Episode 3
Leading AI Transformation Without Losing Your Team The Global CMO's Guide
In this episode of The Get, host Erica Seidel talks with Debbie Umbach, CMO of M-Files, about landing – and fulfilling – a CMO role in the age of AI. Debbie describes building AI capability inside a 50-person global team, from hiring to designing new roles to leading change.
You will learn about:
- Differentiating yourself in a CMO job search, and the role of AI in that
- Key things to share with boards about your AI journey: not just what you're doing but what is working well, what isn't, and how you are building AI fluency on your team
- Scaling AI fluency and transformation across a 50+ person marketing team
- Carving out a new role: The AI GTM Transformation Leader
- The persistent importance of context and taste in the CMO role
- A framework for speedily building trust as a new CMO (Hint: balance authenticity, data, and empathy)
- Change management tips for leading AI transformations, whether your team is big or small
Some quotes:
- “Marketing is an ing. We're always doing things. But WHY are we doing them, and what are the outcomes we're looking for? I always am trying to get the team to think about, ‘okay, we've got these things to do, but why?’”
- "You can't just change for change's sake. You can't just say, 'We want to use AI to be more productive.’ Instead, it's: 'Why are we changing? How are we going to get better? How is this going to make your job better and more fun? How are you going to get to do the things that are more interesting?’"
00:00 Welcome and Season Theme
01:20 Debbie’s Origin Story
03:30 Confidence and Speaking Up
04:40 Systems Thinking for AI
06:07 Winning the CMO Search
08:27 Showing AI in Interviews
09:12 AI Training and Org Design
12:43 AI SDR Teammate Mia
14:11 GTM Transformation Lead
19:43 New Roles and Knowledge Ops
21:10 Avoiding AI Slop
24:17 Context and Positioning
29:04 Hiring Questions That Reveal
31:53 Change Management and Trust
37:00 Future of the CMO Role
38:34 Wrap Up and Credits
The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and leadership in B2B SaaS marketing. We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today’s top marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
This season’s theme is focused on how AI is reshaping the CMO role: how you lead, how you hire, and how you get hired."
The Get’s host is Erica Seidel, who runs The Connective Good, an executive search practice with a hyper-focus on recruiting CMOs and VPs of Marketing, especially in B2B SaaS.
If you are looking to hire a CMO or VP of Marketing of the ‘make money’ variety, rather than the ‘make it pretty’ variety, contact Erica at erica@theconnectivegood.com. You can also follow Erica on LinkedIn or sign up for her newsletter at TheConnectiveGood.com.
The Get is produced by the team at Simpler Media Productions.
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
OP3 - https://op3.dev/privacy
Transcript
Welcome to The Get, the podcast that's all about recruiting and
Speaker:leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
Speaker:I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
Speaker:I recruit CMOs and VPs of marketing for B2B SaaS companies, from
Speaker:scale-ups to larger companies.
Speaker:My tagline is that I place the make-money marketing leaders
Speaker:and not the make-it-pretty ones.
Speaker:This season on The Get, we're looking at how AI is reframing and reinventing the
Speaker:CMO role, especially how it relates to hiring, getting hired, and leadership.
Speaker:Today, our focus is on tackling a new CMO role in the age of AI.
Speaker:Think of this as the anatomy of getting a CMO role, architecting the team
Speaker:with a focus on AI transformation, leading change management, and also
Speaker:looking ahead to what's next for the CMO role and the CMO's team.
Speaker:My guest today is Debbie Umbach.
Speaker:Debbie is CMO at M-Files in the document management space, and we are going to
Speaker:learn how that is a really sexy space.
Speaker:Debbie previously held marketing leadership roles with Dynatrace,
Speaker:Own Company, Salesforce, BitSight, RSA, and SAP.
Speaker:Debbie and I have been pals for a while.
Speaker:Welcome to the show, Debbie.
Speaker:It's great to be here, Erica.
Speaker:Can you share a little bit more and maybe a fun fact that
Speaker:would never appear on LinkedIn?
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:Well, I started off getting an engineering degree, which is somewhat
Speaker:unusual for CMOs these days, I think.
Speaker:I was in a lab as an intern working on getting my degree, and my-- I
Speaker:was working on chemical samples, and it wasn't with a lot of people, and
Speaker:I'm a people person, so needless to say, I wasn't having a lot of fun.
Speaker:And my boss, Hank, said, "There's no way you're going to finish your
Speaker:degree." And I said, "Well, absolutely.
Speaker:Now I've got a great challenge, so of course I am." And so I did go on to
Speaker:finish my degree, but I did switch from mechanical to systems engineering, which
Speaker:is more computer science, which was great because that led me into software.
Speaker:And then, after working for a while doing IT consulting, I decided to go back and
Speaker:get my MBA and round out myself because I really had more of a technical background,
Speaker:and I wanted to learn more about business.
Speaker:So I started off at Harvard Business School.
Speaker:I think I was a little intimidated because I was pretty quiet in that first semester.
Speaker:Halfway through the semester, I got a couple notes from professors in a few
Speaker:of my classes that I wasn't speaking up enough, and if I didn't speak up
Speaker:enough, that was fifty percent of my grade, so I might not make it.
Speaker:And I was like, "Oh my gosh."
Speaker:I stepped back, and I regrouped, and I said, "You know, I need to
Speaker:move away from this perfectionism.
Speaker:I need to just put my hand up, and if what I say is imperfect, it's okay."
Speaker:And sure enough, I forced myself to do it, and it was hard, it, but it
Speaker:got better, and I ended up having just a wonderful time there and made
Speaker:a whole lot of friends and, uh, and learned a lot in the process as well.
Speaker:So I did the whole same business school thing, and, you know,
Speaker:participation was really important.
Speaker:And, you know, we had to-- we had a joke among those of us who are
Speaker:a little shy, participate early and often, but the early was key.
Speaker:It was a little harder to, a little harder as the conversation sometimes went on.
Speaker:And it's funny, I think a lot about in your career how early on sometimes you get
Speaker:told to speak up more, and then you start speaking up more, and then this moment
Speaker:where it actually behooves you to speak up less and to, as you get more senior,
Speaker:to let other people, you know, speak up.
Speaker:And 'cause if you look at a lot of, you know, CEOs, you know, they, they
Speaker:might actually pull back a little bit and let other people speak.
Speaker:So it's just interesting to see that arc of things, you know?
Speaker:It really is interesting, and so I think it's having that level of confidence
Speaker:where you don't need to know it all.
Speaker:Nobody knows it all.
Speaker:In the beginning, early in your career, at least with me, you're trying to prove
Speaker:yourself, and I think as-- I know we'll talk later about board meetings, but in
Speaker:the beginning, it was, it was a similar thing to HBS, where I was like, "Oh, I,
Speaker:if I speak up, it has to be perfect."
Speaker:And then I learned, no, you're gonna sit back.
Speaker:You need to absorb.
Speaker:You have a point of view.
Speaker:You speak up when the time is right, and you don't have to
Speaker:feel like it's such a big deal.
Speaker:You're just part of the conversation.
Speaker:But I think a lot of that comes with confidence as you, as you
Speaker:learn and grow in your career.
Speaker:And so systems engineering, so would you, would you call yourself a systems thinker?
Speaker:'Cause I feel like-
Speaker:Yes
Speaker:… the, the, the dawn of systems thinking is like, it's not the dawn, but so
Speaker:many people are saying, "Oh, if you're strong at AI, it's likely because
Speaker:you have a kind of systems thinking background." So what the hell is a
Speaker:systems thinker in your parlance?
Speaker:Well, it's a really good question, and f- it's, it's, it's so much- it goes beyond
Speaker:software, really, as to thinking about the whole flow, whether it's, like, a customer
Speaker:life cycle journey or whether you're putting AI in marketing in a specific area
Speaker:or looking across the entire go-to-market.
Speaker:It's not thinking in siloed ways, but actually looking at the system as a whole.
Speaker:I think that I've, I've really been able to think that way my whole career, and
Speaker:it did start with systems engineering.
Speaker:But then after getting my MBA, I moved into product management.
Speaker:I spent a lot of time in product management and product marketing, and
Speaker:you're looking at the whole system.
Speaker:You're looking at the market.
Speaker:You have to get into the details, of course, but you also have to be able
Speaker:to step back and see the big picture.
Speaker:It's been really helpful in this age of AI and learning how things
Speaker:work and learning how to experiment, but then a- again, stepping back
Speaker:to, how do we affect workflows?
Speaker:Now that we're actually working on agentic workflows, how do you do that?
Speaker:You have to think of the system as a whole or you're not going to be successful.
Speaker:So you're about a year into your role at M-Files, and I wanna talk about before
Speaker:you joined and now that you're there and then kind of what, what's coming.
Speaker:So just that, that arc. So talk about kind of before you joined.
Speaker:Um, you know, how did you differentiate yourself in the hiring process,
Speaker:and did anything surprise you about what the board and the CEO
Speaker:were looking for in the new CMO?
Speaker:You know, with any interview process, a company has an idea
Speaker:of what they're looking for, and they, and they have a sense for the
Speaker:problems that are being faced 'cause they've written the job description.
Speaker:They think they know what they want.
Speaker:But I think it's also really important to go into it with a fresh look.
Speaker:I mean, they'll give you input on how they've defined the role and the charter.
Speaker:But, you know, taking a step back, and what I was able to do,
Speaker:'cause this was … Let's see.
Speaker:This was about a year, 15 months ago, and it was before Claude became big.
Speaker:I was using OpenAI.
Speaker:I was using the ChatGPT free version, and then I said, "I need to upgrade this."
Speaker:But really taking a step back and looking at the market, looking at basic things
Speaker:like the Gartner MQ, but when all the, the competitive landscape, looking at
Speaker:the website, looking at all the customer reviews, and using AI to do this.
Speaker:This was something I could've never done in prior roles when I was interviewing.
Speaker:You had to do it all manually.
Speaker:And so I was able to do things like use NotebookLM to pull in some of these
Speaker:materials and create podcasts that I could listen to in the car and just sort
Speaker:of steep myself in the market and the company and the opportunity and take that
Speaker:and marry that with the job description that I had, my own resume, and things
Speaker:like that to really create this picture of what the company needed and how I could
Speaker:help and what I brought to the table.
Speaker:So AI was able to make me a lot smarter about the market and the company,
Speaker:but also I had to put my own lens on everything because when you're giving
Speaker:a presentation, 'cause as I got through the interview process, you kn- you're
Speaker:presenting to the board and the CEO And in doing sort of a case study, you have
Speaker:to know all that content really well.
Speaker:You can't just have AI spit it out for you, right?
Speaker:So it, it was a process, but I feel like I was able to learn so
Speaker:much more, so much more quickly-
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:… than I ever had in any prior process.
Speaker:And now that you're on the other side of that, what's your advice
Speaker:on how CMOs should convey their AI experience in interviews with
Speaker:ELT members and with boards?
Speaker:Because it seems like everybody wants some kind of AI experience.
Speaker:Nobody has like a, like a real crystallized way of asking for it and
Speaker:understanding it, or even of conveying … Well, few people do, I will say.
Speaker:So do you have advice there?
Speaker:You know, at the time, this was a year ago, so it was before things had really,
Speaker:really taken off, where it was basically becoming a mandate for everyone to use it.
Speaker:What I would do today, though, is I would give real concrete examples
Speaker:of how I use AI myself, but also how I've gotten my team to use it.
Speaker:When I started about a year ago at M-Files, one of the first things I did
Speaker:was initiate a biweekly AI hands-on training class where we started off by
Speaker:bringing in our CIO, who was acting as our AI lead, and sort of set the stage
Speaker:with the tooling we can use and, and ground rules and just smart guidance
Speaker:about confidential information and things like that with our enterprise license.
Speaker:And then we just got volunteers.
Speaker:My team is about 50 people around the world, and I was thrilled because I got a
Speaker:few people early on to start volunteering, and in these biweekly sessions, people
Speaker:would talk about a given topic and do, like, hands-on while the team could have
Speaker:their screen up and be playing along.
Speaker:One example of something that worked really well was one of the SDRs figured
Speaker:out how to make cartoons of whoever he was interacting with, so he'd
Speaker:have, like, a Superman and a cape, and it had the person's name and their
Speaker:role, and they're like the superhero.
Speaker:And it sounds kind of cheesy, but they loved it.
Speaker:Like, prospects would get back to him, and they felt this connection, right?
Speaker:And so it was… it's, like, really fun and really silly, but it actually
Speaker:worked, and he, he's been able to engage with a lot more prospects in that way.
Speaker:And so that's an example of something that worked, but I would also talk
Speaker:about something that didn't work.
Speaker:So that people understand, like, it's a time of experimentation.
Speaker:In good marketing, we've always run experiments, but now you
Speaker:need to do it much faster.
Speaker:And so what do you learn?
Speaker:What's not working?
Speaker:And so people are vulnerable in, in these show and tells.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:My head of, uh, EMEA marketing was showing about her digital twin that
Speaker:she was making and she was practicing with, and it didn't-- it wasn't working
Speaker:right, and she had to keep iterating, and she went through that with us,
Speaker:which was really, really helpful 'cause we're all learning as we go.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I think giving a few examples when you're, when you're talking to a board,
Speaker:not just about things you've read or things you've done yourself, but, like,
Speaker:what's worked and what's not working.
Speaker:I think last year, and I would definitely do it now, but I think it was maybe a
Speaker:little bit ahead of the time last year when I actually showed what my org chart
Speaker:would be, and I had AI teammates on there.
Speaker:That's something I think everyone would have today.
Speaker:But it's really showing how you would implement it in practice, how
Speaker:roles have changed, for example.
Speaker:Product marketers, you now need to have a librarian that's sort of
Speaker:overseeing that knowledge foundation.
Speaker:You need to have a brand steward instead of a typical brand manager.
Speaker:AEO expert instead of SEO expert.
Speaker:AEO encompasses SEO, but it's a different way of thinking now.
Speaker:The way you're thinking about how roles are evolving with AI,
Speaker:I think is really important.
Speaker:You need to be able to articulate that in how your org chart will evolve.
Speaker:And that's a great segue to kind of your initial days.
Speaker:So let's talk about the initial days in, in more detail.
Speaker:I wanna hear about, more about, you know, your team and kind of how you
Speaker:approached organization building and changes and, you know, from, like,
Speaker:a cultural standpoint and also from a … How have you shaped the org?
Speaker:And how is that different than you would've done so,
Speaker:you know, five years ago?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Well, it's interesting.
Speaker:With the AI teammates, one of the first things we did is we looked at
Speaker:the SDR and BDR organization, and we said, "How can we help scale this
Speaker:organization more quickly?" So we brought in a tool to bring in an AI SDR.
Speaker:Uh, we named her Mia, M-Files Intelligent Assistant.
Speaker:At first, we didn't use the video technology, but then we added the
Speaker:video technology, and we did a lot of testing to make sure that this would
Speaker:work and it wouldn't freak people out.
Speaker:But I will tell you, like, it has been such an interesting
Speaker:learning process, and she's driving a lot of pipeline for us now.
Speaker:But early on, I was having conversations with her to just test her out and
Speaker:give her, try to give her curve balls.
Speaker:And she did pretty well, and she gets better every day.
Speaker:So that's a specific example of how she's a true teammate.
Speaker:Like, the SDRs and BDRs, they learn from her.
Speaker:She's learning from things they're learning.
Speaker:It's like con- continuous improvement.
Speaker:Basically, she's able to do some of the work that they don't wanna do so that
Speaker:they can have more live conversations.
Speaker:Mm-hmm.
Speaker:Cause that's really the goal.
Speaker:I think what AI enables us to do is take over some of that work that's
Speaker:not as exciting, that people don't necessarily wanna be doing, some
Speaker:of the repetitive tasks, so you can have more in-person human, well,
Speaker:or video, but live interactions.
Speaker:What else have you done?
Speaker:So beyond the SDR function and, and Mia, like, can you
Speaker:talk about change management?
Speaker:I think you had mentioned that you had, like, an AI
Speaker:go-to-market transformation role.
Speaker:Can you talk about that and what that looks like?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Uh, one of my marketing leaders, recently I moved her over probably about
Speaker:six weeks ago to an AI go-to-market transformation lead, and she is really
Speaker:helping us transform not just marketing and all the different departments
Speaker:within marketing, but she's working across sales and customer success,
Speaker:which is why she has go-to-market in the title versus just marketing.
Speaker:So she's looking across the board so that we can identifying opportunities
Speaker:for not just automating processes we have today, but really looking for
Speaker:the biggest areas of, of improvement that we can leverage, that we can
Speaker:put AI onto and help us improve.
Speaker:And so it's been really good.
Speaker:We've been doing some workshops in key areas that we identified, and she's
Speaker:done a lot of interviews of the team to understand how long things take
Speaker:to do today, and what if we reimagine this process, and really getting
Speaker:people to think outside the box.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So for example, AI native product launches, because our product team is
Speaker:doing AI development life cycle now, and they're churning out product really,
Speaker:really fast, and we need to be able to keep up with that so that we can
Speaker:launch and get the message out to our sellers and our customers and so forth.
Speaker:So that's a big area.
Speaker:Of course, content creation, right?
Speaker:That's kind of the-- one of the first things you think about with marketing,
Speaker:and there's a lot of opportunity there.
Speaker:But the launch process is going to be a really big one for us, and we've gone
Speaker:through, we've identified what are the metrics that are going to show that
Speaker:we're being successful along the way.
Speaker:And then the third area is around pipeline growth.
Speaker:And doing things like bringing in signals, not just enriching the
Speaker:database, but understanding intent signals, understanding product usage
Speaker:for existing customers and expansion within those customer base, bringing
Speaker:everything together into a single foundation that we can then leverage
Speaker:to create some of this automation.
Speaker:So, and we're partnering with sales and customer success very closely on that.
Speaker:So the CRO and CCO and I are, are really- We've had a really good connection anyway.
Speaker:We collaborate really well.
Speaker:But this is an opportunity where we all need to stay really connected.
Speaker:So that go-to-market transformation person, is, is
Speaker:she also doing product marketing?
Speaker:Is this like a second job?
Speaker:She was doing product marketing, and she shifted over into this role, so
Speaker:she understands product marketing, but she's one of those product marketers
Speaker:that understands how to orchestrate that across the entire marketing function.
Speaker:She has good knowledge about marketing overall-
Speaker:Yeah
Speaker:and how to activate demand and so forth, and so she's been … It's been
Speaker:really good to have her in this role.
Speaker:She's also really analytical.
Speaker:And she's able to figure out, how do we get this information?
Speaker:How do we figure out how to transform the organization?
Speaker:And so I'm partnering with her on a lot of this work, but also the
Speaker:change management piece, which is so important because we need to
Speaker:bring people along the way, and have everyone be a part of the conversation
Speaker:for how we're going to transform.
Speaker:You can't just change for change sake or just, "Oh, we wanna use
Speaker:AI to be more productive." It's like, "Why are we changing?
Speaker:What are we doing?
Speaker:How are we gonna get better?
Speaker:How is this gonna make your job better and more fun?
Speaker:Like, how are you gonna get to do the things that are more interesting?"
Speaker:Did everybody want that job when you christened that job, which is a new job?
Speaker:Like, I, I can imagine a lot of people saying, "Ooh, that
Speaker:sounds cool. I wanna do that."
Speaker:I reached out to my network when I decided to open the position,
Speaker:and I got an influx of responses.
Speaker:I did.
Speaker:There are so many people that really want a role like this, and it's kind
Speaker:of like the go-to-market engineering role where it's something everyone's
Speaker:talking about now, but there's not, like, a clear definition.
Speaker:So I spent time on the job description to make sure and, and worked with
Speaker:my peers at M-Files to, like, really make sure we were all on the same page
Speaker:with our expectations for this role.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Because all these AI roles are new.
Speaker:And then how do you … What does success look like?
Speaker:How do I know if she's going to be successful in this role?
Speaker:Well, we're defining North Star metrics and getting those metrics in
Speaker:place and putting timeframes in there.
Speaker:And so we will know, and we will be measuring very carefully
Speaker:to see if we are successful.
Speaker:I should say, when we are successful, we will know.
Speaker:Um- … I think, like with any job, you need to have the outcome defined.
Speaker:You need to know what success looks like for that person to really understand
Speaker:because there are so many different things you could do in this role.
Speaker:For us, it's not just using A- AI internally.
Speaker:It's also using our product internally to get better, to get more efficient.
Speaker:'Cause M-Files has been … had AI in the product for over a decade now.
Speaker:And so we actually drink our own champagne.
Speaker:And we use our own product.
Speaker:And so it's benefiting us to do that.
Speaker:It makes us better marketers for sure, better sellers and so forth.
Speaker:And also to be using, you know, the standard tools,
Speaker:Claude, OpenAI, all of those.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Any other humans with new titles showing up in your org chart or AI
Speaker:teammates that are showing up beyond what you've talked about so far?
Speaker:Well, I think I mentioned the librarian in product marketing.
Speaker:We, we just had a call on that today actually, because we have
Speaker:competitive battle cards and, you know, the more traditional competitive
Speaker:market intelligence that you need to get out to the, the field.
Speaker:We recently created an agent, and it's an agent that powers multiple … It's
Speaker:almost like an uber agent, 'cause it powers multiple agents for competitive.
Speaker:How do we put that in the hands of the sellers?
Speaker:How do we get them to adopt that?
Speaker:And how do we keep it up to date?
Speaker:'Cause in the past it was like, oh, we create battle cards.
Speaker:We update them every quarter.
Speaker:So we're talking about now we need this librarian, and we don't have one yet,
Speaker:but we need to figure out who has this role within product marketing that they
Speaker:can keep this foundational material up to date, and then we need to work
Speaker:with our AI transformation office to make sure we have the integrations
Speaker:in place to keep the content fresh.
Speaker:We don't wanna have all these manual uploads, 'cause right
Speaker:now you, you do manual uploads.
Speaker:Like I'm working in Claude, I'm gonna feed it this content.
Speaker:But you wanna, you wanna have MCP set up so that you can actually get that
Speaker:connection and keep the content fresh.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So we're in the throes of it right now.
Speaker:You know, your focus with your team seems to be like use AI, but make sure
Speaker:you understand it and make it your own, and not like blindly use it, if I can
Speaker:characterize from previous conversations.
Speaker:And I'm wondering if you can talk more about that, and how do you prevent the
Speaker:AI slop coming out, especially from like ju- more junior team members?
Speaker:Well, I think it's interesting because pretty much everyone I know has made
Speaker:a mistake and sent something out or presented something where they didn't
Speaker:100% understand everything on that slide or have a command of that information.
Speaker:And so it's happened to me, it's happened to several of my colleagues.
Speaker:I think when it happens, you're like, "Oh, whoa, I, I didn't
Speaker:read that carefully enough."
Speaker:And especially if you think about the s- the slides that Claude makes,
Speaker:I mean, everyone can tell when there's a slide that Claude makes.
Speaker:And they're very detailed.
Speaker:There's a lot of information on those slides.
Speaker:So if you're using it, and even if you're giving it detailed prompts and
Speaker:all this, and but you create like a 10-slide deck, you need to understand
Speaker:everything on there because if you don't, it's your name on it, right?
Speaker:At the end of the day, and it's your credibility, and I've definitely
Speaker:seen some real slop out there.
Speaker:But as I mentioned, I even made a mistake with one thing where it was a
Speaker:competitive deck, and there was one of the competitors, like one of the things
Speaker:that I hadn't read carefully enough and hadn't vetted, and so you learn from that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Whoops.
Speaker:And so I tell my team, and I tell myself as well, like, "You might have to slow
Speaker:down a little bit to move faster." You can create a lot of material with AI, but
Speaker:your name's on it at the end of the day.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And that's why approvers and orchestrators are so important in this new org.
Speaker:I think it's gonna take some time before we fully let AI just go out and send
Speaker:all sorts of material on our behalf.
Speaker:Yes, we're doing it now with SDR and we're, we're sending emails and we- we've
Speaker:approved the content and things like that.
Speaker:But to actually do agents that are out sending information that
Speaker:may not have been verified I just don't think we're quite there yet.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's interesting, I talked to, um, a different guest on the show last
Speaker:season, Julie Zadow, who had all these interns, and she would say to them,
Speaker:"Use AI and let me know when it spit out something that you did not understand,
Speaker:and try to come up with something that the AI does not come up with."
Speaker:I love that.
Speaker:And again, these were just very junior summer interns who had no context.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Context is so critical.
Speaker:It's interesting 'cause I'll take a step back for a moment because I
Speaker:think this is important, 'cause in the age of AI, like, there's so many
Speaker:things that still are foundational in marketing, which is company positioning.
Speaker:And I repos- led an, uh, effort to reposition the company back in October
Speaker:around context first document management.
Speaker:And recently, about a month ago, we said, "We need to lean into AI a little
Speaker:bit more heavily because we, we have all this AI in the product." And so we've
Speaker:now kind of adjusted the positioning.
Speaker:We're talking about its context in the era of AI, where we really are trying
Speaker:to capture more of that AI budget.
Speaker:Not just the traditional document management budget.
Speaker:So how are we earning a seat at the table?
Speaker:Context is foundational to document management 'cause it feeds the AI.
Speaker:But it's not just in document management, it's in everything you do.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Because if you have the AI running on bad or unstructured, incorrect content,
Speaker:or content with gaps- you're in real trouble, 'cause AI just makes it up.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Right?
Speaker:When there's a gap, it just guesses and it sounds so confident.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:Context is everything right now, and I think it's really interesting
Speaker:'cause people that are early in their career don't have it yet.
Speaker:Right.
Speaker:So they have to learn how to use critical thinking and ask the
Speaker:AI the tough questions, right?
Speaker:When you're talking to Claude, how do you know that's accurate?
Speaker:Give me the sources.
Speaker:And then you have to verify the sources, you know?
Speaker:Yeah, I was just having lunch with a friend of mine today who's a CMO, and
Speaker:we were talking about how any one thing that he does is not rocket science, but
Speaker:it's the constellation of things of, like, when he asks and what he asks and
Speaker:how he kind of, like, pushes people.
Speaker:That's what he's getting paid for.
Speaker:And it's so, so there are, like, like, these micro moments of context,
Speaker:you know, where the context comes out, but it's years of building up.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:And that's something that we… And you could call it context.
Speaker:I've heard people describe it as taste.
Speaker:Yep.
Speaker:And really just understanding what's good and what's not good.
Speaker:Yeah, yeah.
Speaker:And using your own judgment to do that.
Speaker:I don't think it's easy to teach people.
Speaker:It comes over, over time.
Speaker:So how do you get through the moments of, I know I've done this
Speaker:for years, but I'm trying to do everything in kind of a new way, you
Speaker:know, with AI to be more efficient.
Speaker:And like you say, sometimes it's like going slow to go fast.
Speaker:But, you know, in the moment, something might not feel efficient and like, you
Speaker:know, wow, my brain is gonna explode.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's really interesting.
Speaker:I think when you've been doing this as long as I have, sometimes it's
Speaker:like, "Gosh, am I gonna get bored? Am I doing the same thing again?" I
Speaker:guess it goes back to the context, like how much experience I do have
Speaker:in certain areas around influence and things that AI can't do.
Speaker:And I'm almost able to be freed up more because I'm using it more, 'cause I can
Speaker:have Claude go and do something, and then I can go work on something else.
Speaker:And I have more time for influencing conversations and things like that.
Speaker:And so people will say, "Oh, I learned so much from you in
Speaker:that meeting the other day."
Speaker:And I th- I'm thinking, "What did you learn from me?" I don't
Speaker:even realize, like, I guess I was modeling certain behavior.
Speaker:I was on with an industry analyst the other day, and someone
Speaker:commented to me afterward.
Speaker:But it's, it's unable to use my brain to, in the things where I uniquely can add
Speaker:value, and because AI is helping free me up from some of these more mundane tasks.
Speaker:And I think that's the beauty of it.
Speaker:You can use your mind in more ways than you maybe were even five years
Speaker:ago when I had to do all of these things that now I can automate.
Speaker:It's really amazing.
Speaker:That's great.
Speaker:Do you have a favorite interview question when you're evaluating
Speaker:somebody for your team?
Speaker:I read a book called The Who.
Speaker:When I was at BitSight, one of the people and culture leaders told me about the
Speaker:book, and it's, it's an amazing book.
Speaker:I keep it on my desk, and it's about hiring and asking good questions and, and
Speaker:that sort of thing, and the whole framing behind it, and then how to make the person
Speaker:successful when they-- once they join.
Speaker:I learned from that book a lot about good hiring practices.
Speaker:And one of the questions that came from that book that I ask every
Speaker:time, no matter how senior or junior someone is, "What's a mistake you
Speaker:made recently and what did you learn from it?" And it's really interesting
Speaker:the responses that you get back.
Speaker:What I'm not looking for is when someone really struggles to think of something.
Speaker:Because then I think, well, maybe they're sort of perfectionistic, and they don't
Speaker:want to admit that they've made mistakes.
Speaker:You know, I had someone once that said, "Oh my gosh, I make mistakes all the
Speaker:time, you know, but I learn from them," and gave me a really good example.
Speaker:It was a work example.
Speaker:I had someone give me a, a non-work example once that was about, like, when
Speaker:she was a server at a bar, and I, I was like, "Wow, this is really interesting."
Speaker:Um, so I'm not sure why, why she gave that example, but I, I really look for people
Speaker:that are self-aware and aren't afraid to make mistakes and learn from them.
Speaker:It's like, okay, I made a mistake, but this is what I am doing
Speaker:differently now because of it.
Speaker:Because especially in marketing, as I mentioned earlier,
Speaker:experimentation is really important.
Speaker:And especially with AI.
Speaker:We're all trying this new technology.
Speaker:We're all learning from it, and now we're working to operationalize it,
Speaker:but it's g- we're gonna be continuing to experiment 'cause new models
Speaker:are coming out practically daily.
Speaker:So, um, so you, you need to really be able to, to speak to that.
Speaker:So that's a good one.
Speaker:Another, another one I like to ask is what one word would
Speaker:you use to describe yourself?
Speaker:I have mine right away, right away.
Speaker:I'm like, "I'm a con- I'm a connector. I'm a connector. That's it." Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker:Totally.
Speaker:But what's your word?
Speaker:Curious.
Speaker:What's interesting too is a lot of times people will give one word,
Speaker:and then they explain why without being prompted, and it's always super
Speaker:interesting because it's like, oh.
Speaker:And very few people will just give one word and just sit there.
Speaker:They give a word, and then they explain.
Speaker:And sometimes they'll give two, but I think it's really telling how someone
Speaker:describes themself because it's, it's not easy to come up with one word.
Speaker:I mean, you're … You just did, but not everyone can.
Speaker:What are your tips to a CMO coming into a company on how to navigate
Speaker:change management these days?
Speaker:It's a good question because the pace of change is so fast now.
Speaker:It's so fast.
Speaker:And when you come in as a new leader, people are a little anxious, right?
Speaker:They, they don't know what you're going to be like.
Speaker:And even for a great manager, even someone that's come in and gotten all
Speaker:these accolades, you have to train them.
Speaker:You have to train your manager, right?
Speaker:You have to learn how to work with them and how to interact with them.
Speaker:So it's, it's a lot of change.
Speaker:You need to try to get people's trust as quickly as you can.
Speaker:How do you do that?
Speaker:I think you can do that in multiple ways, but I learned a couple years ago,
Speaker:I had someone frame up, it's like this triangle of, of how you earn trust.
Speaker:And it's really interesting.
Speaker:It's … There's three characteristics that you have, some more, some
Speaker:less, where one is around whether you're analytical or data-driven.
Speaker:Uh-huh.
Speaker:Another one is, are you authentic?
Speaker:And the other one is around empathy.
Speaker:So analytical, authenticity, and empathy.
Speaker:And everyone has a wobble, meaning there's one that you're probably not as strong at-
Speaker:Mm-hmm
Speaker:as the others.
Speaker:When you can get all three, then you can earn trust more quickly.
Speaker:And it doesn't have to take months or years.
Speaker:It can take weeks or even hours And so it's, it's really
Speaker:powerful and really interesting.
Speaker:So I learned that my biggest strength is in authenticity, and so that's
Speaker:something that I can lean on.
Speaker:And then I'm also very data-driven.
Speaker:The empathy is interesting 'cause I, I, I think that's an area I
Speaker:do need to work on a little bit.
Speaker:And so just helping people see that you… Even if you feel like you're empathetic,
Speaker:it's perception is everything, and so you want people to feel like you understand
Speaker:them, and so paraphrasing helps a lot.
Speaker:When you're listening to someone and just kind of playing back and making sure you
Speaker:really heard them and you understood them.
Speaker:I think a lot of one-on-ones are really important when you first start out, but
Speaker:you can also do this in group meetings.
Speaker:Not in a calculated way at all, but just, hey, this is the agenda.
Speaker:This is what we're doing, and, and just being as transparent as you can.
Speaker:I think the other thing about change management is not just making the
Speaker:change, but giving people context.
Speaker:We talked about context earlier.
Speaker:Why are you changing?
Speaker:What is the outcome?
Speaker:How is this going to make us better?
Speaker:And really help people understand that, and I like to get my
Speaker:leadership team going along the way.
Speaker:I also do skip levels, 'cause people don't always ask questions in big meetings.
Speaker:They might have concerns, but they don't necessarily come to you and so they're-
Speaker:It's like you at HBS, you know?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:A little shy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Exactly, exactly.
Speaker:And it's hard for some people to give feedback, too.
Speaker:They don't necessarily wanna give their boss feedback.
Speaker:So anyway, we have multiple ways for people to give feedback if they're
Speaker:concerned about changes or really anything that's going on in the organization.
Speaker:I think just building that culture of trust and transparency where people know
Speaker:that it's okay to make a mistake and it's okay and encouraged to give feedback,
Speaker:'cause good ideas come from everywhere.
Speaker:And so I tried to build this culture of transparency, of curiosity, of a
Speaker:growth mindset, and I see it really flourishing in the AI meetings that I
Speaker:set up every other week that we- we're gonna continue for the foreseeable future.
Speaker:People really collaborate.
Speaker:They come together.
Speaker:They share what's working, and we celebrate that, and what's
Speaker:not working, what we learn from.
Speaker:I guess going back to the beginning about that change management and sort of
Speaker:building a team as a new leader, I think it really does all come down to the trust.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do people feel they, that they can talk to you and you'll listen to them?
Speaker:You won't necessarily fix everything or do everything, but you'll
Speaker:be as transparent as you can.
Speaker:And some people just wanna be heard.
Speaker:We all wanna be heard.
Speaker:Sometimes being heard is enough, you know?
Speaker:Like, and then you can disagree and commit if you need to.
Speaker:And my final question for you is just can you prognosticate a little bit?
Speaker:Like, maybe a couple things that you anticipate for CMO roles, CMO careers,
Speaker:and leadership in the next year or so.
Speaker:I mean, we talked about change management.
Speaker:I think that's becoming more and more important because if you wanna
Speaker:retain good people, you have to explain what you're doing and why,
Speaker:and have them be part of the solution.
Speaker:I certainly don't have all the answers.
Speaker:I'll never say that I do.
Speaker:I get a lot of answers from my team, and we collaborate together.
Speaker:Change management's g- it's, it's literally becoming more and more
Speaker:important every day, I think.
Speaker:The other thing is B2B marketing has become more and more analytical
Speaker:over time, and that's one of the things I love about it.
Speaker:It is going to continue to be important.
Speaker:Marketing is an, is an -ing.
Speaker:It's like we're always doing things, right?
Speaker:But it's like why are we doing them?
Speaker:And what are the outcomes we're looking for?
Speaker:And I always am trying to get the team to think about, okay, we've
Speaker:got these things to do, but why?
Speaker:It goes back to the context setting, right?
Speaker:Because you need to know where you're heading and why.
Speaker:And if people see that, and they know how, how they're going to be measured and how
Speaker:we're gonna measure ourselves to know whe- when we're successful, then I think you
Speaker:can bring the team along on that journey.
Speaker:Debbie, it's been great having you on the show.
Speaker:Thank you so much for, uh, for joining The Get.
Speaker:Thank you, Erica.
Speaker:I loved it.
Speaker:That was Debbie Umbach, Chief Marketing Officer at M-Files.
Speaker:Now that you've heard from Debbie, think about what specific tips she shared that
Speaker:will be helpful to you in your current or your next marketing leadership role.
Speaker:Thanks for listening to The Get.
Speaker:I'm your host, Erica Seidel.
Speaker:The Get is here to drive smart decisions around recruiting and
Speaker:leadership in B2B SaaS marketing.
Speaker:We explore the trends, tribulations, and triumphs of today's top
Speaker:marketing leaders in B2B SaaS.
Speaker:For more about The Get, visit TheGetPodcast.com.
Speaker:If you like The Get, please share it, and please leave a review.
Speaker:To learn more about my executive search practice, which focuses on recruiting the
Speaker:make-money marketing leaders rather than the make-it-pretty ones, follow me on
Speaker:LinkedIn or visit TheConnectiveGood.com.
Speaker:The Get is produced by Evo Terra and the team at Simpler Media Productions.
