ANA and IRG team up on new CMO Leadership Program

The ANA and the Institute for Real Growth (IRG) are partnering on a new, first-of-its-kind program for CMOs that is designed to develop leadership capabilities and drive business growth.

The ANA CMO Leadership Program by the IRG will connect participants with invaluable growth learning, benchmarking data, leading practitioners and experts, and industry best practices. Each quarter a new “cohort” of 30 to 50 chief marketers will participate, working individually, in small groups, and in plenary sessions to address new growth opportunities. The program will launch in April of this year.

This cohort model will help achieve the ANA’s objective to fuel ongoing engagement from CMOs who are learning together as a global leadership community.

“We are delighted that the ANA and IRG are partnering on this exciting new program that is tailored specifically for CMOs,” said ANA CEO Bob Liodice. “Mobilizing the CMO community with a continuous stream of growth-focused forums gives marketers the best opportunity to learn from each other and from marketplace developments.” Liodice added that the new initiative builds on almost a decade of ANA and IRG collaboration and partnership.

ANA EVP Nick Primola, who leads the ANA’s Global CMO Growth Council, added, “Over the past two years we learned the most important skills for marketers. This program brings all these learnings together as part of its core curriculum.”

The new 12-week program builds on the success of the IRG100 Leadership Program, now in its third year.

“COVID has taught us that humanized growth is more important than ever,” said Marc de Swaan Arons, IRG founder. “All the participants will share a passion for shifting from shareholder primacy to multi-stakeholder value creation.”

Participants will be supported as they apply practical frameworks to their own role and business to create a roadmap for more modern leadership and “humanized” business growth.

ADDITIONAL DETAILS:

The program consists of 12 weeks, with a weekly time commitment of two hours.
The participants will alternate between individual online self-learning sessions and facilitated collective Zoom calls.
The joint sessions will connect participants with peers, experts, and industry leaders sourced from the combined networks of IRG and the ANA.
The maximum number of members per cohort is 100; the minimum is 30.

The new ANA CMO Leadership Program by the IRG will include leaders from all backgrounds and experiences worldwide, and from almost every industry. Organizations represented in the previous IRG100 Programs include Bayer, Copa Airlines, Danone, Unilever, Microsoft, PayPal, Procter & Gamble, and Unilever.

“Organizations need their marketers to create value for multiple stakeholders,” said Frank van den Driest, IRG founder. “There is an opportunity for marketing to step up and take a leadership role. Our program helps them do that.”