When you walk into a new CMO role, what do you look to understand first before making your mark? How are you applying that thinking at Omilia?
Whenever anyone walks into a new role, there is often an understandable desire to make a fast start and demonstrate impact from day one. Early momentum matters, but there is a difference between making effective progress and introducing change for its own sake. In my experience, avoiding the latter starts with understanding what is already working, where the gaps are and how the business is viewed by those closest to it.
That is why I tend to start with customers. Their perspective shows the company as they experience it, rather than simply as we intend it to be seen. I want to understand what they value, how they perceive the relationship and what they are saying about Omilia. That perspective then informs my conversations with sales about which parts of the story are resonating, which customer pain points recur and where the greatest opportunities may be. Together, those views provide a grounded basis for assessing whether our narrative reflects the reality of the buying process and what marketing should preserve or potentially change.
Of course, the external view is only part of the picture. I also need to understand the founders’ vision, the culture, how leadership measures success and what has historically mattered from a marketing perspective. Bringing those internal and external views together helps me identify what makes Omilia special, which parts of the story we should amplify and where there may be an opportunity to evolve. As we enter our next stage of growth following our Series B, the aim is not to reinvent the company, but rather to build on what has already made it successful and make that value clearer to a wider market.
If we asked five people who've worked with you to describe your leadership style in one sentence, what do you hope they'd all agree on and what would probably surprise people?
I would hope that people who have worked with me describe my leadership style as open and transparent. I try to give people enough context to understand what we are doing, why it matters and how their work contributes. In my experience, that tends to create greater trust and ownership across a team.
What may be less obvious from the outside is how much emphasis I place on helping colleagues build their careers. Results clearly matter, but I also want people to keep learning and challenge what they believe is possible. The strongest teams, in my view, are those that develop their people while continuing to raise what they can achieve together.
Where do you think enterprises are still approaching the problem from the wrong angle?
One area where I think enterprises can sometimes get the balance wrong is decision-making. The desire to reduce risk by gathering more information and building consensus is entirely understandable, particularly in larger organizations where change management, security and compliance all need to be considered. However, the search for complete certainty can create a different kind of risk: on whereby the time a decision is made, the opportunity may have moved on.
For me, decision velocity is not about rushing decisions or overlooking the necessary controls. It is about being clear on what constitutes enough information to make a sound decision and then being prepared to move once that threshold has been reached. Consensus can feel reassuring, but it can also become a substitute for actually making a decision at all. Every additional meeting or approval should add something material to the process; if it does not, it may simply be giving competitors more time to move.
Large enterprises may never operate at exactly the same speed as startups, nor should they in every situation. However, they can still bring some of the same urgency and discipline to deciding when they have enough information to move forward.
Omilia has been building AI long before the current wave of excitement. How does that experience translate into better outcomes for customers today?
Omilia has been building AI for more than 20 years, but the value of that history is not simply that we were early. We have spent decades deploying the technology in real-time, highly regulated and mission-critical environments. That experience has shown us what it takes to move AI beyond a controlled demonstration and into live customer interactions where performance needs to be consistent.
This feels particularly relevant as the market enters a more sober phase of AI adoption. Enterprises are working through the practical questions around governance, guardrails, oversight and how to deliver consistent outcomes without introducing unnecessary risk. Some iteration will always be required, but the lessons from Omilia’s deployments have helped shape solutions capable of delivering more predictable outcomes at the scale, speed and accuracy enterprises require. Experience will not eliminate every risk, but it does provide customers with a stronger starting point grounded in real-world conditions.
What's the biggest perception shift you're hoping to create around Omilia's brand over the next year
The main perception shift I want to create is for more people to recognize the Omilia name and understand what makes our product different. Existing customers tend to associate us with the quality of our technology, but broader awareness beyond that base does not yet reflect what we have built.
Awareness alone, however, isn’t enough. Omilia’s AI capabilities now form an enterprise platform built on AI models that we developed and own, giving customers greater control over how it is deployed. The platform can operate as a standalone solution or fit within a broader, secure enterprise AI strategy. Over the next year, I want Omilia to be known not simply for strong technology, but for a flexible enterprise platform designed to fit the way large organizations operate.
There's growing pressure on CMOs to deliver immediate pipeline while also building long-term market leadership. Which side of that equation do you think companies still get wrong, and how do you navigate it?
I tend not to see immediate pipeline and long-term market leadership as competing priorities. The pressure to deliver near-term results is understandable, not least because pipeline is easier to measure than the gradual effect of building a strong position in the market. Where companies can go wrong, however, is managing the two as separate activities or assuming that investment in one must come at the expense of the other.
In my opinion, building market leadership begins with a distinctive point of view supported by a genuinely differentiated product, but that position only has an impact if it reaches customers and prospects at a relevant point in their journey. Demand generation often creates that initial conversation, after which the company’s broader market position becomes increasingly important in helping buyers understand why it is different and why its perspective is one they should trust. In other cases, the journey begins in reverse, with the point of view or product attracting the buyer before demand generation helps develop that interest. I therefore try to treat them as connected parts of the same journey, ensuring that near-term activity strengthens the company’s longer-term position while the broader narrative gives demand generation and sales something meaningful to build on.
Finally, if you had to retire one marketing playbook tomorrow because it’s doing more harm than good, which one disappears first?
If I had to retire one playbook, it would be the idea that marketing disciplines are most effective when they operate in separate silos. Traditional roles and specialist expertise remain important, but marketers tend to be more effective when they understand how their work connects to the wider function.
A product marketer does not need to become an expert in demand generation but understanding how demand is created can make them better at their job. Equally, someone working in demand generation needs to understand the product well enough to know why it matters to the customer. The aim is not to turn every marketer into a generalist, but to give specialists a broader understanding of the disciplines around them.
That is why I see marketing enablement as a critical path to marketing success. We invest heavily in sales enablement, but marketing enablement should be treated as equally important. Giving marketers the knowledge and exposure to develop beyond their immediate discipline leads to better decisions, stronger careers and a more effective marketing organization.
