If there's one area of business that's changing faster than most, it's marketing.
Two of the visionaries leading that evolution? E.l.f. Beauty CMO Kory Marchisotto and Sofia Hernandez, Global Head of Business Marketing and Commercial Partnerships at TikTok.
Marchisotto takes a fearless approach to brand-building that has helped fuel the company's 24 consecutive quarters of net sales growth and market share gains. Under her leadership, e.l.f. Cosmetics now tops the industry’s charts, ranking as the No. 1 favorite cosmetics brand for Gen Z and No.1 most-purchased cosmetics brand for Gen Alpha and millennials.
For her part, Hernandez has led some of the most iconic global marketing campaigns over the course of her 18+-year career. Now, she’s helping global brands like e.l.f. tap into the power of TikTok, challenging them to build innovative marketing strategies that drive culture on and off the platform.
The pair sat down with Chief CEO Alison Moore at The Chief Suite at SXSW to take attendees inside their creative, inclusive, disruptive brand of marketing. Here’s their advice for navigating this new era of leadership.
On losing control.
SH: “People that your brands want to connect with are expecting a lot more from brands, and what they expect is for brands to actually act like people.
“What blows my mind is that, on TikTok, when we do all of these brand studies, 71% of users say they want brands on the platform. This isn't a world where everyone's trying to skip ads, turn things off, not be targeted. If brands can behave like them, you're part of the community.
“It makes a lot of brands very scared. It is a very uncomfortable place to be. It’s really requiring marketers to step out of that box and start to put their brand in the hands of the community. You lose control, but control is a thing of the past.”
On letting your community lead the way.
KM: “E.l.f. is not our brand. E.l.f. is the brand of our community, and we're here to steer it on their behalf.
“How do we steer the brand on their behalf? By listening to their unique needs, wants, and desires. How does that translate? It translates into products that they're asking for. It translates into content that they want to see. It translates into places and spaces that we're not, that they are, that they want us to be a part of.
“We're following our community. They're telling us. And, most of the time, the reason they're telling us is because they know we're listening. When I say we are listening — this is really important — it's not social media managers. It's me. It's my CEO, it's my CFO. We are servant leaders to our community, and it starts all the way up in the C-Suite.”
On leaving the ivory tower.
SH: “Marketers are very good at being students of culture… but we're very bad at being practitioners of culture. I can't tell you how many CMOs and CEOs I talk to who are like, ‘Oh yeah, yeah, I know TikTok because my teenager is on it.’ And I'm like, ‘No, you don't know TikTok.’
“You have to be going to the places where the people you want to talk to as a brand are hanging out. Brands no longer have the luxury of sitting on a perch and watching things happen. The expectation is that you show up like one of us, like a normal person.”
On harnessing fast-evolving trends.
KM: “We put ourselves in an orbit of people who respond to the frequency we put out with our antenna. Everybody is an antenna. You're an antenna. Your frequency should be aligned with the antenna of the company you work for. If you want to do your best work, that frequency has to be aligned. If it's not, there's going to be massive tension in your human being, and you will never be in a state of peak performance if that antenna is not aligned.
It's the same with the brands you surround yourself with, the partners who you surround yourself with. We don't actually get involved with brands, we get involved with the people behind the brands. And if the people behind the brand are not in tune with our frequency and are not aligned to our values, we're not gonna work together.
On ditching old-school tactics.
SH: “It requires a new speed that marketers haven't been used to. You need to start leaning into new tools. You need to go hang out on the platforms and see what's going on.
“I challenged my own team this year. I said, ‘50% of how you're spending your time and your team's time should change in 2025. In fact, the plans that you bring me, I want to see at least 50% that’s different than what you brought me last year.’ We have to challenge ourselves to be much more in the mix and much less reliant on, frankly, what we were taught in university.”
Marchisotto and Hernandez were both recognized for their impact in 2024 as winners of Chief’s inaugural New Era of Leadership Awards.
Know another woman executive who’s shaping the future of business? Nominate them for the 2025 awards at thenewera.chief.com by March 31.
