Deborah Malone

Defining Moment: 21 years ago, Deborah realized that the international marketing industry fascinated her. “I wanted to see it change and see it grow and wanted to share the stories of the people in that industry. It's not always one of those moments where it's like fireworks. It's just this moment where you say, I know what I'm going to do for the rest of my life. I'm committed to this.”

What changed that she never imagined could: Well, I think the thing that I'm seeing right now is just this move to people trying to find their purpose. What's now happening though is it almost seems, and I'm not sure this is a good thing or a thing, but you know, it's seeping into marketing as it's seeping into life, is it seems that everything is political. It seems that brands are political, whether they like it or not, what we wear is political. And I think that that's a direction that may not be good.

Another change was the makeup of the ad industry. Gray and J. Walter Thompson not really existing anymore as brands. I it used to be that the creative shops were the premier.

Coping with change: We haven't really varied from our original intention, which was to connect the people and ideas in international marketing. And we do it in a lot of ways now. It's not only the content. I mean, we have everything from book publishing to content via video, that we have a little research through our insights surveys. We do quite a bit. But I think that maybe the hallmark for us is that there's always that feeling of the personal.

Advice to a CEO or CMO hiring: I would say, look, there's a couple of things that really matter when it comes to business. One of them is experience. One of them is understanding relevance. And one of them is having the confidence of that experience and that relevance. That’s what people over 55 bring to the business.