Former Cisco CMO Karen Walker Joins Intel As Senior VP And CMO by @jenny_rooney @ForbesCMO @KarMWalker @Intel
Former Cisco CMO Karen Walker Joins Intel As Senior VP And CMO by Jenny Rooney, Forbes Staff, CMO Network –
“Karen Walker is making the move to Intel, a technology company with a storied history—and now assuming new marketing vision and leadership to guide its brand and business forward.
Walker, a veteran of more than 20 years of global technology industry marketing, will join Intel as senior VP and CMO, effective Oct. 23. Walker will oversee Intel’s global marketing group and be responsible for building and strengthening Intel’s brand, supporting growth strategies, cultivating opportunities in new and existing markets, and increasing demand for Intel’s products and solutions globally…
…
Intel’s last CMO was Steve Fund, who built an internal agency at Intel—Agency Inside, later shut down after his departure—and put consumer-friendly creative front and center—such as a Super Bowl commercial featuring Tom Brady and a Super Bowl halftime show featuring Lady Gaga and Intel drones.”
We’re fans of Lady Gaga, Super Bowls ads, and all that, however – this is a good next chapter for Intel. A CMO at a company like Intel can be a global change maker, bring clarity to strategies, and work on good causes, that just also happen to be good businesses too…
Over the past few years Intel has been steered in the wrong direction over and over for some markets, and led down some dead ends with partnerships. Back in 2017, Intel wasted time and buckets of money on expensive partnerships that went nowhere. Eventually all the “maker” products were canned by Intel.
We’ve tried to work through and around the various groups to get a hold of some decision makers for:
- Coding for underrepresented groups
- Educational efforts for youth groups for coding and electronics
- “Buy one / give one” efforts for technology to various groups
- Empowering girls and women through technology skill education
- IoT sensors for climate / AgTech with groups like 4-H…
With a new CMO, we’ll try again and see how it goes.
There’s a lot that Intel can do that is both in the good business and good cause categories all at the same time, we’ll send over ideas and actionable things and see what happens.