Putney Cloos is the Chief Marketing Officer at Bombora Inc, a global B2B data company best known for pioneering intent data. With a career spanning brand management, management consulting, financial services, and SaaS, Putney brings a rare combination of strategic depth and operational rigour to the role. Today, she leads marketing at a pivotal moment for Bombora, as data becomes the critical foundation for AI-driven marketing and sales. In this conversation, she shares candid insights on leadership, the evolving role of the CMO, and how marketers can navigate complexity in an increasingly data- and AI-led landscape.
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Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
- Data as a Strategic Differentiator. As AI adoption accelerates, Putney highlights that high-quality, intent-rich data is what enables meaningful automation and decision-making. Without strong data foundations, AI-led marketing and sales cannot deliver relevance or impact
- Navigating Complexity with Clarity. Bombora operates across brands, agencies, and publishers, creating complex buying groups and long sales cycles. Putney emphasises education and human-led engagement to help customers understand value and activate solutions effectively.
- Brand Regains Strategic Importance. With buying journeys changing and demand tactics becoming less predictable, Putney points to a renewed focus on brand. Ensuring a brand earns a place on the shortlist is now a critical responsibility for modern marketing leaders.
Tell us a little about yourself and your role at Bombora.
“I am the Chief Marketing Officer at Bombora, which is an industry-leading B2B data company. I am responsible for all aspects of marketing and communications, including the realisation of strategy through marketing operations and revenue operations. That spans brand, PR, demand generation, content, and more. It is a truly all-encompassing role, and one that I genuinely love.”
How did you get into marketing, and how did that journey lead you to becoming a CMO?
“I have spent most, if not all, of my career in marketing, but I have approached it from a few different angles. I began as a brand manager at Kraft Foods, which gave me a very traditional CPG foundation. From there, I spent time at McKinsey & Company in the marketing and sales practice, where I really developed a passion for the intersection of marketing and sales. That experience made it very clear why I later gravitated towards B2B.
I then moved to American Express, working in B2B marketing, which was another formative chapter. That was where I truly learned how to use data to deliver high-impact marketing at scale. After that, I became CMO of Cision, the media intelligence platform.
My move to Bombora is something of a love story. I had been a two-time client, first at American Express and then at Cision, where I brought Bombora in as part of major transformations I was leading. Eventually, Bombora invited me to join the company itself, and it has been an incredibly strong fit.”
Bombora is a data company at its core. How are you applying your experience with data today?
“It is almost a meta question, because Bombora is fundamentally a B2B data company. We provide end-to-end data solutions that help organisations fuel their marketing and sales strategies. What makes my role interesting is that I am both marketing these solutions and using them as a practitioner. We rely heavily on our own data, alongside other data sources, to power our own marketing.”
What types of data does Bombora provide?
“Our flagship and original product is Company Surge, which is B2B intent data. We actually created this category more than ten years ago. In addition to intent data, we provide B2B identity and enrichment data, which helps organisations identify and understand anonymous website traffic and convert it into usable first-party data.
“We are also the industry leader in B2B digital audience creation, offering both off-the-shelf and custom audiences that can be deployed across virtually every ad-tech platform and channel. Together, these capabilities form an end-to-end data ecosystem. As CMO, I talk about these solutions constantly, but we are also actively using every part of them within our own marketing strategies.”
How do you see the intersection of data, AI, and the future of marketing?
“The mainstream adoption of generative AI and the rise of agentic AI, where agents take actions on our behalf, has created enormous demand for high-quality data. These agents need accurate, context-rich inputs to know what to do and how to do it.
That is exactly where Bombora sits. For example, Company Surge intent data shows which accounts are actively in market, what content they are consuming across the B2B internet, and which members of the buying group are involved. That intelligence allows AI-powered tools to take meaningful actions on behalf of marketing and sales teams.
We have always been a data company, not a platform or tools company. With generative AI accelerating so quickly, this really feels like our moment, because data is the fuel that makes all of this work.”
Who is your ideal customer, and how do you reach them?“We serve a diverse set of customers. A major segment is large B2B brands, particularly in financial services, technology, and logistics. We also work extensively with the agencies that serve those brands, because they play a critical role in shaping advertising and go-to-market strategies.
We think about this as a connected buying group. It is not just five to twelve people within one organisation; it often includes multiple stakeholders within the brand and their agency partners. In addition, we have a significant customer base within the publishing community, where our data is used to inform content strategy and build first-party data for deeper engagement.
“In terms of channels, we use a mix of digital campaigns, in-person events, and virtual events. Digital helps us build awareness, particularly for newer parts of our solution suite, while events allow us to have deeper, real-time conversations. Given the complexity of what we offer, human interaction is essential.”
Is educating the market still a major challenge?
“Very much so, and part of that comes from our own success. We created the intent data category, and Bombora is almost synonymous with intent data. That is a powerful position to be in, but it also means our challenge now is to expand market understanding beyond that original offering.
We do not want to lose the credibility and trust we have built, but we also need to clearly communicate the broader, complementary nature of our full solution suite. It is both a blessing and a curse.”
What do you see as the biggest challenge for CMOs today?
“The biggest challenge is learning how to harness generative AI in a way that genuinely improves how we work. There is enormous promise around creating content faster, placing it more precisely, and reaching the right audiences at the right time.
At the same time, we have to be thoughtful. Not everything will work as promised, at least not immediately. The challenge is understanding where the promise is real, where it is not yet, and how to adopt these tools without destabilising the fundamentals of how we operate.”
How are you telling Bombora’s AI story?
“We are actively working on it. We have been using machine learning and AI for more than a decade to make sense of billions of data points. That is not new for us. What is new is how we articulate that story in a way that resonates with a broader audience and connects to the latest generation of AI-enabled capabilities.
There are two parts to the story. One is how we use AI internally to make our data better. The other is how we package and deliver that data so it can power our customers’ AI initiatives.”
How do you measure the ROI of events, particularly with long sales cycles?
“Event ROI is one of the hardest things to measure, especially in our world. We have a complex offering, a multi-organisation buying group, and often six- to nine-month sales cycles or longer.
In earlier roles, such as at American Express, the sales cycle was much shorter, which made ROI measurement far more straightforward. At Bombora, I have had to become comfortable with a mix of quantitative and qualitative measures. I know that in-person conversations are critical to helping people understand what we do and how to unlock value. While it challenges my instincts as a data-driven marketer, I trust that these interactions are essential.”
What is at the top of your agenda for 2026?
“For us, 2026 is about execution. We built significant momentum in 2025, launched new solutions, and laid a strong strategic foundation. Now the focus is on bringing that strategy to life with best-in-class execution.
We feel strongly that now is Bombora’s moment. Our diverse, high-quality B2B data is becoming the critical fuel for the agentic evolution of marketing and sales. The opportunity is enormous, but success will depend on how well we execute and how closely we partner with customers and partners.”
How has the role of the CMO evolved in recent years?
“We are seeing a real resurgence of brand. Our data shows that research into brand-related topics has grown significantly faster than research into demand-generation topics. That reflects changes in the buying journey, the influence of AI, and broader economic uncertainty.
“Demand generation is still important, but brand has become essential again. CMOs are being asked to ensure their brand is on the shortlist, regardless of how the market evolves. In many ways, everything old is new again.”
If you had to describe the role of a CMO in one word, what would it be?
“Essential. Marketing touches product strategy, go-to-market execution, investor perception, partner confidence, and employer branding. CMOs have a rightful seat at the table on many of the most critical topics a company faces. It is one of the most impactful and rewarding roles you can have.”
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