WFA's Better Marketing Pod with David Wheldon

When everything shifts at once, composure becomes a strategy. David Wheldon talks with HP’s Antonio Lucio to explore how leaders stay steady through geopolitics, macro pressure, generative AI, and an unexpected CEO transition—while keeping teams focused, customers centred, and growth on track.

Antonio cuts through the AI hype with three pragmatic plays: scale asset optimisation for faster NPI readiness, use identity-led media to guide IT decision makers across their buying journey, and automate back office work that drains half of marketers’ time. He makes the case that AI is only useful when it serves the customer, not a dashboard, and that chasing pilots without scale is a dead end for global brands.

We also unpack the inner game of leadership. Drawing on Stoicism and a fresh look at Machiavelli’s hard questions, Antonio shares how he managed a delicate CEO succession process, balanced empathy with execution, and modelled honest emotions without losing operational clarity. The takeaway is a repeatable rhythm: protect your capacity, face reality as it is, define the next action, and deliver.

Finally, we reframe the CMO’s mandate. Marketers who earn their seat at the table own three advantages: the aggregator view of budgets across units and regions, the authentic voice of the customer built on direct relationships, and the ability to integrate storytelling across stakeholders. As search behaviour tilts toward LLMs, trust, owned and earned content, and account-based marketing become decisive. Communications, marketing, and corporate affairs must move as one to turn reputation into revenue.

If you’re leading teams through volatility or rethinking how AI and trust work together, this conversation offers a clear path forward. 
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Growth doesn’t start with an ad. It starts where your product decisions meet real people. We sit down with Cheryl, newly named Global Marketer of the Year, to unpack how Grab scaled across Southeast Asia by turning marketing into a true commercial engine—where product, pricing, algorithms, and culture work in sync to earn trust and drive results.

We chart the journey from a scrappy airport-ride promo to a system of problem-space teams that cross swim lanes by design. Cheryl explains why immersion days keep leaders close to riders and drivers, how fair pricing principles became part of brand architecture, and where consensus can quietly kill velocity. Her hiring lens is refreshingly direct: seek commercial fluency, data and insights mastery, and relentless curiosity; then give those people room to orchestrate product, economics, and operations around the customer.

Sustainability emerges as strategy, not slogan. Inclusive design and driver programmes widen supply, improve safety, and boost retention, turning social good into measurable outcomes. As AI becomes the growth engine, we explore why marketers must move upstream—shaping ranking, matching, and pricing so algorithms reflect brand values rather than rewrite them. The result is a practical playbook for CMOs, product leaders, and founders who want marketing to integrate the business, not decorate it.

If you care about customer experience, fair pricing, and building teams that ship impact, this conversation offers field-tested ideas you can use now. Subscribe and share with a colleague.
About Cheryl Goh
Cheryl Goh is Group VP of Marketing and Sustainability and Founding CMO at Grab and the 2025 Global Marketer of the Year. Hand-picked by founder Anthony Tan despite her product and business development background, she scaled MyTeksi from 2012 origins into Southeast Asia's leading superapp across eight markets.
She leads the full ecosystem, including product marketing, communications, growth, loyalty P&L (Grab VIP, Unlimited, Coins), sustainability, and customer support, while building a talent pipeline that has placed several of Grab's country heads.
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In this episode we review a year of conversations with Unicef's Frederique Covington Corbett, culture guru Marcus Collins, Cathay Pacific's Ed Bell, Meta's Nicola Mendelsohn, Marcel Marcondes from AB InBev and Global Marketer of the Year, marketing expert Seth Godin, Leyal Eskin Yilmaz from the Magnum Ice Cream Company, and Ogilvy's Rory Sutherland.
These conversations led to one clear truth: the best marketing is still about people. We pull together the sharpest lessons for CMOs and brand leaders, cutting through the AI noise to focus on conviction-led leadership, intelligent human connection, and simple ideas that change behaviour. You’ll hear why building AI capability and governance is urgent, but also why tech belongs in the back office while human creativity runs the front. We share how to connect customer insight to commercial reality, and why that shift turns marketing from a cost into a value engine.

We dive into the channels where customers already live—messaging platforms—and explain how click-to-message journeys, verified utility updates, and AI agents on WhatsApp are transforming service and commerce globally. Real stories show the upside: faster response times, higher satisfaction, and scalable conversations that still feel personal. Then we move beyond tools to the psychology that makes any of it work. Technology amplifies an idea; it doesn’t replace one. The most effective work pairs clarity and emotional intelligence, proving that a simple, useful solution beats a flashy campaign when it solves a real problem.

Finally, we tackle the mindset. Choose your customers and clients with care, because those choices define your future. Lead with conviction, not convenience, even when it costs you. Make space for practical magic, the creative leaps that reconcile contradictions the spreadsheet can’t. As we look ahead, think human creativity as the front office, technology as the back office, and AI as a force multiplier—not the point. If that resonates, follow the show and share this roundup with your team.
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The biggest wins in marketing rarely fit into neat dashboards. Rory Sutherland joins us to unpack why creativity is “fat-tailed,” how a few outlier ideas create the lion’s share of value, and why short-term incentives push teams to optimise what’s easy to count rather than what actually compounds. From “member since” on a card to names on Coke bottles, we dig into billion-dollar ideas that cost little to make but transform loyalty, fame, and lifetime value.

David and Rory get honest about metrics and the bottlenecks they create. When every brand chases the same KPIs, platforms become toll roads and marketers pay rent for access. Rory argues for brand-specific measures that mirror your distinctive value, plus smarter routes to reach people without bidding wars, think influence, communities, and the “Cafe Nero” side door. They also contrast two economic worldviews: the tidy rational model that treats marketing as a cost, and the psychology-first approach that sees value as subjective, created in minds through service, design, and language.
The conversation ranges from call centres as underestimated value engines to why family-owned firms often excel at brand building. David and Rory explore how an efficiency mindset blocks innovation by forcing either-or decisions, and how relational capitalism, trust over time, not transactional maximisation, builds resilient brands. The practical pivot: don’t just sell outputs; sell how you think. In an AI age, the durable advantage is reframing problems and resolving false trade-offs, turning contradictions into strengths. If you believe in magic, you’ll notice it, nurture it, and let it power growth.
If this resonated, follow the show, share it with a colleague who needs a jolt of creative courage, and leave a quick review to help more marketers find us.
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In this episode of the Better Marketing Podcast with David Wheldon, Leyal Eskin Yilmaz, CMO of Europe, UK, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand for the Magnum Ice Cream Company, shares insights on building a new marketing organisation as the business separates from Unilever.

Key points covered:
Creating a new company while running the business is like "building a new house while living in it".
Each geographic market shaped Leyal's leadership approach differently - Turkey (agility), US (scale), UAE (cultural nuance), Netherlands (systems thinking).
Turkish marketers excel globally because Turkey provides a "real-time MBA" with fast-changing markets and intense competition.
The new company balances global brands (setting ambition) with local jewels (providing cultural relevance).
Purpose remains central to the business strategy, with Ben & Jerry's setting industry standards.
Cultural relevance requires long-term partnerships, demonstrated by their Minecraft collaboration.
Inclusion and diversity initiatives focus on representation plus active sponsorship of diverse talent.
AI is transforming marketing more than any other business function, triggering creativity when used properly.
Modern CMOs need to embrace AI capabilities, actively shape culture, and position marketing as the business growth engine.
Subscribe to the WFA #BetterMarketing podcast on your preferred platform: https://bit.ly/41ZwqkF.