by Carla A. Fleming | Jan 4, 2026 | Business, Business Strategy, CEO, CMO, Growth, Leadership
Lou Gerstner. I’m sorry to hear of the December passing of IBM’s former CEO. I was lucky to join IBM as a graduate school co-op a couple of months after he did. What none of us knew was how the transformation he engineered still has people talking long after he... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Oct 26, 2025 | Alignment, Business Strategy, CEO, CMO, Leadership, Sales, Software
An 11 am meeting ends at 11:05 am. The CEO just torched your second-half launch plan. No warning. As the VP of Marketing, your ears are ringing with the words, “Just get it done.” The Painful Present • CEO wants to leapfrog the competition with the new AI product and... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Aug 24, 2025 | Business Strategy, CEO, CMO, Customer Success, Growth, Leadership, Marketing Strategy, Sales, Strategy
Luxury Experience Principles. What did I learn at the Waldorf Astoria that can impact B2B software? More than you think. According to Marketing Week, 68% of customers feel most brands have very similar communications and marketing messages. I’ve experienced this... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Apr 7, 2025 | AI, Disruption, Leadership, Strategy
Sequential thinking is dead in the era of AI. I didn’t realize this until I worked on the first project in my MIT AI-No-Code course. Forward-leaning CMOs, CEOs, and firms investing in AI must embrace parallelism, or parallel thinking, because it’s the... 
by Carla A. Fleming | Feb 25, 2025 | AI, Business Model, Business Strategy, Growth, Leadership, Uncategorized
Customer-centricity is a 2025 growth trend. Why? According to MarTech, 52% of B2B executives plan to replace their B2B CMOs with B2C CMOs in 2025-2026. What is behind the change? It boils down to knowing your customers on a much deeper level. I believe this is an... 
by Carla A. Fleming | May 31, 2024 | Business Strategy, Disruption, Leadership, Product Marketing, Sales, Strategy
🌍 Did you know that 40% of Millennials and GenZ B2B buyers want a direct and personalized purchase experience much earlier in the process? According to Forrester, the buyers want the offerings specifically tailored to their needs. In talking with a CX expert about...
