The New Rules of Building a High-Growth Marketing Team | Brandon Camhi, Cognition

Cognition crossed $1 billion in revenue run rate in roughly two years. Now, its new SVP of Marketing, Brandon Camhi, is taking on the challenge of scaling its marketing organization to match the company's rapid growth. With the company growing at an incredible pace, Brandon is rethinking how a modern marketing organization should operate. He's recruiting some of the best talent in the industry, challenging traditional org structures, and putting AI to work across the entire function. One of his first moves? Launching a $10 million billboard campaign across 14 cities in just one week. In this episode, Brandon joins Profound’s Trevor Pyle to share what he learned scaling marketing at Rippling and how he’s applying those lessons at Cognition. They get into the AI-powered workflows his team is building, why he believes brand investment should start early, how AEO fits into the bigger picture, and why he isn't worried about AI replacing CMOs. We discuss: The first priorities when taking over marketing at a billion-dollar company How a $10 million global billboard campaign came together in just one week Why Brandon is rethinking traditional marketing org charts The unconventional recruiting approach he uses to attract top talent What he learned from his biggest mistakes at Rippling How Cognition uses Devin to streamline paid ads, lead management, and internal reporting Why high-quality storytelling matters in enterprise marketing How AEO connects to everything from customer reviews to social media The interview exercise Brandon considers more valuable than a case study Why he isn't worried about AI replacing CMOs Timestamps: 00:00:52 - Building Cognition's Marketing Engine at $1 Billion in Revenue 00:02:50 - How Cognition Launched a $10 Million Billboard Campaign in One Week 00:08:15 - Building a World-Class Marketing Team Without a Traditional Org Chart 00:12:39 - Lessons From Rippling: Leadership, Brand Investment, and Growth 00:17:52 - How Cognition Uses AI and Devin to Automate Marketing Workflows 00:20:50 - Cognition's Three Marketing Priorities: Awareness, Demand Generation, and Developers 00:25:38 - Standing Out in a Competitive AI Market Through Product Marketing 00:30:19 - Hiring Great Marketers, Leadership Advice, and the Future of CMOs in AI Connect with Brandon: LinkedIn:   / bcamhi   Cognition: https://cognition.com/ Connect with Profound: Website: https://tryprofound.com LinkedIn:   / tryprofound   X: https://x.com/tryprofound Read the Marketing Engineer Manifesto: https://www.tryprofound.com/marketing... Profound University: https://university.tryprofound.com/ The Marketing Engineer is a show for practitioners figuring out in real time what it means to market at the frontier. New episodes every two weeks.