Leadership Spotlight

Marketing Takes a Central Role

Ann R. Marks, W'80, WG'81
Chief Marketing Officer, Dow Jones, New York

The single thing that changed my life was the Blackberry," says Ann Marks. "I can keep everything going at work while sitting in the singing circle at nursery school. My life is completely integrated—I work around the clock as both a CMO and a mom."

She's able to say that because Wharton to her is not a "single thing." It's the destiny she resisted by first attending Bryn Mawr before transferring to Wharton as a sophomore. It's the intellectual environment she found so stimulating that she stayed an extra year as a submatriculant, leaving Wharton in 1981 with two degrees. It's the business grounding that served her well enough as a newly minted MBA that she was able to outcompete peers who had five and six years more experience under their belts. And it's the campus home that feels both familiar and fresh when she visits 25 years after graduation.

"My father and brother both attended Wharton, so it was sort of in my DNA," she says. Although her interest in liberal arts first led her to Bryn Mawr, frequent visits to Penn to visit her older brother Bruce Marks (W'79), convinced her that Wharton was where she belonged.

As a transfer, she jumped in with both feet. "I dual majored in accounting and management as an undergrad, and in finance, marketing, and entrepreneurship in grad school. I think I was able to eke more out of Wharton than most," she jokes. At the time, Marks thought her future would be in entrepreneurship, and that's where she excelled. She remembers her best academic moment as an entrepreneurship class that charged her with generating $100,000 in capital to start a business. She earned an A-plus and became a teaching assistant in entrepreneurial management.

Outside of the classroom, she and her brother put together a real-life business—"The Rip-Off Book," a coupon package featuring deals from local businesses that they eventually operated on four campuses—Penn, Temple, Pittsburgh (their hometown), and Michigan (the school their sister attended).

Upon graduation, however, Marks found another application for her creativity and business drive as a marketing associate with General Foods in White Plains, NY. During her 14 years there, she found the world of corporate marketing immensely rewarding and surprisingly entrepreneurial.

"It used to take us a week just to set up a meeting. When I started working, decisions and progress occurred at a snail's pace compared to today," she says. "The Internet and e-mail has changed that."

In the time since she began at General Foods, the role of marketing had changed significantly. Marketers have to move quickly to identify and adapt to new trends and technologies. They have to fulfill the growing demands that marketing generates measurable results. As a result, marketing strategy is more commonly recognized as a core business function that creates real shareholder value.

"Wharton taught me how to think analytically and this is required in all business fields, not just consulting and investment banking," she says. "It has served me well in my marketing career."

The reward—and challenge—for Marks culminated in a seat at the table as a C-level officer. After a tour of duty at American Express, in 1998 she became Chief Marketing Officer for Dow Jones.

"Maybe if I didn't have a family I would be on a CEO track, but a CMO track is okay with me," she reflects. "I have a very demanding job with more than a hundred people reporting to me. And I'm the mom of three children under 10, which I think is the most demanding job of all."