Your CEO’s Trust Is Essential to Your Success

Christine Albert, senior vice president, marketing and communications, LCMC Health

Trust. Respect. Transparency. These are the words that describe how a good relationship between the CMO and CEO can lead to effective investment in marketing communications.

“It is important to listen and ask questions of the CEO and other C-suite members to discover what is important to their stakeholders,” says Christine Albert, senior vice president, marketing and communications, LCMC Health.

Recognizing those priorities and learning how they fit into the overall strategic goals of the organization is one way to build trust between the CMO and the CEO as well as other leaders, but it is an ongoing process, she says.

“I have to earn the trust of others every day,” she says. It is also important for a CMO to act as a buffer between C-suite leaders and elevate only issues that are strategically important and require CEO input, she adds.

The trust that is earned is not based just on the fact that the CMO understands overall strategic goals and different stakeholders, but also that the CMO and the marketing communications team follows through on plans. Albert says that CEO Greg Feirn has told her, “When I ask you to handle something, I know you have it — it is off my plate.”

One recent success for LCMC Health’s marketing team has been their investment in CRM campaigns, which drove a higher percentage of revenue from commercial payers than the health system’s overall average — 45 percent vs. 33 percent. Plus, a rebranding effort produced a consistent message and logo across the system’s five hospitals compared to the previous 130+ variations of logos that resulted as the system acquired hospitals.

Read the full story now: Chief Marketing Officers — Your CEO Is Counting on Your Expertise

Best regards,
Matt Humphrey
President