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Modern MarketersAuthor: Presented by Think with Google
There has never been a more exciting - or more demanding - time to be a marketer. The AI era is here, transforming everything and pushing the role of the CMO into a full revolution. With immense pressure to prove value and new tools in our hands, the old playbooks no longer work. Join host Josh Spanier, VP of Marketing at Google, as he goes off the map with the industry's most daring leaders. This isn't about theory, it's about getting into the trenches with the CMOs and pioneers who are navigating this new landscape right now. Together, we'll explore the real-world playbooks they're writing, the challenges they're overcoming, and the opportunities they're seizing. Welcome to the frontier. Language: en Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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Vineet Mehra on Marketing in the Agentic Era and How to speak the Love Language of the CFO
Thursday, 26 February, 2026
In this episode of Frontier CMO, Vineet Mehra, Chief Growth Officer at Chime, joins Josh Spanier to unpack what it takes to lead marketing through the next platform shift. Drawing on a career that spans Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Silicon Valley, Vineet shares how CMOs must evolve from brand managers into capital allocators who drive growth by effectively managing where dollars are deployed. To do this successfully, they must become "balance sheet literate" and learn to speak the "love language" of the CFO—specifically focusing on unit economics, payback periods, and the marginal return on every incremental dollar spent. Vineet breaks down how Chime has restructured marketing around AI-enabled teams, in-housed creative and production, and redesigned customer support - turning automation into speed, savings into reinvestment, and execution into a competitive advantage. His thesis: perfect execution is table stakes; growth comes from strategy, taste, and how you design the system. Whether you’re navigating the pressure of AI adoption, balancing brand with direct response, or trying to stay relevant as automation accelerates, this episode offers a practical framework for building durable growth in a world where leadership, not technology, is the real differentiator. 00:00:00 — CFO + marketing: CAC, payback, unit economics 00:01:00 — Intro: the CMO role is changing 00:02:00 — What marketers must change for the next era 00:04:00 — What stays the same: brand story + taste00:05:30 — In-housing creative with top talent 00:08:00 — AI makes creative faster (from boards to near-finished) 00:10:30 — Biggest benefits: speed, savings, bigger ideas00:12:00 — “Chief Growth Officer” and owning the full funnel 00:15:00 — Full-stack marketer + systems architect 00:19:00 — Using AI agents at Chime (customer support example)00:25:00 — How to build an AI-ready culture 00:29:00 — Advice to traditional companies 00:30:00 — Fun: AI + pizza00:33:00 — Brand vs performance = one system 00:35:00 — Handling end-of-quarter CFO pressure00:38:00 — Signal vs noise + wrap-up takeaways
