You’d be forgiven for mistaking The Promenade in Davos, Switzerland for Fifth Avenue at Christmastime.
Along the Promenade — a swiftly moving river of walkers during the week of the World Economic Forum — countries, tech companies, and NGOs jostle for attention with their storefront activations.
ADWEEK gathered with the throng of foreign dignitaries, founders, CEOs, and celebrities with a hand‑selected group of CMOs. They joined ADWEEK CEO Will Lee and myself in the Alps for the inaugural Marketing Vanguard Inspiration Excursion.
During the two‑day experience, hosted at The Female Quotient Lounge in partnership with Adobe and Microsoft, ADWEEK’s Marketing Vanguard program focused on getting CMOs out of familiar rooms and into environments where they are exposed to different disciplines, different pressures, and different ways of thinking.
As Infosys Global CMO Sumit Virmani said, CMOs need to deeply understand the broad agendas CEOs are dealing with.
CMOs today are expected to be enterprise leaders — shaping growth strategy, navigating geopolitical and cultural shifts, stewarding trust, and translating emerging technology into real business value — all during a tense period of time when the world is increasingly polarized.
So we gave CMOs something they rarely get: space to step out of execution mode, and context to learn amid leaders grappling with issues far beyond marketing. We chose people who were willing to get comfortable being uncomfortable, acknowledging some of the more inconvenient pressures and realities of the marketing practice.
Here’s how it went.
