Transcript – Episode 4 – B2B Modern Marketing Battlegrounds

Rena:

Hello, and welcome to The Arena. I’m Rena Lewis, founder and chief strategy advisor at Signature Intentions and host of The Arena podcast. In today’s episode, I am beyond excited to have as my guest, one of my favorite people on the planet and a true marketing warrior, Ken Kundis. Ken is the chief marketing officer of financial services for Capgemini, a global technology consulting firm headquartered in Paris, France. He joined the company in 2017, is based in their Manhattan office, and he leads the team which spans North America, Europe, and Asia, responsible for creating and executing global marketing programs for industry marketing campaigns, lot leadership, account-based marketing, social media and public relations before joining Capgemini, Ken was the global head of industry marketing and alliances at Mindtree where he and his team executed global campaigns and alliance programs with industry leading partners. He also spent time in senior marketing leadership roles at Emphasis, which is where our paths first crossed, BNI Melon, and a long stint at Fiserv. He has an undergraduate degree from Tulane University, is a native of Orlando, Florida, and currently lives in Hoboken, New Jersey. Ken’s passion, his financial services, knowledge and marketing expertise clearly shows in every collaboration and conversation we’ve had over the years. And it’s such a joy to talk shop with this man. So it’s a special treat for me to have him here with us in The Arena today. Hello, Ken and welcome.

Ken:

Well, thank you so much for that really nice introduction Rena. I really appreciate it. And I’m really looking forward to our conversation today.

Rena:

Terrific. So let’s get started and you’re very welcome. Let’s get started with you are telling us a bit more about the journey that led to your current CMO role and why you chose the wonderful world of B2B financial services marketing as your profession.

Ken:

Well, you know, Rena, I’m not sure that I chose it as much as it chose me to be completely honest with you. And I’ve always said that my career has been really the intersection of technology, financial services and marketing and the marketing piece I could have and would have predicted because that was something that always excited me. I actually had an internship my senior year in college at an advertising agency where I got to work on some B2C stuff. I actually worked with Chef Paul Prudhomme, if there are any New Orleans aficionados out there. So I knew the marketing piece, but the financial services and technology piece really happened by happenstance. I was working for a temp agency right out of undergraduate because I had bills to pay as we all did. And ended up getting hired by a financial services technology company at the time called New Trend.

Ken:

And really because I happened to live in an adjacent neighborhood from the hiring manager and she and my father actually ended up working on the Naval training center based in Orlando, Florida at the time. And so she and I had a lot of interconnectivity and sort of got along. And she became my boss and was for three and a half years. Lori Siragusa, very, still a very good friend of mine. You know, and through the course of that and really where that took my career, I discovered a real passion for technology and also for financial innovation. It’s been a real pleasure and honor to work in this industry now for almost 30 years, I hesitate to say, and to watch the level of fun of innovation that’s happened in financial services. It really is very much like every other aspect of society, a completely different business than it was 30 years ago.

Rena:

Well, your passion has certainly become your purpose. And I’m wondering who or what has inspired you most during your career?

Ken:

You know, it’s interesting that that should be kind of the next question because I really think it’s the innovation. That that’s what has inspired me as I look not only in technology and that’s fairly intuitive. I think everyone knows what’s happened over the course of the last 30 years in technology, but also in terms of financial services and the different ways that we approach our money and our finances and the way that that has changed over the course of the last 30 years. And it’s very easy to look in the last 10 years and say, you know, online banking, everyone’s got a phone in their hand, but even before then things like document management and ICR and OCR scanning. And I remember the first time I ever went to an ATM and I deposited a check and I was so excited about that because I had been working for many years, on documented check imaging and to have that receipt come out of the ATM with my check image on it, that felt like a proud moment to me.

Rena:

Oh, that’s wonderful. And I echo your appreciation of being inspired by innovation you know, that Scott Brinker has that MarTech landscape visual that he promotes that I remember back in 2011, it was only 200 Vendors showcased in that.

 

Ken:

And still an eyechart at that time.

 

Rena:

 Yes, absolutely. And now this year, it’s over 8,000 vendors and it can be either thrilling or overwhelming. I feel that, I don’t get as overwhelmed by them if I view them as enablers of our strategies, not as drivers.

Ken:

And I think that since Scott started to publish that that slide things have changed quite a bit. I think that you know, and I think that part of the way it has changed is based on that narrative that Scott was developing around that, which I think is very interesting. But I do think that the place of technology has really evolved over time since he really started doing that. In terms of what the outcome is, simply put. I think that we’ve had a lot of conversations about this tool does this, and isn’t that cool to what’s the business outcome here? What are we really, what’s the equation we’re solving for? I think that we’ve become a lot more kind of diligent and rigorous about what is this actually doing for me. I think we’re beyond the stage at this point, when it comes to MarTech, around let’s give this tool a shot and see how it goes.

Rena:

I think that’s great. I’m with you on that. I have three simple consideration points when I’m evaluating any new technology. Number one, what will this new technology allow us to do? Number two, if we’re not doing that already, do we need to be doing it? And number three, if we’re already doing it, will this allow us to do it better, quicker, smarter and easier than we’re currently doing?

Ken:

I think that’s brilliant. Yeah. That to me is like the perfect filter. Yeah.

Rena:

What’s been the best advice that you’ve received either personally or professionally.

Ken:

I think it’s actually the same. It’s interesting. I had a mentor back when I was at Fiserv in, when I lived in Orlando, and she was one of the most interesting professionals I’ve ever met. Her name is Julie Gabelmann. And while Julie herself inspired me, what has always kind of stuck with me more has been one of the things that she said to me. She was a very shrewd business person. And I don’t mean that in a negative way. I mean, she particularly as a woman in technology, had to have a certain set of skills to navigate. And she, one time said to me, Ken, we were actually in a meeting and I was presenting my marketing plan. And afterwards we were having, I think we were having lunch together. And I asked her how she thought it would, how it went.

Ken:

And she said that she thought it was great, but she had one note for me. And that was something that she had been living too for a long time, which was never answer the unasked question. And she told me that whenever you kind of got a stray and whenever you kind of got into a rough spot, it’s because you were answering questions that people weren’t asking you. You were anticipating someone’s negative reaction, and you were projecting that onto yourself. So don’t answer a question that no one asked you. And I thought that that was brilliant. And I think it’s particularly brilliant if you are not, a member of I don’t want to say the boys club, because I think that’s kind of a dated expression. But as a gay man, you know, being out as a gay man in the business world I do sometimes have to parse what I wouldn’t say naturally in a way that other maybe straight men wouldn’t have to. So it’s actually been a really helpful tip.

Rena:

Yeah. I think it’s excellent advice. And I appreciate your talking about what that actually means to you. Meant to you and means to you. So thank you for sharing that. So now what is Capgemini’s purpose or mission and your role and responsibilities and helping them achieve it?

Ken:

Yeah. So in Europe, I don’t have to have this conversation. I’ll start out by saying, because cap Gemini is a very well-known brand in the IT consulting space in Europe based in France about 52 years old really at the level of an Accenture or Deloitte in Europe, certainly. Not so much in North America, which has been kind of a fun challenge really. But we are a 256,000-person strong IT consulting company around the world. And so our purpose is really about solving those business problems. And one of the things that I absolutely love about the company I work for is a number of cool things that we’ve done not only to improve the business operations of our clients, but also we have a program that we call “Architects of a Positive Future” and using technology to really solve societal problems as well.

Ken:

And the company, lots of companies have that sort of stated commitment on in their mission statement or whatever, but I work for a company that really does believe in that. And really does expend time and energy and money and investment and creativity to doing that. So we actually recently rolled out a new brand promise, which is get the future you want and which really speaks not only to sort of the business future you want and the solutions you want, but also what kind of life you want to live, what kind of society you want to take a part in. And we actually just launched this a couple of weeks ago, and I’m really excited about it because I do think that it, unlike a lot of brand promises, this one really feels, it feels organic. It feels like this is part of our identity. And it makes sense regarding our identity and not only who we want to be, but who we are. And I think that a lot of times brand promises can be very aspirational. This one really bridges the gap between sort of who we are and who we want to be and how we want to see the future and see society. I’m very excited about it.

Rena:

I think that sounds actually very exciting and I love what you said about it feels good. I think that’s the best litmus test for a brand promise, is if it feels authentic and genuine. And it sounds like this one does tell us about, and I know that Capgemini certainly well-known and admired for its thought leadership. I know you think it’s not as well known in the U.S. but I see it referenced as a trusted source and articles over the place. So you all should be proud of the impact that it’s having on the brand, the new brand promise, and in helping businesses make informed decisions.

Ken:

Yeah. I have to tell you Rena that it’s rarely in my, you know, all the marketing people out there listening to this will really appreciate this, we strive to have as much sort of really great content as possible and having a rich content really, particularly for a business, a business organization, focused on technology, our intellectual prowess and how we’re perceived as a thinker is very important. This is the first time I’ve ever worked for a company where I almost have too much content. I literally have masterpieces kind of lying around the hallways. But I bet I can choose any one of them to put on the wall. And it’s a beautiful stuff. And, but I will also tell you that.

 

Rena:

That’s a great problem to have!

 

Ken:

 It is the best problem to have absolutely, it’s still a problem. I’m not going to lie. There are moments where I’ve got competing authors kind of angry at me because I’m not using theirs versus someone else’s. But the other thing, but I think the thing that I’m most excited about and I’m proudest of, but I’ve never had before is that Capgemini financial services as an entity which is about a $5 billion business with about 67,000 global employees. We have number one share of voice in financial services media. So that means that we are quoted globally more than Accenture, more than Cognizant, more than our competitors. And that really, to me, is one of those kind of exciting career moments that you don’t always have when you have to kind of stop and take a breath and say more people listen to Capgemini than the rest of our competitors. And so that’s a beautiful thing. It’s obviously a big responsibility and every year everyone’s looking at that, and that has become part of identity. So any blip to that is a crisis. But we love sort of competing in that marketplace and our thought leadership is really the reason why.

Rena:

Terrific. How is that? How is your marketing organization structured?

Ken:

Yeah, so I think probably very much like many there are four pillars. The first pillar is internal communications. So I’m going to kind of set that aside because we could have a whole other podcast about internal communications. But that function’s only been reporting to me for a little less than a year at this point. And I think one of the reasons why I think it would make such a fertile podcast and maybe we have a part two of this is around where internal comms needs to sit. The organization has made a decision needs to sit in marketing, the larger marketing and comms area. And so that’s where it sits now, but it has not always. And then so aside from IC I’ve got what I call industry marketing in the financial services area of Capgemini, we were basically broken into two pieces.

Ken:

One is a banking capital markets, which includes things like cards and payments, retail banking, commercial banking, and wealth management and then insurance which includes all the traditional disciplines of insurance that you’d expect, but predominantly PNC, property and casualty, but also life and annuity, and health. And health is actually a new focus for us. And so I’ve got marketing teams around those ideas, as well as a marketing team around thought leadership. And then one around account based marketing. Then the next piece is marketing services and that is your engine. That is your factory. So that is obviously very critical and I’m very proud of that team. I’m proud of my entire team. I’ve got very lucky with the team that I inherited and have acquired since I joined three and a half years ago. But that is as you’d expect PR, social media, content, and events. And then I have an area of increasing importance, which is marketing operations and automation. Obviously the operations piece is the administration, the accounting, et cetera, the automation piece, which of course increases in criticality it seems month to month is around CRM, MarTech stack, list management, and lead management. So that’s, that’s how I’ve organized my team.

Rena:

Wow, very smartly obviously. And I’m sure that you, they are all working together cross-functionally to maximize each other’s efforts.

Ken:

That’s the plan. And it has a really nice symbiotic relationship and everyone, I feel you know, by organizing this way, everyone kind of knows what their role is. And so it does make collaboration, I think a little bit easier because there’s not that moment of is this mine or yours. I think one of the things I try to do, not always a hundred percent successfully, but, you know, have everyone’s role be fairly clearly defined while at the same time promising the opportunity for cross-pollination. One of the things that I’ve always thought was important was, not only does every marketing person needed to write, but you need to be able to have at least a converse and understanding of all aspects of marketing. And so that ability to maybe have an internal comms person write a press release, or have an ABM person work on some design project or some ebook. You know, I think that cross-pollination really creates a much more of a shared services model while at the same time everybody’s got a day job

Rena:

And it benefits everyone on the team because they’re always continuously learning and iterating off of each other’s learnings in that regard. So I think that’s a wonderful way to organize your team.

Ken:

Thank you. Absolutely. And I also think, you know, it applies to me as well. I mean, one of the things that a former boss told me that has also stuck with me is don’t be a dinosaur. And when you get my age the inertia of age can lead you to do that. And so I make a point to try to stay as current as I can. And I don’t know if that includes sort of downloading TikTok to my phone and wasting too many hours watching TikTok videos, then that’s the sacrifice I make for marketing, Rena.

Rena:

Well, how magnanimous of you, Ken. How are you in your team leaning into that new brand promise that you mentioned during this turbulent time of COVID-19.

Ken:

You know, I think it’s such an interesting phenomenon Rena because for me, and the last thing I would want to do is to, you know, to say that something good has come out of COVID, but from a career perspective, I will say that because, particularly for an organization like mine, that is very focused on feet on the street, salespeople and account executives, really going out and having that interpersonal relationship. And that’s how we maintain our wallet share. That is how we maintain our intimacy with our client. That’s how we really approach our CXO journey has always historically been with marketing as more of a support. And then the, the feet of the street being the, the front, the face of the company to the client, we can’t do that now. So increasingly my organization and from what I hear anecdotally, most organizations in our space are turning towards marketing to say, how do I maintain that level of intimacy?

Ken:

How do I maintain that mind share with the client during this time when I cannot get in a plane and sit in front of them. And I think that a lot of account executives and salespeople and sales management and senior management and executives across at least my organization has seen, we do that through marketing. We do through that through digital marketing, we do that through content. And I think as a result, the strategic criticality and centrality of marketing has risen up to a certain degree. And again it is amazing sort of what societal things happen to make that occur, but it most certainly has been an outcome. I’d be curious to hear what your thoughts are there as well.

Rena:

Yeah, no, I totally agree with you. I think many companies these days that have that in office only policy have learned out of necessity and some ingenuity that operations can indeed, and in some cases be more efficient, work more efficiently where, you know, we have workforce productivity has increased, not decreased as they initially assumed. And what drove that in office only policy, that customer intimacy that you mentioned has led to deeper trust relationships and empathetic brand experiences that are driven by marketing. I don’t know, one business that’s going to resume their pre COVID existence once this is once this is over, which will hopefully be next year. And for those that survive, I think most, if not all, will emerge with some sort of post COVID hybrid business model that combines the best of the old and new ways of operating.

Ken:

Yeah, for me, there’s no return to normal. I think that we’re only in store for the new normal, because I do think that there are many examples in our client base that we’ve helped to convert to a work from home environment, a virtual environment. And these are organizations that never had a single employee working from home on anything close to a permanent basis. And they’ve discovered that their fears about what would happen if employees worked from home really haven’t come true. Is it different? It is different. And I do, I know for me, for example I’ve gotten to the point of probably being annoying to my staff and that I require cameras. If we’re, if we’re having a one-on-one and we’re having team meetings, you’re on your camera. We need to see each other’s faces and expressions and all of those things because it has been so very long since we’ve been actually physically face-to-face.

Ken:

But I think that with some fairly minor adjustments I think that organizations are discovering that productivity cannot be impacted in many cases. I know it’s true for me, I’m more efficient working from home are my days more fluid. Absolutely. I mean, am I rigidly working from sort of 8:59 in the morning until 5:01 in the afternoon? Of course I’m not. I mean, the way that I would, if I were possibly in the office but I mean, it is a little bit more fluid. But I’ve certainly by no means am working less and I’m very likely working more.

Rena:

I totally agree. Totally agree. How have the events this year around social and racial injustices is that effected Capgemini’s commitment to DENI diversity equity and inclusion related activities or imperatives at all.

Ken:

You know, it’s interesting working for a global company that is not based in the U S you know, their reaction to things like Black Lives Matter has really been interesting. In that it’s…

 

Rena:

How so?

 

Ken:

Well, in that it’s just been well, of course, of course. You know, I think that, you know, in the U.S. we’re still having a conversation that they settled maybe not completely, but are far more close to being settled in continental Europe and the UK. And so, you know, from their perspective there’s not really much of a conversation to have about it other than how can we support this initiative. So that’s been very interesting. I think if I worked for an American company at this point, I might have a different impression. In fact, I’m certain I would. But yeah, so the company is doing very much the right thing and that’s not surprise for me.

Ken:

You know, one of the other interesting things for me is that I get to be a part of those conversations because I am one of the executive sponsors for one of our employee resource groups, which is called Out Front, which is for our LBGTQ community. And so I get to be part of those diversity conversations as part of the larger, so DNI community. So it’s an honor for me really. Because again, I work for a company, you know, we all have days when we are sort of shaking our fist at the company we work for. I certainly have those but it’s a wonderful thing to work for a company that you really believe in regarding these sort of things Capgemini doesn’t just talk the talk, we walk the walk and that makes sort of things like loyalty and commitment, a much easier thing.

Rena:

Wow, That’s great. I’m delighted, but not at all surprised to hear you say that as a global organization Capgemini has always been aware of and committed to DNI related activities and initiatives for the organization. I think as, as MLK Jr stated “injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere” and you know, for Capgemini to take such a great global position and stance on being supportive, I think is really very good. And what I find so hopeful about reactions to all the unfortunate events that happened this year is that people are coming out across race, gender, class, sexual orientation, religion, et cetera. They’re all taking a stand I’m seeing we talked about internal, which we can talk about. Internal is now the new external, and I’m seeing that companies that are truly committed to walk in their DNI talk, as you said, are taking a deeper look within and being more intentionally inclusive and their objective assessments of who they are versus who they want to be in this space.

Rena:

And then taking those inputs and data to respond for those horrific moments that became this incredible global movement towards embracing meaningful and measurable actions, initiatives like the Out Front one that you mentioned and plans for creating injuring systemic change. I’m hopeful about that.

Ken:

The other thing I’d say too, Rena, is all of that is absolutely true. The other thing I would say that I find very interesting is that, you know, for many years DNI were checkboxes and we’re evolving. I think we’ve gotten to a place where we’re finding a Capgemini, that we have clients that will come to the table during negotiations, and they’ll want to know what our DNI strategy is. And they, it is a decision point for them. They will only work with companies that have a similar set of values regarding how to approach our presence on this planet. Both in terms of something like net-zero from a carbon emissions perspective to how strongly we value diversity and inclusion. One of the things that Capgemini does a great deal of work around is run digital inclusion, because we obviously, we have a large organization, a large part of organizations in India and a lot of places all around the world and digital inclusion particularly for young women is something is really very, very important to Capgemini.

Ken:

And in getting those people who maybe are not in those areas where they have access to the internet and to computers, to outfit places to do that and to really just create a more inclusive society. It’s so much fun to see how technology can make that happen and to be a member of that community.

Rena:

I agree. And I love that. I love what you said particularly about Capgemini’s commitment to saying let’s make sure not only from within ourselves, but also the people that we do business with, vendors and making sure that there’s some inclusion efforts going towards some definite intentional efforts saying, yeah, we want to do business with a vast array of partners and partners who share our, our values.

Ken:

Yeah, what I think it comes down to too, is that these companies, shareholders are insisting upon that. You know, there’s been so much about sustainable investments and sort of ethical investing. And if you work for a big bank and your shareholders are saying, these are things that are important to us, I mean, I think, it really does come from a grassroots level. It comes from that sort of belief that is permeating throughout society. And a lot of people talk a lot about millennials, but I think that, really it was the millennial generation that made kind of altruism and giving back and looking at sort of society at large, really central to our thinking these days.

Rena:

Yes, absolutely. I totally agree.

Ken:

For all you millennials out there. Thank you. You don’t hear that very much. Thank you very much from someone who’s not quite a boomer I’m generation X, so I’m not quite a boomer, so you can’t say okay, Boomer. But I will say that the millennial generation definitely brought that to the table, for sure.

Rena:

Absolutely. I concur. So what tried and true strategies have you counted on to help executives and colleagues understand the value of marketing?

Ken:

You know, it’s funny I’m only going to talk really about one because it’s my favorite one. And it really is around sort of the idea behind what I think is the most important aspect of marketing today, which is our new ability over the course of, let’s say the last five years of having return on investment, be something that we can quantify. You know, I remember many years, I’m sure that you do as well, Rena, going into the executives office, asking for an advertising print advertising campaign of all things and then saying, how are we going to get our money back on this? And me saying, you have to just trust me, this is about brand. These days, we aren’t limited to that. We do have the ability to establish what the actual return on investments of every marketing dollar we spend is.

Ken:

But that really comes back to a conversation we were having earlier tools development discussion and how to not only choose those, but I think more importantly, roll them out because all the technology that exists in all of the offices of all of our MarTech friends and we all have them. And the great work that they’re doing is only valuable if it’s implemented properly. And what I’ve found is a couple of things. One is you have to have top-down buy-in. And when I say top down, I mean, very top of the house buy-in regarding how you’re going to implement your CRM and your MarTech stack. And if you have that, where everyone knows there’s one version of truth, then you’ll get everyone sort of playing by the right set of rules. And I think that is absolutely critical, but what I’ve discovered is to identify what I call a premier league of salespeople and account executives within the organization who already get it, who already, and I think we have literally hundreds of people who fit in that category, but I can tell you the 15 or 20 or so who really get it from a MarTech stack, they really understand the value and they’re hungry for those things.

Ken:

And what you do is you kind of endow them with those gifts. You make them quote unquote pilots for everything that you do. And then if you’re rolling out a new system around ABM, I don’t want to sort of have this be a commercial, but there’s lots of technology that we could talk about in terms of analytics. And the value that that brings, you know, really rolling that out to a subset of those confederates that you’ve already identified and then have them succeed with those tools becomes its own internal commercial, because for those of us who work in a B2B environment with very competitive salespeople and account executives, what your peer is doing matters, and for you to be able to look to your left and to your right and say, well, that person got a deal based on this technology tool that marketing rolled out to them.

Ken:

Where’s mine. That is how you roll it out, because if you make it a requirement, if you go in and say, you must go into, we call it Thor at Salesforce. If you must go into Salesforce a daily basis, and you must write down every interaction and it feels like there’s burden that they’re not getting anything from, and they’re just it’s money that they’re not spending time on the phone or in meetings, then they they’re going to start resenting it. But if you really attach that to an outcome that they want, then suddenly you’ve got whole different ways. As opposed to pulling away they’re pushing toward it. And I’ve done that a couple of times in my career and it’s worked out really, really beautifully. And so that’s something that I’ve depended on to answer your question.

Rena:

No, and I love that. I think that’s so smart, Ken. I’m not surprised at all. You were doing something similar and Emphasis, that was always your way at Emphasis. And so I’m not surprised that you have carried that through and leverage that and increased that there at Capgemini as well. I think is it’s brilliant to have these champions who can then tell the story from their peer perspective, so from having a sales champion, telling the other salespeople, these are the outcomes. As you mentioned, that I can get from embracing this new technology or this new process or this new collaboration, then they see that, and everyone wants to jump on board. And I think you started from a place of, you know, defining what is what’s in it for them first, I have been helping them understand that you’re not dictating, you’re not mandating that this must be in place. You’re really, you know, bringing them into the process.

Ken:

Yeah, you’re flipping the script. You’re saying, help me do this, as opposed to you will do this. That’s a very different proposition.

Rena:

I think that so smart. Ken. So what have been some of the key lessons that you’ve earned and learned along the way?

Ken:

Yeah. I love this question because there are a couple, and I probably have a reputation among my team of saying the first one quite often, and that is have a short memory. I think that it’s very easy when we work really closely with people that you’re going to develop opinions about them and about working with them, but we don’t choose who we work with. We have no control over their personalities or how they’re going to react to things. It’s not like our personal life where you can curate who you want and don’t want to interact with. That’s not an option that you really have here. So maintaining your professionalism, remembering that you may need to apply a certain filter to this person, but forgetting the outcome previously and just focusing always 100% on the outcome, which is getting the work done. And that really is what you’re paid for.

Ken:

That is what your obligation is to your organization is to get the job done. And personalities while they have a place and will have an effect, and we’re all human. Having a short memory really, I think helps me at least get through those tough moments. The second one I would say is really for managers out there. And one of the things that I’ve actually been surprised about over the course of my career, if you were to ask me at the beginning of my career, what I would be sort of proudest of the roughly mid point or beyond the mid point, I can say at this point now for me, would certainly have been some sole contributor creative contribution I would have made. What it turns out is that I’m most proud of managing people in the way that I’ve managed people. And the one precept I’ve always had is shine a light on people, let them take credit for their own work.

Ken:

If they do well, praise them publicly. And if they do poorly explain that to them privately. To really shine a light on your people. That is not to say to indulge them. Absolutely not. No one who reports to me would call me an indulgent boss. But it really is about giving them credit. Because what I’ve discovered is that if you stand on someone’s back and you push them and push them and push them to get something done, they’ll get it done for you once and they’ll get it done for you the way that you want it done once. But if you shine a light on them and you give them the space to move and insert their own creativity and their own way of doing things, you’ll get it done beautifully every time, because they’ll want to do that for you because they’ll feel invested in the outcome. And that’s something, it sounds simple, maybe even a little Pollyanna, but that’s something I deploy on a daily basis that I’m actually very proud of. And it has resulted in lower attrition. And I think general higher job satisfaction among my team. You know, marketing jobs can be very transitory. A lot of people come and go. And I keep people and I’m very proud of the fact that I keep people and I do think that’s why.

Rena:

Very wise and important lessons, Ken, and thanks for sharing them. And it wasn’t Pollyannish at all. What you’re talking about in terms of shining lights that really resonated with me. I think that as team leaders, as you said, we have a responsibility to provide that clear vision and strategic direction for the teams that we’re privileged to lead, to enable them with resources, guidance, and coaching that they need to succeed and then get the heck out of their way and champion and celebrate, illuminate their efforts, talent analysis which leads to my next question. Yeah. Which actually leads to my next question as a CMO. What specific skills or traits do you look for in hiring new talent?

Ken:

Yeah, there are a couple and they’re probably not even what, well, the first one might be what you would, what we’d imagined. I think that every marketing person even if they were an events person, needs to be able to write reasonably well. To me, this is a dying art, my sort of foundational component of my career is around writing. I’ve always regarded myself as a writer first. So maybe I’m a little bit prejudiced about this, but I do think that every marketing person needs to be able to write at least an elevator pitch successfully. And I think that’s important. I do give most everyone, maybe not an events person, but most everyone gets a writing test when they apply for a marketing role at Capgemini on some form or fashion, or I need to see some published work that you’ve done.

Ken:

It’s tricky with published work because you don’t know if they really wrote it or how many editors there were. So I do like to give a bit of a writing test. Just, can you write subject verb, declarative sentence? The second one is their level of engagement. Did you research the company before you came talk to me? Did you look at our website? I’ve actually been on interviews recently where I’ve asked the question, how much do you know about Capgemini and the person’s response was nothing. Well, that demonstrates a lack of intellectual rigor on your part. At this point also, if you didn’t look me up on LinkedIn, I think something’s wrong. You know, I’ve got my settings set where, you know, you can definitely find me. I’ve got a pretty unusual, last name, not hard to find me on LinkedIn.

Ken:

If you didn’t go in and take a look at even where I went to school or some get to get some sense of me. And maybe people think that that looks creepy, stalkery. Absolutely not if I see directly before maybe a half an hour before an interview that someone went and looked me up, they get points for that as far as I’m concerned, because I’ll tell you what I’m doing it to them. I’m looking at their LinkedIn profile that has become the online resume. And I’m not bashful about saying that I will look you up. Every reporter I talked to, every business executive I talked to, if I have a meeting with a partner, I look them up. It’s a perfectly natural, normal thing to do. And I don’t care if you know. So I don’t have my privacy settings set that way.

Ken:

I want you to know. And I want people to look up the person they’re speaking to, it’s natural and it’s the contemporary way. We have no privacy these days basically. So let’s not pretend like we do. And then the final one is related. And I think that’s a natural curiosity. It kind of goes back to that cross-functional team I try to build, which is having a natural curiosity. Maybe you are, you’re my PR person, but you have an interest or curiosity about what the MarTech stack looks like or what social media advancements are happening because high tide raises all ships. If we are all conversing in all of these topics, we can have far deeper and more intelligent conversations on them. So those are the three things I’m looking for. Now, of course, we’re looking for experience have you done the work that’s important, but these three things to me are more important because that will ensure you’ll be a cultural fit. And at a multicultural company like Capgemini, the cultural fit is key.

Rena:

Hmm. Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. I think your points are very well taken, conducting the necessary due diligence, particularly beforehand to be as informed as possible about the company and the people you’re going to be speaking with is an imperative. That’s always judged favorably and it’s a pet peeve of mine as well. And I think it leads to, as you said, as you alluded to more meaningful questions that you can ask and discussions that you can have with potential employers and that makes a really good that makes a really good impression on, on me. You talked about having an agile and engaged mind. It makes me think of current agile marketing environments where we are intentionally and iteratively learning to fail fast and learn sooner. As a, I’ll admit, a recovering perfectionist I learned that striving for perfection the Holy Grail of success.

Ken:

I will tell you being a perfectionist as a marketing person is a road to misery. I am not a perfectionist. There is such thing as 80%. Good enough for me. Absolutely.

Rena:

I did say I’m a recovering perfectionist and that fear of failing and making mistakes actually keeps us outside of the arena where acting decisively and healthy competition and striving for excellence or higher achievement really prevails, which by the way, inspired me fun fact, inspired me to create and name this podcast, The Arena from Theodor Roosevelt’s The Man in the Arena speech.

Ken:

Well, I also thought it had something to do with the last four letters, Rena.

Rena:

Well, that’s a bonus. That was a bonus. And it allows me to showcase impressive marketing gladiators, like you, Ken.

Ken:

And it’s, yeah, it’s awesome. And I think it’s much needed. I think that, we end up, I know for me, I was telling you earlier, we end up doing, we do 10 podcasts a month on our, the topics that we market we don’t spend enough time doing podcasts about the work that we’re doing and what an important discipline that is.

Rena:

So true. So true. I also loved your point about having a natural sense of curiosity, not becoming, like you mentioned earlier, this dinosaur and being continuous learners, because as marketers, we do live in an ever evolving and exciting world of accelerating change and innovation. So what keeps, what are some of your favorite go-to resources to keep you informed current, and battle ready?

Ken:

Yeah, the biggest one, I would say, look, I’ve got all kinds of stuff that I have to read on a weekly basis within the financial services industry. So, you know, there are a couple of publications that I key in that I feel like they curate what I need to know best, but that probably would not be appropriate for this group. My favorite, honestly, still to this day is cmo.com. I know it’s an Adobe sort of sponsored page, but I think that they really, two things I love about it. One is they really crack the idea of a content hub. Something that I’ve tried to do myself as well, where they’ve made it a destination point. Obviously Adobe is a very strong partner of Capgemini, I am very impressed by a lot of things they do. And I’ve been working on Adobe products for what feels like 20, 25 years now.

Ken:

So big fan of that one. I think it’s, it has a lot of very progressive ideas. And then it also does a great job in curation. You can find yourself spinning off into a variety of other interesting linked content I’m from cmo.com. The other thing is, my own younger staff. So really telling them and empowering them, you know, you are responsible for bringing things that we don’t know to the table, and they do that. You know, there was, I take a close look pretty often these days with fishbowl. If you work in the it or consulting industry and you’re not  on fishbowl, you should be, it’s really fascinating insights on there. I won’t go into that, but it’s really interesting. Yeah. So and then the other thing too, is partners.

Ken:

You know, I mentioned Adobe earlier, just in general, I think that when you work for a company that has 265,000 employees you can get into a space where you’re very much a battleship and we have a lot of partners, particularly emerging what we call scale ups, next generation beyond a startup who are doing a lot of very cool creative stuff. And I love to sit with them, learn more about what they’re doing but also you know, really kind of dig into the technology that they’re putting forth as well. It’s a great source of innovation. And it helps to keep my mind in that FinTech space, that scale up space more than if I just sort of lived in the walls of Capgemini.

Rena:

Yeah, those are great. Those are great. I love it. You mentioned about Adobe being that content hub, and you can go down that rabbit hole, you know, to other uses that they it’s a good news is it’s a good rabbit hole cause they would, they purchased Marketo right? Which is a leading marketing automation platform. And they also have that, which leads to great, you know, articles and resources and blog posts there as well.

Ken:

Yeah. And I think that with Salesforce owning Pardot and Adobe now with Marketo we’ve got sort of a battle of the titans, yeah.

Rena:

Yes. Oracle purchased Eloqua back the same year that the same year in 2012. So I think all those three, you know, we got the top three and those are great resources to keep your skills, and fun fact, Ken, all those three acquiring companies as the Eloqua, Pardot, and Oracle, they were all on our top tier strategic Alliance partner list at Emphasis. You remember that?

Ken:

Absolutely. They were, and they remain top tier partners for everywhere I’ve worked since. So obviously we know those are sort of the, some of the horsemen that that we all are focused on.

Rena:

I also like martechtoday.com and HubSpot is another content hub that’s an excellent resource for modern marketing articles. They have webinars and they also have free training courses with certifications that are extremely valued by employers.

Ken:

Yeah, I love HubSpot. Unfortunately I’ve never worked in an organization that where I’ve had a chance to be a practitioner of HubSpot. But I’ve always heard that as someone who has been a practitioner of both Marketo and Pardot, that HubSpot is a great tool. And so it’s just, it typically for whatever reason, more focused on smaller organizations and I’ve just happened to work for the big boys. And so we tend to go with Pardot or Marquetto.

Rena:

Yeah, yeah. Okay. So now my last question stems from my knowing that we are both tremendous fans of Renee Brown. So in the spirit of daring greatly tell us about a time when you chose courage over comfort when you risked failure, but took off your armor and showed up anyway.

Ken:

It’s an interesting question for me because I’m drawn to one specific moment in time in my career that was very important, not only from a business perspective, but also from a personal perspective. And that was really in the late 1990s right around the time that Will and Grace debuted on national television. And I was at the time working as a columnist and a senior contributor to the local gay and lesbian newspaper in central Florida which was called watermark ultimately turning into the largest gay newspaper in the state of Florida, which was called Watermark, ultimately turning into the largest gay newspaper in the state of Florida with a circulation of 30,000 or more. And it had been, had a relationship with that paper for quite some time. And when Will and race debut, the editor of the local daily, the Orlando Sentinel called the editor or publisher of the, of the gay and lesbian paper and said, do you know anyone who would be a nice local angle on Will and Grace?

Ken:

And it turns out that my ex girlfriend from high school and I, who I actually came out to on prom night and I were living together as roommates, 10 years later. And he said, Oh, I have the perfect, I have the perfect people. So they sent a reporter over and we did the interview and I wasn’t thinking much of it. And I was really kind of, you know, I was out very much in my personal life at the time, but I didn’t really talk about it at work. And I didn’t really give it much thought to be honest until the photographer came up on a different day to take our photograph. And I asked at the time, I said, well, no, I was pretty well connected in the gay community. And I said, well, who else you know, who else in Orlando are you interviewing?

Ken:

And she’s like, Oh, no, no, no, you’re, you’re the story. And I was like, Oh, okay, that’s interesting. And so then cut to the day the article actually appeared. And the front section, the front page of the living section of the paper contained a photograph of myself and my friend and her soon to be husband on the, above the fold on the front page of the living section. And I was in the foreground. And so my head was about the size of a grapefruit. I’m a bald, I know you can’t see me, but I’m a bald guy. So my head was roughly the size of a, sort of a decent sized grapefruit. And we were the story. So at that point I was out, I was outer then I was planning on being, and I remember very clearly my father calling me and saying, you’re going to get fired like, this is not going to be good.

Ken:

And so I went into the office the next day and, you know, people typically fell across gender lines. The women in the office were like, Oh my God, I saw you in the paper. And the men didn’t say a word to me, and typically didn’t even make eye contact. And I had a couple of tense weeks where I wasn’t sure how that was going to turn out. And I had, and I reported directly to the president of the business unit at the time. And I had probably been enrolled for maybe 11 months at that point. And he called me into his office for my annual review. This is probably two weeks later. And I got a review probably beyond what I deserve because I was still learning the job to be honest. And didn’t feel as though I had done a great job and I got a great review and I very much got a sense from him that it was in a way to say, this is not going to affect your career trajectory here.

Ken:

And in the late 1990s working for a good old American software company called Fiserv, you know, that, that said a lot. Fast forward, 10, 15 years later I had kind of a different encounter with that person, which was unfortunate, but at the time it meant a great deal to me to feel as though I can put my chin out here and I can sort of be my full self in front of these people. And no, it didn’t change the way that I behaved at work. I still didn’t really talk very much about, I was single at the time anyway, so there wasn’t anything to talk about. And so, it didn’t really change my behavior and I think that it did change the way that people perceived, sort of gay men in the workplace, not me. And that’s the best thing that could happen for a situation like that, where you’ve changed people’s minds about their preconceptions instead of changing their minds about you.

Rena:

Wow. What a courageous and inspiring personal story of really gaining strength by embracing vulnerability and the powerful impact that showing up as your true, as you said, your true full self can have on you personally and professionally and others. So I firmly believe that people can relate when they see themselves in your story. So I just want to say thank you for bravely sharing.

Ken:

Oh, thank you. I mean, at this point I’ve traded so often in so many forums and nothing brave. It doesn’t feel brave at all, any more, but at the time yeah, it did. And scary, scary as well.

Rena:                                                                                                      

Of course. Well, I thank you again and thank you for sharing that as well as the other valuable experiences, learnings, tips, techniques, and insights. I appreciate you and I appreciate your time.

Ken:

Well, I appreciate it as well. And I’m looking for my next invitation to talk about internal comms.

Rena:

I think we should make this a part two. You’re definitely going to have to come back. It has been a great pleasure as always. And to our audience, thanks so much for listening. I hope you found this episode worthy of your time. If so, please feel free to share it with someone who might also benefit from our discussion, comment, like, and, or follow us on our Signature Intentions social media channels, and remember that you are never alone in the professional challenges and opportunities we’re facing today, because you’re always welcome to join me and my guests, warriors light Ken Kundis here in The Arena.

Ken:

Thank you so much, Rena. This has been a great bunch of fun. Thank you so much.

Rena:

Thank you.