His childhood dream was to be part of the sports world. Thus, it comes as no surprise that he had spent the majority of his career at one of the sports industry’s giants - adidas. Michael Kraphol is a German native with emotional ties to Spain’s Barcelona. Humble and passionate about people, Micha calls himself a regular guy in the marketing world. He believes in the old-fashioned Shakespearean storytelling and in our conversation we cover:

• The joy of sharing excitement with others.
• Imposter syndrome and earning one’s self-confidence.
• Reminder that it’s a combination of things that define you.
• His most memorable moments at the Three Stripes.
• Why he is a bit of a LinkedIn hater.
• How simple, old-school storytelling is more important than the special tools and effects available to today’s creatives.
• His belief that companies should hire theater play writers for their marketing departments.

We’re bringing you the other half of the sibling duo behind the NYC digital creative agency The Charles Group - Aaron Edwards. While his sister Sam (Ep 28) is known as a “right brain” person, Aaron complements the relationship with his self-proclaimed “left brain” approach. Originally hailing from Manchester, England - Aaron spent his early career working as a financial analyst at Barclays Capital in London, before moving to New York in 2010 to found The Charles Group. Aaron’s penchant for trends, data and analytics, made his transition from finance to creative relatively seamless, particularly as it was during the first wave of data driven design with marketing agencies flourishing in the creative and digital industry. In our unplugged chat, we discuss: 

• His journey from a boring, yet well-paid corporate job to an unpaid internship at an ad agency. 
• Why writing a business plan is the quickest way to find out if you know the industry. 
• His thoughts on sales being the hardest skill to learn. 
• Why he gets excited about the “non sexy” brands on their roster. 
• Their agency’s breakthrough moment working on the Cocainenomics project with the Wall Street Journal. 
• How he uses AI to arrive at results faster. 
• Automation becoming a big focus in marketing in the uncertain economy ahead. 

Aaron’s deep understanding of the relationship between creativity and commerce and attuned business strategy skill set has helped to solidify The Charles as ranking in the top 1000 of the INC5000 fastest growing creative marketing and digital agencies in the United States. The Charles’ current client roster includes corporate tech and lifestyle heavyweights IBM, Boston Consulting Group, Netflix and Bloomberg and time-honored luxury brands including Estée Lauder, Marriott, Cartier and Omega.

Continuing our mini-series with recruitment and job search experts, we are joined for an episode with the head of talent acquisition and employer branding at one of Europe’s largest digital banks, N26, Chris Hunter. Chris traded his initial career ambition of becoming an international human rights advocate for building relationships and understanding people. Whether it’s helping individuals achieve more than they did the day before, or helping a client indentify their exact need and finding someone they know will change their business, Chris is driven to assist others. In our chat we discuss:

• How his university years became a seminal time in his life.
• His take on diversity in the workplace.
• Taking your job, not yourself too seriously.
• Why recruiting is often misunderstood.
• Employees defining their own employee experience.
• Importance of not taking layoffs too personally.
• Best in class examples of how to stand out in the job market.

To hear tables turning and Chris asking Fabio and Slavka questions, listen till the end!

If you ever contemplated working at the tech giant Amazon, you would have heard of their rigorous “loop” recruitment process. Even if you haven’t, this episode is a worthwhile listen for any jobseeker today. An executive coach and talent acquisition director, Eric Hudson joined us for an insightful chat about his journey, in which he has coached, managed and placed thousands of individuals for six-figure and seven-figure level positions. Eric started his career recruiting pilots and pivoted into one of his coolest and craziest rides at Amazon, where he spent 10 years and earned the coveted role of “bar raiser”. When he left Amazon, he was more tenured than 98.7% of the company. In our conversation, we talk about:

• Launching Amazon’s AWS service that amounts to $80B revenue today.
• What it means to be a “bar raiser” and why it’s important.
• How he got into executive coaching.
• Dos and don’ts of networking on LinkedIn.
• Difference between networking and having a network.
• Transactional vs. transformational examples on your resume.
• Peeling back the onion in interviews.
• Not crumbling under interview pressure.
• Key traits and characteristics of the best talent.

Known for his “thinking human” approach to leadership and to building brands, Doug Zarkin is a modern marketing leader who has earned placement on several "Top Marketers" lists, multiple North American Effie Awards, a Clio award, and was twice recognized as Innovative Marketer of The Year by The CMO Club.

His professional portfolio includes leadership positions at global brands such as Avon, Victoria’s Secret PINK, and most recently EssilorLuxottica, where he’s held the Chief Marketing Officer role for the Flagship Optical Franchise Retail, Healthcare Services Business at Pearle Vision. 

Doug’s work restoring the power of the Pearle Vision brand is currently the subject of a Harvard Business School case study on brand rejuvenation. We were honored with his guest appearance, in which he shared: 

• Why he worked his way back from the “end of the train” to eventually land in a “conductor” role. 
• How his move to Victoria’s Secret was a successful failure.
• Passion is one of the key criteria when hiring for his team.
• The importance of regularly recognizing and rewarding progress.
• His realization is that “speaking teenage” is harder than any marketing challenge. 
• How being a parent reminds him that consumers are first and foremost human beings, not Excel sheet data points.
• Why questioning whether you are a brand or a performance marketer is stupid?

Matchmaking runs in her veins. Thus, it comes as no surprise that she’s been successfully climbing the professional ladder in the business of connections. Melissa Hobley - a ball of endless energy, a mom of two and the global CMO of the biggest dating app in the world Tinder - loves being the wing(wo)man.

While switching between Cocomelon (baby parents will understand), Tik Tok and the Wall Street Journal, Melissa continuously obsesses everything about the Gen Z and isn’t afraid to step into polarizing topics. First weeks into the job at her her previous employer OKCupid, she launched a pro-choice filter within the dating app questionnaire and committed to this topic for several years to come. In our truly unplugged conversation, we talk about:

• How serving a higher purpose is one of the key criteria when choosing her job and the employer.
• Why she talks a lot about being a parent at work.
• The correlation between feeling supported and being creative.
• Why Tik Tok currently holds one of the top spots in her media mix but out-of-home is not dead.
• What she looks for when hiring for her team.
• Why the The Tinder Swindler Netflix show actually drove a lot of people back to Tinder.

A leading expert on brand-building, Melissa Hobley has a reputation for marrying powerful brand marketing with data-driven digital advertising. Prior to her current CMO role at Tinder, it was under her marketing leadership that OkCupid has become famous for its message of inclusion and affirmation, winning numerous awards for its breakthrough campaigns. Melissa was featured on the Forbes Most Influential CMOs list, named to AdAge’s “Women to Watch”, and featured on AMA’s “40 Under 40.”

Sport and entertainment are a few of the most powerful tools left in the marketing arsenal that have the ability to make people stop what they’re doing and care about your brand. Needless to say, they’re also some of the coolest areas in which marketers dream to work. According to Ricardo Fort, they represent a bridge and a shorcut to brand relevance in people’s lives. Ricardo has been fortunate to experience the most epic moments in the World Cup, the Olympic Games, and the Super Bowl as part of his job description. A list that could make not only the IT guy who inquired about too many soccer match files on his work computer but also a wider audience jealous of him calling it work.

Ricardo is one of the most respected names in the global sponsorship business. As the only executive to lead the Global Sponsorship Departments of two FIFA and IOC sponsors - Visa and Coca-Cola – he successfully negotiated over a billion dollars worth of sponsorships. We had the privilege to chat with him about:

• His personal journey from an an engineering background to the alluring discipline of sports marketing.
• The power of sports and entertainment.
• His favorite project with the soccer legend Pelé. - His take on Cristiano Ronaldo’s move to the Middle East.
• Sometimes publicly divided opinion on companies like Coca Cola.
• Peaks and valleys of leadership in large corporations.

After working with the International Olympic Committee, FIFA, UEFA, the Special Olympics, athletes, McLaren F1 team, Ricardo launched his own company Sport by Fort Consulting. He helps sponsors, leagues, investors, and athletes successfully invest in sports and counts Olympic sponsors, sports-tech startups, Federations, and clubs. among his clients.

Robin Daniels oozes optimism and positive energy, despite struggles and valleys on his personal and professional journey. Growing up poor collecting deposit bottles and working three jobs while studying at the age of 15, he still managed to be a happy and an optimistic kid. It is that energy and mindset that ultimately brought him to the Silicon Valley with a one-way ticket, two suitcase and no work lined up. Two decades later, he counts three CMO titles as well as marketing and growth leadership roles at Salesforce, Box, LinkedIn, Matterport, and WeWork among his credentials. Yes, yes, we got to talk about the infamous downfall of WeWork but the episode is so much deeper than the scandal. In our candid conversation with Daniel we cover:

• His belief in soft skills as key to career advancement.
• Daniel’s equation of outcomes.
• Rare occasions when he gets frustrated.
• Living through the WeWork crash.
• Why good marketing is wildly misunderstood.
• Tectonic shift in the role of a CMO.

Warning: there’s a lot of laughter in this episode and we love it! Joining us for an unplugged conversation, Samantha Edwards - the Chief Creative Officer and Co-Founder at The Charles Group, a digital focused creative agency based in NYC - pulls the curtain on her journey often guided by intuition. When Sam converted her brother from the world of finance to the mesmerizing space of creative, they vowed always to focus on people first and to never be afraid to walk into a big meeting. The sibling duo started out building websites and storytelling for DJs and quickly extended their creative genius to two seemingly different worlds of prestigious luxury, beauty, lifestyle and corporate tech. Today, their roster includes heavyweights like IBM, Bloomberg Media, Cartier and Omega among others. In this candid episode, we discuss with Sam:

• Why starting a family business is a great idea (despite general advice against it).
• Her intolerance to working in a toxic environment.
• Sam’s perspectives on being “of culture”.
• How richness in one’s life comes from anywhere.
• Her approach to developing big creative ideas through writing stories.
• Most favorite project that her agency didn’t win.

Originally hailing from Manchester, England - Samantha relocated to New York in 2002 where she honed her design and marketing skills on award winning brand campaigns for DKNY Fragrances, TOTO USA, and Össur Bionics. Inspired by the strategic side of the creative industry and driven by the advancements in digital technology, Samantha joined forces with her brother Aaron Edwards to form The Charles. Named after their great grandfather, the founding mission of the newly formed agency was - ‘To Honor. To Inspire’. The Charles is rooted in her commitment to strategy, culture and creativity, which has enabled The Charles Group to grow from strength to strength.

This episode is genuine good fun. It’s not often that one sees the words “fun” and “data analytics” in the same context. Yet, Tiankai Feng - a data leader by day, and a passionate musician by night - manages to demystify the world of data while making this space more inclusive and less scary. How? He sings about it. Tiankai strikes a unique combination of his musical talents as a pianist and a signer with his subject matter expertise. A digital analytics anthem authored and rapped by him during COVID quickly spread through the community and beyond. He has since amassed a nice following in social media and tapped into an interesting niche. Still, Tiankai is one of the most humble and genuine people we’ve come across. In our unplugged conversation, he shares:

• Why data democratization is a culture change.
• Most common tensions between data analysts and their business partners.
• How his multicultural background made him feel like an outsider all his life.
• Why he always chooses to find positives in this experience.
• His passion for raising attention to important topics in a creative and entertaining way.
• Perspective on the AI movement.
• Importance of having a detective mindset for a career in data analytics.