What's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as you were growing up many years ago in Nigeria?
So the first brand that really kind of made an impact on me was really Coca-Cola. If I have to be honest and say,
growing up in Nigeria, we had, you know, there was actually a Coca-Cola factory in the town where I lived and
kind of when you ever you had a celebration or anything, right? Coca-Cola would be served.
And I remember visiting the Coca-Cola factory and the factory person that was kind of showing us around had such passion.
And I remember kind of when I was like, oh, who wants to go to a Coca-Cola factory?
And, you know, I had an odd, they used to call it sugar water. So like, who cares about sugar water?
And I'm hearing this employee. He was like, it's just not sugar water.
And just kind of get really into his passion for Coke and what Coke did and how this factory was, you know, providing jobs.
It was it was so meaningful because it was the first time I started to realize that, wow,
this brand is more than a logo. This brand is more than the ads that I hear on the radio.
There's something deeper to this brand. Look at this man.
He believes in this brand. He loves this brand. It's not just no one's paying him to save these things.
And so I realized that there was emotional connection between the brand and the person.
And I will never forget that moment because it changed how I saw brands.
Hi, I'm Jim Stangel and I help major brands find their purpose and activate it and the profits followed.
For seven years, I was the global marketing officer for Procter & Gamble where I oversaw the marketing of hundreds of brands.
You may not know it, but the CMOs, the chief marketing officers of all of your favorite brands,
are trying to connect you with your favorite products and services through purpose.
And on this show, I delve into how they do it.
My guest today in the CMO podcast is Dara Tracida, the chief marketing officer of Autodesk,
which has recently been up to a lot of creative marketing. Remember the prank Autodesk ads during the Oscars?
Well, we'll talk about that on this show and a lot more.
Autodesk is perhaps the most amazing company you have never heard of but has certainly impacted you.
Their tagline is make anything and their software helps people in architecture,
construction, media, entertainment and manufacturing.
If you have built or renovated a home, as we have many times, you have experienced Autodesk software.
If you have enjoyed an action movie, it's likely been created with Autodesk software.
Autodesk is 41 years old based in San Francisco with revenue north of $5 billion and growing at
a 15% clip. My guest Dara was recently named by Forbes Magazine as the number one most influential CMO.
Dara was raised in Nigeria as an undergrad degree from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford,
and has worked at Goldman Sachs as an intern, Apple, GE, Carbon and Peloton before joining Autodesk
as CMO in October 2022. Here's my conversation with a CMO who just simply radiates wisdom,
warmth and happiness, Dara Tracida. Dara, I asked ChatGPT to write an intro and an outline for this
conversation and it came back and told me that you were brilliant, accomplished and a CMO extraordinary.
I'm not kidding. Welcome to the CMO podcast, CMO extraordinary.
Thank you so much and thanks to you and ChatGPT. I had not asked ChatGPT to write an intro,
so this is news. Everything else it didn't get right. The questions were not quite where I
wanted to go. It still has room to improve, but it got the intro right.
Well, thank you. Thank you so much. That is certainly a great way to start the conversation,
so I appreciate it. So what would your mother say about that intro?
She would be like, you still have a lot to learn. Probably just probably what she would say.
I've learned a lot about your mom and my research for the show, so we'll probably
talk about that later. She has a lot of wisdom. She has a lot of wisdom and I certainly owe a lot
of my success to her, so she is a force to be reckoned with. Now you've been the CMO of Autodesk,
for about eight months, and what an amazing company this is. North of five billion in sales,
so a multi-billion dollar enterprise, growing at a 15 or so percent clip, an incredibly diverse
operations team and board, and a purpose that is critical to the world. So no wonder you joined
Dara. So tell us a story of how you two got together. Autodesk is such an incredible company,
but I wasn't looking to jump and go to Autodesk. Actually, when Autodesk first reached out to me,
I was like, thank you, but I was really enjoying my previous job. I wasn't planning to leave,
and also there was a lot going on at my last job. Yes, there was. It was a hit in hell. So I
really felt like I needed to be there for my team. I'm not the kind of person. I don't run when
things are tough. When things are tough, I dig in, I work hard, I push through. And so the first
time they reached out to me, there was a lot going on, I was like, I can't leave my team right now.
I really feel like I need to stabilize my team. I need to get us on a new path.
And I need to really be there for the company I was working with. And this, of course, is at
Peloton. Yes. Just for our listeners, yeah. And so, but I couldn't, but Autodesk does so many
amazing things in the world. And I remember actually I was having Dara with one of my best
friends and her husband and my husband, kind of a double date. And I mentioned that Autodesk
could reach out to her husband and engineer. I was like, are you? What are you thinking? You
must respond to this company. This company is so important. What they do is so critical. My husband
had obviously told me this, but you know, when your husband tells you something, you don't really
hear like, yeah, I get it. And so, you know, I listened to my friend's husband and my husband
eventually. And kind of just responded and said, Hey, you know, I'm not looking right now, but
thank you so much. And you know, the recruiter, she was really persistent. She was amazing. And
she was like, why don't you just get on the phone and just talk and, you know, get to meet some of
our leaders. And you know, she was like, look, at the very least, you just know some amazing people
and expand your network. And so I thought, you know what, I'll get on the phone and talk to them
and get to meet them because I heard about them, you know, as someone who has spent a lot of time
in Silicon Valley, right? I'd heard about them. And the amazing journey that Autodesk had been on.
And when I got on the phone with them, these are some of the most incredible human beings you've
ever met. And they were absolutely remarkable, brilliant, intelligent, sincere down to earth.
I loved my conversations. And you know, but I, like I said, at the time, things were going on. So I
was like, there's a lot going on. And I want to be fully present where I am right now. And
and you know, we just kind of kept the conversation going. And you know, they kind of, they sort of
kept checking in as they were, they were doing their search. And you know, I'm a big believer that
there's a time to bloom when you're planting it, that there's a time, you know, when you need to go
to grow. And I was kind of reaching a point where I felt like, Hey, my work here has been done. I
want to kind of hand the baton to someone else. Like it's been hit in the hills and I'm ready to
clip out. And they kind of reached back out as having a conversation. And it just really felt like
this is where I meant to be. And what was exciting to me was this is a company that is going through
amazing transformation. So this is a company that's really helping design and make a better world for
all. Right. And our software is used in everything, whether it's architecture, construction and
engineering, or media and entertainment, or product development and manufacturing. You know, almost
everything that's made is designed and made with our platform. But this is a company that hadn't
really done a lot of marketing. You know, it was a company that's really product led, engineering led.
And so there was a huge opportunity as a marketer to step into something like that and use marketing
to kind of like, it's like the pixie dust, right? You spray the pixie dust of marketing and everything
starts to fly and everything starts to bloom and everything starts to be even better than it was.
And so to me, it was like, you know, this is the right time to kind of step into this role where I
can really bring, you know, my expertise to a company that is means so much to so many people
around the whole world, by the way, this is such a global company. And so to be able to kind of
step into that role was an amazing opportunity. So finally, you know, it was it was my birthday,
which I think of as my personal new year, kind of maybe announcement that I was going to be moving
to moving to Autodesk, yes. Well, we're renovating a 1937 old home in Cincinnati. And I asked my
architect, our architect, and he said, of course, I'm using an Autodesk product, of course.
So yeah. So anyway, you know, maybe you just talked about the marketing as a pixie dust,
and maybe because I was preparing for you, I'm just hyper aware of this. But it just seems there's
an awful lot of creative stuff going on on the marketing side at your company. This the Walking
Dead ads, the Oscar Autodesk prank ads, which by the way, I got in the first ad, I knew what you
were going with that, I knew where you were going. And then you had this partnership to help restore
Notre Dame in Paris. So Dara, I want to start there. I mean, what is going on in this company,
or am I just hyper aware of it? Well, we have certainly turned the volume up. I will say that,
you know, Autodesk has been doing so many amazing things. But we weren't really kind of talking
about the things that we were doing, we're just kind of doing it and doing it. But the reality is,
it's important to talk about what you're doing. And the reason it's important, it's not just about
having people know who Autodesk is and what we do, but it's about inspiring our customers
to see what's possible and empowering them to take the next step that really allows them to grow
and accomplish their objectives and their outcomes. It's that inspiration. So not only is
telling our story isn't just good for Autodesk, but it's good for our customers and it's good for
the world. And so, you know, we have been on a journey to start to do that. And I think that's
why a lot more people have heard about Autodesk. A lot more people are talking about Autodesk.
And I'm excited about that. And, you know, it comes down to our strategy, right? And our strategy
is really about making sure that we are living out our purpose, our company purpose
in a way that is lifting up our entire community. So for us, it's about making sure that we are,
you know, making things better for our users, making things better for our customers, making
things better for our partners and ultimately making things better for the world. And talking
about what we're doing and having our customer stories be known and sharing that knowledge exchange
is so powerful because it really, you know, it's that it's the motivation, it's the inspiration.
It just allows our community to reimagine what's possible and realize that they too can make anything.
What was the catalyst for turning up the volume on the marketing? Was it a,
was there an event or a person like yourself coming in or was it the management team saying,
you know, to achieve our purpose and our goals, we need to do some different things in marketing.
What was the catalyst? Well, you know, as a new CMO coming in, you know, I kind of came in and,
you know, like, had my 100-day plan right before I even started and kind of came in,
refined that and started working through that. And it was, I assessed the situation and said,
hey, what's the what's the job to be done here? And one of the reasons I joined Autodesk and one
of the reasons I was excited about this, I was like, this is a company where the business is so far
ahead of brand. There are companies you work at where there's a lot of marketing and when you
peek under the hood, right, it's like, okay, you got to go back to the shop. There's a lot of work
to be done here. Autodesk is one of those companies that the business is far ahead of the brand.
And so that creates an amazing opportunity as a marketer because when you start to tell the
stories and when you start to really improve your marketing mix and talking a 360-degree approach,
you can take the business to the next level. I realized that a core part of this has to be
the elevation of our brand and telling our story in a more creative way, in a more engaging way
on a bigger scale. And so within my first 100 days, we started to get it done because there was
actually we had the insights, we had the data, we had the stories, we just had to start acting on
them. And so it was kind of working together with my amazing leadership team, pulling together a
plan and then starting to execute on that plan. And one of the things that I love about the work
that we're doing is it's so exciting and it's so interesting and engaging, but it's deeply connected
to the business. It was funny, I was just hanging out with some friends over the weekend and they
just kept talking about the Oscar ad and how exciting it was. And as I was talking to them, I said,
hey, Autodesk software had been using almost every winning, every Oscar-winning movie.
Since 1997. And so this was like a culmination of a success story, right? That has, it's not a one
time, two time, three time, four time, five time, six time, right? This is decades in the making.
And that's what I love about what we're doing here is we're basically just starting to unlock
and uncover the richness and the fullness of the amazing work that Autodesk has been doing
consistently for decades. Now we talk a lot in this show about the tension between,
I hate these words, but I'm going to use some brand marketing and performance marketing, right?
And Autodesk, I imagine has been built on performance marketing. So how did you, you sound like you're
balancing that very well right now and the business is responding and the brand, my guess is elevating.
So I think the first question is, how did you make the case for that, Dara? And how do you think about
the interaction between branded performance marketing?
So I think the first, what is incredibly important, you know, as a CMO when you're coming in into a
new role is making sure that you and management are aligned on the job to be done. And that was
one of the things that I'm so grateful for. It's so funny because people ask me, how is it going?
And I'm like, it's going better than I ever imagined, which isn't always the case, right?
Many times as a CMO, you walk in and your best day was the day of your announcement when everybody
was like, whoo, because what's the, you know, the lights turned out and the music fades, you're
left with the harsh reality that you're having to fight this uphill battle. And I'm not saying
things are always easy, right? Every role has its challenges. But the thing that I'm so grateful for
is, you know, Autodesk was very clear on the job to be done as they were kind of going through the
CMO search. They took the time to kind of make sure that they hired who they felt was right for the
job. But I'm really glad I got the job because I know I'm right for the job. The job to be done
at Autodesk is what I love to do. It's my passion. And it's what I'm great at. So if that kind of
perfect combination of what the business needs is what I have to offer. And I see Brande as performance,
you know, Brande is performance. So I think this, this is a false hood, unfortunately,
that is kind of perpetuated in our industry that kind of says, Oh, are you a brand marketer?
You performance marketer. I think every good CMO, every great CMO is both, right? Because
Brande is performance. At the end of the day, every single thing that we are doing as a marketing
organization needs to be showing ROI. My team joke, because I have very corny sayings, I will say it,
show me the Romy. It's very corny. But it's like, show me the return on the marketing investment.
Everything that you're doing as a marketer, everything that you're doing needs to have a clear
ROI. Why are we doing this? And what are we going to get for doing it?
Wish anything that we're not clear on why we're doing, we shouldn't be doing. We're not, and I
tell my team all the time, we're not about activity. We're about impact. We are a high performing,
impact focused, worldwide marketing organization. We are here to fulfill our objectives. We are here
to accomplish our goals. And so the way I think about it is, you know, I've got, I've got a growth
marketing organization, which by the way, I created, you know, I kind of had global demand,
Jen, I had a media center, I had marketing operations kind of sitting in different places,
I brought them together as one powerful, effective growth marketing organization.
And so we have a growth marketing organization, we've got a brand team. But guess what? We're
working together. It's brand to demand, right? So everything that we're doing is connected.
As we're doing our campaigns, we're thinking about, how is this going to drive the business
forward? How is this going to build pipeline? How is this going to drive sales, not just sales
today, but sales tomorrow and in the future? How is this helping with the green shoots, right?
That we as a business are investing in. It's really about cohesively thinking about the job to be done,
thinking about the tools in your toolkit, and then bringing these things together
in a way that really drives results. I think a lot of myself as a conductor, right, of an orchestra.
But I think that the idea that any great business that is customer facing, that is any business
that's customer facing like our business, right? Our customers are using our software.
The idea that we're not going to be investing in our brand as we're building our performance
doesn't set us up for long-term success. I have a fun story I'll tell you, and then maybe we'll
move to something else. But when I was in my last job, I met people who were very passionate
about the brand. I remember meeting someone who had even gotten a tattoo and being kind of surprised.
But you know, we're a consumer brand. It happens. If you had told me that as the CMO of Autodesk,
I would be meeting customers who have gotten our software tattooed on their bodies.
No. Really?
Yes. Yes. I'm telling you. Yes. I would have told you, I don't know that that's going to happen.
But this is the reality. Right? Our engineers, the designers that are using our software,
they are so passionate about it.
You're the Harley Davidson of B2B.
They're getting the tattoos on their bodies. And so that's why I say, you know, it's not about B2B
or B2C. At the end of the day, it's B2H, B2H, business to human. And it's like, what are you
doing to cultivate those connections, to deepen those connections, to move business forward?
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I want to go a little bit back into your growth marketing organization that you brought together
and you made them cohesive. It's a beautiful story. I'd just like to ask you to go a little bit deeper
on that. What's the one thing you did to make that work? If you had to pick one or two things
that really drove, because a lot of CMOs say they'd like to do that and are not that successful
in doing it. So what's your counsel?
So I think the first thing is having a clear north star, a clear vision.
I gave the team a clear vision. So everyone rallied around that vision because there was an
understanding that us coming together is going to better allow us to accomplish that than us
working in silos. I think without that, it wouldn't work. If everyone didn't know,
making sure people understood the why. I spent a lot of time explaining the why.
And I think that's really important because I think sometimes as a leader, we get in and we're
like, here's the what is going to happen. And then we're like, okay, now let's roll up our sleeves
and get into the how we skip over the why. But guess what? People can't really get into the how
and they can't get around to the what until they are bought into the why. So spending time
helping people understand, hey, this is why we're modernizing our marketing organization.
This is why we need a unified worldwide growth marketing organization.
Here is where we're going to be stubborn on the vision. Here's where we're going to be flexible
on the details to empower you to be, you know, who are closer to the markets to make decisions.
Spending time going through the why really helped the team rally and kind of come together.
I just actually finished my extended leadership off site, you know, where I kind of bring together
not just my directs, but their directs. And it was so energizing and so powerful.
And actually the most common word that people said in that day was connected, connected, connected,
connected. And I think that is, you know, to me, it was just one of the most fulfilling
experiences I've had in the past few months. So that was the first thing. I think the second thing
that was really important is coming together with unified goals and objectives.
So right, we've got our company goals and our marketing goals are in service of company goals,
you know, and so I started there to say, hey, these are the company goals. These are our marketing
goals in service of the company goals and was very clear. They're very specific, measurable,
right? Actionable, reasonable, time bound. So we've got these smart goals that we can kind of
push towards. And so the team also, not only do they have a vision, but they have a roadmap
for how they're going to accomplish that vision. So I think sometimes we have a vision and it's so
lofty and it's high and you know, it's kind of pie in the sky and no one really knows what it means.
But it's like, let's have a real vision. And then let's make sure that we illuminate the roadmap
with clear milestones that the team can use as we start to march towards that vision.
We're going to step away from Autodesk for a minute and come back to it. But I was in preparing for
the show and researching you a bit more. I found this amazing video interview from the Stanford
Graduate School of Business and this remarkable, amazing young woman interviewed you. I mean,
I don't know what she's doing now, but I wouldn't mind hiring her. She was amazing. She really is
amazing. Wow. And she was a student, I think, at the time. She was a student, absolutely.
Yeah, so such a good interview. So I was really inspired by that. And I want to sort of, and I
was inspired by that with this idea. And that is to play a little bit of a game with you and ask
you a few questions about a range of things that have been very meaningful for you in your life
and career. So are you okay to go there? Yes, let's go there. Let's go there. The first thing I
want to ask you, Dara, is who is the most meaningful person for you as you were growing up before you
went to university and work and postgraduate and all that? Most meaningful to me were my parents.
My parents were just the most supportive, loving, kind, giving, generous truth-telling as well,
people, and especially my mother. I was one of those children that was very forward. I was as a child.
I somehow believe that, Dara. Not much as change. As a child, I had big dreams. I was a child that
always asked, why? Why? Why? Children had to be seen and not heard. Well, I was heard as a child.
I was always out there. My mother, she was so amazing. She would always kind of bring me
and talk to me. And one of the things that she used to tell me is ambition with contentment.
As a child, I didn't really understand what that meant. But as a woman, as a mother,
as an executive, I understand exactly what that means. And that statement my mother gave me,
ambition with contentment is my North Star. It always has been. It always will be. And many times
in my career where I did my life, where I couldn't meet the wrong decision or I did make the wrong
decision and I had to course correct, I had a compass. I could point to whether I was
ambition with no contentment. I found my way back to contentment, whether it was contentment
that needed more ambition. I found the ambition. And I would not be where I am today. And I would
certainly not be the woman that I am and the person that I am without my mother and my father.
Well, I love that concept and ambition. It's like a dial. You're always dialing it.
You're always dialing every day, every week, every month. Exactly. Your most meaningful course
at both Harvard and then Stanford. So my most meaningful course at Harvard was actually African
American history, which was taught by Professor Evelyn Higginbotham, who I adore and Professor
Henry Louis Gates. And it was such a meaningful course for me because it helped me finally contextualize
and understand my African American experience in a way that I, it's like you feel these things
and you think these things and you experience these things, but you can't really, you can't move
forward until you understand the past. And from me, that African American history class,
which is called kind of introduction to African American studies was such a powerful and important
moment for me. I learned so much, was also where I kind of really fell in love with African American
literature. And it helped me really find my own personal purpose, right? Which for me is
to be someone that, you know, black women, young black girls around the world can kind of see and
be like, oh, a dark and do that. I can totally do that. I mean, dark, dark did that. Oh, please,
if dark did that, I'm going to do 10 times more than what she did. And that's what drives me.
For me, it's not about me. It's about us. What gets me out of bed every morning is how can I be
someone that can just open the door for others and show others what is possible and actually have
them run far ahead of me and exceed me and do things that, you know, astound and really shine
a light on what is possible for that. And, you know, I think a lot about this because growing up as a
young black girl in Africa, I didn't really think I could accomplish very much. You know, I didn't
really think that there was much that could be accomplished as a young adult, right? Really an
adult at the time. Seeing Ursula Barnes become the first black woman to be CEO of a Fortune 500
company. That really, really, really impacted me as an adult because I didn't even think it was
possible for black women to become CEO of a Fortune 500 company. So when Ursula did it, I was like,
yes, this can be done. And you know what, several years later, there's only ever been three,
I mean, I think there was one interim, but apart from the interim, only three women, right?
Fessanda Duckett, Rosalind Brewer, and Ursula Burns. And here we are, and it's 2023, right? And
there's a huge opportunity. And it's not because they're not qualified or talented or gifted or
capable black women. It's just not enough black women have been given the opportunity. So everything
that I can do to help and push along that journey, sign me up. And I hope you reach that goal if it is
one that you have to be a CEO. Right now, I'm happy where I am, but I know you are.
But I think you'd be a good CEO, Dara, just for the record. Thank you. Thank you.
That was an amazing story about education and the power of it. And I hope your professor
knows that and listens to this, perhaps very powerful. That's why people go into that field,
right? Yeah, absolutely. To inspire a person like yourself to have the amazing purpose that you have.
Yeah. How about Stanford? What what course there?
And Stanford, the course that was most meaningful to me was a course that we call at Stanford,
touchy feeling. The official name, I believe is interpersonal dynamics. I like the first one better.
And it's one of those courses where you know, it's very experiential. You're kind of put in a small
group. And it really, because there's how you see yourself. There's how other people see you.
And there's how you think other people see you. And often there's a gap between those things.
And what this course does is it opens your eyes to those three windows. And then it gives you the
tools to bridge those gaps should you choose to bridge them. And two things happened for me in
that class. The first thing was, it made me realize that as a black woman in America,
I would be seen often. And my actions would be interpreted often with a double standard.
It's the harsh and challenging reality, right? I mean, even just now we saw this,
right with the basketball game where one person does something and they're confident, another
person does it and they're classless, you know? And that was very painful for me to see that
and to learn that. But it was very important. It was important because it made me realize that
this exists, that this is real. And awareness is the first step for any journey of healing.
And it was also great to accept that, you know what? Because you see it that way,
because you have some challenges and things you need to work through, that doesn't mean I need
to see myself that way. And so there was also some healing that happens through that. But the second
thing that happened was, you know, there are many years in all of us. We have many,
our personality, who we are, how we show up as a leader. We've got different, we have range.
And we can explore the fullness of that range. And because of some of the challenges of being a
black woman, a strong black woman with personality, I was afraid to try some things within my range.
So for example, one of the things that I was afraid to kind of dial up was being firm and being
able to make difficult decisions and have difficult conversations. I shied away from that because I
was afraid of if I make the difficult decision or if I have the difficult conversation,
well, I then belonged into the difficult black woman bucket. And I don't want to be the angry
black woman, right? I don't want to be in that bucket. So it impacted and actually limited me
because I kind of would shy away. You know, I remember there was a course, another course at
Harvard where we had to, you know, act out, you know, laying off people. And the professor was like,
Dara, just stop. Right? What are you doing? You're asking this person about their birthday and like
getting the whole conversation, like just get to it, you know, and that course just,
I was able to practice having difficult conversations, negotiating, being firm and being tougher. And
that allowed me to just, you know, know that, yes, I'm kind of empathetic. That is the core of who I
am. But I can make tough decisions. I am a leader who is tenacious. I am resilient. I can't do
hard things. I can handle hard things. I can live through hard things. And it's so funny because I
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One observation I had about you and my research and certainly being affirmed here is
you are an amazingly self-aware woman. I think you know your strengths, you know what turns you on,
you know when you need to leave something, you know where to focus, you know when to dial that
thing between ambition and contentment. So I just like to pause there for a moment because self-awareness
I think is so important to a happy life and a happy career and being a great partner, parent,
friend. So how did you achieve that, Darra? Was the course at Stanford an accelerator for that or
has it been something that you feel like you've had you know through your childhood into your adult
life? Well it certainly started in my childhood, you know I think that again coming back to my
parents you know there's a saying in my language in Yoruba which is Iwa Lewa which means character
is beauty and that's something my mother used to see to me all the time growing up.
What that means to expand on that statement is that you are not what you've done. You are more
than the worst thing you've done, you are also not the best thing you've done right. You are who you are
every day and the work begins every day and you have to continue to grow and develop and be great
and have good character every day and that's just something that I've had with me my whole life that
was kind of really instilled in me by my mother and my parents and I kind of carried that and I think
at Stanford I was able to bring that into the professional context. For me that journey has been
a lot about being incredibly self-aware because I'm not perfect right like anyone I have my
mistakes and the things I need to work on but guess what I can't work on it if I don't know what it
is and so being attuned to trying to figure out okay here's the thing here's the work that needs
to be done today right to have that character and being able to kind of every day wake up,
recommit, sign up again to do the work is my lifelong journey. Your most meaningful career
experience before Autodesk. Wow I've had so many amazing career experiences it's hard to say
most meaningful but I would say probably my first CMO opportunity where I got to work at GE for
SUS Eagle and learn from like Bev Comstock and Linda Boff and you're really amazing female leaders
marketers and that was meaningful in a way because you know the first time you do something is always
in some ways the hardest because you've never done it before and you have to learn how to do it
and it means you're going to make mistakes and it means that you're not going to do it perfectly
right and in fact you know and so for me it was an amazing opportunity to learn a lot and to grow a
lot and and a lot of the lessons you know I just stayed with me for my whole career and I will forever
be incredibly grateful for that experience you know SUS Eagles just one of the most incredible
leaders I have ever met and she is just an absolute force to be reckoned with and I learned so much
from her about what it means to be a leader and that it's a privilege to be a leader and every day
I you know aspire to be as great of a leader as she is. Now the final one and this kind of we
helicopter up here a bit what in your mind is the most meaningful capability marketers must build
in the next five to seven years. I think that marketers need to build agility and what I mean
by that is look there's always going to be something new that comes in the horizon right now it's
kind of a... Chatching me to you. Exactly it's AI and conversational AI and how are we using it
you know in our marketing how we incorporate into the way we work but there's always going to be
something new as a marketer you need to be on the front end of what's cutting edge in you.
That ability to learn quickly you know I want to be a learn it all not a know it all I want to
immerse myself in learning the best marketers are learners who where you're always
looking about what's next you're kind of you know you're comfortable with ambiguity you're
seeing around the corners and you're not afraid to try things because I don't know what's going to
come next but I know if you work on building agility and you work on being a lifelong learner
you're going to be ready for whatever it is. Let's come back to your CMO role at Autodesk
you've talked about this is your fourth role as CMO first one was a GE so you're not a novice
at this by any means how is this role most different from the ones you've had before?
Well I think that this role is first of all this company in terms of the breath
this company has breath unlike anything else right so you have
media and entertainment you've got architecture construction and engineering you've got product
development and manufacturing right these are very different industries and you're working on
the technology that kind of actually works across all of them and so that breath I found just
absolutely incredible because as a marketer and as a learner and someone who is just an absolute
nerd and loves to take in new information it's endless right there's endless possibility
there's endless opportunity there's endless room to learn and grow and also it's just it's
absolutely impossible to be bored right because one day you could be in a hard hat and a construction
site next thing you're like you know at the Oscars next thing you know you're kind of looking at a
sustainable building so you're wearing all these different hats you're learning a lot and so I
that I just I love this role so much and I think that this is the perfect time for me to be in this
role because I'm a veteran CMO right so I know I've worked in different industries and so I'm able
to bring my best to all these different industries within this one company because of the rich
experience that I've had before you seem very happy I'm very happy I have to say I am very happy I
do love my job and it's funny because you know my job is my passion and and I'm so passionate about
what I do and you know at Autodesk we actually one of the things we do is we offer our education
for free to students and educators all around the world so if you're an accredited you know educational
institution or a student you can access our software for free and yes I've got two students in my house
a five-year-old and a seven-year-old who are making the most of Tinkercad which is basically kind of
our cloud design platform for K through 12 and so my five-year-old and seven-year-old they love to
design things on Tinkercad and then print it with their hundred-dollar 3D printer and and so to even
see my children learning and the joy that they have as they're kind of learning right and this is
you know I didn't tell them hey you should go use Tinkercad I just when I joined Autodesk I said
hey this thing exists and both of them have just found such passion so to just see how it also is
helping not only the current generation but the future generation right have a passion for you
know stem and design and engineering is just it just it brings so much meaning and joy to the work
there's a bit of Lego in your culture right sounds sounds very Lego-like I hear you use the words
people and purpose a lot you know in your dialogue and discussions in your writing and
your speaking you've talked about purpose already and how it's broadly felt across the company
I'd like you to talk about people because again in my research on you you are very gifted
and working with people putting together a team motivating them listening to them understanding
them and that's what the more senior we get that's the job right it's always it's always a job but
the more senior we get it's it's ever more important so I'd like you to talk a little bit about how
you developed into such an exceptional people leader one of the best I think I have seen
or researched in the 250 episodes I've done on the show wow well coming from you Jim that is
high high praise thank you that that means a lot to me especially coming from an amazing leader
like you you know I believe that everything we do we do with others so I mean it when I say I
say to my team I say I'm here to serve I believe my job is to serve my team and you know my share
our shareholders our board right our my our CEO CEO our management team I'm here to serve
and I think that very seriously you know one of the things us saying I love is pressure is a
privilege and it's a privilege to be in a position to kind of serve and lead others and I don't
take that for granted at all and many times you know we've all been led by leaders who inspire us
we've been led by leaders who inspire us not to be like them right and and I remember that
and and so for me I'm constantly focused on what can I do to be the best leader
for the people I have the privilege and honor of serving and that starts with being people first
I am people first unashamedly people first because I believe that when you're people first
you will always achieve your goals because at the end of the day people show up for people
people go over and above for people people deliver for people right and there's no matter how much
you're paying someone when the joy and the passion and the commitment is there it's always going to
be so much better and if the person's just doing it because you know why this is my job I got to
collect my paycheck and feed my kids and and you can't that kind of passion commitment loyalty
cannot be bought it has to be earned and as a leader you have to do the work to earn it and so
from me every day I wake up and I think what am I doing to earn the respect the commitment from
my team so that we can go and tackle all the things that we have to tackle today and so
having that people first approach is really important to me and I think that starts with
understanding what people on my my team need and how I can deliver what they need but creating the
space for that conversation I think is important because I think sometimes we're still like okay
here's what we need to do here's what we need to do and you know I remind myself to pause and say
hey what do you need from me how is it going how can I make your life easier how can I make your
life better and making sure that I truly understand what's needed and then I go deliver whatever that
is but there is a day I need more support from you on this or I want more coaching on this or
I want this I want to reach this new level and that I'm supporting my team and one of the things
I'm incredibly proud of is you know I haven't yet had like a direct report come to me and hand
a two-week notice it hasn't happened every time because it hasn't happened and I'm knocking on
wood you know but but but it happened because I with my team I I they know my team knows I care
about them and and and their personal goals and happiness so much that if they're not happy or
they they feel like they're ready to go to the next thing they know that they can tell me and
there's not gonna be any retribution they know that they can tell me and we can work together
on making sure that they land in the next place very often but some of the people that I've
worked with have gotten you know one of the people I work is now a CMO somewhere or you know in a big
job somewhere and often we'll text and we'll call and we'll hang out and and that relationship
continues and so to me that's really important I think sometimes you know and myself included
were tempted to not be people first because we think that being people first means being weak
or not making the right decision and and you know I believe there's a line above the line is trust
below the line is fear I lead from a place of trust not a place of fear because when people
work from a place of fear the work is corrupted innovation creativity is stifled people are not
gonna take risks when people work from a place of trust you unlock their potential and that's
where the magic happens and so for me my my walk as a leader is constantly a walk to earn trust
other people I'm honored to serve I was at a program last week at the Kellogg school in Tracy
Brown who's a senior leader at Walgreens spoke an amazing woman she told a personal story of
fighting type two diabetes and how it's impacted her personal internalization of a Walgreens purpose
and she started her speech by saying I wake up every day and I ask myself am I worthy to follow
I love that am I worthy to follow you should meet her if you haven't I have a matter I love that
remarkable woman remark XPNG by the way she start she was a PNG alum and so she's very senior at
Walgreens now doing an amazing job so but yeah you should meet her yeah I will I will I love that
that's a great I'm gonna copy that too it's a great great absolutely a great affirmation
yes absolutely I want to move to the creative brief now my first question you probably know
this is coming what's the first brand you remember making an impact on you as you were growing up
many years ago in Nigeria wow many many years ago in Nigeria so the first brand that really
kind of made an impact on me it was really Coca-Cola if I have to be honest and say a lot of people
say that in the show like growing up in Nigeria we had you know there was a there was actually a
Coca-Cola factory in in the town where I lived and you know kind of when you remember you had a
celebration or anything right Coca-Cola would be served and Coke would be served and I remember
all the Coke Coca-Cola in Nigeria is actually sold in bottles after the bottles are collected
and they're washed and then you know the new product is put in and it's then redistributed
so kind of sustainability before sustainability was was being talked about and cool and I think
it was more cost because you know it's very it was probably more a way to kind of cost efficiencies
but also there's kind of the great sustainability aspect of it and I remember visiting the Coca-Cola
factory and and the factory person that was kind of showing us around had such passion
and I remember kind of when I was I was like oh who wants to go to a Coca-Cola factory and and I
was like you know and and you know I had an author used to call it sugar water so I was like who
cares about sugar water and I'm hearing this employee he was like it's just not sugar water
and just kind of get really into his passion for Coke and what Coke did and how this factory was
you know providing jobs it was it was so meaningful because it was the first time I started to realize
that wow this brand is more than a logo this brand is more than the ads that I hear on the radio
this brand is there's something deeper to this brand look at this man he he believes in this brand
he loves this brand it's not just no one's paying him to say these things this is how he truly feels
and so I realized that there was emotional connection between the brand and the person
and it it I will never forget that moment because it changed how I saw brands all of a sudden I realized
brands there is a life to the brand and we can breathe life into a brand and make it mean so much
more to someone than what it means on the surface and I kind of carry that with me my whole career
big lesson from Coke yeah big lesson from Coke now you feel it is very important to and I'm quoting
you're here protect your piece yes could you explain that to our audience and why it's important and
how you do it well you know I believe that the thing that matters the thing that gives us the joy the
strength the ability to face whatever enjoy whatever is our piece and I think often it's something that
we don't fight for you know we don't we don't fight to protect and protecting your piece really means
doing what it takes to make sure you can be who you need to be for the people in your life
professionally and personally you cannot pour for an empty cup you cannot give what you do not have
you cannot be when there's nothing in there right you can only be who you are and you have to be
enough for you you're not it's not about being enough for the people around you it's not about
being enough for the critics and I think that for much of our lives many of us we are doing things
right to or in recognition or to be noticed we're doing things for others and the realities until
we have a deep understanding of who we are and we start to live for ourselves it's actually harder
to do things for others because when we're obsessed with what other people think about us and what
we're doing about other we're not actually showing up as our authentic self so protecting
my piece for me means being fully aware of who I dar a tressida want to be
and then being enough for me doing the things that I can look myself in the mirror and say hey
I'm proud of you girl and making sure that anything that's going to kind of interfere with that
I cut those things out and so I can focus on being the best version of myself then
I can give the best version of myself to my family my friends my team my community
and and and so that's why that journey to protect my pieces is important to me
do you have any rituals or processes or habits that help you do that?
absolutely so one of the things that I do a couple of things three things
one thing I do is I have my spiritual practice and that's really important to me
so I you know I sort of meditate pray read my faith is important to me and my spiritual practice
is important to me the second thing that I do is I journal and actually I journal with my husband
and it's funny because we both travel we both have big jobs and even if we're both on the road
traveling we we are still journaling together so we will journal asynchronous
and then exchange and share it together and I love it so much because not only am I learning and
growing but you know my husband is who I'm doing life with and being able to kind of
I learn so much too from his journaling as well as my journaling and so that process of daily
reflection I just treasure it so much it's one of my favorite things that I do
and then the third thing that I do to protect my piece is you know I I set personal goals and
objectives so you know and I actually this is something I do we do as a family my husband and I we do
individually but also as a couple and now our kids are kind of growing up they get to kind of be
a part of it too but kind of set those objectives and key results right as a mom as a working mom
with the job that I have I'm never going to pretend and lie that I'm at every drop off and pick up
it's not I have a worldwide team I'm not at every drop off and every pickup right but with my
daughter knows the things that are really important to her like you know she had a musical and I was
like I'm sorry people but I'm gonna be front row at that musical you know the things that she has
said hey mom these things are important to me I prioritize those things and I show up for those
things and then not feeling guilty freeing myself of that guilt and turning that guilt into gratitude
that is a big part of my practice like I let go of the mom guilt and I am I just you know bring in
the gratitude like growing up I never imagined I would be in a position that I am today to help my
family support my family and and my children and so I'm grateful that I have the job that I have I'm
grateful that I'm in the position that I'm in and instead of feeling guilty that I'm not at every
drop off I'm because I'm grateful that I'm able to provide for my family and that I'm able to be at
the things that matter most to my daughter and so that kind of mental shift of turning guilt into
gratitude and having clear objectives so it's because we have objectives that work so why not in
our personal lives you know to me it's important that I'm also not only being a great executive but
I'm being a great wife and a great mother well speaking of gratitude Dara you use the language of
blossoming and sunlight a lot in your as you speak about your happiness you use the language of nature
a lot and I just want to end on that note you have blossomed here on this show you brought us
sunlight and I am deeply grateful for you spending this time to inspire so many of our listeners
you're an amazing woman you brought sunlight to the CMO podcast and I thank you for that well you
have brought sunlight into my life Jim and I'm grateful for you and thank you so much for having
this podcast that was my conversation with Dara Tressida three takeaways from this one for your
business brand the life the first one have ambition with contentment I just love that thought Dara
talked about how she learned that as a child it was advice for a mother what we should achieve
in life is contentment with ambition that's a hard balance to make we talked about turning the
dial every day so the question is do you feel you have ambition with contentment second takeaway
brand marketing is performance marketing Dara does not see any line between these two her group
is united with one set of goals brand and performance marketing work together they have a common
vision they have a great culture they focus on impact not activities this is one of the best
lessons we have heard on this show about how to think about brand and performance marketing
third takeaway be an unabashedly proud people leader Dara believes in this very deeply you
have just experienced that she talks about how leaders need to earn the right to lead
how pressure is a privilege and to always talk to your people about why you were doing what you
were doing understand the why then people will know what to do with the how and the what that's it for
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