Executive VP & Chief Marketing Officer, Infosys
The CMO’s Place Is Undoubtedly in the C-Suite ft. Infosys’ CMO, Sumit Virmani
More than ever before, CMOs belong in the C-Suite. And, Sumit Virmani, CMO of Infosys, has a strong case to back this stance up. In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, live from the 2026 World Economic Forum in Davos, Sumit breaks down the necessary evolution of the CMO, what AI has to do with it, and the strategic imperative of aligning with C-suite priorities.
What You'll Learn:
Why CMOs need to operate within the full C-suite context, not just marketing bubbles
How to position yourself as a transformation partner, not a marketing operator
The critical difference between using AI to do mar...
About Sumit Virmani
Sumit Virmani, Executive Vice President and Global Chief Marketing Officer at Infosys, has been a prominent voice on the role of AI in enterprise transformation and marketing. Speaking at Infosys Investors AI Day in February 2026, he described AI as a "giant leap in raw capability" that is not "system complete," arguing that enterprises require a multi-layer approach to harness its potential. He stated that "agentic AI is the foundation of how enterprises will operate going forward," moving beyond isolated pilots to production-scale capabilities. At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January 2026, Virmani said that AI is "unleashing a fantastic opportunity to bring creativity, data, analytics, tech together for marketeers" and argued that CMOs should use AI not just to automate marketing but to "play in the entire business spectrum," contributing to product development and cross-suite collaboration. He has described marketing as "the growth catalyst of the organization" and said the CMO's "rightful place is in the C-suite shaping strategy." Virmani has also discussed Infosys's brand strategy and social initiatives. He highlighted the company's "Champions Evolve" campaign featuring tennis players Rafael Nadal and Iga Świątek, stating that the brand ambassadors were chosen for their alignment with Infosys's values. He has spoken about the Aarohan Awards, an initiative of the Infosys Foundation that recognizes social innovation, noting that the program has shown "incredible depth across the three categories: education, healthcare and sustainability." In a separate appearance, he discussed the importance of balancing purpose and profitability, stating that "a balanced commitment will ensure that they come out of it as a winner." He has also emphasized the role of technology in sports, describing Infosys's work with tennis tournaments to create immersive fan experiences and AI-driven coaching tools for players on the tour.
Transcript (28 segments)
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Sumit Virmani0:00
Marketing is the growth catalyst of the organization. Marketing's rightful place and CMO's rightful place is in the C-suite, shaping strategy, debating business challenges and finding solutions to drive growth.
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Jenny Rooney0:19
Hi everyone and welcome to the Marketing Vanguard podcast. I'm Jenny Rooney with AdWeek and I'm thrilled to be coming to you from Davos, Switzerland. We are in the FQ Lounge and we have been hosting the Marketing Vanguard Inspiration Excursion here in Davos, convening CMOs for two days of insightful conversation, deep dives into the CMO role and how AI is transforming all of that. So I'm thrilled to be joined right now with Sumit Virmani. He's the CMO of Infosys. Sumit, welcome.
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Sumit Virmani0:51
Thank you. Thank you, Jenny. And so great to be here. And I must say, welcome to Davos. I'm told this is the first time AdWeek is here. I'm so glad you are actually convening CMOs and giving them a platform.
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Jenny Rooney1:02
Well, thank you so much for saying that because you by the way are no rookie. You are no stranger to Davos. You've been here how many years?
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Sumit Virmani1:08
I believe 11. This is the 11th one if my memory serves me right. But definitely over a decade.
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Jenny Rooney1:16
So listen, you have strong opinions about this. We were just talking about it. Why do you think it's so important for CMOs to be in Davos and why now?
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Sumit Virmani1:25
Well, Jenny, we've talked about this before as well, but I've always believed that marketing is the growth catalyst of the organization. Marketing's rightful place and CMO's rightful place is in the C-suite, shaping strategy, debating business challenges and finding solutions to drive growth. Davos is a confluence of C-suite. It's a confluence of business leaders, world leaders and this is where debate around what's in the year ahead takes shape. Marketers should be very much a part of that because marketers are entrusted with building brands. They are entrusted with shaping growth and this is where they get to learn it all and influence it. So it's good to be at marketing-only platforms but it's great to be at a platform where the C-suite converges.
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Jenny Rooney2:26
And let's talk about that. I mean, by marketing-only platform, Cannes absolutely is one of those and I think obviously, look, that used to be a celebration of creativity. It used to be only the agency community that would go. Obviously, that shifted probably 15 years ago when CMOs started to go to Cannes in droves. The difference though, and you've noted this, is Cannes is CMOs talking to CMOs. It's still very much a marketing-centric event. Granted, it's global, but it certainly pulls heavily from the US. It pulls heavily from sort of the go-to companies and industries and agencies that you would expect. Davos blows all that up. I mean, it's sort of this is where you actually, to your point, find yourself talking to people who are not like you. They're not CMOs. And so how does being in an environment where you are getting exposed to CEOs and to CFOs and to other world leaders, why is that so important and why do you think that's important for CMOs to get that exposure?
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Sumit Virmani3:30
I think that's a great point to debate, Jenny. And I don't consider myself a Cannes pro. I've only been there twice, but it's a great platform. You learn a lot from some of the best campaigns out there in the world. You still continue to celebrate creativity and you get to learn from each other, learn from industries, but it's still a marketing bubble. It's still living within the community of marketers. And in real world, in real businesses, in real life, each of us as marketers, as CMOs, operate within the context of the business alongside other C-suite leaders. And if we truly have to influence strategic direction, if we truly have to influence company strategy via geopolitical changes, you need to be. Marketing is all about listening to the market and this is where you get an opportunity to do that. This is an opportunity for truly marketers to come and participate, learn from what's going to shape their CEO's priorities for the next year. What are the trends that are influencing cross-functional dimensions of your business? It's a fantastic opportunity to really break the bubble of marketing and learn from a divergence of voices that'll only make you smarter. And when you go back into your own environment and you're engaging with your fellow C-suite partners, you'll be a lot more informed. You'll have a lot more context and your marketing strategies, informed by this learning, will actually see a lot more acceptance and receptivity.
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Jenny Rooney5:23
That's such a great point. I especially love what you're saying about the fact that if CMOs need to be relevant, if they need to be true growth drivers, you have to be 100% aligned with your CEO's agenda. You need to be able to see where they're spending their time, where their headspace is, what big macro forces they're grappling with, and what better environment than Davos. That said, not all CMOs get to come to Davos. I think what we tried to do, and part of the motivation in bringing the Marketing Vanguard program to Davos for the first time this year, quite frankly, was to create more access to a wider swath of CMOs. What advice would you give to CMOs who want to basically either advocate for themselves to come to Davos or find a true business case for coming who don't otherwise or wouldn't ordinarily have an opportunity to come or it wouldn't even be part of the CEO's agenda to have their CMO come with them?
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Sumit Virmani6:23
Well, I think it's a journey, Jenny. And CEOs are just one critical stakeholder that CMOs have always aspired to work closely with and frankly they can't really survive without having a strong partnership with the CEO. But I won't stop at that. I would even say that we today live in a world of AI. AI clearly has been the narrative whether it's Cannes or whether it's Davos for the last couple of years and I believe that AI in some sense opens up an incredible opportunity for CMOs to widen the horizon, to look beyond their traditional marketing mold and say how can AI give me agency to widen my influence. And it's very feasible because today AI is giving CMOs access to analytics that was never possible in the era prior to AI. It's giving you a sense of deep partnership opportunities on data with your CIO and that should become integral because what you would like to do is have CMOs position themselves as the transformation partners, orchestrators of the enterprise strategy and that has to happen well before you make a pitch for coming to Davos. That should become integral to how you operate as a function. So I would say AI is unleashing a fantastic opportunity to bring creativity, data, analytics, tech together for marketers to become an integral contributor to strategy and growth. And once that happens, participation in platforms like this would be an automatic reality, not necessarily a business to be built.
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Jenny Rooney8:24
I love that. So AI truly is, we are in an inflection point for CMOs. AI is driving that and it's a massive opportunity for those who get it right. And what I'm hearing you say is you won't have to sort of advocate for yourself or argue that you should be in environments like this as a CMO because it will just be obvious.
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Sumit Virmani8:44
But an important point there is don't use AI to do what you do better. That's a given. It's not another technology to automate the marketing lifecycle. Yes, for sure it does that. But it gives you opportunity to contribute to product development. It gives you opportunities to elevate prototyping, reimagine experiences. So the point I'm making is it gives you permission to play in the entire business spectrum, not necessarily in the marketing spectrum and some of those opportunities will foster collaboration across the C-suite which you should proactively seek.
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Jenny Rooney9:32
Like yes, all of that, a thousand percent. Mic drop moment, Sumit. So I mean, amazing, just because I track that so closely. Like I understand so deeply what you're saying and it is such an incredibly powerful moment. You know, honestly, I'm sure there's plenty of CMOs who think about that or listen to that and think, 'God, I can't handle one more thing on my plate. There's no way I could think about expanding my scope even further from where I'm at right now.' What do you say to those folks who might be...
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Sumit Virmani10:05
I guess the question simply is where do you see marketing success. If you see marketing success in creating great advertising, you don't have to really broaden your horizon. But if you see marketing success in driving transformation and driving growth, it's not optional. If you seek marketing to have a seat at the strategy table within the organization, the only way you would do that is where marketing's creative genius is being complemented with AI's analytics genius, the organizational text, data standardization, all then contributing to intelligence that helps your organization serve its customer better. That's what marketing has always been about. It's just that somewhere in the journey over the last several decades, marketing became only about creativity and promotion and we forgot the good old four Ps. This is an opportunity to possibly gain back some of that opportunity and widen marketing's influence.
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Jenny Rooney11:23
Yeah. How's this week been? I mean, it's still early this week, but how has it been for you? How has it been for Infosys when you come? What do you seek to accomplish? You know, what does good look like for you coming out of this week?
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Sumit Virmani11:38
So I'm going to say that wearing my two separate hats. One as the CMO of the organization and one of course the member of the executive committee that represents the larger organizational interest which is also beyond marketing. So from a marketing standpoint, this is a great platform for brand showcase because we are a large organization, nearly 20 billion in revenues, 350,000 people present across 60 countries. It's a great opportunity to showcase our brand to the business leaders from across industries that we serve. So that's why we have a very significant presence on the Promenade. If you just walk from here to the Congress, you can't miss us. So that's one opportunity that we keep creatively taking leaps to ensure we are front and center despite the rather crowded Promenade. The second objective is of course spending time with our customers. A lot of our existing and potential C-suite customer leaders are here and we spend a fair amount of time having one-on-one conversations with them. And we have an entire portfolio of our leadership who's here and we do hundreds of meetings in three days. So that ends up becoming a massive priority for us. And lastly, I would say like I was suggesting earlier, it's a great platform to learn. I mean where else in the world do you get a confluence of geopolitics, business priorities, technological priorities and peer learning? I think it's one of a kind and no wonder decades after it was conceptualized. I was reading somewhere that this year happens to be one of the largest participations of CEOs and heads of state. So clearly it's a lot to achieve in four days or three days. Three active days I must say. I mean it runs from Monday to Friday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursdays are the days where all the action happens. So yes, a lot to do in three days but just getting started.
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Jenny Rooney13:48
I love that. And by the way, because you've been here so long, what to wear in Davos is quite a thing. So, you've obviously figured it out. You have incredibly utilitarian yet fabulous boots that I'm sure you wear. What do you think is the funniest thing that people might not realize about Davos?
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Sumit Virmani14:06
Oh, well, you know what? Again, having done this for over a decade, as I mentioned earlier, no Davos is the same as the other. So you got to be very prepared for Davos. The first couple of years you just learn how to be most effective in Davos. So I would say when it comes to clothing, your boots are the absolute critical accessory because that's the difference between surviving and actually walking away with an injury on the very first day. So I think it's utility number one. The second important learning that I picked up very early in my Davos journey is avoid nightcaps if you really want to be effective on day two and day three.
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Jenny Rooney14:58
They do early mornings here.
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Sumit Virmani15:00
Exactly. Because you start at like 6:30, 7:00 and you finish only at 1:00 in the night. So...
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Jenny Rooney15:05
Yeah, I know a lot of people can do that three, four days in a row. I mean, unfortunately, I don't. Possibly I need to learn how to really pick up on my energy.
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Sumit Virmani15:18
But till I do that, I avoid nightcaps.
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Jenny Rooney15:20
That's such good advice. That is one big difference I've noticed about Davos from Cannes. Cannes, people don't really get started until earliest is 8:00 and that might just be a coffee or breakfast and then the programming doesn't really get kicking until 10:00. So it's a lot earlier morning every day for the next, the whole week.
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Sumit Virmani15:37
My day starts at 7:00 and 7:00 means I have to be in a meeting at 7:00. So you realize how early you got to start before that. So yes, I guess it's learning but then some advantages of coming here for a decade.
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Jenny Rooney15:55
Well, congratulations to you. If you don't come away from 10 years without some real expertise on Davos, I don't know why it would be effective. But Sumit, this is just so wonderful to talk to you. I know you're going to be part of additional programming here that we're doing as Marketing Vanguard here in the FQ Lounge over these next couple days. Thank you for being here. It's always a pleasure and I look forward to talking to you again.
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Sumit Virmani16:16
Thank you, Jenny. Thanks again and all the best for your very first Davos. May this be the start of many more to come.
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Jenny Rooney16:23
Thank you for listening to Marketing Vanguard, part of the AdWeek Podcast Network and Acast Creator Network. You can listen and subscribe to all of AdWeek's podcasts by visiting adweek.com/podcasts. Stay updated on all things AdWeek Podcast Network by following us on Twitter at AdWeekPodcast. And if you have a question or suggestion for the show, send us an email at [email protected]. Thanks for listening.