The CMO Whisperer

My guest today is Kathryn Fernandez, Chief Executive Officer of Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence. Kathryn has spent her career helping people reach their full potential, first as a teacher, then as a Peace Corps Youth Development Volunteer, and later through leadership roles across Philadelphia's nonprofit community. Today, she leads one of the region's most impactful organizations, working every day to create life-changing mentoring relationships for young people across the Philadelphia region and southern New Jersey. 

Before joining Big Brothers Big Sisters Independence, Kathryn served as Chief Development Officer at Habitat for Humanity, Philadelphia, where she helped lead a period of significant growth, strengthened fundraising efforts, and spearheaded the organisation's first multi-year campaign, raising a whopping 5.75 million to expand its impact. And throughout her career, Kathryn has built a reputation for combining strategic leadership with authentic relationship building and a deep belief that every young person deserves someone in their corner.

My guest today is Kris Johns, founder and CEO of AdGood, and somebody whose career sits right at the intersection of innovation, media, and impact. Kris has spent more than 15 years helping shape the streaming and ad tech world, building platforms and businesses that transformed how audiences discover content and how companies create growth. He helped scale AdPool into one of the world's largest CTV marketplaces, played a major role at World before its acquisition by AppLovin, and was part of the growth story at Maker Studios before Disney came calling. 

But what really grabbed my attention was what Kris decided to do next. After helping build businesses and scale technology, he looked at something most people barely noticed: unused advertising inventory and saw something entirely different. He saw potential, he saw opportunity, and he saw a way to turn empty ad space into something that could actually help change lives. Today, through AdGood, Kris is helping nonprofits across the power of connected TV and giving organizations that normally wouldn't have a seat at the table a much bigger voice.

My guest today is James Maddison, CMO at blockchain.com, and this is one of those stories where the path to the top doesn't exactly follow the neat little roadmap that career counselors hand you in school. James has worn a lot of hats on the way. Journalism, entrepreneurship, brand building, marketing leadership, and figuring out how to connect storytelling with growth in industries that move fast and rarely come with instruction manuals.

Before blockchain.com, he helped shape growth and marketing at TradingView and played a key role at Resi, as the company expanded its presence in a crowded market. Now he's leading global marketing at blockchain.com, operating at the intersection of finance, technology, culture, and consumer trust. And if you've spent any time around crypto, you know that isn't exactly marketing on easy mode by any means.

My guest today is Barry O'Reilly, an entrepreneur, executive advisor, and bestselling author who spends his time helping leaders rethink how organizations actually work in a world that seems to reinvent itself every five minutes. He's the co-founder of Nobody Studios, a global top 10 AI venture studio with a pretty ambitious goal of building 100 companies in five years. 

He's also the author of Lean Enterprise, Unlearn and Artificial Organizations, where he explores what it takes for companies and leaders to adapt, evolve and avoid getting trapped. Barry advises boards and executive teams around the world on enterprise transformation in the age of AI. And today we're going to get into what leadership looks like when the rules are changing in real time.

My guest today is Bruce Hershey, co-founder and partner of the CMO Whisperer Advisory and someone I've known for at least 15 years. He's a brother. He's a mentor. He's a friend. He's a confidant. He's everything. He's also one of those rare leaders who has sat in just about every seat that matters. He's a former global CMO of the Year, a senior executive, operator, entrepreneur, and business builder whose career spans more than three decades across major brands, agencies, startups, and founder-led companies. 

But what has always stood out to me the most about Bruce isn't just the resume; it's the way he sees around corners. He has this incredible ability to connect leadership vision to operational reality, marketing to revenue, and strategy to actual execution.

A big reason the CMO Whisper Advisory exists the way it does today is because of the conversations Bruce and I have had over the years about what companies, CMOs and leaders are really doing behind closed doors. Not the polished conference room version. The real version.

My guest today is Mark Grether, SVP and General Manager of PayPal Ads. Mark has helped shape some of the biggest shifts in modern advertising, from co-founding Xaxis at WPP to leading Sizmek, through its acquisition by Amazon, to helping grow Uber advertising into a billion-dollar global business with more than half a million advertisers. Today at PayPal, he's focused on building an advertising business designed to help merchants sell smarter and consumers discover more of what they actually care about.

My guest today is Bonnie Low-Kramen. Bonnie is one of the most respected voices in the field of executive and personal assistant training, having taught in 14 countries and worked with organizations, including Google, Amazon, Microsoft, the Wharton School, and even the British Parliament. But what makes Bonnie's perspective so fascinating is where it all began. For 25 years, she served as the personal assistant to Academy Award-winning actress Olympia Dukakis, giving her a front row seat to leadership, human behavior, communication, trust, pressure, and what really makes people thrive at work or walk away from it. 

She's the author of the book Staff Matters: People-Focused Solutions for the Ultimate New Workplace and Be the Ultimate Assistant. Her TEDx talk is titled The Real Reasons People Quit, and her insights have appeared in both Harvard Business Review and Forbes. But this is not just a conversation about assistance. It's a conversation about leadership, about respect, about culture, about the people behind the people and the invisible glue that holds organizations together while everyone else is busy chasing the next shiny AI headline. Bonnie brings something we could all use a little more of: real-world perspective from someone who understands that no technology will ever replace the value of deeply human work.

My guest today is Marco Matos, co-founder and CEO of Adora, where he leads the company's strategy and product vision for its AI-driven performance marketing platform. Marco works with enterprise brands to rethink how marketing organizations launch and optimize campaigns using AI, helping teams move faster and make smarter, more adaptive decisions. 

Over his 18-year career, Marco has led product development for more than 25 products, with the past decade focused heavily on digital advertising and measurement. He's held product roles across Microsoft, Google, Meta and Pinterest, working on advertising platforms and data analytics systems at massive scale.

Today's episode comes to you live from Possible, but not just any Possible location. We are at the VaynerX Yacht. Possible, where every hallway has a pitch and every table has a meeting. Today I'm joined by Ryan Harwood, CEO of Gallery Media Group and Tamara Group, two businesses sitting right at the center of where modern brands are trying to go next: Attention, relevance, culture and growth. 

Ryan has built companies that understand the simple truth many still miss: attention isn't bought once it's earned every day. From scaling PureWow into a category leader to growing Gallery Media Group into a powerhouse reaching more than 155 million consumers to now leading Tamara Group new model for the attention economy. He set a front row seat to how media creators, storytelling and commerce are colliding.

My guest today is Ryan Nelsen, Chief Marketing Officer at StackAdapt. If you're not familiar with StackAdapt, think of it as the engine behind a lot of the digital advertising you actually notice. Not the spray-and-pray banner ads that follow you around like a bad decision, but the smarter, more intentional kind. The kind that uses data, AI, and programmatic technology to put the right message in front of the right person at the right moment without feeling like it's shouting at you. That's where Ryan comes in. 

As CMO, he's leading everything from global marketing to brand to communications, helping shape how a company like StackAdapt shows up in a space that's crowded, noisy, and constantly evolving. Because when you're operating in ad tech, you're not just competing for attention; you're competing for relevance.