Podcast Episode 21: Marketing Leadership with Harvard Business School CMO Brian Kenny

briankennyAnyone who works in higher education marketing and communications surely grapples with the challenges of building consensus while not getting weighed down by meetings and politics. Balancing stakeholder demands – be it from the dean’s suite, the faculty, students or alumni – can be challenging.

Brian Kenny, the Chief Marketing and Communications Officer at Harvard Business School (HBS), discussed these topics on FIR on Higher Education episode 21.

He also offered perspective on:

• Adopting to a school’s culture when launching a new brand campaign.
• Empowering team members and influencing leadership.
• Tips on starting out in a marketing and communications role.

About Brian Kenny
Brian brings two decades of experience in developing marketing strategies and plans for large global institutions to his role at Harvard Business School (HBS). As the School’s first Chief Marketing and Communications Officer, he has oversight of the HBS brand globally, including coordinating the planning and implementation of all the School’s marketing, communications and public relations efforts around the world. Working with the dean’s executive team and leading HBS faculty, Brian oversees the alignment of branding, marketing, and media relations efforts across the HBS enterprise including the MBA program, Executive Education, and HBS Publishing.

Brian has led multifunctional marketing teams in several global institutions spanning a number of industry sectors. Most recently he was Vice President of Marketing and Communications at Northeastern University, where he engineered a branding and marketing program to help propel the university into the top 100 nationwide. Previously he oversaw global marketing for management consultancy The Monitor Group and led marketing programs for Genuity, a $2 billion Internet company. In addition, he has held marketing leadership positions at various other organizations, including Arthur D. Little and Boston University.

This episode is sponsored in part by Experiential Communications’ forthcoming Online Media Training Program for Academics.