• by The Editor , April 25, 2018

This week, Marketing Daily begins publishing a weekly series of podcasts hosted by Alan Hart, a veteran marketing executive with the heart of a journalist and creator of the “Marketing Today” podcast.

Hart, who is managing director of Atomck, the strategic marketing consultancy incubated by Cheil Worldwide’s McKinney unit, created “Marketing Today” to have intimate conversations with the world’s leading marketers. This week’s podcast features an in-depth one with the CarMax marketing team of CMO Jim Lyski and CIO Shamim Mohammad, who share the similarities of their backgrounds and the way they utilize their differences to fuel how they collaborate and work together.

At the heart of their team-oriented approach is the importance they place upon customer experience: “When we are sitting around the table and discussing any initiative,” says Mohammad, “we always make a decision that’s going to favor the customer.”

Highlights from this week’s podcast include:

• Lyski and Mohammad talk about the quantum leaps from where they grew up to their C-Suite presence today. (2:10)

• Lyski and Mohammad on how they resolve conflict. (6:30)

• How agile methodologies work at CarMax — the organization and operation of their teams resemble the structure of an atom. (7:18)

• Customer experience needs to be deeply integrated into a company’s culture. (15:46)

• Advice for CMOs or CIOs faced with a turnaround situation. (18:51)

• Communication and trust are key in establishing a collaborative culture. (26:10)

• “The harder the problem, the more creative you have to be.” (32:33)

• The future of marketing is now. (36:49)