Session: Unconventional Career Paths : How Engineering + AI + media + marketing = CMO
There's the linear path to the top job in a profession (study it in college, entry level position, rise through the ranks) ... and then there's Zeynep Inanoglu Ozdemir. Hear from the CMO of Palo Alto Networks - former engineer, academic, media exec and marketer - as she unpacks her unconventional path to the C-Suite and shares how insights from a spectrum of experiences can help shape us as leaders.
Bio
Zeynep Inanoglu Ozdemir joined Palo Alto Networks in 2019 and has served as Chief Marketing Officer since 2021. In her initial role, Zeynep led marketing for the company’s Cortex business where she built out product marketing, demand generation and sales enablement while pioneering the XDR category in cybersecurity. As CMO, Zeynep now oversees global marketing for the entire Palo Alto Networks portfolio, including NGFW, Prisma Cloud, Cortex, Unit 42, and Prisma Access. Before Palo Alto Networks, she spent three years at Palantir leading the development and growth of strategic accounts and building a product marketing function. Zeynep also held marketing leadership roles for Google in EMEA, notably leading a project that earned Google a Cannes Lion award. She holds a Ph.D. in speech processing from Cambridge University, Machine Intelligence Lab, and a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering from Harvard University.