CMO Spotlight | Meredith Winczewski - Honeywell
The CMO Spotlight offers an inside look into the minds and journeys of high-performing marketing leaders.
Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, sat down with Meredith Winczewski, the Chief Marketing Officer for Honeywell, to talk about authentic leadership, the value of listening, why marketers should not be afraid of lateral career moves, the importance of digging into data, and how AI is helping make complex marketing work more efficient.
Watch + Read the Recap Below
“We should always base our decisions on data. When you look for the data, it helps make decisions easier and takes the emotion out of it.”
Q1 | What is your superpower?
For Winczewski, strong leadership starts with authenticity, transparency, communication, and listening.
“I'm an authentic leader and an authentic person. I'm not going to ask somebody to do something on my team that I wouldn't do myself,” she shared. She then continued, “I'm transparent. I like to communicate down because I feel like when I'm able to communicate down the strategy and things that are coming from multiple layers above, it helps ground why we are doing something.”
She emphasized how important listening was to make an organization operate. “Listen in meetings before commenting or running the meeting.”
Q2 | What advice would you share with marketers?
Winczewski’s advice is a reminder that career growth does not always come from moving up. Sometimes, the experiences that build the strongest foundation come from moving laterally, doing the work, and learning the details others may overlook.
She emphasized, “Lateral moves are fine. Don't be afraid of lateral moves. And don't be afraid of putting in the work and getting your hands dirty. Sometimes tasks that seem incredibly mundane are going to teach you the nuts and bolts that you need to build your career. I can look back on a lot of things that I did, and it was cumbersome, but I learned a lot from it, and I'm a better marketer for it.”
So get your hands dirty, and treat every challenge or task as an opportunity to grow.
Q3 | What values are important to you?
Listening is central to how Winczewski approaches decisions, collaboration, and marketing performance. She also emphasizes the importance of using data as a guide to remove emotion from decisions and being willing to change course when the results call for it.
“When I say [listening], I mean sometimes we change our minds, right? We should always base our decisions on data. When you look for the data, it helps make decisions easier and takes the emotion out of it. We can develop a really cool creative campaign, but if it's not delivering pipeline, we need to look at the data and see why. Listening and looking and being authentic, I think, are really critical things. And then, of course, hard work—just rolling your sleeves up and let's get it done.”
Q4 | Tell us about an impactful campaign.
One of Winczewski’s most memorable campaign lessons came during the early days of digital marketing. Strong engagement numbers initially looked promising, but deeper analysis revealed that the campaign was reaching the wrong audience.
“We were digging into the data, and we couldn't quite understand. All these folks were clicking on things…like a million people were clicking on these ads, but we weren't seeing conversion. And it turns out that the audience was not set correctly. So, they liked the ad, it was appealing, but they weren't the potential buyers or influencers. Dive into the data, understand why, and then fix it. We learned, and didn't have that issue on the next campaign.”
Q5 | How is AI changing your work at Honeywell?
Winczewski sees AI as a practical tool for making complex marketing work easier and more efficient. As she explains, “AI is incredibly helpful” because it can “help tweak scripts, campaigns, documents” and turn detailed subject matter expert conversations into useful transcripts and summaries for agency teams. She also points to its creative applications, noting that when a photo subject wasn’t smiling, “We asked AI to change that, and it did in the image. It was awesome.”
Q6 | What brand do you admire?
“So, I really am a big fan of Porsche.”
Winczewski points to Porsche as a brand she admires for maintaining its reputation around quality, speed, and precision while expanding its appeal to a broader audience. While she thought as a mom she would gravitate towards an SUV, she loves Porsche’s branding. “I think they're tapping into a market of moms, maybe moms or dads, but it still has an amazing driving experience. And so that's a brand that I just think is still a wonderful brand, but they've possibly grown their market share by doing things a little bit differently.”
For more marketing leadership advice and insights into the mindset of marketing executives in various industries, be sure to watch the full interview with Meredith Winczewski, and keep an eye out for more thought leadership from our CMO Spotlights.
If you know an impactful marketing leader who would be a good candidate for the #CMOSpotlight series, nominate them here.
Watch the Full Interview to the right.
Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, sat down with Meredith Winczewski, the Chief Marketing Officer for Honeywell, to talk about authentic leadership, the value of listening, why marketers should not be afraid of lateral career moves, the importance of digging into data, and how AI is helping make complex marketing work more efficient.