Inside CMO+: Marketing, Comms, and a $10B Acquisition

CMO+ signals a bigger remit: marketing plus another lane the business depends on.

Drawing from her CMO+ tenure at Altair, Amy Messano (Thomson Reuters) talks with Drew about how unifying marketing and communications and empowering employees to carry the story from the inside out helped fuel rapid growth and a multibillion-dollar acquisition. She shows how treating earned, owned, and paid as one system and tying internal comms to go-to-market kept everyone aligned on the same promise.

In this episode: 

• Centralizing marketing and communications in an engineering-led company 

• Moving from a house of brands to a branded house built around “Only Forward” 

• Linking a consistent brand to investor confidence and deal value

Plus: 

• Simplifying product architecture and naming through acquisitions 

• Aligning marketing, PR, AR, and internal comms to tell one story 

• Using listening and clear brand architecture to bring cultures together 

• What CMO+ leadership really requires: new capabilities and a close CEO partnership

If you’re stepping into CMO+ or stretching beyond marketing’s lane, this episode’s for you! 

Renegade Marketers Unite, Episode 492 on YouTube

Resources Mentioned 

• CMO Huddles 

• Book: The Alchemy of Growth

Highlights 

• [2:28] Why marketing and comms belong together 

• [5:15] The emotional side of rebranding 

• [9:05] How a team built a $10B brand 

• [10:08] Building a brand your company believes in 

• [12:36] Building credibility without being an engineer 

• [15:43] Understanding the full Horizon 1–3 journey 

• [18:28] When brand strength boosts pricing power 

• [20:56] Bringing acquired brands into the fold 

• [25:53] Balancing comms caution and marketing boldness 

• [29:03] CEO–CMO comms dynamic 

• [31:36] Navigating AI, noise, and the new discovery game 

• [37:50] Keeping culture and people intact in integration 

• [41:33] How CMOs build the skills for “plus”

Highlighted Quotes  

"The internal reputation of the team went from order takers to strategic partners, and that just meant the world to me. Getting them within the blueprint of a functioning, supportive team really helped scale." — Amy Messano, Thomson Reuters

"I was recruited to help build a brand, create a centralized marketing team, stand up a CorpCom function, and to go from kind of a house of brands to a branded house." — Amy Messano, Thomson Reuters 

"It's more emotional than people think, especially through acquisitions. It's people's blood, sweat, and tears, and they want you to understand and respect that." — Amy Messano, Thomson Reuters 

Full Transcript: Drew Neisser in conversation with Amy Messano