Chief Marketing Officer, Maplebear
Search every verified Laura Jones interview, podcast appearance, and on-the-record quote — each transcript cross-checked by AI and human review to confirm speaker identity. In a September 2022 interview, Laura Jones, then VP of Brand and Marketing at Instacart (Maplebear), discussed the importance of integrating product and marketing functions. She stated that it is a "huge miss" when the two operate in a disconnected fashion, leading to "disconnected customer experiences or less effective marketing." Jones described product marketing as the "connective tissue" that determines who the company is building for, what to build, and how to communicate that message through marketing channels. Jones also shared her leadership philosophy, emphasizing that the most important quality for a leader is that people "trust and desire you to be their leader." She advocated for an "evidence-based" approach to hiring, valuing work product over a candidate's profile. Reflecting on her career, Jones noted that her trajectory has been about gaining confidence to solve larger problems, and she advised others to "raise your hand to try new things" and not be afraid to take risks to learn new skills.
“I always think it's a huge miss when product and marketing are operating in a disconnected fashion. You have two of your biggest investments as a company pointed in opposite directions, and those two investments are your tech team and your brand media spend. That can end up with disconnected customer experiences or les...”
“Product marketing is that connective tissue to say who are we building for, what should we be building, and then how do we make people aware of that and put that message into the biggest, loudest messages that the company is distributing via the marketing channels.”
“Instacart is groceries on demand, and our heritage as a company has been being the market leader in taking that on-demand e-commerce model and bringing it to one of the largest purchase categories out there, which is grocery. Now as we evolve, we're starting to diversify into other verticals like convenience and non-gr...”
“Early on, I invested a disproportionate amount of time in setting the vision and strategy, working closely with our market intelligence and research teams to understand market dynamics, TAM, and the business case for marketing. Once we outlined the jobs to be done for marketing, we articulated our brand vision and stra...”
“I think for me it's been largely about gaining confidence that I can solve bigger and bigger problems, work with bigger teams and budgets, and applying a structured problem-solving framework that I developed during my time at Stanford's d.school focused on user-centric design.”
“I think it's so important to have a constant learning mindset. For me, it's about creating the conditions for learning by giving yourself on-the-job challenges that motivate you to learn, combined with the resources to do so. I've found that a just-in-time approach to upskilling has been really powerful.”
“I like to say only do what only you can do. I tend to go deep on strategy and really want to understand the why behind what a team is doing so I can rely on the strategy and talent and know that execution will be impactful and effective. I also spend a lot of time on the creative and visual side to ensure a cohesive lo...”
“As a leader, the most important quality is that people trust and desire you to be their leader. Empowering people to be the best at their craft is critical. I approach this by coming in with a curious mindset, understanding the intent behind work, and raising the bar through principled decision-making, especially impor...”
“My framework for assessing talent is evidence-based hiring. I overvalue work product that I can observe and evaluate independently of a candidate's profile. This includes giving candidates prompts or homework to see their approach and reviewing portfolios for all roles, not just creatives, to understand their thought p...”
“If I could give advice to my younger self, it would be to raise your hand to try new things and be confident that you can learn new skills, even on the job. Not being afraid to take risks and learn new disciplines will differentiate people who have faster career trajectories.”
Subscribe here: http://bit.ly/2rCsYZD Check out upcoming events: http://prdct.school/LI_events Read speaker's bio: ...
Sign in to search the full transcript archive, filter by topic, and access every quote from Laura Jones.
The summary and quote tags on this profile are produced with AI assistance from verified, first-person interview transcripts, then checked by our team to confirm the speaker's identity and the accuracy of every quote. See how we verify →