CMO Summit

Where Marketing Leaders Think Big

Date

November 5, 2026

Location

New York City, NY

Community

CMO

Agenda

November 05, 2026
All times Eastern Time
8:30 AM-9:30 AM
Registration & Breakfast

Arrival, badge collection and informal networking over breakfast.

9:30 AM-9:35 AM
Opening Remarks

Welcome from C-Vision International. Framing the day ahead and the big questions that define marketing leadership today.

9:35 AM-9:50 AM
Vision Voices Keynote
Nobody Remembers the Safe Choice

The most beloved brands in the world all have one thing in common: at some point, they were brave. They backed a big idea, planted a flag, and trusted their instinct about where the world was heading. That courage is the most exciting tool a marketing leader has, and it's more available now than ever. In this keynote, one leader celebrates the power of bold marketing: the campaigns that made people feel something, the convictions that paid off, and the creative leaps that turned good brands into unforgettable ones. Come for an energizing reminder that thinking big isn't the risky path. It's the one that gets remembered.

9:55 AM-10:40 AM
Panel
The Human Layer: How Trust Turns AI Into Advantage

AI can now write, design, and personalize marketing at a scale and speed we've never had before. But as every brand rushes to automate, the thing that sets a company apart is no longer output, it's trust, and trust is still built by people. This session looks at how the best marketers use AI to deepen real customer relationships rather than dilute them. We'll get practical about where personalization stops feeling helpful and starts feeling intrusive, and why that line matters most in high-stakes industries like financial services, where a brand is tied to people's money, security, and peace of mind. The takeaway is a simple but powerful idea: humans shouldn't just sit "in the loop" checking the machine's work, they should stay at the center of what gets designed, bringing the judgment, empathy, and taste that AI can't. Come see why, in the age of automation, the smartest AI strategy is also the most human one.

Panelists
Grace Pai-Leonard
Grace Pai-Leonard

Head of Brand

New York Life Investments

Patrick Ward

Speaker

Patrick Ward

Director, Institutional Marketing

Vanguard

Patrick Ward is a seasoned marketing leader with 13 years of experience across Financial Services/Fintech, AdTech, Advertising, and Digital Marketing. He is currently Director, Institutional Marketing for Vanguard, one of the top 5 global leaders in asset management with over $12 trillion AUM and over 50 million clients. He leads Vanguard’s Institutional Client Experience Team in delivering marketing strategy and execution for Vanguard’s S&P 500 clients and prospective clients, ensuring customized, compliant, and scalable campaigns across the client/investor journey working hand-in-hand with the top institutional sales people at the firm.
Julie Roehm

Speaker

Julie Roehm

CMO

Convergint

Equal parts problem-solver and creative catalyst, Julie Roehm serves as Chief Marketing Officer at Convergint, where she leads global marketing, brand strategy, and growth initiatives for the world’s leading tech-enabled security systems integrator. With a civil engineering degree from Purdue and an MBA from Chicago Booth, Julie approaches business with analytical precision—and a healthy appetite for rule-breaking. From her early days re-igniting iconic auto brands (yes, “Grab Life by the Horns” and the launch of the Ford Focus brand were under her watch) to serving as a Chief Storyteller and Chief Experience Officer, she thrives on turning complex challenges into bold, measurable growth. Today, alongside her leadership at Convergint, Julie serves as a board director, advisor, and speaker, sharing practical wisdom on innovation, transformation, and why authentic storytelling will always be a brand's ultimate superpower.
Janelle Hanley

Speaker

Janelle Hanley

CMO

Hospital For Special Surgery

Janelle Hanley is Chief Marketing Officer at Hospital for Special Surgery, the world's leading academic medical center specializing in orthopedics, where she leads brand and marketing strategy. A brand builder at heart, she is known for translating consumer insight into brand planning and communication strategy, and for spotting the consumer, media, and technology trends that keep an organization ahead of the curve. She holds a degree from Northwestern University and is based in New York.
10:45 AM-11:00 AM
Vision Voices
Make Your Message Land: The Power of Executive Presence

When the stakes are high, your presence shapes how people respond to your ideas, your decisions, and your leadership. In this dynamic workshop, executive communication expert Dennis Kenney explores how to command attention, build credibility, and bring a room with you. Drawing on his work with executives and media personalities, Dennis shares strategies for turning complex ideas into compelling messages and bringing greater authority, energy, and connection to every interaction. Attendees will leave with a fresh perspective on their own presence and practical ways to communicate with impact, from the boardroom to the stage.

Speaker
Dennis Kenney
Dennis Kenney

CEO, Ivy Level Speaking | Executive Communication

Dennis Kenney

11:05 AM-11:40 AM
Fireside Chat
When the Customer Is an Algorithm: Marketing in the Age of AI Agents

Your next customer might not be human. People are already handing their buying decisions to AI agents that research, compare, and check out on their behalf, which means the thing you are trying to win over is increasingly a machine. So what happens to brand, persuasion, and loyalty when your audience is code? Can an algorithm fall for a story, feel a brand, or be talked into paying more? This panel digs into how marketing changes when the buyer is a bot, and what leaders should be doing now before the agents take the wheel.

Speakers
Matthew O

Speaker

Matthew O'Rourke

Head of Marketing

Yale School of Medicine

Matthew O’Rourke, MBA, is a Marketing Executive and the first-ever Director of Marketing at Yale University School of Medicine, where he built the marketing function from the ground up. Driven by the belief that good marketing and journalism run on the same fuel, he leverages his background in global communications across 25 countries to build infrastructure that drives measurable growth. At Yale, Matthew developed analytics systems that resulted in 20x digital growth and dominant search positions, integrating AI early for content generation and patient sentiment analysis—a framework he presented at the 2025 YEXT Healthcare Summit. An NYU Stern graduate, he focuses on audience-centric strategy and building diverse teams that prioritize perspective over playbooks. By challenging familiar answers and utilizing tools like GEO and AEO, Matthew creates high-performing marketing capabilities that leadership can see and trust.
David Crozier

Speaker

David Crozier

CMO

Appian

David is CMO at Appian, bringing more than 20 years of experience across all marketing disciplines and a track record of leading diverse, cross-functional global teams with multi-million-dollar budgets, accountable to senior leadership of multi-billion-dollar businesses. He's built and scaled marketing organizations across financial services, energy and utilities, transportation, healthcare and life sciences, media, and telecoms, with deep expertise spanning market research and analysis, brand and positioning, go-to-market strategy, product and account-based marketing, and digital and content marketing. His work has taken him through digital transformation, cloud, AI and analytics, IoT, security, and enterprise SaaS, along with experience across M&A, consulting, and professional services. Known for getting things done in complex, matrixed environments, David combines storytelling and strategic execution at scale.
11:40 AM-11:55 AM
Networking Break
11:55 AM-12:10 PM
Vision Voices
The New Mandate: What It Means to Lead Marketing Now

This is the most exciting time to lead marketing in a generation. AI has handed CMOs creative firepower their predecessors could only dream of, the boardroom is finally treating marketing as a driver of growth, and the leaders who get this moment right will shape how entire brands and industries move for years. This opening keynote sets an ambitious tone for the day, mapping the breakthroughs reshaping the discipline and the bold bets that turn disruption into advantage. Come ready to think bigger, lead braver, and leave with a clear picture of the marketing era you get to build.

Speaker
Cyril Dhenaut
Cyril Dhenaut

Late founder & CRO

Octopus Community

12:15 PM-12:30 PM
Disruptor
Velocity with Control: Governing Agentic AI at Enterprise Scale

Every platform promises speed – feed it a brief, and you have content for every channel before your coffee gets cold. But as AI agents take over the work of creating and publishing content at scale, speed is no longer the bottleneck. The real challenge is maintaining brand integrity and compliance at that velocity.

In this session, explore how to leverage agentic AI to accelerate digital touchpoints without risking brand reputation. Learn how to combine visual orchestration, flexible AI models, and automated guardrails to innovate boldly while keeping every site, brand, and channel fully aligned.

Together with:

Magnolia Americas Inc.
12:30 PM-1:15 PM
Panel
Stop Buying Tools, Start Building Systems

Most companies chase AI by buying tools, then wonder why all they got was a pile of half-used apps and a lot of noise. Here is the plot twist: AI was never the transformation. The real win is building a machine that listens to what your customers and your people actually need, then acts on it at scale, again and again. This panel gets into how the best leaders turn those signals into smart workflows and systems that show up where it counts: real productivity, real growth, real numbers. Come learn how to stop collecting tools and start building something that compounds.

1:15 PM-2:00 PM
Lunch & Networking Break

Seated lunch with open networking across all attendee communities.

2:00 PM-2:15 PM
Disruptor
Synthetic data. For real.

First it was big data. Then smart data. Then real-time data. Then data-driven decision-making. Then data was going to be "the new oil." At some point we started saying "data" the way people say "synergy." We uttered the words with total conviction but with no consensus on what any of us meant.

Every few years we put a new adjective in front of the word and nod like this is finally the one that cracks the code.

But to be fair, big data did give us scale and an objective. Synthetic data gives us control, and a way to tackle a problem that every single company and client in this room has. Let's talk about it.

Speaker
Sabaa Quao

Speaker

Sabaa Quao

Chief Innovation Officer

Arima

Sabaa Quao is a creative leader, entrepreneur, and business strategist. Over a 30-year career, he has built companies and platforms spanning design, media, technology, marketing, and culture, working with teams and projects in over a dozen countries. He was founding president of PlusCo Venture Studio, an AI and fintech spinoff of Cossette, where he previously served as Chief Creative and Innovation Officer. The studio collaborated with startups across embedded finance, synthetic data, and knowledge management, collectively winning $1.4 million in AI research grants. The venture studio reflects a shift in agency models, as capabilities move upstream and value transitions from services to systems. Sabaa is now Chief Innovation Officer at Arima, a pioneer in synthetic data for marketing. He leads co-ventures around specialised synthetic datasets. By generating statistically representative population datasets from multiple real-world inputs, synthetic data enables companies and countries to model entire markets, not just observable users. Arima’s flagship Synthetic Society™ represents populations in Canada, Germany, the UK, and the US. Gartner has recognised Arima as one of the world’s leading synthetic data startups. Sabaa was a member of the Innovation Jury at the 2026 Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity and is a Global Grand Juror for the 2026 Global Best of the Best Effie Awards. Together, these roles reflect his rare position at the intersection of creativity, strategy, and business model innovation.

Together with:

Arima
2:15 PM-3:00 PM
Panel
Kill Your Dashboard: Rebuilding How We Measure Marketing

Half the numbers on your dashboard look great and mean nothing. Impressions, likes, open rates: vanity metrics that win the applause and lose the budget fight. Now GenAI is blowing up how the work gets done, and the old scorecards are cracking right when "effectiveness" is up for grabs. This session gets real about what actually counts: the metrics that earn a seat in the boardroom, the ones worth deleting today, and the calls where human judgment still beats the algorithm. Come ready to throw out everything that was never working anyway.

Panelists
Lindsi Flynn

Speaker

Lindsi Flynn

CMO

US Mortgage

We were founded by Steven A. Milner over 2 decades ago, and have been committed to Helping You Make It Home since. As a mortgage lender we believe in American Dream of Homeownership, as a member of the community we believe in giving back and as professionals we believe that Education and Guidance create the lasting bond that allows us to become your lender-for-life. Our company focuses on educating first time home buyers, saving people money through refinances, giving people the opportunity for a better life through reverse mortgages, and above all education and transparency. Founded in 1994 | Funded Over $10bln | Serviced over 33,000 people We are a nationwide Mortgage Banking company, a HUD approved FHA Direct Endorsed Lender and a Fannie Mae Seller/Servicer. As a Direct Lender we are able to provide our clients with money at highly competitive rates and customized loan products that fit their needs and their budgets. Our clients save money and close their loans on-time because we utilize the most advanced mortgage technology available. We take pride in providing superior customer service and creating satisfied customers, and that approach has enabled us to maintain an A+ Rating with the Better Business Bureau (BBB) and a 5 Star Rating as a Mortgage Lender with Zillow. Join us in making a difference www.usmortgage.com (US Mortgage Corporation NMLS: 3901 - www.consumeraccess.org)
Emily Kirkpatrick

Speaker

Emily Kirkpatrick

SVP Marketing Strategy & Performance

Shipt

Over 20 years, Emily has helped consumer brands grow through transformation, accelerating growth, repositioning brands, modernizing operations, and spotting the next wave of opportunity. She connects consumer insights, commercial strategy, analytics, finance, and operations to solve business problems and build organizations that scale, leading enterprise growth strategies, managing global investment portfolios, and partnering with executive leadership to turn ambitious goals into measurable outcomes. What she enjoys most is building: teams, capabilities, and operating models that make organizations stronger long after a campaign ends. Across retail, marketplace, omnichannel, and direct-to-consumer businesses, she brings clarity to complexity, aligns teams around a common vision, and creates momentum that delivers lasting impact.
Ramesh Thiyagarajan

Speaker

Ramesh Thiyagarajan

Global Head of Strategic Marketing

Balchem

Balchem Corporation develops, manufactures, and markets specialty performance ingredients and products for the nutritional, food, pharmaceutical, animal health, medical device sterilization, plant nutrition, and industrial markets worldwide. It operates through three segments: Human Nutrition and Health, Animal Nutrition and Health, and Specialty Products. The Human Nutrition & Health segment supplies ingredients in the food and beverage industry. Its products include spray dried and emulsified powders, extrusion and agglomeration, blended lipid systems, liquid flavor delivery systems, juice and dairy bases, chocolate systems, and cereal systems, as well as ice cream bases and variegates.
3:05 PM-3:50 PM
Panel
Same, But Everywhere: Winning When Every Brand Sounds Like AI

Every marketing team now has the same AI tools, which means everyone can produce polished content just as fast, and increasingly, in the same voice. Craft used to be what separated great brands from average ones, and it turned out to be the easiest gap for AI to close.

What's opening up instead is a different kind of gap: distinctiveness, which is now the harder thing to pull off at scale. This session looks at where AI actually sharpens a brand's edge versus where it quietly wears it down, often without anyone noticing, especially when everyone's optimizing for speed.

We'll get specific about which categories lose customers fastest to sameness, what it really takes to stay recognizable when a competitor can copy your process overnight, and the levers, like premium IP and brand partnerships, that still can't be replicated by a generative tool.

Panelists
Angela Tribelli

Speaker

Angela Tribelli

CMO

Finance of America

Angela is CMO of Finance of America, bringing more than 25 years of experience as a digital and marketing executive with P&L ownership across revenue generation, strategic planning, growth and retention marketing, customer lifecycle management, brand building, content and creative development, and operations. She has an extensive track record launching award-winning digital properties and products, with deep expertise in data-driven consumer marketing, subscriptions, and e-commerce across media and entertainment, financial services, retail, and travel and tourism. A collaborative change leader, she has built and led global teams within matrix organizations and driven digital transformation at companies ranging from startups to Fortune 500s, earning recognition as an innovative, metrics-driven leader navigating industry disruption.
Sheereen Miller-Russell

Speaker

Sheereen Miller-Russell

EVP, Client Partnerships & Brand Solutions

Warner Bros. Discovery

Sheereen Miller-Russell is an enterprise revenue and partnerships executive at Warner Bros. Discovery, known for building high-impact brand partnerships across streaming, sports, entertainment, consumer products, and licensing. A Time Inc. and Paramount alum, she specializes in aligning platforms, IP, talent, and commercial priorities into scalable growth, often serving as a connective force across large, matrixed organizations. Her work has been recognized by Ad Age Women to Watch, Cablefax's Diversity List, and Cynopsis' Top Women in Media, and she serves as a board member at Vox Media.
3:50 PM-4:05 PM
Networking Break
4:05 PM-4:40 PM
Fireside Chat
Place Your Bets: Marketing's Next Five Years

Forget vague predictions about "the future of marketing." This closing fireside gets specific. Two sharp leaders each put real bets on the table: the roles that won't exist in five years and the ones that will, the budgets about to move, the skills worth hiring for now, and the assumptions that are quietly about to break. No hand-waving, just concrete calls you can pressure-test against your own plan. Everyone leaves with a short list of bold moves to make this year, while there's still an edge in making them early.

Speakers
Kerel Cooper

Speaker

Kerel Cooper

CMO

MarketCast

Kerel Cooper is a business leader and growth strategist who helps organizations accelerate growth by aligning strategy, customer insight, innovation, and leadership. As Chief Marketing Officer at MarketCast, he helps the world's biggest brands understand the emotional and rational forces behind every marketing investment, enabling smarter business decisions and measurable impact. Over a career spanning more than 25 years, Kerel has led transformation across technology, media, and advertising companies including GumGum, Group Black, LiveIntent, and Advance Digital. He is also a professor at Kean University, co-founder of the Minority Report Podcast, and a frequent speaker on leadership, business transformation, AI, and the future of growth.
Linda Boff

Speaker

Linda Boff

President

Forbes CMO Network

Passionate about all things digital and the future of media and communications, Linda Boff is recognized as one of today’s most influential marketing executives. She spent 20 years at GE,including nearly a decade as Global CMO, helping shape one of the world’s most iconic brands. Today, Linda is the Chief Executive Officer of Said Differently, an award-winning creative, strategy and digital marketing company named by AdWeek as one of the industry’s fastest-growing agencies. Said Differently operates as a scaled boutique built around a global network of specialized talent. Linda also serves as President of the Forbes CMO Network, where she leads Forbes’ multi-platform community for senior marketing leaders, spanning flagship events at Cannes, the World’s Most Influential CMOs list, and annual CMO Summits in Aspen and London. She also hosts Forbes’ A Different Take, a podcast that goes behind the scenes of marketing’s biggest hits and misses to uncover the decisions, risks and lessons that shaped them.
4:40 PM-5:15 PM
Fireside Chat
AI-Technostress: Overcoming the Fear of Being Replaced

As AI automates routine work, teams across IT and marketing are feeling the strain: constantly shifting toolsets, mounting burnout, and a growing “techno-insecurity,” the worry that leaning on machines is quietly eroding human judgment and creativity.

This session gives IT and marketing leaders a practical blueprint for leading through the disruption. Learn how to design roles that put AI to work while elevating uniquely human strengths like critical thinking, strategy, and creativity, and how to keep your teams connected, confident, and engaged as the way work gets done keeps changing.

Chair
Speakers
Randy Cleghorne

Speaker

Randy Cleghorne

CIO

Goodwill Industries of Greater NY and Northern NJ, Inc.

Randy Cleghorne is the CIO for Goodwill Industries of Greater New York and Northern New Jersey. Goodwill NYNJ is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that operates 37 retail stores throughout the region powered by donations of clothing and household items. Goodwill NYNJ translates those donations into workforce development services for people with disabilities and the unemployed, and retail training leading to employment. It's headquartered in Astoria, New York.
Alaa Moussawi

Speaker

Alaa Moussawi

Chief Data Scientist

New York City Council

Alaa Moussawi serves as Chief Data Scientist for the New York City Council, where he oversees the operations of the data and web development units. Under his leadership, the data operations unit promotes the utilization of data to shape legislative initiatives aimed at addressing the diverse needs of NYC's residents. Utilizing advanced statistical and technological tools, they analyze a broad spectrum of issues pertinent to the city, ranging from pay equity to school bus delays. Their objective is to empower policymakers with data-driven insights, ensuring transparency and reproducibility in their models and research. Simultaneously, the web development unit designs and implements technologies aimed at enhancing the efficiency of council staff while reducing cognitive load. By leveraging algorithms and natural language processing (NLP) technologies, they streamline user interfaces and automate complex tasks. Their solutions, developed exclusively using open source technology, are customizable and include CRMs, internal websites for streamlined processes like paperless hearings, dashboards, and machine learning models deployed to facilitate daily council operations.
Ethan Pew

Speaker

Ethan Pew

Head of MS in Marketing

The University of Texas at Austin

Ethan Pew is a clinical assistant professor of marketing and director of the Master of Science in marketing program at the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. Pew focuses on consumer behavior, financial decision-making, and market research. As a highly respected researcher and consultant, Pew has offered strategic guidance and data-driven insights to established companies and cutting-edge startups. He has served as a consultant in the financial and information technology sectors to coordinate data collaborations and field experiments. Committed to supporting the next generation of marketing doctoral candidates, Pew co-founded Marketing Phd Jobs, an online listing connecting potential candidates and open positions in marketing where a Phd adds value. He has also published research examining differences in academic careers for men and women. Before joining Texas McCombs, Pew held faculty positions at Columbia University, Stony Brook University, Purdue University, and American University. Pew received a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Colorado Boulder and a Bachelor of Business Administration in finance from Texas McCombs.
5:15 PM-5:20 PM
Closing Remarks & Raffle Giveaway

A synthesis of the day's defining themes and an open invitation to continue the conversation.

5:20 PM-6:00 PM
Cocktail Reception

An informal close to the day - open bar, canapes and continued conversation. Speakers and attendees mix freely.

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