Metrics can show you reach. Only customers can show you impact. Shipra Trivedi knows the difference because of a campaign she still thinks about, not for its dashboard results but for what she heard afterwards: customers repeating the message back to her in their own words, without being prompted.
Seventeen years into her marketing career, Shipra has worked through the traditional era, the digital shift, the rise of data and now the arrival of AI. Today she is Sr GM – Strategic Marketing, Data Centre & Secure Power at Schneider Electric India. She was drawn to enterprise technology by the scale of its problems, and she enjoys making complicated ideas simple.
In this edition of CMO Chronicles, Shipra reflects on why brand and performance support each other rather than compete, why the hardest value to prove to a CFO is the kind that doesn’t show up in this quarter’s numbers, and why, beneath the stack, the AI and the analytics, marketing is about people.
Here is Shipra Trivedi in her own words:
The Path to the Corner Office
From the start, it was the mix of creativity and an understanding of human psychology that drew me to marketing. I’ve always found it fascinating how ideas can become stories that move people to act. For me, marketing is where business growth overlaps with human behaviour, and that link keeps my enthusiasm going.
I became interested in enterprise technology because of the big and challenging problems it presents. I wanted to work on issues that matter to businesses and help make complex technologies easier for customers and decision-makers to understand. That goal has stayed with me—I enjoy making complicated ideas simple.
A major example was a campaign that, on paper, should have succeeded. Although we had a clear message, we focused on what we wanted to say rather than understanding our customers’ needs. The low level of engagement warned us and made me realise how important it is to listen before speaking, test ideas before expanding them, and combine data with market insights.
With each decision I make, I start by asking questions rather than making assumptions.
The Ever-Changing Stack
Today’s martech landscape is huge, with thousands of tools claiming to be essential. It’s tempting to try them all. What keeps our stack focused is a simple rule: I always start with the business goal, not the tool.
Before adding anything, I ask what problem we are solving for our customers or the business. If a tool can’t answer that clearly, it doesn’t make the cut, no matter how impressive it looks. The same rule applies when retiring tools: if it stops solving a real problem, we let it go.
Impact of Generative AI
Generative AI was once something we only tried out of curiosity; today our teams actually depend on it. The change lies in the nature of the work. With AI handling the time-consuming initial stage, marketers can concentrate more on strategy and on understanding the customer, and it is in these areas that true value is generated. Day to day, this means AI producing our first draft of campaign messages, thought leadership articles, email nurture sequences, social media content, and even material for events, giving the team a head start rather than starting from scratch.
Data, Privacy & the New Rules
The foundation upon which marketing used to be built has changed due to the deprecation of cookies, the tightening of consent rules, and India’s data protection law.
In response, we have shifted to a much more customer-focused and trust-based approach when reaching out to people. Instead of relying on third-party data as we used to, we are now putting our energy into gathering first-party data, building real relationships with our customers, and creating engagement that wins attention by offering value rather than by simply targeting.
Pace of Technology
When I started, change in marketing unfolded over years. Today it happens in months, sometimes weeks. I’ve watched the discipline move from a world built around channels and campaigns to one built around AI, automation, real-time personalisation, advanced analytics, and a constantly shifting privacy landscape.
What’s changed most isn’t the technology itself; it’s how fast we’re expected to adopt it.
The marketers who thrive keep learning continuously without losing sight of the business outcome behind every new tool or trend. For me, staying current means a steady diet of industry research, analyst perspectives, honest conversations with customers, and a peer network I trust to tell me what’s actually working versus what’s just noise.
Brand, Boardroom & the Bottom Line
I’ve never seen brand and performance as being in conflict, even though boardroom discussions often suggest they are. In reality, they support each other. A strong brand makes performance marketing more effective, and steady performance results give you the credibility to invest more in the brand. The real skill is not choosing one over the other, but understanding where the business is—its growth stage, market forces, and goals—and adjusting the balance as needed.
Hardest thing to prove to the board
The hardest thing to prove to a CFO or CEO is the value of marketing that doesn’t show up in this quarter’s numbers. Leads, pipeline, and conversions are easy to measure. What’s much harder is showing the value of brand equity, buyer trust, thought leadership, and market reputation—the things that quietly influence whether a customer calls you two years from now. Making that case means learning to tell that story with the same rigour marketing uses everywhere else, even when the metric isn’t clear.
Sustaining the Career
What has helped me through every change in this field is staying curious and seeing learning as a constant, not just a phase. I’ve seen marketing move from traditional channels to digital, then to data-driven marketing, and now to AI-powered experiences. Each shift could have felt disruptive, but I chose to see each one as a chance to learn something new and rethink how I work. That mindset is what has kept me going, both professionally and personally, through 17 years in a field that never stands still.
Single most important lesson
If I had to sum up seventeen years in one sentence, it would be this: marketing is really about people, not products, technologies, or channels. Everything else—the stack, the AI, the analytics—serves that one truth.
Reflections
There’s a campaign I often think about, not because of the dashboard results, but because of what I heard. The real sign of success wasn’t the metrics; it was hearing customers repeat our message back to us, in their own words, without being prompted.
That’s when I understood what this job is really about: marketing works best when it builds real connection and trust, not just visibility. Metrics can show you reach, but only your customers can show you true impact.
Accomplishment from career I am proud of
If I’m honest, what I’m most proud of isn’t a single campaign or number; it’s staying relevant through many cycles of change in this field. I’ve worked through the traditional era, the digital shift, the rise of data, and now the arrival of AI. Each time, my ability to keep learning, adapting, and delivering results has helped me move forward. That consistency, through so much change, is what I value most in my career.