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Author Talk: 'Think Round'
How to Get 100% of Your Company Focused on Consumers 100% of the Time.
Today, it’s trickier than ever to “get” and stay in step with your consumers. The new, complicating factor is that consumers are more in tune with themselves and each other than at any other time in human history. Companies are left on the outside looking in, puzzling out how to insert themselves into a meaningful relationship. Compounded by the loss of serendipity in our online discoveries, and the rise of the personal “algorithmic bubble,” a critical challenge for brands is reaching individuals at an authentic level.
The key to winning big and staying at the top in business, is empathy. The capacity to recognize and respond to emotions and aspirations experienced by consumers. Without empathy, a leader will falter. A brand will decline. Strategy can lose focus, and the company become isolated from the very people on whom it depends for success.
In this conversation, MARTHA PEASE explores the concepts present in her book, Think Round. She shares why and how the challenge for CEOs and companies is scaling empathy to the enterprise level so it can be a sustainable advantage in creating long-term value.
Dare to be Legendary: The Secret to Relevance
One of MARTHA PEASE’s favorite topics is the connection between legendary brands and the secret to relevance. When you dare to build legendary businesses and brands – and really go for it – the byproduct of that aspiration is often learning how to manage transformation. And transformation is the key to relevance.
Pease has sat in a lot of very special rooms where transformation happens. Reshaping some of the world’s most iconic brands. She has worked side by side with legendary founders, leaders, innovators and advertising geniuses, including Steve Jobs, John Sculley, Bill Campbell, David Novak, Phil Dusenberry and Jean-Paul Agon. And sat in many seats at the table including C-suite, Board Member, agency partner, consultant and advisor.
In this conversation, she zooms into some of those legendary moments, takes you into the rooms and offers key lessons that you can take into your work.
Culture at the Core: Driving Business Sustainability through Cultural Relevance
Virtually every brand MARTHA PEASE has touched has succeeded by recovering from high visibility stumbles in sustaining broad cultural relevance. Throughout her career, she has been linked with brand building that fuels culture as well as commerce for IBM, Apple, Pizza Hut, Neutrogena, Dominos, Lifetime TV, L’Oreal, Victoria’s Secret.
This includes helping Apple relaunch its first, failed Macintosh computer with a stunning campaign aimed at business which never showed or mentioned the product name, to reframing Victoria’s Secret for a modern world of diverse female identity. Pease draws on this operating experience to speak to leadership teams about how to recover and regain their currency.
In this conversation, Pease maps the playbook of strategies and approaches that can redefine culture, brands and their legacies.
Business Transformation Leader, Chief Marketing Officer, CEO, Board Member
Martha Pease is a Chief Marketing Officer, Board Member, CEO and Global Business Director recognized for leading companies in transforming brands and businesses to increase shareholder value. Martha has held high-level posts in media, retail, fashion, beauty, technology, creative, and consulting firms for iconic companies and including IBM, Apple, Neutrogena, Dominos, L’Oreal Paris, BBDO, BCG and Victoria’s Secret. Recognized and respected as expert in unlocking growth, Martha realigns complex organizations and business models toward transformational change by resetting priorities, balancing risk, and building stakeholder consensus.
Her global perspective, ability to navigate critical inflection points, and direct expertise in scaling businesses are hallmarks of her career. She understands how to capitalize the intersection of digital technology, strategic thinking, culture, creativity, and innovation across industries. Recognized and respected as an expert in driving growth, Martha realigns complex organizations toward transformational change by resetting priorities, balancing risk, and building stakeholder consensus.
Martha has led global teams through periods of significant challenge, steering brands to purposeful and sustainable growth by building new equity and consumer relevance. As CMO, Martha led the architecture and activation of the brand vision and transformation narrative for Victoria’s Secret, and supported the highly successful 2021 public offering. As Neutrogena CMO and Member of the Operating Board, she spearheaded major revenue initiatives, expanded to new distribution, and elevated consumer insight to create and launch the company’s most successful skincare line, Healthy Skin.
In her role as BBDO’s Global Account Director, her strategic vision into the behavior of business customers was central to the successful, early repositioning of Apple’s Macintosh computer to the business market. Martha’s global account leadership for L’Oreal Paris at McCann Worldgroup reinvigorated the iconic “Because I’m Worth It” platform for digital-first consumers, and as EVP at JWT, her team repositioned Domino’s as a modern, trusted brand. Martha served as a Partner and Global Leader at BCG, supporting a range of clients in marketing, sales and brand growth. As a Board Director, Founder, and Investor, Martha has applied decades of experience in leadership and governance to help drive innovation in medical devices, internet data analytics, skin care and consulting services. Recognized for distilling complex messages into digestible information, she has shaped national media conversations as a CNN commentator and authored the book Think Round. A highly awarded advertising and marketing executive, Martha’s work for clients has won every major advertising industry prize including multiple Cannes Gold Lion. Martha is committed to progressing leadership diversity as a mentor and coach to women founders and investors in fashion, healthcare, and retail technology start-ups.
Martha holds a BA from Dartmouth College in English Literature and Film History, with multiple citations for excellence and High Honors. In addition, she is a graduate of the Harvard Radcliffe Publishing Procedures Course at Harvard University, and a NACD Board Leadership Fellow.
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