March Meeting with Chris Mumford

This month we welcome Chris Mumford, President of The Martin Agency. During our presentation Chris will discuss Finding Competitive Advantage in Disruption including: 

• Courage is no longer a marketing super power, it’s a survival necessity.

• What’s the role of systematic innovation in times of dramatic change?

• What is “change fatigue” and why does it matter?

• Finding freedom in the 40-70 Rule.

• Winning with talent and culture.

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Mumford, as he is affectionately known, is a quiet force in the industry. While often in the background, he always seems to be stoking the flames of The Martin Agency’s best work. He’s the guy who’s been guiding GEICO the last fifteen years, breaking category conventions and producing arguably the most famous body of advertising work of the last two decades. Not to mention taking them from seventh to second in their hyper-competitive category.

Using the same deft touch, he’s been systematically architecting the evolution of The Martin Agency’s business with new, future-proof capabilities, a momentum- building mindset and a focus on entrepreneurial leadership. “He’s part operator and part dreamer. He has the Kellogg MBA but also the intuitive understanding of how to harness the creativity of our people to impact culture,” says Martin Agency CEO Kristen Cavallo. “More importantly, he’s not like me. We argue a lot and I love that.”

Some say he’s the Mr. Spock to Kristen’s Captain Kirk. A steady rudder for more than twenty years — from account executive to managing director of account management to president — he has been fueling results-driven creativity and uncovering culture-bending opportunities for just about every client who has set foot in the building. But if you asked Chris what motivates him, he would say it’s his deep-rooted responsibility to put every associate of The Martin Agency in a position to do the best work of their lives. That’s his North Star.

And since creative enterprises tend to put business-minded folks in the shadows, it’s good that Mumford thrives there. A former All-American tennis player from UNC-Chapel Hill, he’s a consummate team player with a relentless focus on winning. And he has more than twenty years of award-winning teams and loyal clients to prove it.

When he’s not spending time with his wife Nicole and their three children, he serves on several local community boards, loves to travel, and you may even catch him back on a tennis court every once in a while. Just don’t challenge him to a match.