Episode Description

On this episode of The Marketer’s Journey, I interview Stacey Epstein, CMO at Freshworks. As someone who has held roles as both CMO and CEO, Stacey understands the importance of choosing your own adventure along your career path. She explains how Freshworks approaches content strategy as a company with over 5,000 employees and over 400 million in recurring revenue, and why the skills you learn as a CMO often translate well into a role as CEO.

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Key takeaways from this episode:

• Let go of ego. When it came time for her to jump into a new role, Stacey was wise enough to remove her ego from the equation. Although she held the coveted CEO title in her previous role, she didn’t hesitate to move back into the CMO role when she was presented with a position that checked all the most important boxes: great people, a product she was passionate about and a huge market opportunity. 
• It’s all about the people. Whether she’s working at a company of 500 or 5,000 people, Stacey’s commitment to prioritizing her team remains. She believes that no matter what title you hold, your most important job is to ensure everyone on the team, from managers to frontline employees, is thriving.
• CMOs make great CEOs. Since they typically have experience working with the organization’s head of sales, HR and finance, CMOs are tasked with the same type of coordination work that’s required in the CEO role. In the future, we’ll likely continue to see more marketers making the jump into executive leadership roles.

Learn more about Freshworks here.
Learn more about Stacey here.