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Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Fast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you can sign up to get it yourself every Monday morning. A new McKinsey & Co. study finds that CEOs and their chief marketing officers (CMOs) are becoming increasingly disconnected, and the gap between CEOs and CMOs perceptions of the marketing function appears to be widening: Nearly two-thirds of chief executives say they are comfortable with modern marketing, up from just half in 2023; meanwhile, only 31% of CMOs believe their CEOs are comfortable in the marketing world, down from four points from a year earlier. That may be part of the reason CMOs and other creative leaders I met at Cannes Lions last week suggested that chief executives consider spending some time at the annual festival of creativity. To be sure, most marketing executives arent suggesting CEOs come to Cannes Lions for a deep dive into marketing tactics and metrics. Rather, they feel corporate leaders would benefit from being immersed in an environment that celebrates and inspires groundbreaking multimedia work and its creators. A creativity immersion experience I would love to bring CEOs to the basement of the Palais so they could see the work and draw inspiration from that, says Valerie Vargas, senior vice president, content creation and advertising, AT&T, referring to the conference center where Cannes Lions winning entries are exhibited. Vargas also recommends that someone from the head of advertising or marketing hand-pick a series of talks for the CEO to attend, sparking ideas and new ways of thinking about problem-solving. Finally, she suggests the marketing team organize a dinner for the CEO and their agency creative teampeople who usually dont get to meet with the companys top executives. Others believe a trip to Cannes could help CEOs understand the role that creativity will play as companies adopt generative AI tools and other technologies to increase productivitymaking it harder for many companies to boast an operational or information technology edge. Were moving to a world where creativity is the single most important differentiator among brands, says Zach Kitschke, global chief marketing officer of Canva, the design software company. David Droga, vice chair of Accenture (and most recently CEO of Accenture Song), goes one step further: Creativity is going to drive the outcomes of AI, he says. Thats what creativity has done every time it has been infused into a new technology. He cites the example of modern photography, a technology that was invented and advanced by chemists and scientists but flourished and took on new energy in the hands of artists and other creatives. Marisa Thalberg, executive vice president and chief customer and marketing officer for retailer Catalyst Brands, contends that Cannes may not be right for every CEO but says its important for chief executives to understand the value for attendants. For me, Cannes is a uniquely valuable few days, not only for the creative and business inspiration but for the concentrated opportunity for learning, connections, and idea generation, says Thalberg. I can make more happen in a few days that would otherwise take weeks . . . or never happen at all. Can Cannes bring CEOs and marketers together? CEOs, are you disconnected from your marketers? Marketers, what dont your chief executives understand about your role? Send your thoughts to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and Ill try to work the answers into my newsletters. Watch more: Cannes do How PepsiCo is using chips to power street food entrepreneurs Inside Apples award-winning advertising The future of socializing
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Since launching Boardroom in 2019, Rich Kleiman and NBA star Kevin Durant have grown the media company into an influential player that confidently straddles business, sports, and entertainment across content, films, TV, and events. Its newest venture is a membership club that Kleiman sees as key to building a long-lasting brand legacy. I really want to build a sustainable brand that lasts, Kleiman tells Fast Company. By having this core membership community, and having them become, in a lot of ways, voices of this brand, I thought was really crucial. Kevin Durant (left) of the Phoenix Suns and Rich Kleiman sit courtside at the 2023 WNBA All-Star Game. [Photo: Ethan Miller/Getty Images] Launching later this month, the Boardroom Members Club will feature regular members-only events, VIP access to Boardroom flagship activations at NBA All-Star, Art Basel and more, exclusive networking opportunities, and a private digital platform. For me, I saw this boom in membership clubs in the city, and while they all have their own thing, whether it’s the food or the location or the brand name or the type of people that go there, I didn’t think that there were actually communities there that benefited your career, says Kleiman. And for me, I felt like that was my special sauce, understanding the importance of being in a room with the right mix of people. Boardrooms media arm churns out newsletters, social posts, and content that reaches over 52 million unique monthly visitors. The company is on track to nearly double revenue in 2025, and average monthly reach has increased by 74% in 2025. Its film and TV output in recent years includes the Apple TV series Swagger, Showtimes Emmy-nominated doc NYC Point Gods, and the Oscar-winning short Two Distant Strangers. However, it was events like Boardrooms annual CNBC x Boardroom Game Plan Summit that showed Kleiman the potential in combining quality content and the community of people who gather around it. Like an IRL LinkedIn for cool people. I thought that was really exciting, and I wanted to create a version of it that was exclusive to members, he says. I wanted that to feel a bit exclusive, because those conferences can be overwhelming for people that are trying to get information and trying to connect. Members Club events will have the same vibe and feel of the brands bigger events but with more intimate programming. The big names are still in the room, but make them truly accessible and they understand that like they’re there now to integrate with this community, says Kleiman. And [those big names] want that too. It’s really infectious for anyone at any level, to be around that type of hunger and that type of curiosity and excitement. Seeing our consumers and knowing theyre part of our brand and in our comments and at our parties, but they wanted more, and I wanted to give them more. The combination of not only connecting with Boardroom content, but with fellow fans and members that can impact their own careers and businesses, is where Kleiman sees the most long-term potential. For me, the real excitement is creating something that I can point to potentially decades from now and say, That was us, we built that.
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Youve no doubt heard of Microsofts Copilot. But can you define exactly what it is? If you find that question a challenge to answer concisely, youre not alone. In the scramble to convert increasingly ubiquitous generative AI capabilities into recognizably branded tools, Copilot has succeededsometimes to the detriment of its own brand. Consider the most recent evidence of the Copilot brands cultural profile: a request from the Better Business Bureaus National Advertising Division recently asked Microsoft to adjust its Copilot branding and advertising to avoid confusing or misleading consumers. Part of the problem, it seems, is the way Microsoft has stretched the Copilot brand into a kind of catchall for all things AI. (Microsoft Copilot itself says there are multiple Copilots, each tailored to specific tools and platforms, listing about a half-dozen key examples.) In part, the NAD argued that Microsofts claims that Copilot boosts productivity and ROI were backed only by a study that actually measured a perception of productivity. It also suggested Microsoft is using the Copilot name across so many AI products and features its not always clear which advertised capabilities apply in which use cases. A description of Copilot working seamlessly across all your data, for example, might mislead a user who wasnt clear on which Copilot-branded tool it referred to. Based on the context of the claims and universal use of the product description as Copilot, NADs recommendation concluded that consumers would not necessarily understand the differences. A Microsoft statement to Fast Company said that while it disagreed with NADs critical conclusions, it is happy to make small adjustments to help customers better understand the differences between the chat and in-app experiences, or to clarify when a study reflects consumer perception.It’s true that the Copilot name has (to the annoyance of some users) long replicated itself across multiple Microsoft product lines as an all-purpose signifier of AI integration. As The Verge has argued previously, this seems to be partly the fallout from efforts to attract more business customers to pay for Copilot capabilitiesand that plays out in occasionally confusing ways. For example, Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat (formerly Bing Chat Enterprise) is actually distinct from Business Chat for Microsoft 365 Copilot (formerly Business Chat, a component of Teams). This gets at a deeper issue. The irony may turn out to be that there are just too many Copilots (and not just at Microsoft), and the term is being run into the ground. In fact, it risks becoming less of a signifier than a near-generic cliché (see the sparkle emoji of generative AI branding). The first significant use of the term copilot as an AI-associated name was actually GitHub Copilot, a 2021 release, which allowed users to work with AI in a form of pair programming, according to a Tech Republic mini history of the term. But Microsoft (which owns GitHub) followed soon after, and swiftly came to dominate its use. Windows keyboards now even include a Copilot keyfeaturing the Copilot logo, a ribbony splotch of colorful gradientsto invoke the Copilot in Windows experience. In practice, Microsofts version of the Copilot brand Security Copilot, Copilot Studio, Copilot in Wordis sometimes a product and sometimes a feature. All of which has arguably diluted the impact of the Copilot brand. Salesforce, Moodys, and Appian, among other companies, now use copilot in AI-related product names. More generally, in the AI context, copilot has come to serve essentially the function that assistant used to: a humanizing nickname for a variety of tech products that are being sold as not just a digital tool, but a kind of trusted peer. Of course, one of the challenges facing such products at the moment is living up to outsized promises and hopes, like huge overnight productivity boosts. Oftentimes, these tools feel less like a copilot and more like a temperamental trainee. Thats not to say that generative AI wont deserve the promotion from assistant to something more partner-like. But copilot, as an increasingly common and all-purpose term, can sometimes sound like title inflation. And thats not a brand meaning Microsoft had in mind.
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