The 25 most innovative CMOs of 2026

Traditional "marketing" is now only a sliver of the CMO job. The top marketers of 2026 are part brand-builder, part data scientist, part cultural weathervane, and part AI wrangler. "It used to be one, two, or three-dimensional," Comcast's Jon Gieselman said of marketing. "Now, it feels like it's 20 or 25, and you increasingly have to become more of a technologist these days to really drive the business in a way that's going to keep up with everyone else." Business Insider's annual list of the most innovative CMOs spotlights marketers, including Gieselman, who are pushing their brands into new territory and delivering measurable business results. This year's 25-person class made insurance funny, fruit feel premium, "dad sneakers" cool again, and a green language-learning owl impossible to ignore. It features marketers who harnessed AI to personalize soda ads, reshape search strategies, and shrink campaign production times. AI is "empowering marketers to be more strategic, more creative, more connected to the people they serve," said Coach's Joon Silverstein, another of this year's selections. The list features some execs who don't have CMO job titles — such as chief brand officers and chief growth officers — but are the most senior marketers at their organizations. It was drawn from our reporting and more than 100 nominations from industry insiders. Scroll down to reveal Business Insider's most innovative CMOs of 2026, listed in alphabetical order by last name. Asad Ayaz, Disney Nolwen Cifuentes for BI Ayaz has overseen marketing for some of the world's biggest entertainment launches in the past year, helping Disney become the only studio to top $6.5 billion at the global box office. The run was fueled by blockbuster campaigns for "Lilo & Stitch," "Zootopia 2," and "Avatar: Fire and Ash." Ayaz's approach paired large-scale storytelling with fan-driven activations designed to turn movie releases into cultural moments. The "Lilo & Stitch" campaign made Stitch a viral sensation by having the mischievous character crash real-life and virtual environments. Meanwhile, "Zootopia 2" expanded the film's reach into everyday culture through brand partnerships and fan activations, especially in China, where it broke Hollywood box-office records. For "Avatar: Fire and Ash," immersive experiences — including a 27-foot installation of the Nightwraith predator creature at the film's premieres and major sports broadcasts — brought Pandora to life for audiences worldwide. Ayaz also led the global campaign for Disneyland Resort's 70th anniversary, using immersive experiences and cross-platform storytelling to celebrate Disney's legacy across generations. In January, Ayaz was named Disney's first chief marketing and brand officer to unify its messaging across Disney Entertainment, Disney Experiences, and ESPN, the first time the company's marketing across film, streaming, parks, sports, consumer products, and global brand initiatives had been led by a single person. It was another first for Ayaz, who had become the company's first chief brand officer in 2023, and signaled continuity as the company transitioned in March to a new CEO, Josh D'Amaro. Shortly after that promotion, Ayaz presided over a marketing restructuring and layoffs, part of companywide cuts, that he said would let the company better serve customers. Ayaz is also guiding Disney's upcoming participation in the America 250 campaign and the ongoing expansion of the D23 fan community. Mary Beech, Thorne Thorne Beech's role, as chief growth officer, combines marketing, e-commerce, and the wellness brand's international expansion. After experiencing a heart attack at 34, Beech redefined her relationship with her health — an experience that informs her strategic lens and leadership philosophy. Beech's marketing strategy builds on the insight that while consumers are more invested in their health than ever, they are increasingly overwhelmed by — and often distrustful of — the information available to them. She saw this gap as an opportunity to reposition Thorne from simply a supplements brand to a health and wellness resource for younger consumers. Under her leadership, the company has expanded into new partnerships, including with the Miami Open and Unrivaled, the three-on-three women's professional basketball league. Recent brand ambassadors have included the NBA player Jrue Holiday, tennis player Ben Shelton, and singer-songwriter Ciara. In April, Thorne launched a campaign featuring ballet dancer Misty Copeland and actor Lana Condor to spotlight two of the most-searched areas of women's health: libido and perimenopause. It honed in on their own realities with both, while leaning on Thorne's scientific expertise, to help women feel supported — and to promote its Perimenopause Complete and Women's Libido Boost formulations. Thorne surpassed $1 billion in retail sales in 2025. This year, Beech is focused on extending this momentum, including expanding the company's AI-powered personal wellness offerings. Kipp Bodnar, HubSpot HubSpot Bodnar saw early on that AI search and chatbots were redefining how consumers discovered brands. He's the driving force behind HubSpot's answer-engine optimization strategy and has become an influencer in the field in his own right by chronicling his experiments with AI. For example, he published a blog post walking through exactly how he used ChatGPT to plan an entire marketing campaign during a single flight, sharing the prompts, the process, and the results. Inside HubSpot, Bodnar's AEO strategy is paying off. The company said leads sourced from AI channels convert three times better than those from traditional search. HubSpot ranked third for citations on AI platforms within the "business and professional services category" in Semrush's annual brand visibility index report, published in August. HubSpot grew its active customer base by 16% in 2025, while full-year revenue grew 19% to $3.13 billion. Last summer, Bodnar commissioned a dedicated AI transformation workstream within the marketing department as part of a plan to make every marketer an AI practitioner. The project involved role-specific AI training and the creation of a center of excellence so the entire team could share what was working. Bodnar has also helped HubSpot take on a more expansive approach to customer acquisition. The company has launched more than 10 YouTube channels and scaled its LinkedIn presence. Bodnar shares how marketing industry shifts are unfolding on the "Marketing Against the Grain" podcast he cohosts, which has more than 90,000 YouTube subscribers. Andrea Brimmer, Ally Financial Marvin Shaouni for BI Brimmer has been an evangelist for using investments in women's sports to grow Ally's business. She had aimed to spend equally on women's and men's sports by 2027, and reached that goal in 2026 — a full year ahead of schedule. As the first partner of Unrivaled, the women's three-on-three pro basketball league, Brimmer helped attract 20 other sponsors. A Hansa study for Ally found that women's sports fans are 50% more likely than the general public to have a favorable opinion of Ally. She's also sought to make banking more than a transactional experience with "Money Roots," a free financial education program Ally launched in August 2024 to help people understand their psychological relationship with money. The Money Roots program reached 3,364 participants in 2025. Elsewhere, Brimmer's team used a proprietary company AI tool to cut the time to produce ad campaigns and content by an average of 34%. Looking ahead, Brimmer is expanding Ally's Refer a Friend program, which rolled out in 2025 following a 2024 pilot. The bank saw that customers referred by a friend were three times as likely to refer someone else as those who became customers in other ways. Leandro Barreto, Unilever Zack DeZon for BI Barreto, in January, became the youngest CMO in Unilever's history, and also its first Latino CMO. He's been transforming Unilever's marketing using an approach he calls "poetry and plumbing," fusing cultural creativity with the systems, data, and AI capabilities required to power it. A defining change under Barreto's leadership has been the shift from broadcast advertising to a greater emphasis on social media and influencer marketing. Unilever CEO Fernando Fernández set the bar high, outlining last year a strategy for the consumer-goods company to work with 20 times as many influencers as it had previously. As of December, Unilever said it was working with "close to 300,000 influencers" around the world. Barreto has been redesigning the marketing organization to embed community managers, influencer specialists, and content leaders across its top 24 markets. Barreto's efforts on Vaseline are an example of his strategy in action. Building on its award-winning "Vaseline Verified" campaign, in which Unilever's experts tested viral Vaseline hacks in the lab, Barreto and the team launched Vaseline Originals, turning ideas from the online community into real products. Those included a brow tamer, inspired by beauty creator Jen Chae, and highlighter jelly, building upon YouTuber Lauren Luke's primer hack. Both creators launched the new products in March on TikTok Live, where they sold out in minutes. Earlier this year, Unilever's Dove brand asked Redditors for their unfiltered feedback on its Intensive Repair 10-in-1 Serum mask and published a selection, positive and negative ("I hate the smell, it's like an old lady") on New York billboards. The Unilever marketing team is also taking advantage of its recently announced five-year partnership with Google Cloud, using tools like Vertex AI and its Gemini models. Craig Brommers, American Eagle Philip Vukelich for BI "I do think that 'Sydney Sweeney has great jeans' will be on my marketing gravestone — it is a once-in-a-lifetime campaign for the ages," Brommers recently told B