In this episode of Frontier CMO, Vineet Mehra, Chief Growth Officer at Chime, joins Josh Spanier to unpack what it takes to lead marketing through the next platform shift. Drawing on a career that spans Procter & Gamble, Johnson & Johnson, and Silicon Valley, Vineet shares how CMOs must evolve from brand managers into capital allocators who drive growth by effectively managing where dollars are deployed. To do this successfully, they must become "balance sheet literate" and learn to speak the "love language" of the CFO—specifically focusing on unit economics, payback periods, and the marginal return on every incremental dollar spent. 

Vineet breaks down how Chime has restructured marketing around AI-enabled teams, in-housed creative and production, and redesigned customer support - turning automation into speed, savings into reinvestment, and execution into a competitive advantage. His thesis: perfect execution is table stakes; growth comes from strategy, taste, and how you design the system.

Whether you’re navigating the pressure of AI adoption, balancing brand with direct response, or trying to stay relevant as automation accelerates, this episode offers a practical framework for building durable growth in a world where leadership, not technology, is the real differentiator.

00:00:00 — CFO + marketing: CAC, payback, unit economics

00:01:00 — Intro: the CMO role is changing

00:02:00 — What marketers must change for the next era

00:04:00 — What stays the same: brand story + taste00:05:30 — In-housing creative with top talent

00:08:00 — AI makes creative faster (from boards to near-finished)

00:10:30 — Biggest benefits: speed, savings, bigger ideas00:12:00 — “Chief Growth Officer” and owning the full funnel

00:15:00 — Full-stack marketer + systems architect

00:19:00 — Using AI agents at Chime (customer support example)00:25:00 — How to build an AI-ready culture

00:29:00 — Advice to traditional companies

00:30:00 — Fun: AI + pizza00:33:00 — Brand vs performance = one system

00:35:00 — Handling end-of-quarter CFO pressure00:38:00 — Signal vs noise + wrap-up takeaways

Marketing is being rebuilt from the infrastructure up. Search is changing. Commerce is becoming agent-driven. Measurement is being redefined in real time. And the line between engineering and marketing is disappearing.

In this episode of Frontier CMO, host Josh Spanier sits down with Vidhya Srinivasan, Head of Ads and Commerce at Google. As the leader responsible for Google Ads, YouTube Ads, Shopping, Merchant Center, Gemini integrations, and payments, Vidhya is helping architect how the modern marketplace actually works.

The conversation explores what “agentic commerce” really means, why the Universal Commerce Protocol could reshape how brands interface with AI systems, and how Gemini is already rewiring performance, creative, and intent matching across the ad stack. Vidhya explains why CMOs don’t need to code — but must become technologically fluent — and outlines a five-part leadership blueprint for navigating AI transformation with optimism, speed, and accountability.

00:00 – The Vision: Reducing the “Commute Cost” from Desire to Purchase

00:28 – Engineering Meets Marketing: Why the Worlds Are Merging

01:31 – Inside Google Ads & Commerce: The Scale of the Role

03:13 – Agentic Commerce & the Universal Commerce Protocol Explained

04:29 – AI Search, Longer Queries & Reimagining Ads

05:05 – YouTube Creators, Culture & the Creator Partnership Hub

06:18 – How Gemini Powers Google’s Ad Systems

07:06 – Why Trust Is the Foundation of AI Advertising

07:51 – What CMOs Must Understand in the AI Era

14:19 – Measurement, First-Party Data & Cracking Attribution

21:38 – Leading AI Transformation: A 5-Point Playbook

25:32 – The Holy Grail: The Right Ad, Right Person, Right Moment

Marketing is colliding with a creator economy that looks more like television, community, and culture, rather than what we used to think of when we think of social media.

In this episode of Frontier CMO, Josh Spanier, VP of AI & Marketing Strategy at Google, sits down with Colin Rosenblum and Samir Chaudry, creators and hosts of Colin & Samir, to unpack how the creator landscape has fundamentally changed, and what CMOs can do to get creator partnerships right.

They explore why attention without connection is a dead end, how creators have become the arbiters of taste, and why brands must stop treating creator partnerships like performance ads and start building long-term, value-aligned relationships.

A practical, forward-looking discussion on creators, community, and the shift from attention to connection.

Brands are currently caught between two realities: the pretty strategy deck and the real world where attention is the currency. Gary Vaynerchuk, CEO of VaynerMedia joins Josh Spanier, VP of AI & Marketing Strategy at Google to discuss why traditional brand models are failing and which channels remain the C-suite’s most misunderstood growth levers.

Gary argues the bottleneck isn’t media—it’s creative slowed by excessive approvals and organizations built for campaigns rather than culture. To win, brands must collapse the walls between media and production, treating social as a daily operating system. This is a candid conversation for any leader ready to bridge the gap between boardroom theory and real-world business results.

00:00 — Creative vs. Media: What Actually Drives Results

01:38 — Practicing in the Trenches, Not the Decks

02:38 — The Real Role of the CMO in 2025–2026

03:51 — Performance vs. Brand CMOs: Why Both Miss the Mark

05:13 — “Day Trading Attention” and Measuring Real Outcomes

07:28 — Creative Is the Variable of Success

09:49 — LinkedIn Is the B2B World’s TikTok

11:21 — Relevance at Scale Beats “Matching Luggage”

13:49 — Why Production, Creative & Media Must Merge

15:05 — Who Wins in an AI-Powered Marketing World

18:42 — Rebuilding an Agency for the AI Era

21:06 — Brand Means Different Things to Different People

26:07 — How to Pitch Marketing to the CFO

30:41 — Rapid-Fire: Metrics, Media & Buzzwords

32:05 — Field Notes from the Frontier

Today’s CMO is  being asked to deliver growth in a  landscape defined by radical uncertainty and AI disruption.

In this episode of Frontier CMO, Norm de Greve, Chief Growth Officer at General Motors, joins Josh to explore what it takes to drive reinvention inside one of the world’s most complex legacy brands. Norm uses his experience making high-stakes decisions that have defined his career— walking away from $2 billion in tobacco revenue at CVS to steering GM’s resurgence—and turns it into actionable tactics for modern leaders. His thesis: Own the entire business engine, not just the brand.

Learn how to move at the speed of change, without losing your creative soul. 

Whether you are navigating the anxiety of the AI era or managing the tension between short-term performance and long-term brand building, this episode offers a masterclass in building sustainable systems for growth.

00:00 – Creative Still Matters in the Age of AI

00:24 – Welcome to Frontier CMO & Norm De Greve’s Journey

01:22 – Inside GM’s Turnaround and Reinvention

02:26 – Why Automotive Is One of the Most Powerful Brand Businesses

05:01 – Bankruptcy as the Catalyst for Change

06:11 – EVs, Profit Pressure, and a New Marketing Model

08:38 – Leading Teams Through Constant Change and AI Anxiety

10:11 – From CMO to Chief Growth Officer

13:48 – Short-Term Sales vs Long-Term Brand Building

23:48 – Rebuilding GM’s Agency Model with MediaMonks and Metropolis

31:34 – Why Brand and Human Taste Matter More in an AI World

34:24 – Field Notes from the Frontier: Growth, Change, and the Human Soul

Learn more at Think with Google: https://business.google.com/us/think/frontier-cmo/ 

You can also find us on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/frontier-cmo-podcast-by-think-with-google/id1860114911 

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2frcKgPI191iwfmVMHGfgY
Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/f0b58c08-3ce3-418d-9dad-bd0635141ff4/frontier-cmo-podcast-by-think-with-google

In marketing, AI is not a technology problem, it’s a leadership challenge and opportunity. Our premiere episode of Frontier CMO comes to you from CES 2026. We skipped the crystal ball hype to get to the point: AI is not just a tech shift, it’s a leadership test.

In the first episode, Josh Spanier sits down with Shelly Palmer—CEO of The Palmer Group, Advanced Professor in Residence, and one of the most trusted advisors to the Fortune 500—to separate business-model signals from gadget noise. Shelly was direct: reorganize your marketing around human-agent pairs. In this new era, subject matter expertise is more important than ever. The better you are at your craft, the better your agents will be. Set your department up for continuous adaptation—or watch it grind to a halt.

Thesis: The role of the CMO today is akin to a driver teaching a self-driving car. You are co-working in human-machine pairs, training the system until the day you can move from tactician to pure strategist.

In the AI era, marketing should be unstoppable, and its future is being written in real time. Frontier CMO talks to the leaders shaping it. Join Joshua Spanier, Google's VP of AI and Marketing Strategy, in his deep-dives with the leaders, marketers, technologists who are rewriting the playbook. Welcome to the Frontier. New episodes drop January 2026.

We’re asking the questions others won’t: How do marketing leaders prove ROI to executives? What does a modern marketing strategy look like when AI and analytics are reshaping the rules every day? Each episode of Frontier CMO explores the real-world playbooks leaders are using to navigate the AI-powered landscape. 

From marketing trends and branding breakthroughs to advancements in digital marketing, social media, content marketing, and B2B marketing, Frontier CMO breaks down what’s working and what’s not to help you navigate this new landscape.

Subscribe to Frontier CMO on YouTube, Apple, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts to get alerted when the first episode drops in January.

Kim Iadevaia has been at the forefront of the influencer space for years, helping brands navigate successful partnerships. Now as Chief Growth Officer at Influential, she reveals the secret to building trust, scaling content, and driving real business growth through authentic creator connections. 

Join us for episode one of Marketing Voices and Perspectives - your own marketing masterclass. If you want to hear from the sharpest minds in marketing about how to stay relevant and consistently see impactful results, this podcast is for you. 

This week on Modern Marketers, Tombras president Dooley Tombras joins Google's Joshua Spanier and Bethany Poole to discuss being the third generation to lead the family business, what it means to be an independent agency focusing on data and creativity, and the partnership with PODS and Google to create an impossible ad campaign using generative AI. Dooley shares a few favorite campaigns from his 20 years at Tombras, how he balances classic marketing metrics with modern approaches, and what the next five years look like for the agency.

This week on Modern Marketers, McDonald's VP of Marketing Elizabeth Campbell joins Google's Joshua Spanier and Bethany Poole to talk about her 20-year career at the company and how the brand keeps consumers at the center of everything it does. Elizabeth shares some of McDonald's most iconic marketing campaigns and product launches she has worked on over the years, as well as tips for engaging with consumers in a way that feels natural to them and how the brand decides what does and doesn't need to be tested.