CULTURE AS A GROWTH LEVER
> Read the full findings from our CMO Report: The Tipping Point.
> A NEW MANDATE FOR MARKETING Traditionally the champions of brand and customer, CMOs are now applying their skills inward to shape the employee experience (EX) with the same intent and impact they use to shape campaigns and the customer experience (CX). This shift is not accidental but born of urgency. We spoke with 50 leading global CMOs across sectors and every single one agreed that brand promise and internal culture must align. “If you can’t sell your value proposition to your own employees, you’ll never sell it to customers,” said Eva Blatch of OneSubsea, who now serves as both a culture architect and a marketing strategist within her organization. Like many interviewed for Brandpie’s CMO Report: The Tipping Point, Blatch sees a direct link between EX and CX and believes marketing’s toolkit is uniquely suited to bridge that gap. Shell Energy's Chris Guerrero, VP Customer Integration & Marketing: “If all you’re doing is creating ads, you’re not doing marketing. You’re doing advertising.” Guerrero’s team now manages not only external communications, but also internal comms, executive messaging, and employee engagement across Shell Energy’s portfolio. In the absence of formal ownership of culture, CMOs like Guerrero are filling the vacuum— applying storytelling, brand thinking, and omnichannel engagement to energize their workforce.
you change it is leaders walking the talk,” said Maggie Hawkins of Shell Chemical. For Hawkins, marketing is more than demand generation—it’s a platform for driving trust and clarity during change. It’s about more than just sharing updates but about reinforcing direction, rebuilding confidence, and ensuring that people across the organization feel connected to where the business is headed. In a sector that often feels reactive, Hawkins sees marketing as a stabilizing force and a means of making complexity digestible, and transformation human. A renewable energy company CMO described it this way: “We start from inside. You either have a culture that sustains what you promise externally, or you don’t.” Her team—unusually embedded within the People function—uses brand strategy to unify internal and external behaviors, supporting rapid growth and expansion across Latin America. For companies operating across diverse regions and regulatory contexts, this alignment is both more difficult and more critical. Another CMO from a renewable energy company, who helped lead a multi- year rebranding and cultural refresh, emphasized the challenge of cohesion across borders. “Our brand had to translate across languages and legacy mindsets,” they said. “The internal values couldn’t just sound good—they had to live well.” By simplifying values and aligning culture and brand from the ground up, the business created the conditions for consistent customer experience, even in an organization with a global footprint and regional complexity. Commonwealth Fusion Systems (CFS) faces a different kind of challenge: aligning culture at the pace of scale. With a workforce doubling every 18–24 months, CMO Joe Paluska is building
If you can’t sell your value proposition to your own employees, you’ll never sell it to customers.
Eva Blatch, Corporate Strategy & Brand Manager, OneSubsea
CULTURE CAN NO LONGER BE COMPARTMENTALIZED
Across the board, energy CMOs are rejecting the old notion that brand is external and culture is internal. These functions are now fluid and inseparable. “The culture is what it is. The only way
28 Brandpie Energy - Issue 3
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