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AT&T’s CFO and CMO have key advice on how to think about marketing
Good morning. Traditionally, many CFOs viewed marketing as a cost center, but more are now seeing it as a growth accelerator.
AT&T (No. 37 on the Fortune 500) illustrates how finance and marketing can work together to support business expansion. I sat down with Pascal Desroches, AT&T’s senior EVP and CFO, and Kellyn Smith Kenny, chief marketing and growth officer, to learn more.
CFOs often have a reputation for saying “no” to new marketing ideas, but Desroches has taken a different approach in his career.
“You can’t be in an organization where everybody’s terrified of the CFO—it just doesn’t work,” he told me. Desroches recalled advice from his mentor, the late media executive Dick Parsons: “As executives, we have to leave our door open, even for bad news, because it gives us an opportunity to problem-solve.”
Kenny agreed. “I’m working with Pascal to massively overhaul and transform the digital experience for customers,” she said. “None of that would be possible if Pascal was just saying, ‘No,’” she quipped. Desroches approaches every conversation, decision, and investment with an enterprise mindset—how do we help the company succeed? “But he also holds people accountable, which is exactly what you need your CFO to do,” Kenny added.
A focus on the customer
Desroches credits his customer-focused perspective to his 20 years in the media industry prior to becoming CFO of AT&T in 2021. Understanding and marketing to consumers was essential, he said.
AT&T’s marketing team provides insights that shape new products and services. Increasingly, customers prefer a single provider for wireless and broadband, Desroches said. “Kellyn and her team championed this, and our investments reflect their feedback,” he said.
Kenny works closely with both Desroches and is a direct report to AT&T CEO John Stankey, solving problems for each business unit within budget, he explained. “Her ability to deliver results within financial constraints has been incredibly impressive to watch,” Desroches noted.
Before joining AT&T in 2020, Kenny served as global CMO at Hilton and held senior roles at Uber, Capital One, and Microsoft. “In my bones and in my DNA, I’m always thinking about how any marketing investment will drive the company’s financial performance,” she said.
Shared metrics for growth
Research backs the CFO–CMO collaboration. A recent McKinsey analysis of Fortune 500 executive teams, based on publicly available data, found that companies with a single growth-focused executive, like a CMO, grow up to 2.3 times faster. Successful marketing teams use shared KPIs to demonstrate financial impact, making it easier for CFOs to support new initiatives.
One of Desroches and Kenny’s joint projects—the AT&T Guarantee, introduced in January—promises reliable connectivity, fair deals, and prompt service. If AT&T falls short, it takes corrective action, such as bill credits.
“We anticipated a certain amount of credits, but the actual need has been lower,” Kenny said. She and Desroches credit AT&T employees for reducing outages and keeping customer wait times under five minutes.
Since launching the AT&T Guarantee, the company has seen higher net promoter scores (NPS) following network disruptions. Finance and marketing teams jointly track NPS, “brand love,” and the share of customers who bundle multiple services. Other shared metrics include customer lifetime value, average revenue per account, and churn—which is decreasing among customers who’ve experienced issues, Kenny said.
AT&T also reported on Wednesday that it added 401,000 net postpaid phone connections in Q2, reflecting strong customer growth.
A finance person sitting at your leadership team table, “who is fluent in the practice of marketing and growth, goes a long way,” Kenny said.
Have a good weekend.
Sheryl Estrada
[email protected]
This story was originally featured on Fortune.com
© Courtesy of AT&T
