Marketing Vanguard

The “Marketing Vanguard at Cannes” series continues as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Julia Goldin, Chief Marketing and Product Officer at LEGO. In this conversation, Julia shares how LEGO has grown from a children’s toy company into a global experience brand loved by kids, teens and adults, without losing the creative system that made it iconic in the first place. She offers insights into the discipline behind that growth: knowing what to say no to, protecting authenticity, taking calculated risks and treating mistakes as part of the work.

Julia Goldin is the Chief Marketing and Product Officer at LEGO, where she has spent 11 years helping shape the brand into a multi-generational creative experience. Under her leadership, LEGO has grown across children, teens and adults, while expanding its connection with girls and women builders. From LEGO SmartPlay to high-profile partnerships with Formula 1 and World Cup campaigns, she has helped LEGO push into new spaces while staying grounded in authenticity, trust and the limitless possibilities of the LEGO system in play. Her leadership philosophy is clear: creativity grows when teams are curious, willing to make mistakes and disciplined enough to protect what the brand stands for.

What You'll Learn:
How LEGO expanded from a toy brand into a multi-generational creative experience
Why saying no is one of the most important brand-building decisions a CMO can make
How to balance innovation risk with consumer trust and brand authenticity
Why mistakes are essential to learning, unlearning and relearning
How LEGO SmartPlay uses technology to enhance physical play without adding more screens
Why human creativity is the real competitive advantage in the age of tech
How partnerships like Formula 1 and World Cup campaigns become bigger than product launches

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Marketing Vanguard comes straight from Cannes 2026 as host Jenny Rooney sits down with Nathan Rosenberg, Chief Marketing and Brand Experiences Officer at Virgin Voyages. They discuss why the best and most real marketing happens when a customer is telling their friends the story of what they experienced, how Virgin Voyages turns crew culture into customer loyalty, and why repeat rate should sit much closer to the center of marketing strategy.

Nathan Rosenberg is the Chief Marketing and Brand Experiences Officer at Virgin Voyages, where he has spent 14 years building one of the most distinctive experience-led brands in travel. With 26 years across the Virgin organization, Nathan brings a deeply human-centered approach to marketing, culture, and brand strategy. At Virgin Voyages, his work spans far beyond campaigns. He champions the full experience of the brand, from how guests feel when they step onto a ship to how crew members are supported to deliver memorable service. His philosophy is simple but demanding: if you take care of your people, they take care of your customers, and customers take care of the outcomes.

What You'll Learn:
Why marketing is irrelevant if the experience does not hold up
How repeat customers can lower acquisition costs and change the growth equation
Why crew experience directly shapes customer experience and brand memory
How Virgin Voyages turned an adults-only cruise model into its clearest differentiator
Why marketers need to stop drowning in reports they will never act on
How AI can amplify creative teams instead of replacing them
Why soft skills like empathy, vulnerability and listening are now the hardest leadership skills

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Consumer electronics marketing has a bad habit: it talks too much about the product and not enough about the person buying it. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, Sarah Larsen, CMO at Hisense USA, joins Jenny Rooney to unpack why she’s throwing tech-speak out the window and rebuilding marketing around sell-out, consumer behavior, and real-life relevance. As Hisense’s first overarching CMO, Sarah shares how she’s reinforcing one sharp mandate: marketing needs to move product.

Sarah Larsen is the Chief Marketing Officer at Hisense USA, where she is the first leader to hold the company’s newly created overarching CMO role. With 30 years of experience across PR, earned media, social, digital, paid media, sponsorships, and consumer electronics, Sarah brings a nontraditional path to modern marketing leadership. Before joining Hisense, Sarah built deep category expertise through roles connected to brands like LG, Samsung, and Motorola. At Hisense, she now leads a broad remit spanning product marketing, product management, retail, insights, communications, and go-to-market strategy, with one clear goal: marketing that drives sellout.

What You'll Learn:
Why consumer electronics brands need to stop leading with tech specs
How Sarah defines marketing success through sellout, not vanity metrics
Why CMOs should act as the great unifiers across product, retail, sales and consumer insight
How to turn global sponsorships like FIFA World Cup into real consumer connection
Why research needs to be continuous, not a one-time path-to-purchase study
How future-proofing your brand means investing in the buyers who are not yet your core demographic

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode of Marketing Vanguard comes straight from Cannes 2026. Join us as host Jenny Rooney catches up with Dara Treseder, Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer at Autodesk. Together, they explore why this AI era is also the “golden era” for creatives, why human ingenuity still runs the game while AI raises the floor and why trust is the one thing that isn’t up for debate. She raises a valid point: knowing what not to do with AI is just as important as knowing what to do with it.

Dara Treseder is Chief Marketing and Commercial Officer at Autodesk, renowned for her expertise in B2B brand storytelling and AI-integrated marketing strategy. With a background in transforming major enterprise organizations including GE and Carbon, she has pioneered approaches that balance human creativity with technological innovation. Her leadership in establishing Autodesk as the official design and make platform for the LA 2028 Olympics and her commitment to a $350 million initiative for AI workforce credentialing demonstrate her ability to align business growth with meaningful societal impact - a model of particular relevance for enterprise marketing leaders seeking to drive both profitability and purpose.

What You'll Learn:
How to balance AI integration with authentic brand storytelling
The "Facts and Feelings" framework for B2B marketing that moves beyond boring product specs
Why hands-on AI fluency as a CMO is non-negotiable for strategic vision and system design
How to operationalize workforce development as a competitive advantage by investing in AI knowledge transfer
The time-optimization secret weapon: using AI-powered calendar analytics and briefing tools to reclaim hours daily
How to execute big strategic swings like Autodesk's sports marketing partnerships with LA28 Olympics and NFL teams

This episode is part of a special vidcast series that was recorded live during Cannes 2026 and presented in partnership with Edelman

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

While everyone’s chasing data and AI-driven targeted marketing, Natasha Madan’s keeping humanity at the centre of it all. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, the Head of Marketing at Intuit Credit Karma shares why blending art and science is essential to modern marketing. She dives into the how of building human connections that trump personalization algorithms and repositioning legacy brands for new generations while taking us behind the scenes of her groundbreaking work launching Prime Day at Amazon.

Natasha Madan is Head of Marketing at Intuit Credit Karma, known for her expertise in brand strategy, customer-centric marketing and combining art with data science. With a background spanning CPG at Nestlé, where she honed customer insights across iconic candy brands, to Amazon, where she helped build Prime into a cultural phenomenon driving 30% of member growth, Natasha brings a rare blend of brand-building and performance marketing excellence. Her work bridging mission-driven fintech with sophisticated marketing strategy offers actionable frameworks for CMOs navigating the balance between personalization and human-centered brand building.

What You'll Learn:

How to uncover customer needs before they articulate them
Why sticking to vision while staying flexible on tactics drives long-term success
The Minimum Lovable Product (MLP) framework beats MVP in building customer loyalty
How to reposition a transactional brand into an emotional platform
The case for full-funnel marketing over direct response in reshaping perception
Why AI democratizes authenticity as your competitive moat

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.