Humans & Brands

From perfume labs to Glamsquad’s CMO chair, Simona Gaudio shares how detours, setbacks, and self-belief built her nonlinear career.

This week on Humans & Brands, host Lauren Douglass sits down with Simona Gaudio, CMO of Glamsquad, for an honest conversation about leadership, career detours, and staying kind in a business that often rewards the opposite.

If you’ve ever felt behind, stuck, or unsure of your next move, this one’s a reminder that there’s no straight line to success.

This week we're flipping the script. Instead of hosting, Lauren joins Valerie Vespa and Matt Wurst on The Snarketing Podcast, and the conversation is too good not to share.

We touch on some of Lauren's favorite hottakes: why B2B marketing is so bad right now, why most corporate brands are failing to break through the noise, and why the human touch is already more important than ever in an AI-centered world.

We also talk about the sea of sameness in B2B, how to turn your sales team into thought leaders, and what she wishes every CEO understood about marketing.

If you've attended a conference that felt pointless or wondered why B2B marketing feels so disconnected from actual humans, this conversation will resonate. It's snarky, it's honest, and it's packed with tactical advice for anyone trying to cut through the noise. There are a lot of hot topics to cover in this episode, so let's get into it.

This ones for the dreamers who are all about rejecting the traditional path.

What happens when you build a company from a calling instead of a business plan? Maria Sipka, Co-Founder and EVP of Brand Strategy at Linqia, shares one of the most profound conversations about entrepreneurship you'll hear.

From a 10-day silent Vipassana retreat that told her to leave everything behind, to spending two years traveling the world discovering her purpose, Maria's path has been anything but traditional. We talk about why she believes we're living in a Renaissance moment, how marketers hold the key to unlocking human emotion, and why it took five years instead of one to build what she thought would be a quick startup.

Maria gets real about the power of surrender over control, how choosing a co-founder is like choosing a life partner, and her guiding principle: "It's the silence between the notes that makes the music."

What does it really mean to be daring? This week we explore taking big swings and stepping into opportunities that feel scary but could change everything.

Growing up with big dreams written on a whiteboard (own Manchester United, start a media company, buy a yacht), Michelle Turnbull Reeves, three-time founder and Founder & CEO of Zipline AI, meant writing her own rules from day one.

Many careers follow a straight line. Evin Shutt, CEO and Partner of 72andSunny, took the opposite approach. From middle school teacher to the first employee (and now CEO & Partner!) at one of the most creative agencies in the world, her story is about having the courage to pivot when something doesn't feel right. Host Lauren Douglass sits down with Evin to explore her "pendulum" approach to work-life balance, what 94% of C-suite women have in common, and how Evin realized she was chasing what she thought she should do instead of what made her happy.

What happens when you refuse to let corporate politics kill your creativity? This week, host Lauren Douglass sits down with Drew Train, Co-Founder and CEO of Oberland, who left it behind to start his own shop, and hasn't looked back since.

What happens when you stop fighting who you are and start using it as your superpower? Tune in with Lauren Douglass this week as she interviews Karen Riley-Grant, Chief Marketing Officer of Vuori, to unpack this. From starting on the Gap sales floor in Daytona Beach to leading marketing at one of the biggest apparel brands, Karen's journey is proof that your authentic self is your biggest asset. We talk about her obsession with staying close to customers, why she had to accept that she just doesn't do "slow," and how being told to dial it down early in her career almost made her lose what makes her great.

In a world increasingly going digital and looking towards AI, why are in-person experiences more powerful than ever? Carley Faircloth-Kilmurray, Global CMO at Spiro, argues that IRL experience aren't just fun events to attend - they're business critical.

Hosted by Lauren Douglass, they talk about why leaders are quick to cut experiential budgets (hint: measuring ROI wrong), how AI has made human connection more valuable, and what most people get completely wrong about events. Carley shares her "why not" philosophy and why she believes live experiences are the secret weapon brands are undervaluing. 

If you've ever wondered whether that company event is worth it, or you're curious about the real ROI of human connection, this one's essential.

What's it really like to be president of one of the biggest agencies in the world? Melissa Levy, President of Digitas, pulls back the curtain on her 20-year journey from finance to the C-suite.

In this conversation, Melissa gets real about the myth of work-life balance (spoiler: doesn't exist), why she compartmentalizes everything, and her "flush it and move forward" philosophy that's gotten her through two decades in this chaotic industry. Together with host Lauren Douglass, they talk about why she wishes she'd been more assertive earlier in her career, the advice she gives to young women starting off in their career, and why in-person connections are more critical than ever in our remote world.

If you've ever wondered how to stay grounded in an industry that never slows down, or you're looking for straight talk about navigating leadership as a woman, this one's worth your time.