On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Fred Studer, CMO at TIBCO. As a four-time CMO who has been at the helm of marketing teams at companies like Microsoft and Oracle, Fred had plenty of fascinating experiences to share during this episode. We chatted about everything from mindset to storytelling, including key strategies for elevating your brand and customer voice.Check out this and other episodes of The Marketer’s Journey on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Stitcher, and Google Podcasts! Key takeaways from this episode:

• Focus on demand gen. As Fred mentioned, every CMO has at least one area of their role that they tend to favor—in his case, that’s branding. However, he believes all CMOs should build demand generation skills into their repertoire because you’ll rarely come across a sales team that’s asking for fewer leads.
• Use large companies as a training ground. Fred mentioned that his roles at tech giants like Microsoft and Oracle served as massive opportunities for growth, development and education. Before you make the switch from a large company to a small startup, make sure you’re taking full advantage of the opportunity to act as an entrepreneur within the organization and learn as much as you can through your role.
• Engage the entire company in telling customer stories. During the pandemic, it became even more important for brands to amplify the voice of their customers. This is why Fred and the marketing team at TIBCO have pivoted to engage the entire company in customer storytelling, encouraging everyone to make it their responsibility, no matter their role or department.