenosa Telecom. The most challenging task was to reposition the company as Ufinet, a big player in the telecommunication’s market, participating in various trade shows in several countries, creating the firm’s online image from scratch, such as the company’s website, a Linked-In profile and other social channels (inexistent at the time), and moreover interiorizing the business’s great assets, vision, mission and values within the company’s personnel.

That was key to create awareness about the company’s ethics, its top-notch services as well as creating an excellent post-sales package to get the firm’s clients not only to choose Ufinet for its strengths and advantages, but also for falling in love with a strategy of taking care of their own business growth.

When asked about the future goals Andrea states, “I love my job. And I can say that Ufinet is one of the best companies I have ever worked in. The values under which this company breathes are amazing. So, I aim to keep working here as a CMO. I believe that my expertise, my passion and my creativity will keep this company growing and “rock-n-rolling” for many years to come.”

An Essential Advice to be Incorporated Andrea advises emerging entrepreneurs to strive for success and quality every time. She says, “You will fail sometimes, of course, but the key here is to learn about each error and fiasco to make a better job next time. If you don’t push yourself after every failure, you will never acquire the wisdom to succeed in the future. Just do it, make things happen and never ever stop until you achieve what you desire most.”

Being Authentic with Customers According to Andrea, Ufinet has one of the best strategies in the telecommunications market, being a neutral carrier of carriers. This means that the company does not reach the end customer and therefore, it does not compete with its clients, which is one of the main issues it uses to tackle competition. Nevertheless, its competitors are also its clients, which make the task much trickier and more difficult. So, the best way to market its company remains to be honest and authentic with its consumers.

Another key factor is the closeness Ufinet has with its customers. Every client has its own Key Account Manager, who is available almost 24/7 for them. This provides the May 2019|

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The Fuss about AI I

For enterprises there are certain imminent crisis that demand that they change rapidly and market is not at all as forgiving as it was a few decades back, someone is constantly rooting for you to make a mistake.This is leading enterprise to transform under the integrated environment of Digital Transformation.

have been a strong advocate of conversational technology (VoiceTech/NLP) and AI and have pitched for it in various conferences, Guest Lectures at leading business institutes and to corporates and I am often being asked what will happen to our jobs? So this is true that Artificial intelligence seems like a big untameable monsters to most, and everyone is little anxious about future.

Voice Technology has lately become a stable AI process and would completely change the way we interact with technology in the future. Visualization will remain at the heart of it however with conversational technology, we can expect a shift to more verbal ads, like radio, but more personalized and actionable, but still to make a decision on which product to buy you would want to see it visually.

Also search will become more specific and hyperlocal, where we will be prompted to give verbal feedbacks, that would amount to popularity of products and places, how it happens with mobile applications today.

And that could be true sitting in 2010, but past few years new old research and young progressive companies and devision of enterprises are willing to make it their sole purpose that the infuse digital transformation in their company and provide assistance to others. But, with the prevailing reputation that comes at a cost of educating everyone, really everyone.

They see it as a risk and any have burnt their hands trying to tame novice early stage AI models. But thats fine, thats how we grow. I believe that we are intellectual beings with curious minds, why would we want to do repeatable jobs which machines can do with greater efficiency. We can delegate these chores and teach the machines to help us better and imitate human decision making, innovate at personal level and “Democratise Artificial Intelligence”.

Siri, Cortana, Alexa have brought conversation technology to people for some time now. They come bundled up with smart phones and can be used to do basic searches, to look up certain things, cue up songs etc. Speech technology has come much further than that. With its advancement we can now control our oven, tv and other house hold devices, can search complex data from cloud or can make phone calls for ourselves. It can change the way we function in our daily lives, our time with our family, services we receive and the jobs we do. It can eliminate learning curve of devices, repeatable chores, and compiling excel sheets. And it will not happen eventually, it’s happening now.

Democratising AI through platforms for like voice technology - Natural Language processing so the technical algorithms can stay with specific user base while use of the AI algorithms can be made as simple as conversing with machines. Thats a sure shot way to upskilling resources for example: Team of Analysts can train dashboards and Business Intelligence tools to map business KPIs and generate Compelling Business Stories and Insights in natural language for everyone in the organisation to benefit from, and then keep building the training over it through machine learning. We are personally running trials with Fortune 50 companies on this, so when I say you need to start looking at ways to incorporate new technologies I mean it.

Developers will innovate to create more audio centric user interface, there will be discovery period for them to find out how to minimally prompt user to give inputs and implement voice modulated visual commands. We can see speech approaching a point where it would become so reliable that we can just use it, like how we do it with other humans, and not even think about it.

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Tech Advice

About the Author Preksha Kaparwan is the Co-founder, CMO, V.UX Designer of Realbox.AI. The versatile IHM Pusa graduate initially served as the chef but got inclined towards technology and business analytics and founded RealBox in 2015.

Within three years of its inception, they have raised $300k for Realbox and, their customers include fortune 50 and big 4 enterprises. As a thought leader she has been part of TEDTalk talk shows. She was awarded 'The sparks 2018' by your story for tech services for her exceptional contribution as a Tech Evangelist.

I am personally inspired to bring acceptance for conversational technology globally and I believe that the real success for this would not be when big corporations and industries would be using it but when every small and medium business and every household would be using it and help us to get a hold of our receding grip on reality from visually attractive and distracting screens on our tv, on out laptops and our smart phones.

Preksha Kaparwan Co-founder & CMO RealBox Data Analytics Private Limited

We have seen this kind of a shift with automated technologies and processes which has led to reduced laborious work, eďŹƒciency increased and averted accidents. Smart phones brought technologies closer to the end user. So, I took side with ArtiďŹ cial Intelligence and Machine Learning technologies, that will aid seamlessly while co-existing in our realities. And impact is not just on us in our personal capacity but for businesses too and professionals who spend endless nights collating data and make pretty ppts to show to the bosses.

I believe that spreading the word on changing technological demography is not our responsibility or our burden. But you know why I make it my purpose??

Because it is a major step in evolution of technology and I know we need to harness it, shape it now, before someone else does it for you.

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Successful Personality Traits to Learn from Elon Musk

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egends never need an introduction. They tend to be victorious despite of their uneventful histories. They stick to captivating traits such as Discipline, determination and self-belief which help them accomplish wonders in the long run. One such example of an extraordinary person is Elon Musk, a South African Business Magnate, Investor and an engineer.

employee of the company, setting standards for his colleagues to follow and implement. Since the field of work lies inside his radius of interests, he enjoys it to every moment and bit when it comes to learning and execution.

Strong Risk Tolerance Founding a start-up involves a great deal of uncertainty and risk. A study found that after 10 years of being in business, 96 percent of the start-ups fail. Going by the statistics, Musk must have faced the same odds against him, when he had decided to leave an otherwise comfortable life to start a risky and uncertain business venture.

Musk is the founder, CEO, and chief architect of SpaceX; co-founder, CEO, and product designer of Tesla Inc.; and co-founder and CEO of Neuralink. As of February 2018, he is the 53rd-richest person in the world and has a net worth of $20.8 billion, which is far more than the net GDP of Greece taken into consideration.

For instance, Musk left his PhD program at Stanford University to find a company called Zip2 with his brother in the year 1995. Later, the company was sold to Compaq computers, profiting Musk a bit over $20 million.

Following this, Musk once again took a great risk by investing millions of dollars to found a company called X.com, one of the world’s first online banks.

While each entrepreneur possesses a unique set of traits that makes him/her successful, this Tech founder has a few traits much different from any other ordinary CEO, which has allowed him to build some of the world’s most respected and innovative organizations. Musk once quoted, “When something is important enough, you do it even if the odds are not in your favor.”

‘Always Be Learning’ Attitude An astounding and less-known fact about Elon Musk is that he is self-taught in programming and in many advanced level subjects. He read and understood a variety of books, which helped him gain endless and persistent knowledge and understand diverse concepts.

Let’s have a look on these personality attributes and characteristics that make him a contender for the most innovative intellectual entrepreneur of the century alive.

Hard-work and Characteristic Work Ethics Elon Musk is a hard-working innovator, working for about 100 hours a week, and has been productive since many years. He may even be considered as the hardest working

The best piece of advice on learning and implementation is to constantly think about how things could be done in a better manner and question self to seek the answers.

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Imparting Wisdom

It is equally essential to maintain clarity of doubt in any large scale organization. Under his supervision, Musk encourages in creating a positive and comprehensive environment across his firms.

Feedback Loop It is of prime importance to recognize the present symbol or otherwise ‘status quo’ in the market as an organization and re-position accordingly. Musk solicits constant feedback of the companies and executes ‘self-analysis.’ He induces efforts and divergent strategies to improve customer feedbacks and strives towards perfectionism.

Preferring to Stand Out From the Crowd Musk elects to bring up innovation at every level of his understanding. He tends to impart theoretical knowledge at the base level, applying changes and executing the same on the practical level. He relies more on transitional aspects such as research and development, thereby increasing the probability of ground-breaking inventions.

Tesla Motors, a far headed firm headed by Elon Musk, is anti-ordinary. Its compelling marketplace has become a one-stop destination for potential buyers where they can interact about product specifications. They also have video testimonials that far outperform in the sales-dominated industry.

For example, he seeks out his critics and tries to converse with them. This habit of self-reflection at regular and considerable periods is pivotal for any entrepreneur or organization to succeed in the long run.

Tendency for Vertical Integration Vertical integration is a strategy where an organization or a firm acquires business operations within the same product vertical. Both Tesla and SpaceX embrace this concept. For example, Tesla not only produces electric cars; they also generate public awareness about their cars via Tesla showrooms across various countries. And SpaceX does not only have the primary goal of rocket propulsions; they develop their own rocket architecture as well.

There is no ambiguity that Musk, by far, has been a pillar of inspiration for budding entrepreneurs and investors because of his prolific and optimistic approach towards life All these traits possessed by Musk, in some manner or the other, coincide with most of your habits. The only thing that stands as a potential barrier between these two is identifying your strengths and working on them on a continual basis. Go on, apply these traits into your daily life, and you may become the next big CEO the world is in need of today!

Faith in Self and the Founding Team Musk undoubtedly possesses a profound belief in his own capabilities as well as the potential-seeking factor of its founding team. He does not hesitate to gamble on large scale unless he is genuinely aware of the expected endresults.

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The

10 Influential Marketing

Leaders 2019

Marianne Späne

Hard working, Persistent, and Passionate Leader

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to be appointed Head of the Pharma Division. On her long path she always invested in education like leadership, finance and marketing next to her 150% job. This combination brought her 15 Years ago into global leadership role. To be successful she believes that one needs to be hard working and persistent but also passionate for what one is doing.

ne need to understand one's market segments that one is dealing with and it is essential to have a clear idea about one's target customers. If one combines this know-how with market outlook analysis and industry understanding one paves the way to the right target audience. On the other side one should also need to understand the requirements of the staff needed to have the right skills to get in touch with the target audience. One such cognizant marketing leader is Marianne Späne. She joined the Siegfried Group in 2004 and was appointed Global Head of Business Development, Marketing & Sales, Member of the Executive Committee since March 2010.

During her tenure with Siegfried, she has served in numerous roles, including heading the Siegfried Drug Product Division, including Operation, R&D, Regulatory Services and Business Development Department. After 25 years in the business, including several years at Aceto, she has managed projects throughout the value chain from chemical intermediates and steriles to biologics. She credits her success in the industry to her ability to look at the market with new eyes and a fresh perspective as well as strong engagement and passion for the work she does. By analyzing opportunities through a new lens, she has brought in new business that was not previously thought about.

Marianne Späne felt very early that she has a very positive charisma that can motivate other people and combined with her guiding principle to be hard working and fair as well as open or even eager to be involved in changes she had the dream to be an influential leader. At an early age she wanted to get a broad understanding of the different departments in a Company. Initially she started in Supply Chain positions in the cosmetic environment, then changed to Business intelligence and financial analysis in the chemical world and gathered experience in Business development in the pharma world. With all this experience she got the chance

Customization of Services At Siegfried Group Marianne along with her team is involved in the pharmaceutical business that offers products

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“

“

“I never give up”, “I am always open for new challenges but I do it my way” and “I like people”.

Marianne Späne Global Head of Business Development, Marketing & Sales

Siegfried Group

and services. One segment has own developed products and the other segment offers company's technology to develop pharmaceutical products according to the demand of audience. Company uses two different sales teams the one who has very dominant sales and market skills the other one who knows deep technology with high service level thinking. To customize the different offerings to appeal to the target audience she also prioritizes Business Outlook Intelligence and understanding of Size, Geography and Culture of customers.

Being Decisive and Authentic Marianne says that as a leader one is a role model and one needs to make many decisions. She believes that one should learn very quickly and sufficiently to have convincing arguments for one's decision. She encourages forming a team that is heterogeneous and not homogenous to have enough constructive discussions within one's team. She says it can be little bit more difficult to manage but one will profit from a strong team that can work independently and is well prepared for difficult negotiations. She advises to be authentic even amidst challenges as well. She reminds sometimes silence is a stronger means than speaking and says that combination can make one more successful.

Walking the Talk Marianne considers it is important to have a deep knowledge about the market environment and company's customers' needs. She focuses on building up relationship with company's customers and analyzing their needs and requirements to be in a position to offer customized solutions. She says that company's spirit is walking the talk.

In her own words, “We understand the market, identify opportunities, explain requirements and needs to the departments, define business and legal terms, agree with customers about contracts and accompany him/her throughout the whole journey. BD/Sales/Marketing is for me and the team much more than “Selling”....”

Being Open to Learning Next to her actual global role to strengthen and grow the business of her company Marianne is interested to make use of her knowledge and experience in interesting Board positions. She says, “Never stand still, be open for changes and never stop learning.”

Marianne advises emerging marketing leaders to think about what are one's strengths and weaknesses and start to develop one's strengths and cope with one's weakness. She suggests working hard and having fun in what one is doing and one will be successful. She encourages accepting failures and seeing them as experience to grow. She emphasizes to never give up and follow one's target. She asks to develop one's personality but also reminds to stay authentic. She advises to celebrate successes but never rest.

She asks to be always open to always have the track with one's environment.

Learning through Experiences According to Marianne, as a Sales and Business Development person one is supposed to be very good in communication, relationship building combined in company's business with technical and financial knowledge accompanied with passion for what one is doing. She explains that she learned how to cope with pressure, deception and hope through various learning experiences and she never give up finding a solution. She says, “keep your motivation, follow your target consequently and you will be successful.”

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About the Author Dr Danil Korchagin is an innovator and senior expert in ICT. He specialises in signal processing, data analysis and software engineering. Having worked for industries, organisations and academia, Danil Korchagin has comprehensive experience in both the industrial and academic worlds. He has managed many ICT projects with outstanding performance outcomes. He is founder of Aicue.

Dr Danil Korchagin Founder Aicue

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Expert's Outlook

Living Through Fourth

Industrial Revolution

D

anil Korchagin set up Aicue, a technology company that targets to change the way audience videos are consumed on the web, in 2011. In this article, he shares his point of view on ongoing fourth industrial revolution and its impact on everyday life.

We live in amazing time of fourth industrial revolution. The industrial revolution surpasses the scope of ICT, transforms the world and businesses, jobs and life styles. The concepts such as digital transformation, artificial intelligence and connected objects, incarnated into smartphones, are already hiding in our pockets. The self-driving cars leave science fiction and arrive into reality. The old professions go into May 2019|

oblivion and get replaced by new exciting jobs.

The artificial intelligence based solutions are already present in many cross-domains and quite often used by professionals and businesses to smarter use time and improve productivity. These solutions can manage financial portfolios and decrypt genetic code, pilot robots and drive cars, entertain people and even be creative. As an example, the cliperie.com platform creates new compelling clips by automatically linking audience videos all together from big data cloud.

The big data becomes de facto fuel of XXI century and industrial revolution. The amount of

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information, which is being gathered and transmitted by digital gadgets, sensors and internet of things, surpasses any imagination.

Constantly increasing and improving population of digital objects results in constantly improving quantity and quality of data, while the next 5G mobile networks are going to take care about increasing digital data traffic. The big data surrounds us and helps to come up with efficient solutions.

There are already more than fifteen billion connected objects worldwide.

The population of connected devices will surpass fifty billions in less than five years. The internet of things, network of connected devices, is already present in commercial and

industrial, consumer and infrastructure areas: from connected wearable heart monitor wristbands to connected pullovers, from connected security cameras to connected alarms, from connected parking lot sensors to connected displays of available places.

automate production helps industries to be more competitive on the global market and has positive impact on job market in many countries due to manufacturing stays at home instead of being moved overseas.

The tangible shift in professions happens with all industrial revolutions. The current one is not an exception. Some professions get automated, freeing up people to do new tasks: data management, data interpretation, digital marketing management, robot supervision, process control, process moderation, intervention in unforeseen situations, quality control and so on. The automated places can enable work week reduction and equilibrate shift in social insurances caused by increasing life expectancy.

The internet of things in turn enables smart tiers of technologies as smart homes, smart parking, smart traffic control and smart cities. The smart home hubs control communication among connected thermostats and stores, heating systems and other connected objects to enable home automation, energy savings and higher quality of life. The smart cities enable to reduce traffic jams and adjust public transportation in real-time, tighten security control and predict unforeseen events, reduce noise pollution and improve air quality.

The advances in technologies enable to process more data with less energy and smarter use available resources. The paradox in our society is that the focus still stays on profitability and growth over durability and climate sustainability. As consequence, the digital footprint on global energy consumption keeps increasing from year to year and can reach one fifth by 2030, regardless it is feasible to pursue industrial revolution at moderate pace within fixed energetic envelope until there is an excess of renewable energy.

Constantly connected digital gadgets continue to pull further more people from reality to social networks and virtual worlds. The choice of remote communication still outfights real life communication. The picture of the family together with each member navigating within its own virtual world on smartphone starts to be everyday occurrence. The same picture can be observed in the trains, airports and other places. However, some people started to apply reasonable moderation.

Even when people put away connected gadgets and back to physical world, the following interaction might be with nearby humanoid robot. Powered with same artificial intelligence as their virtual compatriots, they can follow conversations, understand individual social signals and respond appropriately. Their social interaction ability keeps improving, making future humanoid robots irreplaceable companions and assistants in nursing homes and hospitals, hotels and commercial stores.

The years will pass. The artificial intelligence, big data and internet of things will become ordinary tools in many areas of our life just like electricity and telephones, internet and personal computers did during previous industrial revolutions. No one will be questioning them anymore. They stay under human control. The human society is free to decide up to which extent new technologies and innovations have to be validated, regulated and certified for future everyday use.

The industrial robots are separate topic. The global robot density in the manufacturing industries is accelerating around the world and there is already at least one industrial robot per 100 working people in more than 20 countries worldwide. The ongoing trend to

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