Leadership Lessons with Emma Isichei, Chief Marketing Officer at Zellis 

In this edition of our Leadership Lessons series, Daniela Mamica, UK Marketing Lead at Hanson Search, interviews Emma Isichei, Chief Marketing Officer at Zellis. Emma is helping a business with 60 years of payroll expertise, growing the business into a broader HR, payroll and workforce management technology company, and here she shares where AI belongs in a marketing team and the skills every future CMO will need. 

How has your B2B marketing strategy evolved over the last few years?

I think there are two big changes, and they are very much linked. The first is moving from a campaign and lead-based model to a much more connected growth model. That does not mean leads are not important, because ultimately we are all in business to drive revenue. But B2B buying has become much more complex. We used to focus heavily on campaigns, channels, lead volumes and conversions, and those things absolutely still matter, but what you are seeing now is that buyers are doing much more research before they ever come to you. 

There is what people call the dark funnel, where people are looking, learning and forming opinions before you know they are in the market. It is particularly complex in B2B because you are not targeting one person. It is very targeted around personas, but personas are not just about the role someone has. It is about where they are in terms of the maturity of the organisation, where they sit within the business and where they are in their buying journey. At Zellis, we have evolved marketing from a campaign function into a growth operating system. That means integrating brand, customer insight, product positioning, digital experience, account intelligence, sales execution and customer success around a shared growth agenda. The objective isn’t simply generating demand, it’s increasing market share, accelerating revenue velocity and expanding customer lifetime value. 

The other big change is obviously AI. We are an AI-first company and we are really about human beings being in the lead with AI. It is not about just letting AI run off and do everything. It is about using it as a tool that helps you generate better quality, make better decisions and achieve better outcomes. So I think, in summary, marketing has really moved from generating marketing activity to building a system for predictable growth. 

How are you approaching brand and lead generation marketing, both strategically and practically?

I really think that when the purchase is complex or it carries risk, brand becomes an important part of demand generation. It is about awareness, but it is also about trust. I was at a Chief People Officer event in the US recently and when we were talking about AI, it was interesting because all the data was there, but the conversation always came back to trust. How do you persuade buyers that you are a trusted brand? How do you make sure people believe what you are saying? That is something marketing has to be aware of. 

Consumer goods brands have always done this well. They understand placement, they understand creating preference and they understand building that connection with audiences over time. We are now seeing B2B brands do more of this as well, whether that is through sponsorships, thought leadership or bigger brand activity. But the important thing is that it has to be authentic. You can put your brand in all the right places, but if people do not trust you, it does not mean anything. 

For me, strategically, the goal is category leadership. We want Zellis to shape the conversation around the future of work rather than simply participate in it. A strong brand isn’t just recognised, it influences how customers think about their challenges and what they prioritise when making investment decisions. 

 But to do that, you have to connect that narrative to sector campaigns, digital content and customer stories. What are customers doing well? What are the pitfalls? How do you get started? That is really important. I think B2B brand is not just about showing the flashiness of your brand. It is about showing credibility and proving that you understand your customers. 

What changes have you seen in how businesses buy today and how have you adapted your marketing to that?

The biggest change is that buyers decide when and how they control the journey. When I was younger in my career, the thinking was more around taking someone through a journey. You would say, “I am going to start you here and move you through these different stages.” It does not happen like that anymore. 

Before speaking to a supplier, buyers have already researched the issue, consumed thought leadership, reviewed competitors, spoken to peers, looked at reviews and now increasingly asked AI platforms for recommendations. Buyers often have access to as much information as sellers before a conversation ever starts. The challenge is that you do not know what order those things are happening in. Then you add in the fact that you do not talk to one decision-maker. You might have 12 or 14 people involved, including HR, payroll, finance, operations and procurement, and everyone has a different view. 

The way we have had to adapt is making sure we are clear in search, that we have strong backlinks through PR, that we are present in awards, that we have thought leadership and that we have customers talking about their experiences. It becomes less about Zellis saying how great Zellis is and more about how we can influence other people to talk about us. If we can do that, we make Zellis discoverable and credible and easier to buy from. Marketing has shifted from interrupting buyers to being present wherever the buyer chooses to learn. 

How are you adapting AI into your marketing practices? Where aren’t you using it? Where do you think it shouldn’t be used?

We apply it across content development, account research, campaign planning, intent interpretation, data enrichment, customer intelligence, lead management, personalisation and performance insight. It is pretty much across everything. I use it all the time for datasets, reporting and KPI trackers because it helps you see things that you cannot necessarily see as a human. I have probably become the team’s worst enemy because I am constantly saying, “Look what we could do.” But the important thing is understanding what you are trying to achieve. It is not about reducing cost and it is not about creating more just for the sake of creating more. It is about improving quality and speed. 

There are a few areas where I think you have to be really careful. Data and privacy is one. You have to be absolutely mindful about compliance and about what information you are putting into these systems. The other area is accuracy and brand integrity. This is why I really believe in human in the lead. If you just hand things over to AI and do not check what is coming out, you do not know what you are putting into the world. There is also the risk of uncontrolled volume. If you just keep putting things out, it becomes AI slop. 

The way we approach it is test, learn and scale. We look at what outcome we want to achieve, whether something should be human-led or whether an agent can help, and then we build from there. One example is that one of our team members created a competitive intelligence agent. They linked it to campaigns, so the intelligence we were gathering could help shape messaging and understand what customers were thinking about in real time. The biggest opportunity is not just slightly automating what we already do. It is redesigning the work. 

How has your approach to marketing leadership evolved in more recent years and what leadership fundamentals still anchor your style? 

Initially, I thought leadership was about having every single answer. To be quite open, that meant working all hours under the sun and trying to know everything, which of course you cannot do. I think fundamentally for me now, it is about asking the right questions, getting clarity around the outcome and doing that using talented people. 

I have an extremely good team around me at Zellis and that makes a difference because they are the experts. My role is to remove blockers, create clarity and make sure we are going in the right direction. That is really important as technology changes because no leader can have that deeper expertise across every platform, every channel and every AI capability. You have to lean into people’s expertise and make sure they have the platform to be heard. 

What’s the most significant challenge you’ve faced in aligning marketing strategy with broader organisational goals? 

When I joined Zellis, the business had around 60 years of very credible, strong payroll expertise in the UK and Ireland. The reason I joined, and the reason the executive team came in at that time, was to take the business to the next level. That was about becoming a broader HR and workforce management oranisation. 

The challenge was not that we were not aligned on the direction. We all knew where we wanted to go. The challenge was taking the organisation with us. You do not want to lose the payroll expertise, credibility and visibility that you have built. You want to enhance it while expanding into new areas. 

A good example was when we acquired elementsuite. We had two brands coming together. Zellis was established, stable and trusted – known for payroll expertise, while elementsuite was smallerand entrepreneurial. Although the products comlimentaed each other those two brands do not just naturally come together. We had to create something that bridged the two. We created a campaign called Unstoppable, which helped show that we were not letting go of our heritages, we were building on them. This meant the marketing strategy should not sit on the side. It should be aligned to company strategy because marketing is one of the mechanisms companies use to grow 

How is the CMO’s role and influence at board level changing?

I think the CMO’s licence to operate has expanded significantly, but it has to be earned. A board does not need another executive reporting campaign activity. It needs somebody who understands customers, markets, what is happening outside the organisation and the commercial decisions facing the business. The CMO has to be a growth architect and a voice of the market. 

For me, that means contributing to questions like where future growth will come from, what segments we should prioritise and what propositions customers will pay for. You have to influence product, sales, customer success and technology decisions. 

I actually think I do less marketing in a CMO role than I did at head of or director level. The role is much more about understanding the business and influencing decisions. It is not about getting a bigger marketing budget. It is about making commercial choices and understanding where investment will have the biggest impact. 

What do you think the future CMO must master that was not essential a few years ago? What guidance would you offer to rising marketing leaders?

I think there are five areas that are really important. The first is commercial and financial literacy. You have to understand revenue, margin, pipeline coverage, customer acquisition costs and how the business makes money. That helps you make better judgement calls. The second is AI literacy. You do not have to build every single agent, but you need to understand how it changes customer behaviour, competitive advantage and how marketing teams work. 

The third is data literacy. By that I mean understanding what signals matter, whether the data can be trusted and how insight can change a decision. The fourth is customer insight. Execution becomes faster and cheaper, but insight and judgement become harder. You need to understand what is worth saying and how you create something distinctive. The fifth is influence. You cannot stay in your own boundaries. You need to understand how to influence product, customer success, sales and finance. 

My advice would be: do not build your career around one channel if you want to become a CMO. Build it around customers, understanding how your company makes money, what technology can do and how other leaders make commercial decisions. One thing I would also say is that marketers tend to talk first and listen second. To be a good CMO, you need to listen and then come back with the right answer. The future CMO sits at the intersection of customer behaviour, technology disruption and business growth. The most successful marketing leaders will not be defined by their ability to run campaigns, but by their ability to shape markets, influence strategy and help organisations navigate change.. That is a big role, but it is also what makes marketing such an exciting place to be.

Whether you are hiring top marketing talent or considering your next career move, our team at Hanson Search would be delighted to support you with expert executive search guidance and industry-leading recruitment insight.

Daniela Mamica is UK Marketing Lead, working across senior and leadership level roles. She brings a wealth of experience, having recruited into the marketing space for over 11 years. Daniela previously worked with network media agencies (WPP Media, Omnicom Media Group, Publicis Groupe and Dentsu), successfully growing their paid and organic media functions. She also has extensive experience supporting independent media, marketing and digital agencies, finding sought-after digital marketing.

Hanson Search Group is a global talent consultancy providing executive search, recruitment and leadership advisory services. Built on more than twenty years of trusted relationships, we operate as a connected global platform of specialist practices with expert consultants embedded in key markets.