Top 20 CMOs to Follow for Inspiration in 2026
The best CMOs aren't hard to find—but the ones who'll actually sharpen your thinking are rare. I've pulled together the marketing leaders who consistently lead by example and share their ideas: real strategy, honest takes, and the kind of insight that helps you move faster and think bigger.
Top 20 CMOs
Below are the profiles of the top CMOs, covering who they are and the impact they've made in this space.
Marian Lee
Marian Lee is Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix, where she leads global marketing after senior roles at Spotify, handling consumer marketing, creator marketing, music, and artist services.
Lee’s marketing treats fandom as…
Marian Lee is Chief Marketing Officer at Netflix, where she leads global marketing after senior roles at Spotify, handling consumer marketing, creator marketing, music, and artist services.
Lee’s marketing treats fandom as something that extends beyond the screen, using cultural moments, partnerships, experiences, and locally led creative to deepen audience connections. Her background across Netflix and Spotify gives her a sharp perspective on building global entertainment brands.
Marcel Marcondes
Marcel Marcondes is Chief Marketing Officer at AB InBev, where he has held senior roles since 2005, including CMO of Anheuser-Busch and Global President of the company’s Beyond Beer business.
His experience…
Marcel Marcondes is Chief Marketing Officer at AB InBev, where he has held senior roles since 2005, including CMO of Anheuser-Busch and Global President of the company’s Beyond Beer business.
His experience spans global portfolio strategy, brand management, innovation, and multicultural marketing. Marcondes has worked across mature beer brands and emerging categories, bringing a broad commercial lens to how global marketers keep brands relevant while pursuing growth.
Frank Cooper III
Frank Cooper III is Chief Marketing Officer at Visa, leading global marketing after executive roles at BlackRock, BuzzFeed, PepsiCo, Motown, and Def Jam across finance, media, consumer goods.
At Visa, Cooper oversees…
Frank Cooper III is Chief Marketing Officer at Visa, leading global marketing after executive roles at BlackRock, BuzzFeed, PepsiCo, Motown, and Def Jam across finance, media, consumer goods.
At Visa, Cooper oversees marketing across consumer and B2B audiences, brand, insights, digital platforms, content, and sponsorships. His career is distinguished by connecting culture and purpose to commercial strategy, a perspective he now applies as payments and AI reshape global commerce.
Asad Ayaz
Asad Ayaz is Chief Marketing and Brand Officer of The Walt Disney Company, leading enterprise-wide marketing and brand strategy after more than two decades shaping Disney’s entertainment marketing.
Ayaz coordinates marketing across…
Asad Ayaz is Chief Marketing and Brand Officer of The Walt Disney Company, leading enterprise-wide marketing and brand strategy after more than two decades shaping Disney’s entertainment marketing.
Ayaz coordinates marketing across Disney Entertainment, Experiences, and ESPN while stewarding major franchises and company-wide brand initiatives. His work across theatrical releases, Disney+, partnerships, and D23 shows how a CMO can connect storytelling, fandom, and experiences across a vast brand portfolio.
Julia White
Julia White is Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at AWS, leading worldwide marketing after senior technology roles at SAP and a two-decade career at Microsoft focused on enterprise software.
White brings…
Julia White is Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at AWS, leading worldwide marketing after senior technology roles at SAP and a two-decade career at Microsoft focused on enterprise software.
White brings deep enterprise technology experience to marketing cloud and AI services. Her remit centers on helping customers and partners understand and capture the value of AWS, drawing on a career that spans product positioning, brand, digital marketing, solutions, and transformation.
Cristina Diezhandino
Cristina Diezhandino is Chief Marketing Officer at Diageo and an Executive Committee member, with a career covering global brand, category, innovation, and general management roles across the company.
Diezhandino has led brands…
Cristina Diezhandino is Chief Marketing Officer at Diageo and an Executive Committee member, with a career covering global brand, category, innovation, and general management roles across the company.
Diezhandino has led brands and businesses across developed and emerging markets, giving her a wide view of consumer behavior and portfolio growth. Her work combines long-term brand building with cultural foresight, innovation, and detailed understanding of how people socialize and consume.
William White
William White is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Walmart U.S., leading customer insights, marketing strategy, planning, and experiences after roles at Target and Coca-Cola.
White connects brand building with…
William White is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of Walmart U.S., leading customer insights, marketing strategy, planning, and experiences after roles at Target and Coca-Cola.
White connects brand building with Walmart’s changing retail experience, from stores and delivery to digital commerce. His team uses customer insight, culture, and full-funnel marketing to drive demand and loyalty while positioning Walmart as a digital-first shopping destination.
Lorraine Twohill
Lorraine Twohill is Google’s Chief Marketing Officer, leading its global marketing team after two decades at the company and earlier heading marketing across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Twohill has steered…
Lorraine Twohill is Google’s Chief Marketing Officer, leading its global marketing team after two decades at the company and earlier heading marketing across Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.
Twohill has steered Google’s marketing through major shifts spanning Search, Chrome, mobile, YouTube, and AI. Her approach pairs human-centered storytelling with product fluency, experimentation, and close collaboration with engineers—experience that makes her a distinctive voice among leading CMOs. She has also pushed accessible marketing into the industry’s wider conversation.
Kenny Mitchell
Kenny Mitchell is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the Levi’s brand at Levi Strauss & Co., following marketing leadership roles at Snap, McDonald’s, Gatorade, and NASCAR.
Mitchell leads global…
Kenny Mitchell is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer of the Levi’s brand at Levi Strauss & Co., following marketing leadership roles at Snap, McDonald’s, Gatorade, and NASCAR.
Mitchell leads global strategy for a heritage brand competing as both a denim leader and a cultural lifestyle brand. His background across technology, food, sports, and consumer goods gives him experience turning creativity, digital channels, experiences, and cultural relevance into brand growth.
Emmanuel Orssaud
Emmanuel Orssaud is Chief Marketing Officer at Duolingo, where he leads a creativity-first marketing organization after earlier work at Spotify and PlayStation.
Orssaud has helped build a marketing model that prizes earned…
Emmanuel Orssaud is Chief Marketing Officer at Duolingo, where he leads a creativity-first marketing organization after earlier work at Spotify and PlayStation.
Orssaud has helped build a marketing model that prizes earned attention, fast experimentation, and ideas people want to share. Duolingo’s distinctive social voice, creator partnerships, product tie-ins, and cultural collaborations illustrate his belief that relevance can outperform simply buying more reach.
Melody Lee
Melody Lee is Chief Marketing Officer at Mercedes-Benz USA, leading U.S. marketing for the luxury automaker after senior brand and marketing roles at Cadillac, MillerKnoll, and global agencies.
Lee’s work sits at…
Melody Lee is Chief Marketing Officer at Mercedes-Benz USA, leading U.S. marketing for the luxury automaker after senior brand and marketing roles at Cadillac, MillerKnoll, and global agencies.
Lee’s work sits at the intersection of heritage and reinvention. At Mercedes-Benz USA, she is responsible for keeping a historic luxury brand culturally relevant while shaping contemporary brand experiences, partnerships, storytelling, and customer engagement for a changing automotive market.
Jane Wakely
Jane Wakely is PepsiCo’s Executive Vice President, Chief Consumer and Marketing Officer and Chief Growth Officer, International Foods.
Wakely approaches growth through a combination of consumer understanding, category science, creativity, and brand…
Jane Wakely is PepsiCo’s Executive Vice President, Chief Consumer and Marketing Officer and Chief Growth Officer, International Foods.
Wakely approaches growth through a combination of consumer understanding, category science, creativity, and brand building. Her unusually broad remit links marketing with design, innovation, R&D, and food strategy, giving her a direct role in shaping both demand and what PepsiCo brings to market.
Dara Treseder
Dara Treseder is Chief Marketing Officer at Autodesk, leading worldwide marketing and e-commerce after senior marketing roles at Peloton, Carbon, GE, Apple, and Goldman Sachs.
Treseder’s reaches beyond communications into e-commerce, product,…
Dara Treseder is Chief Marketing Officer at Autodesk, leading worldwide marketing and e-commerce after senior marketing roles at Peloton, Carbon, GE, Apple, and Goldman Sachs.
Treseder’s reaches beyond communications into e-commerce, product, commercial, customer experience, demand generation, and education. Her career across B2B and consumer companies shows a CMO model that connects brand building to digital growth, category creation, and commercial execution.
Carrie Palin
Carrie Palin is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Cisco, leading global marketing after senior technology roles at Splunk, Box, IBM, Dell, and other enterprise companies.
At Cisco, Palin’s remit…
Carrie Palin is Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer at Cisco, leading global marketing after senior technology roles at Splunk, Box, IBM, Dell, and other enterprise companies.
At Cisco, Palin’s remit spans demand, field and partner marketing, brand, digital, sponsorships, and global events. She has paired enterprise brand building with a major rethink of Cisco’s digital customer experience, while exploring how AI can make marketing interactions more useful and human.
Alison Wagonfeld
Alison Wagonfeld is Chief Marketing Officer at NVIDIA, leading marketing and communications after nearly a decade heading Google Cloud marketing and earlier leadership roles in technology and finance.
Wagonfeld stepped into NVIDIA’s…
Alison Wagonfeld is Chief Marketing Officer at NVIDIA, leading marketing and communications after nearly a decade heading Google Cloud marketing and earlier leadership roles in technology and finance.
Wagonfeld stepped into NVIDIA’s first CMO role as AI moved the company into a much larger global spotlight. Her cloud and enterprise background gives her experience translating complex technology into market narratives while unifying marketing and communications around a rapidly expanding platform.
Tim Castree
Tim Castree is Chief Marketing Officer at DoorDash, bringing senior leadership experience from Amazon, GroupM, and Wavemaker across growth marketing, brand building, media, and global markets.
Castree joined DoorDash as its ambitions…
Tim Castree is Chief Marketing Officer at DoorDash, bringing senior leadership experience from Amazon, GroupM, and Wavemaker across growth marketing, brand building, media, and global markets.
Castree joined DoorDash as its ambitions expanded beyond restaurant delivery into broader local commerce. His experience blends performance discipline with brand building at scale, with a particular emphasis on making global platforms feel locally relevant and useful to customers in different markets.
Ranjan Goswami
Ranjan Goswami is Chief Marketing and Product Officer at Delta Air Lines, leading global marketing and customer experience design after nearly two decades in commercial and operational roles.
Goswami combines stewardship of…
Ranjan Goswami is Chief Marketing and Product Officer at Delta Air Lines, leading global marketing and customer experience design after nearly two decades in commercial and operational roles.
Goswami combines stewardship of Delta’s brand with responsibility for product and experience design. His background across customer insights, digital and physical touchpoints, operations, and partnerships gives him an unusually integrated view of how marketing, product decisions, and service delivery shape a premium brand.
Andy Crestodina
Andy Crestodina is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media Studios, where he has spent more than two decades working across web strategy, content marketing, SEO, analytics, and AI.
Crestodina turns…
Andy Crestodina is co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media Studios, where he has spent more than two decades working across web strategy, content marketing, SEO, analytics, and AI.
Crestodina turns digital marketing research and client experience into practical guidance for marketers. His work connects content strategy with search, conversion, analytics, audience behavior, and emerging AI tools, giving CMO audiences a hands-on perspective on how digital channels actually produce results.
Carla Zakhem-Hassan
Carla Zakhem-Hassan is Chief Marketing Officer at JPMorgan Chase, overseeing marketing across Chase, J.P. Morgan, Sapphire, and the corporate brand after prior CMO roles at Citi and Toys “R” Us.
Hassan leads…
Carla Zakhem-Hassan is Chief Marketing Officer at JPMorgan Chase, overseeing marketing across Chase, J.P. Morgan, Sapphire, and the corporate brand after prior CMO roles at Citi and Toys “R” Us.
Hassan leads brand strategy, advertising, media, sponsorships, customer insights, communications, and impact marketing. Her experience across financial services, retail, food, and consumer brands informs how she builds brands, connects with customers, and leads marketing at scale.
Morgan Flatley
Morgan Flatley is EVP, Global Chief Marketing Officer and New Business Ventures at McDonald’s, where she oversees global brand building and ventures after earlier marketing leadership at PepsiCo.
Flatley has helped McDonald’s…
Morgan Flatley is EVP, Global Chief Marketing Officer and New Business Ventures at McDonald’s, where she oversees global brand building and ventures after earlier marketing leadership at PepsiCo.
Flatley has helped McDonald’s build marketing around fan insights, social culture, digital engagement, and creative collaborations, including its “Famous Orders” work. Her experience across Gatorade, PepsiCo’s nutrition portfolio, and McDonald’s shows how global brands can turn consumer relevance into growth.
Selection Methodology
We selected the leaders on this list based on their relevance, demonstrated expertise and impact, professional credibility, and ongoing contributions to the field.
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We look for evidence such as leading meaningful initiatives or delivering notable results within their organizations, developing influential ideas or practices, publishing research or educational resources, speaking or teaching, and other contributions that demonstrate impact within their work or the broader field.
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