Hey and welcome to Trendy CEO! I’m Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content material officer of Mansueto Ventures. Every week this text explores inclusive approaches to management drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages of Inc. and Quick Firm. Should you obtained this text from a pal, you possibly can sign up to get it yourself each Monday morning.
Trendy CEO is coming to you right now from the Cannes Lions Worldwide Competition of Creativity. What began 60 years in the past as an promoting awards program has advanced into an annual gathering of media and advertising and marketing executives that’s more and more attracting enterprise leaders from completely different industries, together with CEOs.
“Any CEO who needs to develop, innovate, and keep culturally related will profit from being right here,” says Shelley Zalis, founder and CEO of the Feminine Quotient, a group of girls in enterprise that hosts a lounge on the occasion.
Tony Capuano, president and CEO of Marriott, concurs: “Cannes Lions is the place the world’s strongest inventive conversations occur—onstage, over espresso, and in each assembly alongside the Croisette [Cannes’s main street],” says Capuano, who’s talking on a panel with former NBA star Carmelo Anthony at Stagwell’s Sport Seashore activation and moderating a session on meals and journey on the JW Marriott.
“For me and our crew, it’s a necessary second to faucet into the vitality of worldwide tradition, discover how manufacturers are shaping conduct, and construct partnerships that assist us join extra meaningfully with vacationers world wide,” he provides.
Cannes: a inventive compass
A part of the enchantment of the confab is the sturdy presence of know-how giants which are dominant advertising and marketing platforms (Alphabet’s Google Companies section, for instance, which incorporates income from search, YouTube, and different advert sources, noticed 2024 income climb 12%, to $304.9 billion), builders of the generative synthetic intelligence (gen AI) instruments which are reworking content material creation, or each.
Amazon, Canva, Meta, IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce are among the many tech corporations popping up in lounges and assembly areas, and the competition is honoring Adobe CEO Shantanu Narayen as its Artistic Champion of the 12 months—a brand new award that appears designed to make sure the participation of a significant tech CEO on the proceedings. The affect of gen AI on creativity can be a significant theme this yr, attendees say.
The occasion additionally affords a possibility for enterprise leaders to debate broader points, corresponding to political and financial danger. Judy A. Smith, founder and president of strategic advisory agency Smith & Firm, is talking on a panel about constructing and defending a model in unsure instances. Smith, who’s attending Cannes Lions for the primary time, says she sees worth in with the ability to meet and listen to from so many decision-makers in a brief time frame. “It’s an effective way to remain on high of rising developments and see what’s shaping the way forward for the trade,” she says.
To make certain, those that advocate Cannes Lions as a part of the CEO convention circuit are agency believers within the energy of creativity and inventive management in company ranks. “In a world formed by notion, confidence, and social connection, creativity shouldn’t be a division. It’s a management instrument,” says Claudia Romo Edelman, who will unveil the newest version of her We Are All Human Basis’s Hispanic sentiment analysis in Cannes. “Should you’re severe about driving change, there’s no higher place to sharpen your imaginative and prescient.”
Is Cannes a must-do for you?
Ought to CEOs exterior the media and tech ecosystem make the journey to Cannes? You may determine for yourselves: Trendy CEO will ship a number of further dispatches from the occasion this week with insights and takeaways from panels, interviews—and possibly a number of events. And you probably have questions you need me to ask the CEOs I meet, ship them to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com, and I’ll attempt to work the solutions into my newsletters.
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