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Building Better CMOs and Marketing Leaders
Building Better CMOs and Marketing Leaders

Connecting Marketing to Growth, with Wayfair CMO Paul Toms

05 November 2025 56:04 MMA Global / LightningPod

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Full transcript⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Watch this interview on YouTube⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠

—

Wayfair CMO Paul Toms got some advice from the company’s first marketing boss, which he still uses all the time: “Nobody cares about anything that happened before today. All we care about is that we make the smartest decision today… It lets you just engage in the present and in solving for the future without over-rotating on a prior decision." Paul has spent nearly 19 years at Wayfair, starting when the company had about 100 employees. Today, he oversees five brands across four countries, and leads marketing for a $12 billion business that's expanded into physical retail while maintaining its digital-first foundation. Today on Building Better CMOs, Paul and Marketing + Media Alliance CEO Greg Stuart talk about why marketers struggle to connect their work to business outcomes, and why the distinction between brand and performance marketing is simply a time window. They also discuss how to resolve disagreements by finding common ground, how Wayfair is finding innovative uses for AI, and why making decisions with incomplete information is essential for growth.

This episode was produced and edited by Eric Johnson from ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠LightningPod.fm⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠.


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Links:

  • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Paul's LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
  • ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Greg's LinkedIn⁠⁠⁠

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