CMO Spotlight | Mika Yamamoto - Freshworks

The CMO Spotlight is a chance to get an inside look into the minds and journeys of high-performing marketing leaders. 

Setup President, Amanda Thompson, spoke with Mika Yamamoto, the Chief Customer and Marketing Officer at Freshworks, about the power of perseverance and believing in yourself, Warby Parker’s tactful and intentional experiential marketing, the importance of listening to your team for campaign input and success, and more. 

“Believe in yourself, believe that you can do whatever you set yourself up to do. If you don’t actually succeed at certain things, it doesn’t mean that you categorically are a failure. It means that certain things that you may do may not have worked.”

WATCH + READ THE RECAP BELOW (SCROLL TO THE END FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW)

Q1 | What advice would you share with marketers?

Yamamoto is a big proponent of believing in yourself despite failure.

“Believe in yourself, believe that you can do whatever you set yourself up to do. If you don't actually succeed at certain things, it doesn't mean that you categorically are a failure. It means that certain things that you may do may not have worked. Believing in yourself, but being comfortable with failure and hiccups in the road, and not equating that to your own personal brand or who you are.”

She emphasizes that circumstances do not define you but add to who you are, and that sometimes that belief in yourself can stem from having incredibly motivating people around you. “Having an overall belief in yourself and surrounding yourself with cheerleaders and people who are really honest about elements that you could work on, is really key as well.” 

Yamamoto also shared that working hard and having grit and perseverance is what led to her growth. She advises leaders to figure out how other people are motivated so that you can all work together to find a common ground to drive success. She urges people to dive in and understand the “different dynamics that are happening around you and absorb that and figure out what implications that brings to the business that you're in.”  

Her last tip was related to Agency and Client work. She believes that Clients would improve their relationships and work by stepping into the shoes of an Agency to see how Agencies work. 

Q2 | What values are important to you?

Yamamoto carries the values that were instilled from her family into her work. They are: 

• Integrity - Doing the right thing, always. Which means that not every dollar is green and you may walk away from a deal in the short term to be able to do the right thing in the long term. 

• Excellence - Leaving things better than you found them, even if you think that no one's going to notice. Also, always thinking of ways that you can raise the bar. 

• Focus - You can't be all things to all people, and, if you try, you end up being pretty marginal to everybody. So figuring out how to do fewer things well. 

• Stewardship - Helping other people around you be successful. And that could be people that you work for, people you work with, or people that work on your behalf as a leader. 

• Say what you mean and mean what you say - You want people to know that they can count on you and that you can build trust. 

• Perseverance - Keep grinding it out, work harder than anybody around you. If you fall down, if you skin your knee, get back up, dust yourself off, keep trying…she finds that the people who really thrive are the people that have a great deal of perseverance and the ability to really just push beyond and keep trying and working harder.

Q3 | What is a quote that inspires you?

“No one cares; work harder” is a quote that resonate with Yamamoto. As someone who prides themselves on their grit and expects people to persevere through hardship, she is all about a strong work ethic. “You need to recognize that things didn't work out the way you want, but you dust yourself off and you just keep going.”

Q4 | What brand do you admire?

Yamamoto admires Warby Parker because of their thoughtfulness in both their physical and digital experiences. She believes they prioritize accessibility through price and their experience online. Warby Parker is also thoughtful with their words and the experience they deliver shows great intention for the customer. She even pointed out her appreciation for their business mindset. “They take that branding and that messaging and that tone even into their financial results…like they design their financial well. They used to put a lot of intention in the design of their financial results and in the tone of their financial results as well. So to put that much intention in every single touchpoint is truly remarkable.”

Q5 | Tell us about an impactful marketing campaign.

“The best campaign effort that I've ever worked on was at my last role where we were breaking into the security space. The big thing to learn was involving the village in creating the need to actually drive more branded activities.”

Through opening up the conversation to sellers and customers, Yamamoto’s team realized that listening was their biggest tool. They noticed that they had more brand campaigns and assets that existed and, despite budget, created a very grassroots campaign. This meant including everyone from the solution engineers to sales and marketing to people in the field. 

“It was great because people were very vocal about what hadn't worked in the past, but because they were part of creating the future, they felt really invested. And so we created something that we all felt emotionally tied to and connected to, and we made it very personal. And we decided to be bold and people felt like they saw themselves in it, but they also felt like they could really emotionally relate to what we were saying. So it was the involvement of this village, it was not taking no for an answer to show if we could do something organically.” 

By having the emotional attachment of the team, they were able to create something organically that gained momentum and drove results. 

Because of this, Yamamoto believes in “following your gut, involving other people, persevering…and taking that village and making a case for why we needed to do it,” leading to an impactful outcome and campaign that the team was invested in and proud of. She even mentioned that their Agency relationship was incredibly powerful during this time, and the two worked together to push each other in the right direction. “So I think that was the best experience I've had in driving a campaign. It's the best outcome. It's a lesson in creating true partnerships and involving others in getting buy-in and understanding where you need to make a choice to be bold and making those choices to really break through.”

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For more marketing leadership advice and a view into the mindset of marketing executives in various industries, be sure to watch the full interview with Mika Yamamoto, and keep an eye out for more thought leadership from our CMO Spotlights.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW TO THE RIGHT.