Leading Marketing Change at a 140-Year-Old Enterprise with Chris Bontempo

The B2B CMO Podcast with Jon Miller and Sydney Sloan · 2026-07-08 · 42 min

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Topics in this episode

SaaS B2B chief marketing officer CMO marketing leader

Episode notes

Chris Bontempo is the Chief Marketing Officer of Johnson Controls, a global leader in thermal management, mission-critical building systems, energy efficiency, and decarbonization. Prior to joining Johnson Controls, Chris worked his way up at IBM from an Analyst to become the Chief Marketing Officer, IBM Americas. He’s especially passionate about how AI changes the marketing operating model and how marketing can own market intelligence to shape strategy. Chris joins Jon Miller to discuss the exact frameworks he uses to win C-suite trust, defend the marketing budget with the CFO, and turn agentic AI into a genuine competitive advantage. Episode Takeaways Marketing must own the "voice of the customer" function, not just demand gen. back into the company, and being an energy supplier to the ecosystem. Representing the voice of the customer back into the business is what earns marketing a seat at the strategic C-suite table. CMOs should focus on the real business conversations, it's whether marketing, sales, product, and services collectively drove a revenue outcome. CMOs need enough financial acumen to defend budget in "secured revenue" terms with the CFO, not lead-volume terms.