IPG Mediabrands’ CIO Maureen Bosetti on Evolving with the Industry

The key to unlocking leadership? It might just be seeing your own potential differently.

In this episode of Breaking Through the Mayhem, Adam Katz sits down with media leader Maureen Bosetti, Chief Investment Officer at IPG Mediabrands, for a candid conversation about resilience, reinvention, and riding the relentless waves of change in media.

From her early days at GM Mediaworks to steering massive brand strategies at Publicis and now IPG, Maureen reflects on the pivotal moments that shaped her leadership—and the personal evolution required to get there. She shares what it means to lead with transparency, coach with empathy, and the often-overlooked power of leaning into your strengths.

They cover:

• Maureen’s career-defining moments and setbacks
• Shifting perception to unlock leadership opportunities
• Her views on AI’s impact on agency operations and client strategy
• The art of diagnosing client challenges in a complex, tech-fueled era
• Building a culture of confidence, honesty, and continuous learning
• And yes… her love of tennis (Go Djokovic!) and dream dinner with Oprah

This episode is full of practical wisdom for anyone navigating a fast-moving industry, leading teams, or evolving their own voice in the chaos.

TRANSCRIPT

Adam Katz
Welcome to Breaking Through the Mayhem hosted by Sightly. We're really, really lucky today to have the amazing Maureen Bosetti with us. How do we get so lucky to have you today?

Maureen Bosetti
I don't know, Adam, how did you get so lucky?

Adam Katz
I have no clue. You know, I've been admiring your work in the industry for so long. And listen, your ascension has been special, and people like you make the industry go round. So why don't you tell people a little bit about yourself?

Maureen Bosetti
Well, thanks, Adam, I appreciate that. And thanks for having me on the podcast. Yeah, so I started I went to college here in New York City, Fordham University. I thought I wanted to be in production, and I majored in communications, and I did a lot of internships in that space.

But once I got out, obviously it's a pretty competitive landscape. So a friend of mine was working at a media agency and said, why don't you come over here and at least you know it's a good job. It's in media. And I ended up getting a job at GM Mediaworks, which was the buying agency for General Motors back in 1994 or so a long time ago.

But that was really my start on the buying side and really did a ton when I was starting out at General Motors, because we were the biggest advertiser back in that time and did a lot of buying. And that was really what started my career. And then from there kind of went I went to sales for a little bit and then realized that.

Adam Katz
Wow, I didn't know that.

Maureen Bosetti
But I realized that I really loved being on the agency side. So I went back at the time of the.com boom, I decided now I'm going to go back to the agency side. So then I worked on Coca-Cola for a few years. I moved to Publicis for a long time, and now I've been at IPG for about nine and a half years, so really kind of stayed in that investment track.
But as investment has changed so much, certainly in the last 10 to 15 years, with the explosion of everything from digital video, CTV, social commerce. So it's just changed. So much. And that's really what keeps this, keeps me interested in this business, and it keeps me really on the agency side, because we get to see so much of what's going on in this industry.

Adam Katz
You know, it's interesting. We have a lot of industry titans like yourself on the podcast, and everyone always says that. You know, that. It's like the industry is always changing. It's always evolving. So the job never feels the same.

Maureen Bosetti
Never. Never.

Adam Katz
So you're always leaning into new innovation. How do you keep yourself learning? Like what's your best approach to learning and being ahead of the times?

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah. No, definitely. I mean it's it's first of all, it's challenging. Right. Because every given day, to your point there, no day has ever been the same ever. And you're constantly faced with what's the headline today? So obviously it starts with getting a lot of like alerts emails right newsletters. So then you're reading, those you're trying to keep up with all that the, the trades as a that other again other things like even like a morning brew or other newsletters that I can read to keep myself updated, not just about media, but obviously everything that's going on, whether it's around the tariffs, trade wars, those impact what we're doing.

So obviously lately I've started listening to more podcasts. So I really like Pivot, it’s a really good one because they talk about the media business, but they obviously talk about what's going on in the larger political landscape. And I find that very interesting because it gives me a different perspective. So I would say lately it's been more like leaning into podcasts.

Adam Katz
Wow, that's cool. I mean, listen, I find it the same thing. It's like, how do you keep up? How do you read? How do you know what’s real.

Maureen Bosetti
Exactly.

Adam Katz
I feel like what's shaped you, it sounds like throughout your whole career is not only innovation, but your ability to stay so even keel through it all.

Maureen Bosetti
I think you have to.

Adam Katz
You know, getting to know you're able to do that. But looking back on, like, these 25 years, basically that you've been doing all this, which, by the way, I, I love 1994 because -

Maureen Bosetti
More than 25 years.

Adam Katz
I was trying to help you there, but I was like, I love 1994 because the Rangers won the Stanley Cup. But the thing is, looking back at all these years, what would you say are some of the most pivotal moments or experiences that you've had or mentors that shaped your leadership and your style?

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah, I think you learn a lot from setbacks. Right. So when I was getting let go, for example, you learn, you know, you kind of learn who your friends are and you, you, you learn a lot about this business and that, hey, listen, this is a business, and not everybody's your friend.

And that's okay, right? And you, you find a way to pick yourself up, make new connections, and you learn that, like, okay, you can get through it. I think because I've been doing this for so long, everybody gets really caught up in the problem of the day. And you can look back on that problem from last year, five years ago.

And you think, I remember that tough time we went through. We worked through it, even if it was serious. It was hard. You work, you find a way through it. And again, whether that's losing your job, losing an account, having to go through things like the crash back in, I think it was, you know, 2008 there's like really tough economic times.

Covid, but as you become a leader, then you have to figure out, well, how do we solve this problem? Like, let's not get caught up in the problem. Let's figure out a way to solve it. So I think there's moments like that where you learn a lot along the way, and then there's also moments where you have to realize, wait, I really need to change my mindset, right?

I need to kind of figure out, how do I have the perception of who I am as a leader, be very different to other leaders or my clients or salespeople? So I did start to like, evolve. And I hate to use this word like my brand, but I do think you try to evolve like, okay, how am I?

How am I being perceived in the market, how am I being perceived internally? And I needed to make sure that I was putting myself out there in the way that I wanted to be seen, because there was a perception at some point that maybe I was too quiet, I was too introspective, and I and I think that was holding me back.
So I did kind of have to change that about myself.

Adam Katz
How did you figure that out?

Maureen Bosetti
I think I figured it out because it's like if I had something to say that I felt was, I'm not someone that's just going to talk, to talk. I'm just not. I know that's just not who I am. But I felt like if I did have something constructive to add to a conversation, or I felt like I had a point of view that needed to be heard, I found the right moments to speak up.

And I also really worked on my public speaking skills so that if we did, had opportunities to present to clients or new business pitches, I wanted to make sure I was given a shot to do that. So I did try to really work on that aspect of my skills because that really helped put me in a position where if you're in a new business pitch and you're pitching and you're good at it, the CEOs take notice, other people take notice, and then it gets you more opportunities to do that.

And that honestly, like helped me a lot in my career.

Adam Katz
It's so interesting. Like you also, not only have you evolved, it sounds like in an innovative world where things are changing, you've had to innovate along the way for yourself, which is a very that's it's so cool that you could say that out loud and feel good to, because that's such a good teaching moment for people.

Like I always say to people that, you know, not everyone wants to be out there. You know,

Maureen Bosetti
Exactly, exactly.

Adam Katz
It's a hard thing. But we're living in such a weird world where, like, you have to, if you're not out there at all, kind of hurts your, your team, not only your own brand, but you also want to show up as yourself.

So how do you kind of think about that and balance that in the way that you show up lately in the public eye or on podcasts like this?

Maureen Bosetti
Well I think you have to be honest. Like, I think, I think I have tried to be very transparent with people who are honest and saying like, yeah, I have a lot of things that I have worked on, still work on.

Nobody's like this perfect image of what people want them to think they are, or everybody has things you're good at and things they're less good at. So I think trying to at least show up and saying, like, let's have an honest conversation about what's hard about this, right? Was it hard about this job or what are things that, yeah, I did have to overcome.

I didn't just show up one day in this role. Right? This is 30 years in the making. So there are times where I had to say I need to be better about, again, whether it's speaking up, building confidence in myself that I didn't have, making sure I felt comfortable going into the CEO's office, and that isn't always comfortable for me.

So I think you have to be honest about what doesn't, what hasn't worked, and how do you start to really find build your strengths? I read this book one time. You. If you've ever read Strength Finders, it does focus more on where are we trying to fix what's not good about us, right?

Adam Katz
It's focusing on what's great about us.

Maureen Bosetti
But it is focusing on what's great about us. Or if you have, you think you know what? I really do like public speaking, and I like standing up in front of a room and like, I'm good at that. Like, amplify that strength. I may never be good at running pivot tables or things like that. Like I can do it, but I don't love it. And so why don't I focus on the things I love and then surround myself with other people who are maybe good at the other things because we're always like, everyone's always like, well, you're not good at that.

And it's like, yes, I understand that there are certain things I have to work on. I'm not suggesting to be good at this job. You do have to be good at a lot of different things. But I'm also trying to, again, like to focus on where I think I can amplify those strengths. And I think that's an important thing for people to learn.

You're never going to be excellent at everything. That's not realistic.

Adam Katz
I actually agree with you 1,000,000% on that. Like you're, you're always brought up like work on what you're not good at. But it's funny because if you start to just focus on your strengths, the things that you're not actually great at happen better anyway, because your security in yourself grows and your and your confidence.

Right. And let's call it what it is: confidence and security. It sounds like, have led to a lot of your success, which is great. And I see you always a part of like a lot of the different things, like seeing you involved with the female quotient and other things that are out there. So it sounds like you're also trying to give back that vulnerability.

Maureen Bosetti
Absoutley.

Adam Katz
Plus that, you know, the adoption. So good on you. How do you work well with you're with your teammates knowing that you're, you feel this way. Like do you kind of coach them through your learnings? Or do you typically help them amplify their strengths just by pushing it, like what's usually your leadership style?

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah, it's definitely amplifying their strengths. And obviously if there are things that I think may be holding them back from that next step or from being perceived in a certain way, right? Like if I see my one on one time with certain people, I could say like, I think you're really great at this. But the perception maybe from other people is that, yeah, you're not well, you're not as well prepared or that you talk too much or that you need to edit yourself a little bit.

You need to work on your presentation style. So it's more about you're really great at all these things. This one area might be holding you back because that is how you're being perceived. So it's also being honest about that because if you're like no you're great, you're great. You're like, it's not about you did something wrong. It's more about how you work on the things to make sure that, again, the perception of yourself or the visibility of yourself can shine through.

So you try to position it more like that versus you're doing something wrong.

Adam Katz
That’s an unbelievably, yeah, I'm, I'm going to leave this call and think about my whole life, which is better because I'm with Maureen Bosetti now. It’s just so cool.

Maureen Bosetti
It’s hard. Yeah. Because you want people to feel like because that's how I would want someone to say it to me.

Adam Katz
Yeah, but I also think, what's so cool that you think about in the way you're talking about all this is you're this kind of awareness of yourself. How you show up and how you act is so crucial because we're, we're, we're in such a weird time in the sense that, like, everything's evolving even faster than ever before right now.

So how do you find yourself, obviously, in IPG, trying to meet the needs of today's marketing landscape with how fast that evolves? Obviously you are doing your part. How do you see the agency thinking that way and then with the way AI, that word that everyone you know asked a lot about, right. How do you kind of meet that challenge and opportunity head on right now in the world that we're living in?

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah. Well, I think at IPG, obviously you got to take a long term view. Right? So the acquisition of axiom was critical in that. And we did that five years ago.

Adam Katz
Wow. Long time already.

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah, so five, six years ago. So that really is understanding, right? With that data, it was critical to own the data, not renting it so that you can then ingest that data throughout building your audience that you have right, the right audience, a data stack to build your own audiences.

Use those audiences to plan by and measure against, against a single ID and that, you know, in this world of fragmentation and complexity that we live in, that is key to future success. We've also built an end to end platform called interact, by which we can do it. Acxiom is key throughout all of that, right? So you need to have the right data stack, the right technology, obviously the right partnerships in place then to create that interoperability that you need.

And it's hard. It's complex Adam. Like that is not easy. So we've invested a lot in, I would say, the tools and the technology and obviously the data to not just about today, but like what's coming in the next couple of years. And then AI is built throughout all of that tool. Right. So you can now just ingest information about a client.

And we can start to really use that data, develop audiences. We can start to develop media plans obviously using AI, really developing, creative assets, obviously through the dynamic creative. I think that that's going to be a big opportunity for clients. So there's so much and that just I would say those things, but really embracing AI and like there's a lot that hasn't changed.

I would say on like traffic sheets for example. Like I get down to, people on our teams are spending hours and hours and hours on very tactical, time consuming tasks that we haven't really evolved in the last. Certainly in the last 10 to 15 years. So how do you create an agent that can build traffic sheets? How do you create an agent that can build programing estimates?

You know, there's so much that we can do now with AI to help our teams work more efficiently, and we have to like it's going to change the way that we work. And I think that that's good, right? Like we have to. We can’t be doing things so manually.

Adam Katz
Even if we didn't think it was good. You can't say the opposite, you know. So it's hard because it's funny. It is good. It's like it to me. It's just so complex. Right? Like when you break down what you just said, it's like, now you have a whole nother world that you're playing in, right? You're looking at investment over the years or again where money should go, where demand should be, how you should play.

Now all of a sudden, Maureen’s like, I'm building agents. So it's, it's a whole I'm just saying, it's like when you just think about that, that -

Maureen Bosetti
I know.

Adam Katz
That goes back to one of your opening comments about how fast things evolve. And now they're evolving faster than ever. So I think the ability for you to look internally the way you do just that yourself is a big piece in evolving in any way.

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah 100%.

Adam Katz
If you are stuck in that mode, you can't evolve. So let me ask, let's kind of shift into the kind of your brands that you work with, right? When you break down how brands can lean into all the technology that you're bringing around, how do you think about that? Like do you think about is a brand more forward thinking, middle thinking?

Do you bring the same suggestions to different people? How do you kind of break down your suggestion tree?

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah, I think for clients it does come back to diagnosing what the challenges of the client are. We're not here to like to use every single tool that we have for every single client. Right. Because that's just overwhelming. And not every client needs all that, right?

Some of our clients have in-house programmatic teams. So what is the right solution that we have to bring to that client. Like do we have a curated list to partner with content curation, supply curation? Is it a certain piece of tech that we can help them with? Is it a partnership that we can bring to bear?

So every client has different needs, and what we really try to do with our business leads is understand how do we solve that problem for that client. So again, do they need help creating creative production? So we have a content studio that maybe could help with that. Or are we trying to build audiences using our Acxiom stack.

You know, are we trying to do social or are we trying to amplify social for them? So we're really trying to understand, obviously, we need to make sure they understand what our full end to end suite looks like. But then it is about like, hey, we really think we need to work much more upstream on the audience build. We need to ingest more first party data or third party data to help grow with the audiences that we're building.

So then we can find more new customers, or we can solve your consideration problem. And we've got this path to do that. So it is kind of that decision tree. But it all really starts with like what are we trying to solve for the client?

Adam Katz
See, it's beautiful that no matter how things evolve, you still are grounded in that.

Maureen Bosetti
You have to be because otherwise the end result falls out.

Adam Katz
I saw you speak on stage talking about that, and I thought it was so, so smart to watch the way you kind of always get back to evolving to what the client wants. I think if you see the forest through the trees like that, it's easy to make the right decisions.

In terms of how fast things are moving today, like we're talking about. How do you guys think about cultural trends and cultural decisions alongside your brands? How are you marrying those things together today and being smart in the way that you guys are doing that?

Maureen Bosetti
A lot of that is rooted in part of our planning process and our strategy teams, so that we have really great strategy teams that when they get a brief, right.

So we're trying to drive more customers into restaurants, or we need to add more B2B clients, like no matter what the category, even pharma, right. Everything starts with like again, understanding like, okay, well this is what's going on. And these are the cultural trends. So there could be health trends, there could be food trends, there could be people working from home trends.

So we have this strategy team that really tries to understand like that. Yes, there's an audience size, but what is the cultural nuance and the cultural trends that overlay those audiences? So then we can go and find the right media channels. But media platforms, media ideas, media creativity that kind of have that intersection of, yeah, there's the quantitative analysis, but then there's also the qualitative work that we infuse into that from a cultural and a trend standpoint.

And those two worlds kind of can come together to create audiences, platforms, communication objectives, communication, platforms, like I said, so. And we try to build like comms platform around those cultural themes. They may not be consumer facing platforms, but it may be. It's just how we show up in media based on those cultural insights?

Adam Katz
Yeah, a lot of it for you guys. It's about listening, learning and acting and making sure that it's consistent with your client's needs, which is beautiful in terms of shifting a little bit here. As we come down the stretch of the session, what do people not know about you and your personal life that you would be interested in sharing with people? Like what keeps you going? What do you like to do? What do you like to watch? What do you think about?

Maureen Bosetti
Oh, yeah. Oh, okay. We have two kids, 2 boys, 21 and 14. So, you know, getting older, obviously for many, as much of my career is try to juggle kids in a pretty demanding job. I'm married to an Italian chef, so that's.

Adam Katz
Oh, my God, I didn’t know that.

Maureen Bosetti
Yep. Yep yep. So that's cool.

Adam Katz
So is there an Italian restaurant you can ever go to where you actually think it's good?

Maureen Bosetti
Mostly he's happy just not to be cooking. So he's pretty good at that. You know like usually chefs are just happy to be out, not the ones in the kitchen. So he's pretty easygoing when it comes to that.

But yeah, you know, we go back to Italy. We certainly did when we were first married for many years, going there every summer. So that was nice. But yeah, I love to. Besides that, I love to watch tennis. I'm a big tennis fan.

Adam Katz
Who's your favorite player?

Maureen Bosetti
Novak Djokovic is my favorite player. I know that's somewhat controversial, but I do think he's the greatest of all time. And I do love watching tennis. I like to play tennis. So that's probably my biggest, that's my favorite thing to do right now. But I also like that I'm an avid streamer. I really do love streaming shows. I always grew up. I did love watching television. Oprah Winfrey was my favorite. She's my all time favorite TV personality.

I really sort of grew up kind of watching her show in the afternoon, and I just felt like it was groundbreaking, what she put on television and always felt that television was a really powerful medium, which is why I wanted to get into the TV production world. But I ended up doing a job where I'm very much kind of in that business, but more on the business side of it than the creative side of it. And it actually really works well for me. So I kind of love that about the media business. And I still love going to upfronts still, because I get to see all the programming and everyone kind of laughs at me and thinks I'm crazy, but I do, so yeah, so and I love, you know, spending time with, obviously my kids and my friends and whatever.

So I just enjoy it now. I think it's a stage of my life trying to have more balance in it, which I'm desperately trying to do. But it's been good. Yeah.

Adam Katz
That’s awesome. Novak Djokovic I love it. I mean, I would agree if you took Novak Djokovic on his greatest day. Put him against anyone else of all time. He's probably the best.

Maureen Bosetti
Not probably, not probably he is.

Adam Katz
Alcaraz is. This is going to be interesting to see how this plays.

Maureen Bosetti
Well and I, I think it's hard to also compare these different variations.

Adam Katz
Errors is always the hardest.

Maureen Bosetti
It's hard to compare.

Adam Katz
I grew up being a Sampras person. So yeah that was my -

Maureen Bosetti
Yeah that’s great.

Adam Katz
You want to play tennis. Happy to play against you. So in terms of shifting one other question, you know, I like to ask a lot of the amazing guests if you could go to dinner with one person that's alive, live or dead, but it can't be a family member, who would it be?

Maureen Bosetti
It would be Oprah Winfrey, as I just stated. Because I would love to learn from her. I think she's just that she always comes across as empathetic, insightful, and has a lot of wisdom. So she would be the person that I would love to have dinner with. I'd love to meet her. I would love to have dinner with her.

Adam Katz
I love that.

Maureen Bosetti
I would just tell her how much of an influence she was.

Adam Katz
I love that listen, thank you so much for joining us.

Maureen Bosetti
Thank you, Adam.

Adam Katz
You were an absolute pleasure. People are going to learn so much from this and hopefully I'll see you really soon.

Maureen Bosetti
Awesome. Thanks for having me, Adam.

Adam Katz
Thanks.