CMSWire TV
The Gist
- AI-Powered Rebrand. Genpact’s year-long global rebrand reflects its shift from process expertise to AI and agentic solutions.
- Data-Driven Brand Insight. CMO Caitlin Blewett reveals how AI tools like synthetic data and sentiment analysis enable faster, more accurate customer understanding.
- Bold Leadership in Change. Successful rebranding, according to Blewett, requires cross-functional collaboration, C-suite alignment and the courage to choose bold disruption over incremental updates.
In this episode of The CMO Circle, Genpact CMO Caitlin Blewett unpacks a year-long global rebrand tied to the company’s shift from traditional services to architecting the autonomous enterprise. Learn how she moved 270 GenAI solutions into production, grew advanced technology revenue 17% year-over-year and accelerated client adoption with agentic solutions.
Blewett covers the balance between honoring a 20-plus-year legacy and executing bold change, including C-suite and board alignment. She also shares how AI-powered synthetic data reshapes persona research while human creativity remains central to brand storytelling.
Table of Contents
- Episode Transcript
- Navigating the Challenges of a Major Rebrand
- Measuring the Success — With Customers & Employees — of a Global Rebrand
- Getting C-Suite Buy-In for Major Brand Disruption
- The Power of AI and Synthetic Data in Marketing
- Lessons Learned & Advice for Aspiring CMOs
Episode Transcript
Michelle Hawley: Hi everybody, you are listening to CMSWire's CMO Circle, and I'm your host, Michelle Hawley, Editorial Director at CMSWire. Today we have with us Caitlin Blewett. She is the Chief Marketing Officer at Genpact. Thanks for being here today, Caitlin.
Caitlin Blewett: Thanks so much for having me. It's great to be here.
Michelle: So your team is going through a year-long major rebranding process. Can you walk us through some of the details of that process and what that transition has looked like?
Caitlin: Absolutely. So firstly, I'm a huge believer that a brand and business must be symbiotic to drive growth and create value. Historically, Genpact has been known as process geeks, and we're really proud of that. And we've built a nearly $5 billion business by running operations for some of the world's best known companies.
But the world of AI is moving, as we all know, super fast. And it's fundamentally moving from systems that generate, so all of the GenAI opportunities to systems that execute, which has quickly become agentic solutions. And in the past 12 months, we have fundamentally changed from the inside out and reimagined how business gets done. We often say at Genpact, there is no artificial intelligence without process intelligence. And that has really transformed how we're showing up and how we're adding value to all of our clients.
And I think, as we go on that journey, everyone's claiming to be an AI company, but we really have the data to prove it. We've put 270 GenAI solutions into production, which is three times as many as the prior year. We've launched agentic solutions, which have had rapid client adoption faster than any other solution in Genpact's history. And our advanced technology revenue has seen double digit growth, 17% year on year. So we really are seeing attraction as we transform as a business and this means that clients are seeing us differentl.
So Genpact really is no longer the company that clients are calling for traditional services. We really are now this partner that is architecting the autonomous enterprise and so to shift perception of who Genpact is, what we do and how we do it, a global rebrand was fundamentally required, and ultimately this rebrand is really introducing Genpact to the world.
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Navigating the Challenges of a Major Rebrand
Michelle: What kind challenges came up during this transition?
Caitlin: Oof. Let's see. So for us, there were a few key challenges, but I think the biggest one was really finding balance. So how do we honor the past, Genpact's rich 20-plus year history, while looking to the future? So really thinking about how do we want to retain so many of the amazing things that are a part of our history and a part of our brand, but also be that future forward version of Genpact?
And furthermore, it was super critical that the global rebrand wasn't simply a surface level change, a new visual identity or a new tagline, but really a change to the core that could permeate our entire organization. So our culture operations and our client delivery. And all of this really has required significant collaboration and of course buy in across several segments of the leadership teams across the company.
Michelle: Was there any concern when you're making this shift about potentially alienating current customers with the change and maybe feeling like it's not the same company that they're working with?
Caitlin: Yeah, I mean, I think again, that was when we wanted to really think about what do we want to preserve of the past and what really resonates with our current client base, but show them that we are essentially a new company and that we have changed and that we are fundamentally providing totally new and different services than what they've previously bought us for. So we did a lot of research and work to understand what our strengths are as a brand and how we can kind of bake those ingredients into the global rebrand as we set out.
Michelle: Were there any hard decisions that you and your team had to make during this process?
Caitlin: Yes, and I think, you know, it is not always easy to choose bold disruption over incremental change. As you're thinking about a brand and its parts and pieces, you can kind of, you know, change this or change that, dial something up, dial something down. But we did really kind of go for the bold disruption choice, which, you know, was completely and totally necessary given the speed of change both across the advanced tech landscape and within Genpact as an organization.
Thankfully, speed, agility and a startup mentality are really core to who Genpact is. So I think that kind of culture piece helped us. But it was certainly kind of bold disruption, you know, all that comes with that, making it both exciting and difficult.
And then I think the other piece to that is prioritizing a global rebrand against the backdrop of a massive business transformation was by no means a walk in the park. But I think having that shared belief that a brand and business must be symbiotic to drive growth definitely helps.
Measuring the Success — With Customers & Employees — of a Global Rebrand
Michelle: With a rebrand of this scale, how do you measure its success both externally with your customers, but also internally with your employees and the company culture?
Caitlin: So I think one, just continuous listening. So really understanding, not just qualitatively speaking, but quantitatively speaking, how our brand is seen and perceived in the market. When we think about our existing employee base, we have nearly 140,000 employees across the globe. We really want to be tuned into employee engagement and employee sentiment.
And we actually have an AI tool named Amber who we use in a regular pulse check manner to test and stress that kind of engagement and sentiment. So that's super cool because we can actually see, you know, fundamentally how our people are feeling and what their sentiment is toward the brand and the business that they're working for.
When we look at prospective talent, obviously, you know, we all read it in the news. The race to kind of get top tech talent is, is fast and furious, so we're really looking at how is this global rebrand impacting our ability and really influencing our ability to attract top talent across the globe? And then of course, externally hugely important. We're looking at, is there a fundamental shift in our brand perception of who Genpact is, what we do and how we do it. And that ultimately being validated with our key audiences. So of course our clients, prospective clients, analysts, advisors, tech partners and investors.
And then of course, you know, with any global rebrand, you want to see that linked to growth. So we are looking very carefully at our growth in our advanced technology revenue and our chosen spaces.
Michelle: Do you keep track of how the brand is showing up then in LLM responses to see if that's been changing as well with the rebrand?
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Caitlin: Yeah, so it's been so fun to just watch how quickly what was formerly known as SEO, search engine optimization, changed to AEO. And I think, you know, it is again an opportunity for not just Genpact, but for all brands to really think about how they're surfacing in the new way in which consumers, customers, potential buyers, talent, etc., are searching for companies and understanding who they are and what they do. So AEO is definitely a part of our strategy.
Michelle: And I'm sure your customers appreciate now you've been doing this for your own brand so you can help them with their own brand too, then walking them through this process and how to show up in these answers.
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Getting C-Suite Buy-In for Major Brand Disruption
Michelle: You mentioned making these bold changes, jumping off the deep end, and for a lot of CMOs, they face resistance when they want to make those kind of changes. How did you get alignment across the C-suite and the board?
Caitlin: Exactly, exactly. So I think first and foremost, with any strategic business pivot, regardless of the type of company you are, a brand and its component parts should absolutely be considered. And I think, as I mentioned, we had to really think hard about how do we balance the ability to honor the past and have that future looking perspective as a brand.
But the key to success was really being focused and deliberate. And so when I say focused and deliberate, really was, you know, what are the key things that we have to do? What are the things that are going to move the needle? But also where do I kind of sense that there is going to be buy-in and appetite for that bold change?
And so to really gain and maintain alignment, I worked really closely with our CEO, BK, and our chief growth officer, Riju, to push the global rebrand forward. And I think that really helped secure the buy-in across the global leadership council. So everyone from our CFO, if we're thinking about investment, the CFO, our chief legal counsel, we really had to think about how we're showing up in market and making sure, obviously from a legal perspective, everything is in check. And then of course, our CHRO. So thinking about the HR side and the people side.
But really working closely with both BK and Riju helped us kind of propel things forward. And of course, we are a publicly listed company, so keeping the board informed on key decisions and milestones along the journey was super important. And again, kind of coming back to that need for the brand and business to be symbiotic, this rebrand really is a prime example of that in action, and I think why it's been so successful out of the gate.
The Power of AI and Synthetic Data in Marketing
Michelle: Kind of going back to AI, you had mentioned one positive that you see is being able to use AI-powered synthetic data to create customer personas. Can you walk me through how that changes the way that you do marketing?
Caitlin: Yes. So this, this is super cool. When I think about kind of the power of AI, you know, there's lots of different ways that myself and my marketing organization are using it, but we really are kind of vibing with this AI-powered synthetic data and it ultimately enables real time simulation of customer behaviors.
And so when I kind of go back in my career, I think about, you know, the days of recruiting for and conducting focus groups and the weeks and months that it took just to get the focus group up and running and then waiting four to six weeks to understand, you know, consumer preference and consumer perspectives. But now with AI-powered synthetic data, what took months now takes hours. And suddenly you have, you know, these really rich, nuanced personas at a few clicks, meaning that your creative assets and your campaigns can really be pressure tested much faster and in turn get you to market and in market faster.
Michelle: What are some of the most surprising things that you've learned as you've been using and experimenting with AI in your marketing?
Caitlin: So I think just, I mean, we all talk about speed, but it really is mind blowing when you think about how fast AI can surface those unexpected behavioral patterns at scale, including insights beyond what traditional research uncovers. So again, like I said, I reflect on the weeks and months it would take to kind of get those insights from consumer focus groups. And the reality is with AI, it is just so much faster and scalable in terms of what we're able to uncover and learn really quickly.
Michelle: So how do you decide, where do you draw the line between, yes, we can let AI do this, or we can let AI augment this, versus this needs to stay human?
Caitlin: So I think there's a lot of ways in which AI can absolutely complement and supplement how we as marketers are working and thinking and creating. AI for me is an excellent tool to analyze data, create those synthetic personas, scale personalization, optimize operations. But I do think the creative thinking of humans cannot be replicated by a machine, at least for now.
And so for me, I think the kind of creative ideation, the emotional brand storytelling, the ethical judgment that we're all kind of looking at when we create marketing, all of those I think for me really remain under humans' responsibilities. And I do think that kind of creative ideation to me is the one thing that still really, really does sit wholly with a human.
Michelle: Do you subscribe to that idea that AI can kind of erode creativity if you rely on it too much?
Caitlin: You know, I think, again, I use the words kind of supplement and complement. I think there's definitely, you know, some creative sparks that it could potentially create that could get you thinking in a different direction. But I do think if it's overly relied on or used too much, then it definitely can deteriorate kind of a creative end product.
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Lessons Learned & Advice for Aspiring CMOs
Michelle: You've worked with some well-known brands, you've worked with Rolex, Sony, Deloitte, now Genpact. What's one lesson that's stayed constant across all these very different organizations?
Caitlin: That's a great question. I think, you know, as you work with different brands and different businesses, all have, some have similar challenges, some have different challenges. But I do think the one thing for me that has stayed constant is really collaboration and the fact that great brands don't get built in silos. So I think, you know, it really does kind of take the kind of perspectives, backgrounds, diversity of thought from all across the organization, agency, partners, whoever it might be to get to the place where you feel you've built a great brand.
Michelle: Yeah, and think the silos thing has been, I mean, it's been an issue forever for organizations, but now it's really kind of coming to the surface as more people are trying to implement AI and AI agents, as you're saying, and they're realizing that their data is all in different places and it's outdated, and now it's suddenly, we gotta fix this right now.
Caitlin: Totally, totally.
Michelle: So having risen through Deloitte and now leading marketing at Genpact, what advice do you have for marketers that want to make their way to the CMO position?
Caitlin: So I would say do the scary things, have the difficult conversations and never stop pushing the boundaries. And I think as you do that, absolutely prioritize both sides of your brain. So build that analytical rigor, the ability to use data and insights to inform your creative development process, your investment decisions and so on and so forth. But also, as you build that analytical rigor, go with your creative instincts.
Michelle: One last question for you before we go. So over the last 10, 20 years, has your definition of what makes a strong marketing leader changed?
Caitlin: I think again, you know, kind of going back to that idea of collaboration. For me, I think, you know, diverse teams really do get to great. And a former creative director once told me that he believes a great idea can come from anywhere. And that has really stuck with me. think regardless of your role, your level, your background, your geography, you know, you really can bring value and perspectives that no one else has.
So I think, you know, one, that kind of diverse teams get to great things. Two, build your self-awareness, reflect often and recognize your strengths and weaknesses. And I think in doing that, you know, you'll build out teams that are unstoppable. And then finally, I think, you know, never stand still, never stop learning. There's obviously kind of many things going around, around AI and its impact on marketing and creativity. And I do believe that AI may not replace you, but someone using AI will. So really make sure that you're embracing new things and that you aren't standing still because the rest of the world isn't.
Michelle: Yeah, I agree. Now is not the time to stand still. Thank you so much for being here today, Caitlin. It was great talking to you and really great to hear about the insights into what a major rebrand like this looks like.
Caitlin: Absolutely. It's been a pleasure.
Michelle: And thank you everybody for tuning in. Don't forget to check back next month for a new episode of the CMO Circle. And in the meantime, if you're looking for new content, we have other CMSWire TV shows, Beyond the Call and the Digital Experience.
