Episode Overview
When Drew Neisser walked on stage at the CMO Huddles SuperHuddle dressed head to toe in a penguin suit, the room erupted. It wasn’t just comic relief - it was a perfect metaphor for everything the CMO Huddles community stands for: boldness, courage, and the power of the flock.
As Drew puts it, “A group of penguins is called a huddle. That’s what we’re about - caring, sharing, and daring together.”
From Crisis to Community
The origin story of CMO Huddles goes back to April 1, 2020. The world was in lockdown. Marketing leaders were isolated, events were canceled, and uncertainty was everywhere. Drew gathered 18 CMOs on a Zoom call. They met 55 times in six months. What began as a survival mechanism quickly became a thriving peer community - and a business built on purpose.
Inside Partnering is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.
Fast forward to 2025, and the SuperHuddle in Palo Alto brought together over a hundred CMOs from some of the most admired B2B brands on the planet - Snowflake, Gong, Lovable, and more. The energy was palpable as leaders leaned into one another for ideas, strategies, and perspective.
A Culture of Flocking Awesomeness
What makes the Huddles unique is how they combine structure with spontaneity. Each session puts CMOs in table groups of eight to ten to tackle real-world problems together - live, in the room. These “mini-huddles” simulate the virtual peer huddles that define the community, bringing them to life in an immersive, high-energy format.
And yes, there’s the penguin.
“It’s part of our brand,” Drew says. “Because a group of penguins is a huddle. We try to be bold, courageous, and have fun. I wore the penguin suit to inspire CMOs to lead with a little more courage.”
Authentic Differentiation
One of the major themes that emerged from the event was the idea that true differentiation starts with culture, not campaigns. Drew noted that the top CMOs from companies like Snowflake, Gong, and Lovable all shared a similar insight: culture drives brand, and authenticity drives trust.
“What would work for Lovable won’t necessarily work for Snowflake,” Drew explained. “It’s not just about marketing - it’s about who you are as an organization. The culture is the difference.”
That theme resonated across sessions - whether CMOs were discussing AI, storytelling, or customer experience, it all came back to authenticity.
Alignment as the Superpower
Another major takeaway was alignment. CMOs face constant pressure to balance relationships in three directions: upward to the CEO and board, sideways with peers like the CRO and CFO, and downward to their teams.
“Peer alignment was probably the most profound theme of the day,” Drew shared. “The partnership between Denise Persson and Chris Degnan at Snowflake is a perfect example - nine years together, four CEOs, and they built a scalable, repeatable revenue engine.”
Their story, from $3 million to over a billion in revenue, is a masterclass in partnership and trust between marketing and sales. As Drew put it, “There’s not one size fits all in marketing - and that’s why it’s so damn hard.”
Beyond Best Practices
A recurring phrase throughout the day was that “best practices are boring.” True innovation comes from judgment and creativity. One CMO shared how they use AI to generate campaign ideas - not to copy them, but to identify what not to do.
“We put the AI-generated ideas on the wall and say, ‘That’s the obvious stuff. Let’s skip it,’” Drew laughed. “That’s where judgment comes in. Great marketing leadership is about developing judgment in your people.”
Care, Share, Dare
At its heart, the CMO Huddles mantra - Care. Share. Dare. - is about building a culture of generosity and courage. Care deeply about your peers. Share knowledge freely. Dare to lead differently.
For Drew, the penguin suit wasn’t just a gag - it was a statement. Leadership today requires both boldness and empathy. And if you can laugh along the way, even better.
Closing Thoughts
As the SuperHuddle wrapped up, Drew’s energy - even after 2 days of hosting, moderating, and storytelling - was still contagious. “I’m running on vapors,” he laughed. “But my martini is waiting for me.”
That mix of humor, humility, and heart is what makes Drew such a beloved leader among CMOs. CMO Huddles isn’t just a network - it’s a community built on trust, connection, and the shared mission to make marketing a force for good.
And as Drew likes to say, “Have a flocking awesome day.”
Podcast
Guest
Drew Neisser
There are only two people in the world who have interviewed more CMOs. If you don’t know who they are, ping me. These interviews are my manna. They’ve fueled two books, over 400 podcast episodes, and 500+ articles. They give me a vast reservoir of case histories I draw upon when coaching CMOs. More importantly, they’ve connected me with inspired marketers, many of whom I call friends, and all of whom have taught me what I know about marketing greatness, empathetic leadership, and overcoming challenges.
Episode Transcript
Drew Neisser Raw
===
[00:00:00]
Chip Rodgers: Hey everyone. Chip Rodgers with Inside Partnering and we are back again. And we are here with the Maestro
Drew Neisser: Penguin in Chief, please. Drew Neisser. Yes,
Chip Rodgers: Drew Neisser. And we're here at the CMO Huddles as you can see back behind me, CMO huddles.
Super Huddle.
Drew Neisser: Super Huddle. The
Chip Rodgers: CMO super was fantastic. It was fantastic. I'm so glad you
Drew Neisser: came and enjoyed it. It felt like everybody was engaged and we were huddling in a very harsh environment that is the world that we live in right now. And people seem to walk out inspired and that brings me joy.
Chip Rodgers: Absolutely. Absolutely. I think you bring so many people together and they're, these are all world class CMOs that are all talking about the challenges and how do we, how do we get there? The energy in the room and having the people, I love the sessions where the tables got together and came up with ideas and everybody's writing out.
Drew Neisser: Oh, that was a great idea. Yeah. One of the unique things about, so to replicate this CMO Huddles experience, which are the, we have peer huddles, we bring us together virtually. We have table huddles here, and so everybody gets to experience what [00:01:00] it's like to be in a group. Of eight to 10 CMOs and solve a problem together and learn from each other.
And it's a skill that we've trained the community on and it comes to life in the event. And it's really fun to watch. I get it. And I get to hear the reports out, which is, it's just such a kick to watch it work.
Chip Rodgers: And your energy is infectious too. So I think, it is starting off with the opening where you were dressed in a full length penguin outfit.
Drew Neisser: The funny part of this was I had this idea that I was gonna wear the penguin outfit, and I told my daughter who was here last year, and my wife, and they both looked at me and then said. Yeah, I think you could pull it off. But they were really skeptical. So I ordered two different penguin suits.
I had 'em shipped to my house. I put one of them on, and that's when I realized you had to wear a hat underneath, otherwise you wouldn't be able to. And they both said, okay, you can do this. All right. Yeah, it
Chip Rodgers: worked. It worked.
Drew Neisser: It's part of the CMO huddles in [00:02:00] our brand and the penguin thing.
'cause a group of penguins is a huddle. That's a key part of it is to try to be bold and courageous and lead by example. Yeah. And so as a brand, we try to have fun with the penguin thing, and I thought, how could I go all the way to the edge here and push it as far as possible to inspire the CMOs to think about being a little more courageous at their events?
Chip Rodgers: Yeah. Yeah. And the motto of CMO huddles is Care Share and Dare, right? Yeah. So it's all
Drew Neisser: Care dare. Yeah. Yeah. And we've we've I recently Share Care, Dare each other to flocking awesomeness, then that was, that's
Chip Rodgers: beautiful.
Drew Neisser: And I just, wait, it's all coming together. And I so appreciate you because you've been on an advisory board and part of CMO huddles almost from the beginning.
Chip Rodgers: Yeah. Yeah. It was started with the pandemic.
Drew Neisser: It did, it started,
Chip Rodgers: it was like everybody's off doing their thing. It's we need to get together.
Drew Neisser: We did. And I told this story at the event we started April 1st 2020 with 18 of [00:03:00] us. We met 55 times in a six month period. Wow. It was crazy.
Yeah. Yeah. It was really crazy. But we bonded and they also, all the CMOs who were participants said there's a business idea and they broke it down for me. Yeah. Which I love. Yeah.
Chip Rodgers: So if there was, you just did a recap of all the content, which was phenomenal, but if there was maybe one or two things that you'd want to, convey that came out.
'cause there were so many great ideas.
Drew Neisser: Oh yeah. And I think that's a problem of an event like this, is that you are almost overwhelmed because you hear so many things. One key takeaway is what would work for Lovable would not necessarily work for Snowflake. Would not necessarily work for Gong.
Yeah. So I hope that the CMOs who were here walked away when there are some commonalities. One is differentiation. Yep. One is differentiation through culture. It can't just be a surface thing. And that came through in Gong, in Lovable and in Snowflake. Is that it was a cultural difference.
Yeah. [00:04:00] Not just a product difference. And so I thought that was pretty profound.
Chip Rodgers: And not just a marketing, it's not something you can just market, right? It's gotta be. Yeah.
Drew Neisser: No, and it's
Chip Rodgers: gotta be authentic.
Drew Neisser: It does. And it was ver but it, you heard it in those three big stories and then you heard it in all the other conversations.
The other thing that struck me probably more than I had thought about in a while, as alignment. Yeah. And so as a leader, you're looking at, I've got a boss. Generally maybe c CEO board and PE firm. You've got peers, CFO, CRO, so forth. And then you have direct reports. And what I thought was so interesting is today we had new or at least strategy to think about all three of those things, but the peer alignment thing was probably the most profound.
Yeah. And that really came through with Chris, Degnan and Denise Persson
Chip Rodgers: and Denise. Yeah. I mean that, their story is incredible. Nine years from. $3 million
Drew Neisser: to a
Chip Rodgers: Billion to a, yeah.
Drew Neisser: And so these phenomenal twosome, because they worked together for nine years, first of all, there [00:05:00] wasn't another person in the room who had partnered with their CRO for nine years who had survived four CEOs.
And and the reason they did it is they built an effective, repeatable, scalable revenue engine. And I love Denise's philosophy to some extent, which is. And by the way, Kelly Hopping says the same thing at Demandbase is our goal is to make, Kelly says, our goal is to make sales love us. Denise said, we're here to serve sales, but, and, but she qualified and said, we're here to serve sales because this is a sales driven organization.
Chip Rodgers: Yeah.
Drew Neisser: And you have to, again, this is, there is not one size fits all in marketing and that's why it's so damn hard.
Chip Rodgers: That's, that. That's true. That's true. Every story is different. And I think, you know what, one of the topics that, that you that, that came up in the session that I thought that you recapped at the end was, best practices are gonna be boring.
It's like you can't just say, oh, best practices rip and replace. No,
Drew Neisser: no. And [00:06:00] in fact, so in one of the first table huddle, we talked about AI and AI implementations, and somebody shared this, and I love this. We run say, campaign ideas and say, come up with 10 campaign ideas against this strategy.
And we put those there and say, okay, that's the obvious stuff. Yeah. We're gonna put that over 'cause we're not gonna do that. Yeah. So we now know what obvious is. And I love that because now here's the thing and the, it
Chip Rodgers: still gets your brain going, right?
Drew Neisser: It does. Yeah. But it also, so to be able to look at those things and know that they are you, just because it came from GPT, you need judgment.
And this is the part that CMOs, you're a leader, you have judgment. You've done this before. You can differentiate between, that's not an idea with a real idea. And sometimes it's easy because the output feels so good to say it's good and it isn't always. So you need judgment. And I think that as we look at the future of marketing leadership, it's gonna [00:07:00] be about hiring.
People with energy who you can build judgment, help them grow judgment if they don't start with it.
Chip Rodgers: Yeah. Love that. Love that. What a day.
Drew Neisser: Oh my God, it's been so much fun. I have to admit, I'm I'm running on a little bit of vapors. Vapors. Yes. At this point, my martini is waiting for me. Skip. Chip yeah, see like I'm already calling you, Skip.
Chip Rodgers: Well, drew I just have to say congratulations, and it's been an amazing journey and not only on the event, but just on the whole, bringing together CMO Huddles and the success of the community of CMOs that really care about each other and want to help each
Drew Neisser: other. I really appreciate it and you've been part of that and so helpful along the way, and I think it's your partner mentality, Chip.
Chip Rodgers: Could be.
Drew Neisser: So I appreciate that and appreciate you and you joining us today. So thank you. Terrific.
Chip Rodgers: Terrific. Thank you. Thank you Drew. And thank you all for joining another episode and we will see you again next time and
Drew Neisser: have a flocking awesome
Chip Rodgers: day. [00:08:00] Flocking. Awesome. Thanks everybody.
Chip Rodgers
🚀 CMO | Chief Partner Officer | B2B SaaS Growth & GTM Leader | Ecosystem Strategy | Demand Gen | Podcast Host 🎙
.png)
