Former World Vision CMO launches growth advisory business

Former World Vision chief marketing, product and data officer, Teresa Sperti, has launched a new transformation and growth advisory and training organisation, Arktic Fox.

The advisory focuses on strategy, capability, enablement and change and is aimed at assisting senior leaders to realise their transformation and growth ambitions. 

Sperti told CMO the last 12 months in her previous role with World Vision gave her a unique perspective on the challenges CMOs face in grappling with the landscape of change that organisations are in. After consulting many marketing leaders, Sperti learnt how many find it challenging to navigate the current digital landscape and realised there needed to be a space for genuine discussions within the industry.

Sperti, who has led significant change and growth initiatives not only at World Vision but also Officeworks, and has also worked for Coles and realestateview.com, saw an opportunity to support senior marketing leaders navigate the change within organisations today. 

“I saw how challenging it is to be a CMO in these times and to drive that change, particularly in areas such as digital, where they may not have the skills and expertise,” she said.

Arktic Fox will act as coach and adviser, rather than take an agency role, in helping senior leaders navigate the change agenda within their organisations. The ambitions is to be agnostic in the advice given to senior leaders to help them solve organisational problems.

“Agencies work deep into teams and Arktic Fox is focused on partnering with the senior leader, not to deliver creative or tools. We are there to coach and guide,” Sperti said. “There’s quite a significant shift happening as organisations are under pressure to reduce costs and drive growth and marketing teams are looking at the best approach to deliver.

"We can provide advice that is independent, like in-housing for example, because we don’t have an agency bias.”

Sperti also explained the focus of Arktic Fox is on how to help organisations get internal traction for change.
“They may not understand there are fundamental shifts that need to happen across strategic enablers - people, process and technology - and we have a strong focus on the how because that’s what’s going to determine whether or not the organisation is going to make the shifts that are required to embed that change and enable those initiatives to thrive,” Sperti said.

One of the biggest triggers for change is the swathe of marketing technology coming into marketing functions.  It’s often cited by marketing leaders as a critical part of transformation efforts, but also one of the challenges. 

According to Sperti, martech needs to be driven by strategy, rather than just the tech itself. “There is a large cohort of very savvy senior marketing leaders who have commercial acumen and understand the true value of marketing beyond communications but feel very exposed in the current climate," she commented. 

“CMOs are experiencing an unprecedented amount of pressure and are challenged by navigating the changing landscape and we hope to make their job a little bit easier.”

Sperti's business launch comes just a few months after fellow CMO50 honorary and former Curtin university marketing leader, Tyron Hayes, debuted Growth Generators, also designed to bridge the gap between strategy and execution.

Follow CMO on Twitter: @CMOAustralia, take part in the CMO conversation on LinkedIn: CMO ANZ, follow our regular updates via CMO Australia's Linkedin company page, or join us on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CMOAustralia.