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Paola Pugliese is a strategic brand marketing and communications executive with nearly 20 years of international experience leading global brands in the fashion, luxury, and home sectors - including IKEA, Max Mara, Diesel, Frette, and currently serving as the Chief Marketing Officer at Brown Jordan, a leader in outdoor luxury furniture. She has lived in Italy, Sweden, and the U.S. and has executed marketing initiatives across more than 25 markets. With deep expertise in brand positioning, organizational and digital transformation, and team leadership, she has a proven track record of driving double-digit growth campaigns. She holds an executive certificate from Yale School of Management. Paola believes in curiosity over convention, data to support instinct, and doing the unglamorous work that actually moves the needle.

CMO COUNCIL: What past experiences have prepared you for the modern global CMO role?
PUGLIESE: The strongest skills of a modern CMO are flexibility and being open to change, while never losing focus on delivering value to customers. In a rapidly evolving environment, leaders must constantly reinvent the playbook while staying true to their vision.

My career - and life - has been shaped by working for global companies across diverse markets: Italy, Sweden, and the U.S. I’ve led initiatives in more than 25 countries, each with distinct cultures, customer behaviors, and expectations. This journey has offered me constant opportunities to learn and adapt, while implementing international standards of excellence.

Additionally, my experience spans both fashion and home: this taught me to think of customers in terms of lifestyle rather than just product use. Adding meaningful value to their brand experience is as important as product features. It’s about how people live, shop, and what they care for – and this can be extremely variable and in constant change.

CMO COUNCIL: What market shifts and technology innovations are most impacting customer and competitive dynamics in your industry?
PUGLIESE: While the furniture industry has historically been slow to adopt technology, customer expectations for service, speed, and quality are the same as in any field. This creates opportunities for companies willing to innovate. In a world where new technology appears daily, my approach is to focus on reducing friction in two ways rather than chasing every shiny tool: internally, by optimizing tedious processes; externally, by improving the customer journey through deliberate, behind-the-scenes work.

For example, on the B2B side, digital tools can streamline ordering, providing real-time information on customization, availability, lead times, and post-purchase updates. For B2C customers and designers, space visualization tools are moving from novelty to expectation: seeing how a piece fits in a real space, making instant adjustments, and receiving real-time quotes based on fabric or finishes. Brands that make this effortless will win consideration by removing key barriers: uncertainty about the final result, price, or delivery.

Underpinning all of this is real-time data, with AI accelerating speed and decision-making. Knowing what’s trending, what’s stalling, and why - fast enough to act across sales teams and even our factories - is the capability that can impact the industry the most – and that we’re actively building in close collaboration with our CIO.

CMO COUNCIL: What are some of the secrets to better collaboration with peers in the C-suite and lines of business?
PUGLIESE: The most important habit I’ve built is listening before speaking. Understanding what keeps my peers up at night and what success looks like to them allows for much stronger collaboration. I try to embed their metrics into my team’s goals wherever possible: when marketing's wins are also sales' wins and product's wins, collaboration stops being a soft skill and becomes a structural reality.

The second principle is starting from trust. When ideas clash at the senior level, it’s rarely about someone wanting the business to fail: it’s about smart people seeing things differently. The mark of real seniority is being able to sit with that tension, find the thread of common ground, and move forward together. This approach fosters a strong collaborative culture.

CMO COUNCIL: What challenges do you face in the coming year and how do you expect to adapt and change?
PUGLIESE: There are both external and internal challenges.

Externally, market volatility is a key concern. We need to be operationally ready to pivot with scenario plans, agile creative options, and a strategy flexible enough to adapt quickly.

Internally, the challenge is optimizing our marketing and technology stack, integrating AI tools, and seizing opportunities to lead innovation. The faster we can “connect the dots” (from factory operations, market trends, advertising campaigns through to the purchase phase) the faster we can improve and serve our customers better. A major focus this year is building analytical tools and team capabilities to compress the cycle from observation to insight to action, while leading through a necessary learning curve for the teams.

CMO COUNCIL: What's the best piece of career advice you've been given, or would give to emerging marketing leaders?
PUGLIESE: I’ve carried two lessons over the years. The first came from inside IKEA, where one of the lines in the company’s internal manifesto was simply: “Do it a different way.” It means constantly questioning whether the established path is the best path, even when it’s comfortable, even when it’s working. I believe a certain restlessness is what separates good marketers from great ones. Stay curious!

The second lesson is one I give to every emerging leader I mentor. As sharp as it may sound: you are not a relevant data point. Your own shopping habits, aesthetic preferences, or relationship with technology - none of it reliably maps onto your audience. The discipline of getting outside your own perspective through data, research, and actually talking to customers, is the most humbling and valuable skill in marketing. The moment you assume your consumer thinks like you, you’ve stopped doing marketing and started doing autobiography.