CMO Journeys

Julien McCluney is the Global Chief Marketing Officer of Jacuzzi Group, a company sitting at the intersection of home, wellness, and premium consumer products. The route to that role started with a plan to become a doctor, ran through a finance career in New York, and changed direction after a single branding class in business school. It's a candid look at how a marketing leader gets built out of detours rather than a straight line.

What the Conversation Covers

• The career pivot from finance to brand management, and the rejections that redirected the path
• Why brand management is described as the intersection of human stories and business numbers
• The argument over whether marketing is an expense or a growth lever, and how to make the case to leadership
• A leadership philosophy built on patience, bravery, and being the safety net for a team
• How agency partners are evaluated, why fit is the hardest thing to judge upfront, and when the work stays in-house instead

Guest Bio

Julien McCluney serves as Global Chief Marketing Officer of Jacuzzi Group, leading marketing across a house of brands that includes Jacuzzi, Sundance Spas, Hydropool, and Dreammaker. That background combines finance, brand management, product innovation, and P&L leadership, with prior leadership roles across brands including Monopoly, Nerf, Rubbermaid, Oster, and Crockpot.

About the Podcast

CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Steve Daheb leads global marketing at Flexera, a company that helps the world's largest organizations understand and manage what they spend across software, cloud, SaaS, hardware, and AI. The path there ran through comic books, art academy offers, a psychology degree, and law classes taken at night while working full time. It is a useful conversation for anyone trying to understand how a marketing leader's instincts actually get formed.

What the Conversation Covers

• The career journey: an artist's start in the Bay Area, a father's blunt redirection, and a climb that tracked every major technology shift from networking to AI
• Why law school turned out to be the best marketing training available, and how moot court maps almost exactly onto messaging and competitive positioning
• The childhood moment that produced a lasting empathy for the customer, and how pattern recognition across past technology waves shapes decision-making
• How a marketing organization gets aligned from the inside out, and why internal partnerships across product marketing, customer success, and sales come before anything external
• What Daheb expects from agency partners: how far the work should get in-house first, why inherited agency relationships get kept rather than replaced, and the kind of creative work that earns real enthusiasm

Guest Bio

Steve Daheb is Chief Marketing Officer at Flexera, where the remit spans global marketing, product marketing, demand generation, and brand strategy. Prior senior roles include Oracle, where Daheb led the platform story behind the company's move to the cloud, as well as Citrix and Tanium. Outside of work, Daheb is a lifelong comic book reader, a Comic Con regular, and has built motorcycles, one of which won a national award.

About the Podcast

CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Neville Billimoria is Chief Marketing Officer of Mission Fed Credit Union, a member-owned, not-for-profit financial cooperative serving San Diego County. He built and sold his own agency before joining Mission Fed, so he sees marketing from both sides of the table. He also holds a firm belief that culture is the one advantage competitors can't copy.

What the Conversation Covers

• How he talked his way into an agency that had turned him down, created a biotech marketing category, and later sold his own agency to Saatchi & Saatchi
• Why the first half of his career was brand as marketing, and the second half has been brand as culture
• How Mission Fed competes with fintechs and challenger brands by using technology to personalize while keeping people at the center, and why it put its brand behind a persona named Ed
• How martial arts shaped his view that leaders should coach, not manage, and why he makes room for well-meant risks that fail
• How he ran a nationwide agency search, what "show me you know me" means in a pitch, and why he respects agencies that skip an RFP

Guest Bio
Neville Billimoria is Chief Marketing Officer at Mission Fed Credit Union. He leads marketing and works with a roster of media, print and digital, PR, and creative agency partners. At Mission Fed he has led many of the credit union's outward-facing functions. Before that, he founded and ran his own agency, which he sold to Saatchi & Saatchi.

About the Podcast
CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Yama Habibzai is the Chief Marketing Officer of Aptean, a global provider of industry-specific enterprise software for manufacturers and distributors. He joined a company built from more than 70 acquisitions and 135-plus products, and he treats that complexity the way an engineer treats a hard problem: something to be taken apart and solved. His perspective is valuable because he has spent a career turning highly technical products into clear growth stories.

What the Conversation Covers

• His path from Kabul to Maine to the marketing C-suite, and how an accidental start pulled him into marketing
• What engineering taught him about breaking a complex, multi-brand business into solvable parts
• Why he defaults to building marketing capability in-house, and when he will actually bring in an agency
• What he learned in an operator's seat as president and COO, and why he chose to return to marketing
• How customer empathy shapes his work, from reading a cold email to deciding which problems are worth his time
  

Guest Bio

Yama Habibzai is Chief Marketing Officer at Aptean. He studied engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and began his career in technical marketing at MathWorks, the makers of MATLAB. He has since held marketing and operating roles at technology companies, including NetCordia, Infoblox, ScienceLogic, HiveIO, and Device42, where he led marketing through the company's acquisition by Freshworks, often helping smaller companies grow toward an acquisition or a public offering.

About the Podcast

CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Jack Markham is Chief Marketing Officer of Inside Real Estate, the technology company behind the platform that agents, teams, brokerages, and major real estate brands use to manage leads, marketing, transactions, recruiting, and growth. He arrived at the CMO role from sales and general management rather than brand, and it shapes almost everything about how he runs the function. For anyone thinking about what a marketing organization should actually be accountable for, his perspective is a useful one.

What the Conversation Covers

• The path from leading sales teams to running marketing, and the event where he bombed a speech in front of 500 people and decided to learn the industry from the inside
• What it means to run marketing as a revenue function rather than a reactive, process-driven one, and how the mandate changed when he took the role
• How he builds accountability without micromanaging, including why he tells his team that three of every five things they try will be wrong
• Where AI and automation fit in his organization, and why he uses them to expand what a team can do instead of cutting headcount
• What he screens for in an agency partner, and why an industry sitting between B2C and B2B breaks demand generation playbooks that work everywhere else|
  

Guest Bio

Jack Markham is Chief Marketing Officer of Inside Real Estate. His background spans sales, customer success, product strategy, acquisitions, general management, and revenue growth, and he previously served as the company's Executive Vice President of Strategic Growth. He has spent most of his career in the real estate industry, including an earlier chapter building a recurring revenue business from the ground up.

About the Podcast

CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Ahmed Iqbal leads marketing for the Cadillac Formula 1 Team, General Motors' new entry into the world's fastest-growing sport. He joined after an unusual path through investment banking, automotive, and the social platforms Twitter and TikTok — and he's now building a brand, a fan base, and a commercial business from the ground up. His perspective is a rare look at how a modern marketing leader thinks and operates.

What the Conversation Covers

The winding career journey from investment banking to Audi to Twitter, TikTok, and Formula 1

How storytelling and carrying a revenue number shaped his marketing leadership

Building an American team's brand on a global stage without becoming polarizing

Building a marketing organization from zero to one across sports, tech, and automotive cultures

How he evaluates agencies — and what too many of them miss about Cadillac F1

Guest Bio

Ahmed Iqbal is the Chief Marketing Officer of the Cadillac Formula 1 Team, working within TWG in partnership with General Motors. His background spans automotive, media, technology, partnerships, and revenue growth, including leadership roles at Audi, Twitter, and TikTok. At Cadillac F1, he oversees brand, campaigns, digital, and the team's ambition to grow into a media business.

About the Podcast

CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Jessica Doyle is the Chief Growth Officer at Double Good, a Chicago-based fundraising technology company that helps youth sports teams, schools, and other organizations raise money through app-supported popcorn fundraisers. In this episode, she traces a career that runs from customer strategy consulting through Uber, Twitch, Cameo, and the NBA, and shares how she thinks about growth, leadership, and building teams.

What the Conversation Covers

• Her career journey, from knowing in high school that she wanted to do marketing to leading growth across an entire company
• The lessons she took from Uber's earliest days, when testing and learning through mistakes was the whole job
• The mentor who reshaped how she leads, and the advice she gives about investing in peers
• How she structures a growth organization and decides what to build in-house versus outsource
• Her practical approach to agency partners, freelancers, and fractional support, and when each one makes sense
  

Guest Bio
Jessica Doyle is the Chief Growth Officer at Double Good, where she leads marketing, partnerships, sales, customer support, and the Double Good Kids Foundation. Before Double Good, she held growth and marketing roles at Uber, Twitch, Cameo, and the NBA, beginning her career in customer strategy consulting.

About the Podcast
CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Thomas Rubino is the Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Cooper University Health Care, one of the major academic health systems in South Jersey. He came to marketing by an unusual route — law and politics — and that background shapes how he thinks about persuasion, messaging, and building a brand in a fiercely competitive market. His perspective is a useful one for anyone who wants to move people, not just measure them.

What the Conversation Covers

• Tom's path from running political campaigns to leading marketing for a major health system
• How his legal and political training taught him to turn complex issues into clear, persuasive messages
• What it takes to build a healthcare brand in a crowded, competitive market
• How he structures a "small but mighty" team and where he brings in outside agencies
• What makes an agency stand out to him — and the vanity metrics that make him tune one out
  

Guest Bio
Thomas Rubino is the Chief Communications and Marketing Officer at Cooper University Health Care, where he has spent a decade overseeing brand marketing, public relations, internal communications, social media, and the website. Before healthcare, he served as an elected official and ran political campaigns, working in public relations and message strategy, and later led communications on the health-insurance side before moving to the provider side at Cooper.

About the Podcast
CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Maggie Connors is the Chief Marketing Officer of Havas Creative Network, one of the major global creative networks inside Havas. In this episode, she shares the journey that took her from art student to global marketing leader, and why she believes craft and creativity are still what win clients in an industry racing toward automation and AI.

What the Conversation Covers

• Maggie's career journey, from a hands-on studio internship to nearly seventeen years at Arnold and roles at JWT and Deutsch
• How she thinks about creativity, brand, and why she still doubles down on the craft
• The way she rebuilt marketing into a real growth engine, not an afterthought between pitches
• How she and her team approach client relationships through listening and empathy
• Her practical, all-in view of what AI changes for agencies, and what it never will
  

Guest Bio
Maggie Connors is the Chief Marketing Officer of Havas Creative Network. She has spent her career at the center of agency growth, positioning, pitches, and partnerships, with earlier leadership roles in new business and growth at Arnold, JWT, and Deutsch. She works closely with Chief Transformation Officer Tracy Barber to build the network's global marketing story.

About the Podcast
CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.

Sari Winick, Chief Marketing Officer of Learning Resources and hand2mind, joins CMO Journeys to discuss how classic CPG training can translate into education, toys, retail, ecommerce, and family decision-making. Her perspective is valuable because she brings deep experience across consumer goods, healthcare, nutrition, sales, analytics, and brand leadership.

What the Conversation Covers
• Sari’s path from medical sales to marketing leadership, including her early CPG training at Quaker Oats, PepsiCo, SC Johnson, and Mead Johnson Nutrition.
• How working closely with sales teams shaped her understanding of customers, field insights, and what marketing needs to deliver.
• The evolution of her CMO mandate as consumer behavior, digital media, influencers, content creators, and performance marketing continue to change.
• How Learning Resources balances lower-funnel performance marketing with upper-funnel brand building, awareness, and experimentation.
• Sari’s approach to agency partnerships, including when specialized partners, media expertise, TikTok knowledge, creative support, and category understanding are most valuable.

Guest Bio
Sari Winick is Chief Marketing Officer of Learning Resources and hand2mind, where she leads marketing, media, analytics, and design across a portfolio of educational toy and learning brands. Her background includes medical sales, consumer goods, consumer health, infant nutrition, pharma, retail, and B2B education marketing. At Learning Resources, she focuses on brand growth, consumer engagement, educational outcomes, and helping families and educators discover hands-on learning products.

About the Podcast
CMO Journeys is a podcast from NextBigWin hosted by Christian Banach. The series features conversations with marketing leaders about the path to the C-suite, the challenges they are tackling inside their organizations, and how they evaluate agencies and strategic partners.