Appfire CMO on the Modern Marketing Function & Best Practices

Despite the significant changes in the industry, marketing remains a core component of many companies’ growth strategies. We spoke with Appfire’s recently appointed Chief Marketing Officer, Catherine Solazzo, about her experience as a “CMO plus” and how leaders need to approach the marketing function to meet today’s complexities.

Solazzo reflects on bringing decades of experience at IBM and others to Appfire

Solazzo joined Appfire two months ago as its CMO, but she’s no stranger to the title itself. She’s held the top marketing role at the MSP Syntax and served as the SVP of marketing first at Tech Data and then at TD SYNNEX through the acquisition process that formed the company.

Her time within the channel also includes several years at IBM, where she served as vice president of the worldwide partner ecosystem marketing function, among other roles. 

Now, she sees the importance of human insight as more crucial than ever, emphasizing that AI can assist in tasks that still require oversight and performance by skilled staff.

“Part of what I love about Appfire is that we’ve been very clear about that, and you won’t see news from us about letting people go because we’re replacing them with AI,” said Solazzo.

Data privacy concerns, full-funnel visibility, and platform interoperability: what CMOs need to focus on today

Solazzo cites tech innovation and changes over time to operating models as key reasons why the marketing function feels different to many leaders than it used to.

“The profile of a CMO today is drastically different from what it used to be,” Solazzo said. “If marketers can position themselves as a growth function and not a cost center, they can’t lose.”

Solazzo’s emphasis on growth is rooted in various elements, but perhaps most strongly in the fact that marketers are increasingly asked to prove impact on the pipeline throughout the funnel. To address this, Solazzo says, she has seen herself and some of her peers work to integrate BDR and other lead-generation functions into the marketing organizations they lead.

Solazzo also says she has worked to bring various platforms, including the CRMs in use across sales and marketing and the partner management tooling, under one shared leader so that data policies are handled the same way across use cases.

“Because CMOs also now have ownership of data privacy and governance in many ways, I don’t want someone else to then own that data,” Solazzo said. “Bringing that all in one place with one understanding of what is needed helps me sleep better at night.”

Why Solazzo brings a developer’s mindset to her marketing org, and what others can learn from the approach

Much of Solazzo’s career has been focused on marketing, but she has also held roles in sales and other functions. At IBM, she held various roles, including a stint as vice president of the company’s developer programs and startups organization. She credits that time in the developer community with shifting her approach to the more traditional aspects of marketing.

“I took a lot of those learnings and approaches and I’ve built them into my marketing model, which is maybe a bit unusual,” Solazzo said. 

She has introduced sprint-style planning into Appfire’s marketing teams and says her department has now migrated to Jira for its workflows. This is especially important, Solazzo says, because Appfire’s user base is comprised of developers. To her, using the same tools and processes is a way to mirror the success Appfire promises to bring to its partners and customers.

“We should be our own best customer use case,” she said of her team.

Solazzo oversees a growing team at Appfire, a company on a strong growth trajectory, servicing major ecosystems through its channel partners. However, she notes that every leader, regardless of the team’s size or scope, can focus on demonstrating the importance of a mature marketing strategy for the business.

“I’m not sure other functions have caught up with how sophisticated marketing has become over the last few years,” said Solazzo.