dentsu’s CIO Cara Lewis on Why Change Is Good for Media and for You

What happens when media, mentorship, and mission collide? Cara Lewis isn’t just one of the most powerful voices in media investment. She’s a survivor, a culture-builder, and a mentor redefining what it means to lead with heart. In this episode, she joins Adam Katz for a deeply human and refreshingly real conversation about navigating change, scaling impact, and finding purpose inside the mayhem.

Cara shares her 15-year rise at dentsu, her early obsession with TV (shoutout to The Bold and the Beautiful sets), and how a life-altering breast cancer diagnosis shaped her approach to leadership, empathy, and legacy.

Inside:

🎯 Why leading with empathy is Cara’s true superpower

🚀 Building culture in hybrid work and making it stick

💡 The origin story of Media Ladies Conquering Cancer and the power of peer-to-peer survivorship

👗 Fashion, sewing, karaoke, and other unexpected truths about one of media’s top execs

🔥 Why embracing change might be the most underrated mindset in media today

If you’re leading a team, building a brand, or just looking for clarity in the chaos, this one’s for you. Listen now.

Episode 32 TRANSCRIPT

Adam Katz
Welcome to Breaking Through The Mayhem. We have a very, very special guest today, Cara Lewis. I. I know Cara, but I don't know her that well. So this is like an exciting, exciting moment for me to get to know her better. You guys have seen her on some of the coolest podcasts on stages, winning awards like, we're super honored to have you.

Thank you so much for joining us today.

Cara Lewis
Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Adam Katz
If you don't mind, like before we jump in, if you could tell us a little bit about your journey. I mean, you've been at Dentsu since 2010, right? And you've obviously seen different roles, different iterations. Like, do you mind telling us a little bit about yourself, a little bit about your journey and what just keeps you excited right now?

Cara Lewis
Yeah. So I just hit 15 years actually in March, which is super exciting. Longest agency group that I've been at. I would say my journey started when I was pretty young. My dad worked in audio at CBS, and so, you know, I would go to the studio and go to the office with him, and he would take me to like the editing rooms, and we'd walk like the bold and the beautiful sets.

And I was like, this is amazing. This is awesome. And I just, like, kind of fell into being in love with television. And so when I went to college, my, my actual, degree was a BA in advertising, which I would say a lot of people in this business don't actually have like they more have like business or communications, but West Virginia University actually had an advertising school.

Adam Katz
You're a mountaineer.

Cara Lewis
Yeah. Mountaineer.

Adam Katz
I love that.

Cara Lewis
But yeah. So it started, way back. But then, I got a job and started at the Media edge, working on Glaxo. And it was a time when we were buying so much broadcast and everybody was like, why don't you buy a cable?

And, when I got there, we started to buy cable, which is crazy. But at the time I think there were like 50 to 60 cable channels maybe around there. And I still have one of, like, the giveaways that was like given in, like an upfront meeting from tech TV, which then became court TV. And I think now is true TV.

Like, it's kind of insane. Like my husband and I were both in the business. So we kind of find these things that we got years ago and were like, wow, this is like a farmer. But yeah, so I've been at I've been I as I said, I was at the Media Edge. I worked on Glaxo.

Then I went over to TN Media, which became an Initiative and worked on SC Johnson and a couple other travel brands. And then I went over to NPG and worked on retail, and then I came over here at Carat working on Pfizer and then GM and then moving up, through the investment roles. So it's been a journey.

I would say what excites me is just that this business changes so often. I'm like one of those odd, rare people that I like change. So change is good for me.

Adam Katz
If you don't like change in this business, it definitely can be stressful. And I was interviewing someone a couple of weeks ago that, you know, who, you know, said, I don't like change, but it's inevitable, right?

So the fact that you like it is even a bigger power. What would you say is like the key lessons you learned throughout your career and the way that you think about mentorship?

Cara Lewis
I mean, I think the lessons I've learned kind of go back to change. It's like you can never just kind of rest on your laurels.

Like there's I mean, again, I started when it was heavily broadcast in syndication and cable was like 50 channels and grew to 150. And then there were all these other things. So I've kind of just grown up with this change. So I think the lessons that I've learned are that you can't sit still, that you have to keep learning, that you have to, you know, keep kind of advocating for the clients and pushing for them.

Ask a lot of questions. I think one of the things I would say that I didn't do great was ask a lot of questions. I more kind of internalize it and then ask myself 50 to 60 different times the questions, and I'm like, why didn't I just ask that to begin with? But I think that those are, you know, some of the fundamentals that actually help you with the amount of change that's happening by, you know, continuing to kind of learn and continuing to expand your horizons.

Adam Katz
And as you kind of look to the next phase in your career and also the agency, like, how are you guys keeping company culture strong with how fast paced things are today? How are you bringing into the company artificial intelligence for them to use? Like where do you kind of think in those two lanes?

Cara Lewis
I mean, culture is definitely something we think about all of the time.And, you know, at Dentsu we’re hybrid.We have the leaders back in the office, and we're, we have some people coming back to the office, you know, come up May, but, for one day a week. So our culture has really had to drive a deep culture of what it looks like in hybrid.

And as we start to come back, what it looks like, we started to have, like, sessions that are in office and like, what does that look like for people who aren't in an office or near an office to get to the hybrid or in-person session? What do the different teams look like? There has been a lot about the cultures of the brands within Dentsu, really highlighting Carat and highlighting DX and highlighting.

I prospect, but at the same time, we're this big scaled service that feeds into all of them. So what does our culture look like and how do we incorporate that? And we do a lot around like destination Dentsu and what is what your job means to you? Like not just like going to work and working, but like, what does it actually mean to you to buy out of home or to work on the digital programmatic team?

So we have people come to our all staffs to really talk about that, to to really get in with the others that are thinking about it, but like, can't really think about where it fits. And then we just, you know, we have a few awards. We have an awards program that we just incorporated here at Dentsu. And in terms of my team, in terms of the Brilliance Awards.

Adam Katz
That's amazing.

Cara Lewis
Yeah. So, just really trying to really pump that culture and allow people to see that a lot of the work that we do while, you know, we might not win an award or submit an award for everything that we do, there's a lot of really great work happening for our clients.

Adam Katz
With the amount of money that you have under management and the amount of clients like, how do you still think about maintaining client level customization, just like you do with your people?

Cara Lewis
I mean, for us, that's at the core. Dentsu is a client centric agency. And so everything that we do starts with the client. And I would say within a client starts with the individual brand. So if it's a brand that has 20 different, you know, a client that has 20 different brands, like we're thinking about those 20 different brands, how do they roll up to the client, and then how does Dentsu really kind of operate and get the scale, for those clients there?

So I think under our management, we're thinking about that every single day with every single dollar that we spend.

Adam Katz
It's unbelievable. I mean, and what would you say has been one of your favorite client stories of all time?

Cara Lewis
You know, I, I've worked on some really great American brands in my career, and it's just been truly amazing to see some of them come to life. And I think the most exciting thing, and I laugh about it because somebody was just, I think, teamzing about this today, was what we do for our clients.

Our parents still don't know what we do. You know, like, I, I've been in this business for like 25 plus years and like, sometimes I'm like, I see that commercial in, like, we're at Easter weekend and we're watching something and I'm like, oh, my team put that on. And my mom was like, Like, what did you do?

You know, or, you know, my mom and I were on the plane and we were reading a magazine and I'm like, oh, that's one of our clients. And, so I think it's funny, somebody was saying, I think it was Martin on my team about out of home. He was like, I can tell my parents till they're blue in the face when I do, but they still don't get it.

Adam Katz
That's hilarious. I mean, when it comes down to it, it's funny because you're talking about your husband. Your mom, like, you sound like you're an extremely family oriented person. How do you balance the pressure of all this work with family life and a lot of the commitments that you have outside of work?

Cara Lewis
That's like the ultimate question that a lot of people actually in the walls of Dentsu and outside the walls have asked me, and I don't really like, know that I have the answer.
I do sleep, but sleep, like a lot goes through my head when I'm sleeping. So I probably get like three hours of sleep a night. But, you know, I had a lot of time to think about how to balance my life with what happened. Personally to me, before I was at Dentsu, when I was at Initiative, and being diagnosed with breast cancer and then giving me like 5 to 6 years of a time where I was able to upscale my career, in a different place than had I really what I wanted to do in life was start a family.

So I think I was given a lot of time to enjoy with my husband and to enjoy traveling and to really kind of focus on my career. So that way when I had a family, and I, you know, was growing through the ranks that I could somewhat balance it. So, you know, there's definitely times where I sit on the couch and my kids are like, why are you on the phone?

And I'm not actually working, probably on the phone on my own team snap or game changer or sports engine signing them up for some sport or, you know, making sure their uniform is ordered, because everything is done by the phone these days, but they think it's just for me to work. And I'm like, it's everything. But I also just, you know, I try to take a couple times out of the year to go on a really nice trip with my family, which I just did.

And, you know, it helps me get relaxed and reset and recharge to come back. And then I do think that some of my passions that come through, I need to actually support because they help me and my personal journey. So I find that balance. I don't really know how, but I think I was given a second chance at life, and so I just love life.

Adam Katz
I think it's an amazing way of thinking about things . I feel like every leader tries to always answer every question as if they know and like, I love your answer because you're basically like, maybe I do know, but I don't know exactly how to explain it. Or, I do know that I was given a second chance.

And that not only that, I mean, let's be real. Like the amount you've given back because of your second chance is like, you're like a treasure, as I was trying to tell you. Like, it's super important that you do that. And I think, when I think about what you do and I've been at some of the media ladies conquering cancer events, they're really cool, like you guys.

You guys, like, not, let's say this weird way. You guys, like, make it look cool, like, you get out there. You're like this unbelievable squad. You know how to balance that nerves and, like, passion with the ability to move forward at the same time. And I think that that's one of the things that I've truly admired about those events.

And how, how are you trying to continue to build out your platform to raise awareness, and how can people help you? Like, I know everyone always asks you how you can help them.

Cara Lewis
Yeah, yeah.

Adam Katz
How would people be able to help you?

Cara Lewis
Yeah, I mean, I think, you know, I will be 20 years, in 2026, at the beginning of 2026.

So, for me, it's about making some milestones because milestones are big when you are, survivor. And I think when we came together as the MLCC group and Amy brought us together, I think we all just thought we were going to dinner to hear each other's stories and, like, help each other out. And they were like, what do we do with this?

Right. And I think the platform that we've built out, I had somebody ask me, why wouldn't you just work with another organization? I love that organization. And don't get me wrong, and I do do stuff with that organization. But this organization for us was about our people in this business that when they're diagnosed, they're like, they need a buddy to talk to.

They need somebody that can relate. Don't get me wrong, some of my best friends helped me through those moments, as did my family. But if the if I had somebody that was like a true 29 year old diagnosed with stage one breast cancer person that I could have talked to when I talked to some people that were older than me that were diagnosed and, and all of that, they all helped me.

But if I had that person who had a very similar diagnosis, it probably would have helped me in a different way. And so us building this platform has allowed us to have like 30 plus I think women paired up and buddied up who have helped them, through their journeys. We just sent out in the last few weeks because we finally got organized on our 501 C3 and all the things we just sent out, and we're still sending out intermittently, gift baskets to the women that joined in the last, you know, two years that we just weren't able to get the gift baskets to because we needed to fundraise.

And we got, one of the women who came back and she just got out of surgery, and she was like, I came home to this amazing gift basket of such thoughtful gifts that are going to help me through, like, my journey. And thank you so much. And like, I can't wait to be able to like, be a, you know, survivor and give back and to hear those sorts of things really just, I think helps us continue to move on because we know that we're helping other women in their journey and making sure that they have something that can be like a safe keeping for them to feel really comfortable with as they go in this journey and have so many unknowns.

We bought a table at the The Whim event. So like, we're trying to get ourselves out there. We're here to help any, any woman or man to be honest, in our business that's diagnosed and it's really beyond breast cancer. It's what we know. But we do have several diagnoses, women with other cancers.

Adam Katz
Yeah, I don't know. Where do you shift gears from that? You know-

Cara Lewis
Well, we could talk about one of the things we have. Yeah. I mean, we could talk about year 20. And my husband and I just started talking about the celebration that we're going to have because in 2006 in September, after I was diagnosed and finished with all my treatments and most of my surgeries, I think I had 1 or 2 after that, and I've had several in between.

But, we have a big remission party in our backyard, so we've been talking about doing it again. We had like over 500 people at our house at the time, so we'll see.

Adam Katz
Oh my God. Yeah. I mean, like I said, where do you go from there? But we're going to try to, like, shift it back. They try to pivot back a little between the work and and obviously purpose, which I feel like these things have become extremely mixed.

Right. And obviously I feel like your passion for yourself and the people around you and definitely must have helped you in working with clients, right? I mean, think about it. I mean, you definitely have thought of a lot of new ideas, but also just the way your empathy probably grew the way that you work with other people.

So have there been any like unexpected things that came from this that have really helped you with clients or your work?

Cara Lewis
I mean, I think you're right. I think, to me, like, I try to take the position a lot of times of like, okay, let's take a step back. Like we're not saving lives, but we do want to obviously fix the brand or we want to help the brand or we want to promote the brand.

And so it helps me kind of ground myself in terms of where we can actually go. I think it also helps me in terms of being a leader at the company. I lead with empathy. If somebody you know is sick or we all step in, we're a team. And, we help each other out. So I would say that has happened often in my leadership job.

I think the first six months that I was in the role, I had like four people out on some personal things, and I was like, what's going on? But at the same time, it was like every day checking in with them, because what was important to them was that, you know, they get better and they work through what they needed to work through.

And so I think for me, it's all about making sure that they know that, you know, I'm their advocate, but they have to be their own advocate. And I think my leadership style hopefully shows through in terms of making sure that they know that, you know, they have the runway to do what is needed for our clients.

But also for themselves.

Adam Katz
Yeah. I mean, that answer was so good. You should store it. I use it on every single thing that you do or when they're like, like ten years, when there's the Cara Lewis robot coming out, you could just let the technology learn from that answer because you can't script that.

But it was perfect.

Cara Lewis
It's pretty funny because my uncles I have. I have two uncles that are my dad's brothers who are closer in age to my sister and I because my dad and his youngest brother were 22 years apart. And so we used to like to play. We live next door to them. So we used to play baseball in our backyard or like, you know, wiffle ball or whatever.

And they were like, they used to call me Mickey Mechanical because I always thought I was very robotic. That's why I never went to school to be a softball player. But, but, you know, talking about Cara Lewis robot, my uncles talked about that many moons ago.

Adam Katz
That's hilarious. I mean, listen, it's funny, I listen, I think about it all the time like this, like human versus all that. So what's one hobby or interests that people would be most surprised by that you have?

Cara Lewis
I saw this question and I was like, I don't really know. I mean, I, I, I haven't done it because you asked me about my time. But I do love to sew, and I think if some of my friends in the business heard this, they would say she does because I used to make skirts back in the day, and sell them in, in the business.

And so I think if I had time, I would, I would go back to sewing. But I also love fashion. And I, I probably, you know, my secret passion is basically like buying things and, and, and helping people buy things that fit their body and fit aura.

Adam Katz
So, you know, how to like, personalize a look is the way to think about it.

Cara Lewis
Yeah. Like I should have started stitch Fix or one of those companies, but I'm not that smart. So I didn't do it.

Adam Katz
But you're doing that right now with your personalization for each brand. So ultimately, I think that's the easy way to weave in your, your sewing thought process.

Cara Lewis
Yeah, I love that.

Adam Katz
I’ll kind of close with this. We happened to see you at karaoke crushing it a couple weeks ago. If you were able to just pick your typical, go to karaoke song, that wasn't that night because only one person, one of my buddies, rapped. So I was impressed with him. But no one else seemed to go outside of the box.

Like, what would be your random song that people wouldn't even think about?

Cara Lewis
That night it was definitely the first time singing that song, and I will tell you that I practiced it with my kids and they told me not to do it. So. But I still did it because I was like, I need a new song and I can't sing the same song.

But if I had a go to song, which I do and I needed to crush it, it would be Push It by Salt-N-Pepa.

Adam Katz
Wow. Okay.

Cara Lewis
And so when I did see the rapper, I was like, I'm impressed. And he's also really quiet, dude. So I was like, wow.

Adam Katz
That's so funny that you said that. He's a friend of mine. So I'm like, I'm laughing at that. Well, is there anything else you want to share with the audience? Otherwise? Listen, we were honored to have you today.

Cara Lewis
Yeah. No, I mean, I, I love participating in this. So thanks for having me. And, Yeah, always here for some fun questions if you ever need any answers.

Adam Katz
Awesome. Thank you so much, Cara. Thank you for having us.