We’re excited to announce that Alison Corcoran, SVP Marketing of North American Stores and Online for office superstore Staples, will be speaking at GrowthBeat Summit in Boston on June 1 and 2.
But while the acquisition represents the battle on the ground, Corcoran’s title (North American Stores and Online) telegraphs the significant balance that major retailers must now achieve as customers’ behavior and spending shifts increasingly online in a mobile-first world. Last year, Staples’ launched its second Innovation Lab in Seattle (the first was in Silicon Valley) to achieve greater growth in e-commerce by enhancing areas such as search, SEO, and personalization.
These are themes familiar to every CMO, regardless of vertical or product category. No question, Corcoran will be opening up on how Staples is meeting the challenge of connecting with customers on Staples’ brand story -- and differentiating it in their minds – while price-conscious consumers continue to click their way to the lowest price.
Prior to joining Staples, Corcoran served as Chief Marketing Officer for Sears Canada, where she led all customer-facing initiatives, including in-store, web, catalog, email, mobile, social, print, broadcast, and direct marketing. She also previously served as Chief Marketing Officer at BJ’s Wholesale Club and in a variety of leadership roles at Polaroid.
Check out some of the other speakers at GrowthBeat Summit
Kieran Hannon, CMO at Belkin
Hannon is responsible for all three of the company brands: Belkin, Linksys, and WeMo. But it’s no surprise that WeMo is now the family of products gaining in attention -- last year Fast Company named Belkin one of the World’s Most Innovative Companies in the Internet of Things.
Barbara Messing, CMO of TripAdvisor Messing has been in the lead marketing role at TripAdvisor for the last four years, so she can easily be awarded significant credit for the company's impressive growth. In 2014, the travel review company posted revenues of $1.246 billion, representing a 32 percent increase over the previous year.
Liza Landsman, Chief Customer Officer at Jet.com’s and Scott Friend, Managing Director of Bain Capital Ventures
Landsman and Friend will be featured in a fireside chat at the summit where they’ll discuss Jet.com's ambitious plans to disrupt the e-commerce industry. Fueled by "scary smart" e-commerce technology that drives lower prices for members while improving logistics for retail partners, Jet.com promises a "brilliant" customer experience right out of the gate.
Laura Holliday, recently named CMO of Zola
Holliday is the online wedding registry’s first CMO since it burst onto the scene just 19 months ago intending to shake up the wedding registry business. Challenging the traditional registry retailers, the brand now offers over 300 brands and 10,000 products, and provides a very personalized experience for couples and their wedding guests.
Brian Harrington, EVP and CMO of Zipcar
As Zipcar's chief marketing officer, Harrington oversees all efforts in member acquisition and engagement, global partnerships, public relations, and building the company's global brand. Prior to Zipcar, Harrington held leadership roles at Boathouse, a brand communications agency, and I’m in!, a leisure travel website that he cofounded. He was a member of the founding executive teams of Upromise and Connection to eBay, and has held senior roles at EF Education. Earlier in his career, he worked in global marketing for Sheraton Hotels and for Hill Holliday Advertising.
Lynn Vojvodich, EVP and CMO of Salesforce
Vojvodich joined Salesforce in 2013 and has been very vocal about the need for change in a marketing world that is inextricably fused with technology. Speaking with McKinsey at the end of last year, she said, "As a CMO, if you're not an agent of change -- constantly innovating, constantly changing, constantly pushing the boundaries -- then you're working at a company that will be obsolete in five to ten years."
Peter Hamilton, CEO and partner at mobile attribution analytics company TUNE
TUNE works with some of the biggest leaders in the mobile-first space including Uber and Spotify. Just as Salesforce led the charge in SaaS, TUNE is setting the course for the way marketers use data to connect with customers in a multi-device universe.
Michael Williams, CMO for The Grand Prix of America, Formula 1
Williams faces the challenge of bringing awareness to a sporting event that has never been hosted in America, but instead has been seen for 60 years as exclusively international. The intent is to bring the Formula 1 race to New York in June 2016.
Scott Brinker, cofounder and CTO of ion interactive (And the prolific blogger behind chiefmartech.com.)
In his annual tracking of martech, Brinker found that the marketing technology landscape in 2015 includes 1,876 vendors across 43 categories. That's not only an astonishing number in its own right, but it's nearly doubled in just the one year since Brinker last compiled the list.
Heather Smiley, Chief Marketing Officer of MassMutual
Responsible for growth for one of the largest life insurance companies in the world, Smiley’s biggest marketing challenge may be that she’s selling something people don’t need right now.With a tangible that many avoid thinking about, or can’t even imagine, she focuses on creating what she calls “motivated moments."
John Kennedy, CMO of Xerox
Appointed to Xerox last July, Kennedy previously was VP of marketing for IBM Global Business Services. Last year, he was recognized by the CMO Club with a Marketing Innovation Award "based on a marketing executive's demonstrated leadership in creating an innovative marketing environment that changes the game for ROI, customer engagement, and/or for the industry."
Deena Bahri, CMO for Birchbox
Bahri leads growth for the successful subscription service that delivers personalized boxes of beauty, grooming, and lifestyle products on a monthly basis. Last year the company was valued at $485 million with 800,000 subscribers. Bahri has talked openly about how essential data is to the success of the company. Prior to joining Birchbox in 2011, Bahri was senior director of marketing at Gilt, another e-commerce shopping destination.