CMO Spotlight | Kristy LoRusso - Kaiser Permanente

The CMO Spotlight is a chance to get an inside look into the minds and journeys of high-performing marketing leaders. 

Setup CEO, Joe Koufman, virtually sat down with Kristy LoRusso, the National Chief Marketing Officer at Kaiser Permanente to discuss the importance of building a great foundation for your team, how the book "How Will You Measure Your Life" by Clayton Christensen impacts her life, and more.

WATCH + READ THE RECAP BELOW (SCROLL TO THE END FOR THE FULL INTERVIEW)

“It’s really important to build trust because trust is so foundational to strong, high-performing teams.”

Q1 | Is there any advice you would like to share?

LoRusso advises marketers to “not be afraid to lean in” when opportunities present themselves. This means maintaining a curious and solution-oriented mindset. She also emphasized the importance of “learning the art of how to ask a question,” a skill younger marketers often forget that would benefit their careers and growth. 

Q2 | What is your superpower?

LoRusso shared that she is able “to connect things, and make them make sense together and then describe them in a way that those who are working on it understand.” Her ability to understand anything and then speak the same language as any department by rephrasing it in a way anyone can understand is a strength. 

Q3 | What values are important to you?

“I really want myself and my team to be willing to innovate, to be bold, to take risks, to fail fast, to really lead with a growth mindset because that’s how you get better.”

LoRusso and her team at Kaiser Permanente live and work by the following values: trust, integrity, respect, and innovation. All of those values are important to her and her team because the values set the foundation for a healthy work environment where people can come as their full and honest selves, setting a precedent of a high performing workplace.

Q4 | Where do you find inspiration?

“It’s really easy to find inspiration every day with the members and the customers that we serve.”

LoRusso gets her “motivation, innovation, and pride” from the people she serves every day. She added that the team starts meetings with stories about Kaiser Permanente members as a reminder to stay focused on who they’re serving. LoRusso continued, “In all the years and in the different kinds of industries I've been in, Healthcare is really special because it is people serving people in a way that is so personal. It's really easy to stay motivated each day.”

Q5 | Tell us about some impactful campaigns.

LoRusso shared that she has learned so much from both the successful and unsuccessful campaigns. During the COVID-19 pandemic, they created a campaign that tugged on heartstrings, and focused on connectivity and hope. That campaign was very effective for them and “resulted in some of the highest brand recall, performance, and brand association ever in the history of Kaiser Permanente.”

On the other hand, she learned from a campaign that “went too far away from the emotional connection and focused too much on the functional connection, or ‘what it is we do.’” A functional campaign was not as powerful as focusing on emotionally connecting with consumers. The Kaiser Permanente team found that focusing on the “heart over the head” led to a much stronger result.

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For more marketing leadership advice and a view into the mindset of marketing executives in various industries, be sure to watch the full interview with Kristy LoRusso, and keep an eye out for more thought leadership from our CMO Spotlights. LoRusso also mentioned how the book "How Will You Measure Your Life" by Clayton Christensen continues to impact her to this day.

WATCH THE FULL INTERVIEW TO THE RIGHT.