Welcome, Jeremy!

I was pleased to see that we just announced our most recent senior hire: Jeremy Burton who will be EMC's new CMO -- chief marketing officer.

I'm reasonably sure that he's going to like it at EMC.  It looks like the right person in the right position at the right time.

Marketing at EMC

Historically, I've always seen EMC as built on three exceptional pillars: a great product organization, a great sales organization and a great customer support organization.  Marketing, while always relevant, hasn't historically been one of the things that we could lay claim to being "best in class", simply because it typically hasn't been a top priority.

That being said, we do pretty well at marketing all things considered: our segmentation model is pretty good, our approach to programs is fairly sophisticated, and we do a decent job at things like social media, thought leadership, etc.  A while back, I shared a presentation on how EMC approaches innovation in marketing.

But, like all things at EMC, there's always an opportunity to do things better -- and that's where Jeremy comes in.

Marketing Repositioned

The first thing you'll notice is that Jeremy's new role reports directly to the CEO, Joe Tucci.  That's a first for any marketing function at EMC as long as I've worked here.  For many of us, this means that marketing proficiency needs to be in the same league as, say, sales or services.

The second thing you might notice is that this appointment comes at an interesting time in the industry's evolution, as well as EMC's repositioning.  The industry is consolidating, stacks are forming and consumption models are changing.  The new ecosystem won't look anything like the old ecosystem.  And focusing marketing efforts on "what will be" rather than "what was" is an interesting opportunity.

The third thing you might notice is that it's not a one person show here at EMC with regards to world-class executive leadership.  In addition to Joe and now Jeremy, there's also Howard Elias, Pat Gelsinger, Bill Teuber, David Goulden as well as an executive roster that goes on and on. 

No shortage of executive firepower at EMC these days.  And the addition of a world-class marketing executive complements and completes our portfolio nicely.

The Road Ahead

Jeremy's fortunate in that we've got a lot for him to work with immediately.  On the product side, we've got innovation up and down the portfolio.  On the cloud side, there's VCE and vBlocks.  As far as thought leadership, we've got more than enough solid material to work with.  And, underlying it all, a fabric of social media proficiency that makes marketing an entirely 2.0 proposition -- something I'm personally proud of.

I doubt if you'll see EMC spending a bazillion dollars on re-branding, or buying those annoying web ads, or  anything like that.  Instead, you'll probably see a gradual targeting and refinement of the things we're doing today that are working pretty well.

Welcome, Jeremy -- I know you're going to have fun here!

Comments

[David A. Chapa]

Congratulations to Jeremy as well - he is definitely a class act.

David