CMO Chats with Victoria Sampson, Regional CMO, Thomson Reuters in APAC

Can you tell us a bit about your journey and what sparked your interest in marketing?

I’ve been in marketing for over 20 years, with the last 10 spent at Thomson Reuters, a Canadian information technology company. What has always interested me most about marketing is people. I’m driven by understanding the client, servicing their needs, and using data and technology to support that entire process.

In my current role as Regional CMO for APAC, we focus on serving professionals like lawyers, accountants, and risk experts with products such as Westlaw and OneSource. Our clients range from large global corporations to one-person operations across the Asia Pacific region. It’s an incredibly diverse, interesting, and fast-moving environment. Honestly, no two days are the same, and that’s what gets me out of bed in the morning.

What is currently your main marketing focus?

My primary focus is on developing the marketing function of the future. The APAC region is high-growth and incredibly dynamic, so my goal is to equip my team with the skills needed to be the agile, forward-thinking marketers our business requires.

This involves a significant shift from being a traditional marketing function—focused purely on campaign after campaign—to becoming strategic business advisors concentrated on the future growth of the organisation. At Thomson Reuters, marketing is at the pointy end of growth; we are the vanguard, going into new regions to map the marketplace and build relationships that pave the way for sales.

With 120 countries in my region, the challenge is to use technology to reach our clients in a highly focused and effective way. Ultimately, my biggest goal is to develop a team with the right skill sets to meet this challenge.

What is an innovative or successful marketing campaign your team has recently executed?

The best example is our Synergy Conference. This client conference has been successful in North America and Europe for years, and we recently launched it in APAC, with events in Sydney, Singapore, Dubai, and now Tokyo. We host hundreds of VIP professionals to discuss key trends, share thought leadership, and explore what it takes for their businesses to succeed.

What I love about Synergy is the impact of face-to-face interaction. In our increasingly digitised world, it’s easy to forget the power of in-person connection. These events are a huge energy boost for our marketing and sales teams, and they allow us to truly educate the marketplace on how our tools and content can serve them. The conferences have had a tremendous impact on our brand, and they are set to get bigger and expand to more regions in the years ahead.

What are some of the biggest marketing challenges you have encountered recently?

I would point to three main challenges. The first is people. Finding the right talent with the right skill set in the right region is difficult. I am very fortunate to have an exceptional team, but my focus is on how we continue to upskill them for the future, particularly with hard skills in technology and AI. If I don’t create the space for learning, we will fall behind.

The second is the geopolitical landscape. Operating across a region that stretches from the Middle East to New Zealand means there is always unrest or market movement somewhere. The team must be incredibly adaptable and flexible to navigate this constant change together.

Finally, the third is personalisation. In a world saturated with content, the key challenge is how to provide a truly personalised experience that cuts through the noise. We have to be meaningful in our communications to stand out and prove why clients should listen to us over the competition. This is an ongoing challenge, but also a great opportunity.

How does your company stay ahead of its competitors?

It’s tempting to look at what competitors are doing and think the grass is greener, but if you’re only just seeing their campaign, you’re already months behind. Playing a reactive game where you try to match every move they make means you are always playing from behind.

The better approach is to maintain an external focus while prioritising innovation. You have to be willing to try new things and accept that you must fail quite a lot to succeed. It’s far more effective to focus on planning for the future rather than worrying too much about what the competition is doing today.

What do you believe is the biggest opportunity for marketing leaders today that wasn’t available in the past?

The most obvious answer is AI. We are already seeing incredible benefits, from creating dynamic campaigns faster than ever before to achieving significant budget savings on content creation. I see AI as a workforce multiplier; it frees people from repetitive tasks so they can focus on the strategic work that truly counts.

For a role like mine covering the vast APAC region, AI offers two transformative benefits. First, it can dramatically improve our ability to customise and localise content by geography, ensuring our message resonates in each specific country. Second, AI can analyse a huge volume of data in an instant. What would have taken my team months to analyse can now be done in a minute, providing powerful insights to the business. We have only just scratched the surface of what’s possible here, and I’m incredibly excited to see what comes next.

What do you think the future of marketing looks like?

I believe we will see less rigid swim lanes for roles, not just in marketing but across many professions. The future of marketing is less about being a siloed ‘marketer’ and more about being a business leader.

The old conveyor-belt model—where you receive information and spit out a formulaic marketing plan—can now be done by ChatGPT. What AI can’t do is the deep strategic thinking, knowing the client intimately, seeing new opportunities, and navigating the harder parts of business. This will force us all to become smarter marketers and worry less about a specific job title and more about our contribution as leaders in the business.

In one word, what is the role of the CMO?

Growth. The CMO must be a growth leader, always looking for new opportunities, exploring new markets, and thinking outside the box. If you set your team up for success with the right skills and creative freedom, you as a leader can lift your vision and see the forest for the trees. This leads to better business-level discussions. Other leaders don’t want to talk about marketing jargon; they want to talk about how we can grow the business together.

What is a piece of traditional leadership advice that you believe doesn’t apply to modern marketing leaders?

First, I would say being overly focused on hierarchy. The flatter the organisational structure, the better. A junior marketer should feel empowered to schedule time with a senior leader to learn how the business runs. This open communication teaches us faster than anything else.

Second is the idea that marketing should be formulaic. The old “one-size-fits-all” approach stifles creativity and innovation. You simply cannot rinse and repeat the same campaign five times in a row and expect it to work. You must constantly change and adapt.

What career advice would you like to share with other marketing leaders?

My main advice is to remember that ‘marketing’ is just a term we’ve created. What you should really focus on is becoming a business leader. When I reflect on the most successful people I’ve worked with, their success is almost always correlated with their ability to lead the business, not just their skill as a marketer.

To do this, you must understand how your business operates from top to bottom: Where does growth come from? What are the biggest cost challenges? How do you open up new markets?

You can get there in two ways. First, be relentlessly client-focused. If you haven’t met with a client in the last month, you need to meet with them more often. Second, be a relentless learner. You have to learn about the new tools, tactics, and trends that are shaping what’s next. Leading the way is a much better mindset than staying in your designated swim lane.