The Adweek 50 Made 2019 a Standout Year for Their Brands

Staying ahead of the curve as a major company has never been easy, but the pace of change these days is downright breathtaking, and the stakes have never seemed higher. All the more reason to shine a light on the people who work tirelessly to deliver not just in the near term but with an eye toward an even brighter future. With this in mind, we’re pleased to honor the 2019 Adweek 50—the stellar media, marketing and tech execs who helped make this a standout year for their brands. —Kristina Feliciano Bruno CardinaliQ3 2019 U.S. sales growth: 10%Head of Marketing, North America, PopeyesDiego ScottiFY 2018 revenue: $130.9 billionEVP and CMO, VerizonWalker JacobsFY 2018 revenue: $500 million in ad sales (source: Bloomberg)CRO, TwitchAnn LewnesFY 2018 revenue: $9 billionEVP and CMO, AdobeJeremi GormanFY 2018 revenue: $1.18 billionChief Business Officer, Snap Inc.Michelle PelusoFY 2018 revenue: $79.6 billionSVP and CMO, IBMFernando MachadoFY 2018 revenue: $1.651 billionGlobal CMO, Burger KingJennifer Salke100 million-plus Amazon Prime accountsHead, Amazon StudiosKelly CampbellFY 2018 ad revenue: nearly $1.5 billionCMO, HuluTed SarandosFY 2018 revenue: $15.8 billionChief Content Officer, NetflixMónica GilFY 2018 revenue: $647 million (estimate; source: Standard Media Index, via B&C)EVP and CMO, NBCUniversal Telemundo EnterprisesJessica RodriguezFY 2018 revenue: $2.7 billionCMO and President of Entertainment, UnivisionMichael PaullProjected 2024 subscribers: 72 million–102 millionPresident, Streaming Services, DisneyRita FerroFY 2018 revenue: $7.76 billionPresident, Advertising Sales and Partnerships, DisneyMarianne GambelliFY 2019 revenue: $5.1 billionPresident, Advertising Sales, Fox Corp.Mark Marshall and Laura MolenFY 2018 ad revenue: $10.6 billionPresidents, Advertising Sales and Partnerships, NBCUniversalKirk McDonaldFY 2018 ad revenue: $1.7 billionChief Business Officer, XandrSean MoranFY 2018 ad revenue: $3.6 billionHead of Ad Solutions, ViacomJo Ann RossFY 2018 ad revenue: $4 billionPresident and Chief Advertising Revenue Officer, CBS Corp.Julia GoldinFY 2018 revenue: $5.5 billionGlobal CMO, LegoLeslie BerlandFY 2018 revenue: $3.04 billionCMO, TwitterJaney WhitesideFY 2018 revenue: $514.4 billionEVP and Chief Customer Officer, WalmartFrancisco Crespo BenítezFY 2018 revenue: $32 billionSVP and Chief Growth Officer, The Coca-Cola Co.Prabhakar RaghavanFY 2018 revenue: $136.8 billion (Alphabet); $136.2 billion (derived from Google activity)SVP, Advertising and Commerce, GoogleScott TiemanFY 2019 revenue: $10 billionGlobal Lead, Programmatic Services, Accenture InteractiveDeborah WahlFY 2018 revenue: $147 billionGlobal CMO, General MotorsDeborah YehFY 2018 revenue for parent company LVMH: $53.5 billionCMO, SephoraRick GomezFY 2018 revenue: $75 billionCMO and Chief Digital Officer, TargetDirk-Jan van HamerenFY 2019 revenue: $39.1 billionGlobal CMO, NikePamela Drucker MannFY 2018 revenue: $1.9 billion (estimate)Global CRO and President of U.S. Revenue, Condé NastJason WagenheimFY 2018 revenue: $75 millionCRO, Bustle Digital GroupLuke Eid and Tessa ConradFY 2018 revenue: $800 million (estimate, global; source: R3)Global President of Digital and Innovation; Global Director of Operations, TBWA\WorldwideTara LevineFY 2018 revenue: $300 million (estimate, global; source: R3)Chief Experience Officer, Hearts & ScienceBeverly WrightFY 2018 revenue: $400 million (estimate, U.S.; source: R3)SVP and Deputy Program Account Manager, DDBNeal Arthur and Karl LiebermanFY 2018 revenue: $250 million (estimate, U.S.; source: R3)Managing Director; ECD, Wieden + Kennedy New YorkLouisa WongFY 2018 revenue: $300 million (U.S.; source: R3)COO, Carat USAHallie JohnstonFY 2018 revenue: $145 million (estimate, U.S.)Chief Client Officer U.S., InitiativeLora SchulsonFY 2018 revenue: $1.4 billion (estimate)Head of Production, 72andSunnyGonzalo Del FaFY 2018 Revenue: $3.8 billion (global; source: R3)President, GroupM MulticulturalGareth JonesFY 2018 revenue: $3 billion (estimate, global)SVP, Marketing, North America, Wunderman ThompsonRachel NairnFY 2018 revenue: $650 million (estimate, U.S.)Managing Director, BBDO Los AngelesPedro EarpFY 2018 revenue: $54.6 billionChief Marketing and ZX Ventures Officer, AB InBevCraig MillerFY 2018 revenue: $1.073 billionChief Product Officer, ShopifyValérie Hernando-PresseFY 2018 revenue: $27.2 billionGlobal CMO, DanoneKristin LemkauFY 2018 revenue: $109.3 billionCMO, JPMorgan ChaseMeghan GrantFY 2018: $600 million (estimate, U.S.; source: R3)EVP, Strategy, Publicis MediaCarolyn EversonFY 2018 revenue: $55.8 billionVP, Global Marketing Solutions, FacebookRussell WallachFY 2018 revenue: $10.8 billionPresident of Media and Sponsorship, Live NationLynne BiggarFY 2018 revenue: $20.6 billionChief Marketing and Communications Officer, VisaJon Kaplan2019 Q3 revenue: $280 millionGlobal Head of Partnerships, Pinterest×Bruno CardinaliQ3 2019 U.S. sales growth: 10% Head of Marketing, North America, Popeyes > David Williams for Adweek “This brand has huge potential,” says Cardinali, who launched the Popeyes chicken sandwich that became a viral phenomenon and inspired rhapsodic raves from the likes of GQ, who said it “smells like a family reunion and tastes like homecoming.” And there’s no quibbling with the numbers: triple-digit boosts in Popeyes traffic and a 10% jump in same-store sales in the third quarter. Cardinali, who presided over the Cannes Lions-winning “Traffic Jam Whopper” while he was head of marketing for Burger King in Latin America and the Caribbean, has “a passion for growing businesses and people,” says BK and Popeyes global CMO Fernando Machado. “He is always calm, very mature and has high creative ambition.” —Terry Stanley Read our cover story on Cardinali here. ×Diego ScottiFY 2018 revenue: $130.9 billion EVP and CMO, Verizon As Verizon scraps its media-empire ambitions in favor of a more collaborative strategy, Scotti has played a pivotal role with marketing that spotlights the various ways Verizon’s partners are using its next-generation wireless network, or 5G. The telecom has featured doctors using wireless for cancer imaging and highlighted how The New York Times teamed with Verizon to build a 5G journalism lab. “What is really different about our marketing strategy is the focus on our partnerships,” Scotti says, “not just as a tactical thing but as a philosophy in terms of how we operate.” —Patrick Kulp ×Walker JacobsFY 2018 revenue: $500 million in ad sales (source: Bloomberg) CRO, Twitch Photo: Sam Harnack Since joining Twitch about a year ago, Jacobs has been going nonstop in his work overseeing the game-streaming platform’s breakneck expansion. The digital media veteran spent much of the last year crisscrossing the globe as the company opened new offices everywhere from Sydney to Stockholm and retooled departments to operate globally. In the process, he honed a pitch to sell Twitch to a wider international audience of marketers. “When I got here, I noticed that Twitch was really complicated, and there’s a lot of nuance to what makes the property special,” he says. “My biggest focus is making it easier for people to understand Twitch.” —Patrick Kulp ×Ann LewnesFY 2018 revenue: $9 billion EVP and CMO, Adobe Courtesy of Adobe As the head of marketing for a company as wide-ranging as Adobe, Lewnes has spearheaded everything from creative-suite partnerships with Billie Eilish (an art contest for a chance to meet the singer) and a trailer-remix challenge tied to the latest Terminator movie to esoteric, business-to-business promotions of enterprise tools and AI-powered marketing software. Indeed, Lewnes says her role has expanded since she joined 13 years ago, in accordance with industry trends. “The CMO role today is far more business-oriented,” she says. “This is a moment in time where the CMO really has permission to move into adjacent areas and take the ball.” —Patrick Kulp ×Jeremi GormanFY 2018 revenue: $1.18 billion Chief Business Officer, Snap Inc. Courtesy of Snap Gorman joined Snapchat’s parent from Amazon in October 2018 and got right down to business, overseeing a reorganization of the company’s sales team to focus on specific industry verticals and better serve brands. The result: three consecutive quarters of accelerated revenue growth. Gorman has also helped Snapchat pique marketers’ interest in its video ad offerings with the debut of Snap Select, giving marketers access to the premium shows from established publishers in its Discover destination, where Snapchatters go to find video content. And teaming up with NCSolutions, Snap produced a study to prove to brands that Gen Z, the bulk of Snapchat’s users, actually does spend money. “Jeremi hit the ground running and took decisive action that brought our team together and inspired everyone to grow our business,” CEO Evan Spiegel told Adweek in March. —David Cohen ×Michelle PelusoFY 2018 revenue: $79.6 billion SVP and CMO, IBM Courtesy of IBM Empowerment and education are recurring themes in Peluso’s growing list of achievements. She has brought her passion for creating a more equal workplace to IBM’s “Be Equal” campaign, which promotes gender equality in business leadership. IBM issued its “Women, Leadership and the Priority Paradox” report on International Women’s Day to help close the leadership gender gap. And in June, IBM and Adweek teamed up on the Institute for Brand Marketing, an educational resource for marketing professionals. “We are closer to the customer than arguably anyone else in an organization,” Peluso, one of our 2019 Most Powerful Women in Sports, has said of marketers, “and that lets us unleash creativity, data science, technology and agile ways of working in profoundly new ways.” —David Cohen ×Fernando MachadoFY 2018 revenue: $1.651 billion Global CMO, Burger King There was no dousing the flame that broils Burger King’s burgers in 2019. The fast-food giant started off the year with a noteworthy Super Bowl ad featuring Andy Warhol silently eating a Whopper and followed that up by trolling rival McDonald’s with its “Whopper Detour” campaign, which let fans unlock 1-cent Whoppers by going to McDonald’s locations. (The campaign took home a Grand Prix in the Direct Lions at Cannes.) Machado, Adweek’s 2018 Grand Brand Genius, and his crew weren’t done, however: They embraced the “Impossible” task of rolling out plant-based Whoppers across all 50 states in August, getting people to move past their skepticism and take a bite. —David Cohen ×Jennifer Salke100 million-plus Amazon Prime accounts Head, Amazon Studios Getty Images Unlike most of the other execs on the list, Salke isn’t focused specifically on revenue. Instead, she works to keep Amazon Prime subscribers happy by bringing buzzy new programming to Amazon Prime Video. This year, she landed big wins in the form of 15 Emmy awards, which the service took home for shows like Phoebe Waller-Bridge’s Fleabag and Amy Sherman-Palladino’s The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel. And the company continues to produce new programming, such as the anthology series Modern Love. To secure eye-catching content for the future, Salke this year signed first-look deals with writers and stars like Waller-Bridge and Lena Waithe. She’s also tasked with meeting the lofty goal set by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos that the upcoming Lord of the Rings series will be the company’s own Game of Thrones. —Kelsey Sutton ×Kelly CampbellFY 2018 ad revenue: nearly $1.5 billion CMO, Hulu Courtesy of Hulu It’s up to Campbell to keep Hulu’s subscriber base growing as new rivals enter the streaming space. To that end, she’s rolled out national brand campaigns like “Better Ruins Everything,” starring celebs such as Sofia Vergara, and the tongue-in-cheek “Hulu Sellouts,” which features pro athletes shamelessly shilling for Hulu’s live sports offering. During this year’s Super Bowl, Campbell’s team crafted a dark commercial for The Handmaid’s Tale that quickly became one of the buzziest spots of the game. This year, Hulu is up to 28 million paid subscribers, a 64% increase from the 17 million subscribers the service had when Campbell started two years ago. —Kelsey Sutton ×Ted SarandosFY 2018 revenue: $15.8 billion Chief Content Officer, Netflix Courtesy of Netflix In the streaming wars, content is king, and Sarandos is Netflix’s own king of content. The chief content officer has overseen ambitious original series like When They See Us, leaned into beloved franchises such as Stranger Things and landed attractive library content like the Seinfeld catalog. As the service loses other library titles to rivals, Sarandos is working to restock the pipeline with Netflix originals (he’ll spend $15 billion on original content this year) and is signing overall deals with creators like Game of Thrones showrunners David Benioff and D.B. Weiss, The Crown’s Peter Morgan and Pose’s Janet Mock to keep the original shows flowing. —Kelsey Sutton ×Mónica GilFY 2018 revenue: $647 million (estimate; source: Standard Media Index, via B&C) EVP and CMO, NBCUniversal Telemundo Enterprises Courtesy of NBCUniversal Under Gil’s leadership, Telemundo has pushed out more than 900 hours of original content in the 2019-2020 season alone, including telenovelas like La Reina del Sur and El Señor de los Cielos, that have helped cement Telemundo as the No. 1 Spanish-language network in weekday prime time in the key demo. Gil is a cause champion at the company, too, overseeing initiatives including the #Latinostrong: Unidos Contra el Odio (United Against Hate) campaign in the wake of anti-immigrant violence in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio. —Kelsey Sutton ×Jessica RodriguezFY 2018 revenue: $2.7 billion CMO and President of Entertainment, Univision Courtesy of Univision Rodriguez has helped the Spanish-language network stand apart with progressive, popular storytelling like Juntos el Corazón Nunca Se Equivoca, the first Spanish-language U.S. broadcast television series featuring a same-sex couple as its main protagonists, and Nuestra Belleza Latina, an unscripted pageant competition featuring inclusive stories about women of different sizes, ages and backgrounds. In prime time, flashy programming like the telenovela La Usurpadora and the crime melodrama El Dragon have grown Univision’s evening audience—and even occasionally outperformed English-language broadcasters. —Kelsey Sutton ×Michael PaullProjected 2024 subscribers: 72 million–102 million President, Streaming Services, Disney Not only did Paull have the high-stress job of overseeing the premiere this fall of Disney+, the most anticipated streaming service to debut in 2019, he also is on a mission to attract a combined 102 million worldwide subscribers for Disney+ and ESPN+ by 2024. Paull’s been green-lighting noteworthy originals while digging deep into Disney’s IP to appeal to a wide variety of tastes. Meanwhile, he’s burnishing the live-sports-centered ESPN+ with intuitive product updates and promotional bundles. Even the streamer’s rivals are impressed. Disney+ “is going to be a great competitor,” Netflix CEO Reed Hastings acknowledged in October. —Kelsey Sutton ×Rita FerroFY 2018 revenue: $7.76 billion President, Advertising Sales and Partnerships, Disney Courtesy of Disney After Ferro added ESPN to her purview in 2018, her portfolio expanded significantly yet again in March following the close of the Disney-Fox deal. Heading into the upfront with a supersized arsenal that now includes former Fox assets like FX and National Geographic alongside ABC, Freeform and ESPN, she secured overall upfront ad revenue increases of 5% and double-digit CPM gains across all dayparts for ABC. Ferro also landed a 50% hike in digital spending commitments compared to last year’s upfront, the result of an initiative to convince advertisers to follow viewer eyeballs away from linear to other platforms. —Jason Lynch ×Marianne GambelliFY 2019 revenue: $5.1 billion President, Advertising Sales, Fox Corp. Courtesy of Fox When Fox Corp. was spun off in March ahead of the Disney-Fox deal closing, Gambelli assumed her new role overseeing ad sales for Fox’s slimmed-down portfolio of brands, including Fox Broadcasting, Fox Sports, Fox News Channel and Fox Business Network. For her first upfront in that position, Gambelli came away with double-digit increases in prime-time entertainment and the highest rate of change among cable news networks for Fox News. Next, she’s focusing on maximizing revenue for Super Bowl LIV, which airs Feb. 2 on Fox. —Jason Lynch ×Mark Marshall and Laura MolenFY 2018 ad revenue: $10.6 billion Presidents, Advertising Sales and Partnerships, NBCUniversal Courtesy of NBCUinversal After being promoted in October 2018, the duo was tasked with heading up this year’s upfront for the first time and leading the advertising sales and partnership efforts under chairman Linda Yaccarino. They emerged with a nearly $7 billion upfront haul (surpassing last year’s market by 10%) with 14% CPM gains in NBC prime time and 9% across the whole portfolio. Marshall and Molen also expanded NBCU’s “prime pod” ad format to other dayparts while rolling out new ad offerings like Must Hear TV and ShoppableTV. They’ll build on those efforts in 2020 with NBCU’s two biggest events: the Summer Olympics and the April launch of ad-supported streaming service Peacock. —Jason Lynch ×Kirk McDonaldFY 2018 ad revenue: $1.7 billion Chief Business Officer, Xandr Photo: Thomas Moore Leading the charge as AT&T’s advertising and analytics unit takes on a bigger role within the company, McDonald launched Xandr’s first upfront event this year (called XandrFront) and oversaw the initiative to rebrand the company’s demand-side platform (Xandr Invest) and its supply-side platform (Xandr Monetize). He was promoted in September from CMO to chief business offer, where he now heads up all domestic sales and marketing, a role that will become even more vital as AT&T taps Xandr to help monetize its upcoming streaming service HBO Max, with an ad-supported version slated for 2021. —Jason Lynch ×Sean MoranFY 2018 ad revenue: $3.6 billion Head of Ad Solutions, Viacom Courtesy of Viacom Moran’s two-year efforts to pivot Viacom away from a sales team focused on legacy revenue—and leveraging the company’s portfolio as it branches out beyond networks (such as the March purchase of free ad-supported streaming service Pluto)—paid off big time. Thanks to double-digit CPM upfront hikes, securing the highest rate of change in more than a decade, Moran returned the company’s domestic advertising to full year growth for the first time in six years. When he departs the company following the Viacom-CBS merger closing, likely by early next month, he’ll leave his team in much better shape than when he took over in June 2016. —Jason Lynch ×Jo Ann RossFY 2018 ad revenue: $4 billion President and Chief Advertising Revenue Officer, CBS Corp. Sasha Maslov for Adweek Now in her 17th year heading up CBS network sales, Ross started 2019 with a hefty Super Bowl ad revenue haul (landing as much as $5.3 million per 30-second spot) and continued with another successful upfront, as she secured prime-time CPM increases in the mid-teens and late-night volume hikes of as much as 20%. But her biggest challenge is still to come: Ross will head up domestic ad sales for the combined ViacomCBS, integrating those two companies’ sales teams across an expanded broadcast, cable and streaming portfolio, when that merger closes later this year. —Jason Lynch ×Julia GoldinFY 2018 revenue: $5.5 billion Global CMO, Lego Courtesy of Lego The Danish toy company had a busy 2019, unleashing its first global brand campaign in 30 years. Titled “Rebuild the World,” the effort spread Lego messaging across digital and traditional platforms as well as out-of-home and included collaborations with award-winning filmmakers to produce shorts featuring the musician Mark Ronson and the gymnast Simone Biles. Whether her team was recreating The Upside Down from Stranger Things or Friends’ Central Perk, Goldin led Lego’s in-house agency to keep the brand ahead of the curve in 2019. —Ryan Barwick ×Leslie BerlandFY 2018 revenue: $3.04 billion CMO, Twitter Courtesy of Twitter Under Berland, the social media giant leveraged its own users for multiple campaigns across 2019: The brand developed the “Me on Twitter” meme, a playful poke at Twitter users’ willingness to express themselves freely, into a full-on out-of-home campaign, plastering tweets across subway stations in New York and San Francisco. Its #Tweetups initiative, meanwhile, allowed users across the world the chance to connect and share their own stories. The integrated approach is paying off: Revenue grew 9% year over year in the third quarter. —Ryan Barwick ×Janey WhitesideFY 2018 revenue: $514.4 billion EVP and Chief Customer Officer, Walmart Courtesy of Walmart Whiteside is Walmart’s first chief customer officer, but her job at the retailer is really about customer experience—and, in particular, how Walmart will serve the consumers of the future. As a result, her remit runs the gamut from using data to evaluate store operations to integrating products and services from innovation hub Store No. 8 and, of course, expanding Walmart’s online grocery service, which recently got a shot in the arm with an in-refrigerator delivery option. But Whiteside also wants to forge emotional connections with consumers and, after the holidays, she says Walmart will start to tell some of its stories differently by focusing on purpose-driven elements. —Lisa Lacy ×Francisco Crespo BenítezFY 2018 revenue: $32 billion SVP and Chief Growth Officer, The Coca-Cola Co. Courtesy of Coca-Cola This 30-year brand veteran is focused on expanding Coca-Cola’s physical footprint—including within existing markets—as well as extending brands like Coca-Cola Energy and Coffee. He also wants to push Coke’s marketing to be more about engagement to ensure the brand is exchanging customer information for better experiences that are tailored to their tastes. “I fully believe we need to continue to empower the marketers,” he says. “The customization we get at a marketing level is a huge part of the magic of why our product portfolio continues to be so vibrant.” After all, Coca-Cola has evolved from pitching itself as physical refreshment with the “Pause That Refreshes” to appealing to consumers on a more emotional level with “Have a Coke and a Smile,” “Can’t Beat the Feeling” and now “Taste the Feeling,” he says. —Lisa Lacy ×Prabhakar RaghavanFY 2018 revenue: $136.8 billion (Alphabet); $136.2 billion (derived from Google activity) SVP, Advertising and Commerce, Google Courtesy of Google Raghavan took over as the online giant’s ad chief in October 2018 and since then has overseen an overhaul in Google’s media offering. This has included revamping its market-leading Chrome browser (as exclusively revealed by Adweek), which championed consumer privacy but equally caused disquiet among those in ad tech. More recently, his tenure also included overseeing a fundamental rethink of how his division is set up, with a reorganization reportedly seeing the introduction of new roles, including head of measurement and privacy. Critics may argue these overhauls equate to the walled gardens escalating ever higher, but public opinion appears to back such measures. —Ronan Shields ×Scott TiemanFY 2019 revenue: $10 billion Global Lead, Programmatic Services, Accenture Interactive A.E. Fletcher Photography or A.E. Fletcher Accenture lifted the lid on its ambitions in the media-buying space midway through 2018 when Tieman told Adweek the agency’s new programmatic unit was launched to accommodate clients eager to take back control of their media spend. Since then, the company has continued down a path of acquisitions, including the purchase of Adaptly to help boost its capabilities to help clients with media buys on social platforms such as Facebook and Twitter. Accenture Interactive also purchased Netherlands-based Storm Digital to bolster its programmatic wares on the other side of the Atlantic. —Ronan Shields ×Deborah WahlFY 2018 revenue: $147 billion Global CMO, General Motors Courtesy of Cadillac Wahl hasn’t been in her current position at General Motors for long—her appointment to the top marketing job was announced at the beginning of September. But that doesn’t make her contributions any less notable: She’s the first CMO at GM since 2012, when Joel Ewanick left the company. Wahl herself isn’t new to the firm: She started at GM in March 2018 as the CMO of Cadillac, and, before that, worked as CMO of McDonald’s, among a number of other brands. Her mission, according to GM CEO Mary Barra, is to ensure “more effective, efficient and agile customer engagement” across GM’s portfolio of brands. Wahl herself has said that she wants to focus on the fundamentals of marketing, not just snazzy campaigns—though she’s already done a few of those, like Cadillac’s partnership with the Academy Awards earlier this year. —Diana Pearl ×Deborah YehFY 2018 revenue for parent company LVMH: $53.5 billion CMO, Sephora Sean T. Smith for Adweek Yeh has called Sephora a “content-publishing machine,” with the beauty retailer pushing out new innovations daily, most notably, a library of how-to videos designed to address every one of Sephora’s customers, no matter their race, hair texture, gender identity and more. Inclusivity has been a major focal point for the brand, with Yeh rolling out its “We Belong to Something Beautiful” campaign, as well as holding in-store diversity training for its employees. Putting diversity and inclusion at the forefront of its marketing is an obvious choice for the brand, says Yeh. “We have a responsibility to think about representation and to put people, put faces, put stories out there that are reflective of our community that are buying our products,” she says. —Diana Pearl ×Rick GomezFY 2018 revenue: $75 billion CMO and Chief Digital Officer, Target Trent Joaquin for Adweek It’s been a big year for the Minnesota-based retailer: 2019 saw Target’s marketing team roll out its revamped Target Circle loyalty program nationwide (and rack up 25 million members within the first four weeks of the program’s existence), as well as the rebranding of its in-house media agency, Roundel. Target also celebrated the 20th anniversary of its famed designer partnerships, bringing back items from its best-known collaborations, including Hunter, Missoni, Lilly Pulitzer and Jason Wu. Gomez, who has been with the company since 2013, also heads up Target’s digital business, which has made strides in making the online-to-in-store experience more seamless with online order pickup at retail sites. —Diana Pearl ×Dirk-Jan van HamerenFY 2019 revenue: $39.1 billion Global CMO, Nike Courtesy of Nike Nike’s global CMO saw the company through another year of headline-making ads: Its talked-about Colin-Kaepernick-fronted campaign collected awards at Cannes Lions and the commercial Emmys, and its Women’s World Cup campaign was a highlight of the global event. (The latter helped lead the U.S. Women’s National Team jersey to earn the title of the best-selling jersey ever on Nike.com.) Van Hameren also led partnerships with teams across the globe in honor of the 30th anniversary of Nike’s iconic “Just Do It” slogan—fitting, as he has been with Nike for nearly three decades himself. Next year, Nike is gearing up for another round of the Summer Olympics, an event that van Hameren, a former Olympic cyclist, is particularly excited about. —Diana Pearl ×Pamela Drucker MannFY 2018 revenue: $1.9 billion (estimate) Global CRO and President of U.S. Revenue, Condé Nast This year, Condé Nast got a new global CEO and merged with its international counterpart into one media company. Drucker Mann (who was promoted from CMO) has realigned the company’s international ad sales team as Condé Nast eyes profitability and continues to diversify revenue sources while it moves further away from relying as heavily on print ad revenue. —Sara Jerde ×Jason WagenheimFY 2018 revenue: $75 million CRO, Bustle Digital Group Courtesy of Bustle In a year of M&As for a lot of media companies, Bustle Digital Group (BDG) hasn’t held back in its quest to build a modern-day digital media portfolio. In his three years at BDG, Wagenheim has overseen eight acquisitions; this year alone, those have included Nylon (with plans to use the brand to get into print), Inverse and The Outline. Those integrations have included combining staffs (along with layoffs) and rebuilding an award-winning branded content team. —Sara Jerde ×Luke Eid and Tessa ConradFY 2018 revenue: $800 million (estimate, global; source: R3) Global President of Digital and Innovation; Global Director of Operations, TBWA\Worldwide At TBWA, Eid and Conrad bring what they call a “get shit done” attitude to the work they do every day. The two met while working in Hong Kong at TBWA’s Digital Arts Network and quickly moved into global roles to help the sprawling network innovate at scale. For these two execs, innovation isn’t strictly in the digital realm; they focus on everything from how employees work to how they pitch. Essentially, anything that’s changing or evolving in the industry is fair game—and they’re there to make sure that the best ideas and solutions happening across TBWA’s offices get the attention they deserve. —Minda Smiley ×Tara LevineFY 2018 revenue: $300 million (estimate, global; source: R3) Chief Experience Officer, Hearts & Science Photo: Kristina Varaksina Levine is one of the founding members of Hearts & Science, the data-driven media agency that came out of the gate running three years ago with inaugural client Procter & Gamble. The Omnicom agency has posted approximately 35% growth each year for the past two years, and Levine—who has spent time on the media, creative and client sides of the business—says she and the rest of the female-led executive team are just getting started. —Minda Smiley ×Beverly WrightFY 2018 revenue: $400 million (estimate, U.S.; source: R3) SVP and Deputy Program Account Manager, DDB Courtesy of DDB With nearly 25 years of agency experience, Wright is now taking on one of the biggest clients in the business: the U.S. Army. Her role involves bringing together leaders from the Army’s dedicated advertising unit, Team DDB—which is made up of Omnicom shops including Critical Mass, OMD and FleishmanHillard—to create modern marketing solutions for the client. Wright, who’s worked with companies such as McDonald’s and SC Johnson, says her latest opportunity is one of the most challenging, yet rewarding, of her career. —Minda Smiley ×Neal Arthur and Karl LiebermanFY 2018 revenue: $250 million (estimate, U.S.; source: R3) Managing Director; ECD, Wieden + Kennedy New York Photo: Kristin Gladney, Wieden+Kennedy New York Wieden + Kennedy New York just had its best year yet. After being named Ford’s innovation agency in October, the independent shop once again proved its creative chops when it clinched the coveted McDonald’s account in the U.S. Despite the big wins, Arthur and Lieberman agree that it’s the New York agency’s continued investment in culture, particularly from an inclusion standpoint, that’s driving its success. —Minda Smiley ×Louisa WongFY 2018 revenue: $300 million (U.S.; source: R3) COO, Carat USA Courtesy of Carat USA Understanding that “change is the new constant,” Wong has helped optimize Carat’s personnel and tech infrastructure through innovation since her arrival in 2017. Knowing tech can empower Carat’s staffers, she has helped lead a business transformation agenda around greater efficiency that ultimately creates value for both employees and clients. This includes freeing up more time for employees by reimagining internal processes and leveraging automation and blockchain to drive greater transparency in the media-buying process. —Erik Oster ×Hallie JohnstonFY 2018 revenue: $145 million (estimate, U.S.) Chief Client Officer U.S., Initiative Courtesy of Initiative Drawing from experience leading media strategies on the client, agency and publisher sides, Johnston contributed to a rebound that led to Initiative being named Adweek’s 2019 U.S. Media Agency of the Year. This year, she’s kept the momentum going, helping drive new business while expanding existing relationships with clients including Dr Pepper and Keurig. But she’s not just focused on individual success. After informally mentoring members of her team throughout her career, Johnston decided to become part of a mentorship program and joined industry organization She Runs It, pairing up with the founder of a startup agency. —Erik Oster ×Lora SchulsonFY 2018 revenue: $1.4 billion (estimate) Head of Production, 72andSunny Courtesy of 72andSunny Creating standout work runs in Schulson’s family. When she was growing up in New York’s SoHo in the 1980s, her mother tried her hand as an artist but ended up becoming an agency producer. Cutting her teeth at ChiatDay under Lee Clow, Schulson—an Adweek Creative 100 winner—deepened her appreciation of craft. That care and sensibility are evident in some of the agency’s 2019 work, including hilarious ads for Halo Top, a recent, epic film for Smirnoff and a fun campaign, “Right on Tracks,” for Cheerios. —Doug Zanger ×Gonzalo Del FaFY 2018 Revenue: $3.8 billion (global; source: R3) President, GroupM Multicultural Courtesy of GroupM Throughout his career, Del Fa has noticed plenty of gaps in marketing to diverse audiences. But it’s not just that he sees opportunities to reach underserved consumers; he also understands that multicultural marketing is a constant evolution. The Argentina native has built robust businesses around sound practices and brings a holistic growth mentality to the $1 billion in billings for brands like General Mills, L’Oréal, Nestlé, Target and Unilever, among others. —Doug Zanger ×Gareth JonesFY 2018 revenue: $3 billion (estimate, global) SVP, Marketing, North America, Wunderman Thompson Courtesy of Wunderman Thompson Jones is up to the challenge of marketing the reputation that the shop—the result of a merger last year of J. Walter Thompson and Wunderman, causing ripples in the agency community—has for brands and talent. Jones, who assumed the role six months ago, believes the marriage of data excellence, creativity and both agencies’ heritage is a competitive advantage that translates directly to revenue growth. He also says that humanity and empathy—understanding that brands face the same issues as agencies—can make the work successful for everyone. —Doug Zanger ×Rachel NairnFY 2018 revenue: $650 million (estimate, U.S.) Managing Director, BBDO Los Angeles Photo: Benjamin Morris BBDO Los Angeles leads AT&T’s hilarious “Just OK Is Not OK” campaign. But judging from the response of consumers and the brand, the agency is doing much more than just OK. Joining as managing director in Los Angeles almost two years ago, Nairn is tasked with building the office’s profile and is responsible for integrating all seven Omnicom agencies in L.A. into the AT&T work, BBDO L.A.’s sole client. Bringing the parent company resources together, Nairn, a Deutsch and M&C Saatchi alum, says the model is becoming an efficient agency of the future. —Doug Zanger ×Pedro EarpFY 2018 revenue: $54.6 billion Chief Marketing and ZX Ventures Officer, AB InBev Rebecca Greenfield for Adweek As the creator and head of ZX Ventures, AB InBev’s venture and incubator arm, Earp’s made bets on companies ranging from Cerveza Patagonia, a microbrewery in Argentina, to Ze Delivery, a beer-delivery app in Brazil. His instincts have proved sound. ZX Ventures hit $1 billion in revenue earlier this year. In recent years, AB InBev has been looking beyond beer, with a joint investment with Canadian cannabis company Tilray of up to $50 million for cannabis-infused beverages, and by bringing brands like Beck’s into new emerging markets. —Ann-Marie Alcántara ×Craig MillerFY 2018 revenue: $1.073 billion Chief Product Officer, Shopify Courtesy of Shopify A year after Shopify reached $1 billion in revenue, the ecommerce platform boasts 1 million stores globally. Under Miller, who oversees product and user experience, Shopify is now setting its sights on fulfillment, with Miller earlier this year announcing the Shopify Fulfillment Network, to compete with Amazon. Miller joined Shopify in 2011, previously serving as the company’s CMO and vp of marketing, where he was part of the team to bring the company public in 2015, as well as growing Shopify’s merchant base from 15,000 to more than 600,000. —Ann-Marie Alcántara ×Valérie Hernando-PresseFY 2018 revenue: $27.2 billion Global CMO, Danone Courtesy of Danone Danone’s first global CMO in a decade, Hernando-Presse was previously the company’s general secretary in France, as well as vp of public affairs and chief brand officer. In her current role, she launched The Collective, a company effort that brings the brand’s 2,000 marketing members together to share best practices and new information around innovation and brands. Hernando-Presse’s ongoing challenges include bringing Danone’s “one planet, one health” vision into its portfolio, such as Bonafont, a Mexican water brand that contributes 100% of its proceeds to programs working with U.N. Women. —Ann-Marie Alcántara ×Kristin LemkauFY 2018 revenue: $109.3 billion CMO, JPMorgan Chase Courtesy of Chase A former communications officer for JPMorgan Chase, Lemkau didn’t step into her current marketing role until 2014. Since then, the bank has seen net revenue grow by almost 16%, successfully spreading its brand messaging through partnerships with NBA star Steph Curry and tennis champion Serena Williams, two of the most successful athletes in the world. In fact, Lemkau led the charge in securing the naming rights behind Curry and his Golden State Warriors home court, the Chase Center, which opened this season in San Francisco. Outside of athletics, Lemkau and her team were among the first brands to fully incorporate AI in their marketing strategy, teaming with agency Persado to develop machine learning that churned out ads that routinely outperformed those written by professional, human copywriters. —Ryan Barwick ×Meghan GrantFY 2018: $600 million (estimate, U.S.; source: R3) EVP, Strategy, Publicis Media Courtesy of Zenith Not many strategists have the opportunity to help build a brand from the ground up, as Grant did with the launch last year of Verizon’s Visible. Rather than extol the virtues of the direct-to-consumer telco brand, she and her team wrapped empty storefronts in Visble’s bold blue paired with an enigmatic “404 Store Not Found” message. The unconventional campaign helped Visible reach its fiscal-year goal in just three months and proved that “we had a great product and brand,” Grant told Adweek last month, “and we could connect with consumers.” —Erik Oster ×Carolyn EversonFY 2018 revenue: $55.8 billion VP, Global Marketing Solutions, Facebook Courtesy of Facebook Everson has been with Facebook for nearly a decade, seeing the shift from desktop to mobile and from public to private, and is the first to say that the past two years have brought the biggest changes culturally to the company—from Federal Trade Commission fines to privacy pitfalls. “It’s the price of being relevant,” as she puts it. And for Everson, that relevance comes with responsibility. In 2019, she helped shepherd Facebook’s launch of an internal executive team focused on privacy, and helped spearhead the launch of the Global Alliance for Responsible Media—a collaboration among buyers, platforms and publishers to “improve the safety” of digital advertising. This year also saw Everson team up with WPP to co-found the nonprofit Institute for Real Growth, aimed at equipping CMOs with the tools needed to structure and scale their businesses. —Shoshana Wodinsky ×Russell WallachFY 2018 revenue: $10.8 billion President of Media and Sponsorship, Live Nation Courtesy of Live Nation Wallach’s strategy for leading Live Nation’s 2019 sponsorship efforts can be summed up in one word: personalization. “As people’s habits change, so do brand needs,” he explains—and his division’s been keeping pace. Under Wallach, Live Nation’s media wing has grown into a 400-person global powerhouse, tackling everything from brand strategy and creative design to audience measurement and insights for the live-music behemoth’s 100 million fans. Live Nation has won some new, deep-pocketed sponsors this year (Adobe, Subway and Sony) and kept other sponsors—like American Eagle and Cisco—coming back. Altogether, these partners and others netted Live Nation more than $200 million this quarter alone. —Shoshana Wodinsky ×Lynne BiggarFY 2018 revenue: $20.6 billion Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, Visa Courtesy of Visa One of Biggar’s biggest focuses for the year was bringing women to the front. Her team kicked off 2019 with Visa’s “Money Is Changing” campaign, which shined a light on the sometimes fraught relationships real women have with their finances, and encouraged women to speak up about the money they make. That same month, Biggar also oversaw the rollout of “She’s Next,” a global initiative for supporting the small businesses that are owned and operated by women around the world. As one of Adweek’s Most Powerful Women in Sports for 2019, Biggar brought her sense of empowerment onto the field as well, with a campaign at this summer’s FIFA Women’s World Cup meant to amplify the great work of female athletes. —Shoshana Wodinsky ×Jon Kaplan2019 Q3 revenue: $280 million Global Head of Partnerships, Pinterest < Courtesy of Pinterest Growing its aspirational and active community mostly through word of mouth since its inception nine years ago, Pinterest has ramped up its marketing and partnerships since Kaplan—a former vp at Google, where he worked for 12 years—joined the “personal interest” platform. Pinterest surpassed 300 million monthly viewers this summer, an increase of 30% from the previous year, and boosted third-quarter revenue 47% since the same period last year. Among Kaplan’s innovations: This year, he and his team leveraged Pinterest’s one-of-a-kind platform with an Ikea partnership, creating a living catalog that used a questionnaire to aid “pinners” in customizing their own boards with specific furniture and products. —Ryan Barwick

These Stellar Media, Marketing and Tech Execs Helped Make 2019 a Standout Year for Their Brands

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