CMO Spotlight | Tia Cummings - Square
The CMO Spotlight is a chance to get an inside look into the minds and journeys of high performing marketing leaders.
Setup CEO Joe Koufman virtually sat down with Tia Cummings, the SVP of Global Brand Marketing for Square and the former VP of Marketing at Walker & Company (a P&G Company). The full conversation includes how she transitioned from engineering to marketing and how her leadership style leads to better relationships and culture within the organizations she works for.
“I view my role as an enabler to help my team be the best. [I ask my team] How can I help you break any barriers? How can I support you? That’s what it’s about.”
Watch the full interview and read the recap below.
Q1 | Tell us about your personal and career journey.
“It’s been a very interesting journey. It’s been a winding path. I didn’t necessarily intend it to be that way.”
Tia Cummings’ career path has been interesting, to say the least, and she has quite the résumé! While in college, she discovered marketing during an internship with Procter & Gamble as a chemical engineering student. She then left college knowing she wanted to pursue a career in marketing, despite having just received her chemical engineering degree. After undergrad, she went to business school at Purdue University, where she worked as an MBA intern at Johnson & Johnson. After graduate school, she worked for Pratt & Whitney in a rotational program, where she realized that her heart was in brand marketing. She went on to work for notable CPG brands like Johnson & Johnson, L'Oréal, and Kellogg’s for a decade. After this, she pivoted to work in hospitality for InterContinental Hotel Groups (IHG). After her experience with IHG, she was presented with the extremely unique opportunity to work as the Vice President with Walker and Co, a brand that makes health and beauty products tailored for people of color. She most recently joined Square, shortly after this interview was recorded.
Q2 | What is your superpower?
“This is easy,” Cummings exclaimed. “My superpower is coming into an organization and building amazing relationships and inspiring teams to get big things done.” She explained that every place she’s worked, the main piece of feedback she receives is, “It’s really amazing how you’re able to build these teams and inspire them to accomplish great things.” She exclaimed that her superpower is crucial because she has been able to turn around low-performing marketing teams and bring in new energy and build a culture within her marketing teams to enable them to do great work.
Q3 | Where do you find your inspiration?
“Brands that do good business and do good in the world.”
Cummings stated that P&G was inspiring to her long before she worked for them. Their messaging and storytelling had been very inspiring to her, as they were trailblazers in creating ads about social justice issues. She also stated that brands like TOMS and Bombas inspire her because they combine their business values with doing good for the world.
Q4 | Tell us about a campaign that you're proud of.
Walker & Company realized a problem within the black community around mental health. There was a New York Times article published during the pandemic detailing how the pressures of the pandemic compounded with social issues were affecting black people's mental health negatively. Cummings immediately went to her team to brainstorm ways to help solve this problem. They looked for partnerships with mental health organizations and they landed one with Headspace, a company focused on mindfulness and meditation, and they were able to offer free subscriptions to Headspace. This ultimately led to great press and their brand’s best quarter in history!
Q5 | What values do you lead by?
“[My] number one [value] is servant leadership.”
She continued, “I truly view my role as an enabler to help my team be the best.” She explained that her job is not to micromanage but to “question, inspire, motivate, and every now and then share some ideas.” She believes that this is the best way to manage and support her teams.
For more leadership advice and motivation for marketing professionals, watch the full interview with Tia Cummings (above), and keep an eye out for more insights from our CMO Spotlight series.
Setup CEO + Founder, Joe Koufman, spoke with Ben Boyd, the Chief Communications Officer at Chobani, about designing your own career path, the importance of empathy and understanding as a leader, and more.