Mariette Snyman, Marketing Director of IFS across Australia and New Zealand, talks to The Ortus Club about moving from “heroic campaigns” to sustainable marketing engines. She discussed navigating the unspoken expectations for women in the C-suite, and why the most valuable ‘thinking time’ is often shaped through candid conversations with other senior leaders who challenge and refine your perspective.
To watch Snyman’s interview, you can subscribe to our CMO Chats interview series on YouTube. You can also listen to the interview on Spotify, or pour yourself a cup of coffee and read the full interview below. Subscribe to our CMO Chats Newsletter on LinkedIn to keep up-to-date on our conversations with the region’s top commercial strategists.
Watch the interview
Listen on Spotify
Executive Summary: Key Takeaways
- The Thinking Time Deficit: Marketing doesn’t fail due to a lack of effort. It fails when teams lack the space to think. Teams with the space to think and create outperform on pipeline, conversion, and long-term brand impact.
- Building the “Golden Goose”: Teams that chase ‘golden egg’ tactics stay busy. Leaders who build the ‘golden goose’ create systems that consistently generate pipeline and market advantage.
- The Likability Trap: Senior women leaders often face the unfair expectation to be “emotionally palatable.” Snyman argues for prioritising credibility and directness over being liked.
- Marketing as a Commercial Engine: In modern B2B, marketing must sit where P&L decisions are made, acting as the lynchpin between brand, demand, and market expansion.
- AI as an Amplifier: Technology only accelerates what already exists. AI will strengthen strong brands, but will only expose and accelerate a weak strategy.
Mariette Snyman is a strategic builder whose 26-year career spans the evolution from glossy 100-page travel brochures to high-growth tech ABM programs. Currently driving regional commercial strategy at IFS, she sits in the room where P&L decisions are made and long-term investments are decided. Mariette defines herself not by traditional marketing metrics, but by her ability to transform organisations from zero to one. Her philosophy is simple: stop describing products and start describing feelings. Then, build the rigorous, data-driven engines to deliver those feelings at scale.
What defines your approach to high-stakes marketing leadership?
Mariette Snyman explains why she prioritises “thinking time” over execution speed and how curiosity drives her relentless pursuit of excellence.
“I am usually the one who asks, should we be doing that, whereas others ask how fast we can execute. My 26 years in marketing have taught me that marketing does not fail because people do not work hard enough. It fails because we do not have the space to think.
We do not get the time to become more creative. I am a relentless marketer. When I have time to think, I push myself and my team not to create anything mediocre. We raise the bar. It is not driven by ego. It is driven by curiosity. I am fascinated by how people think and what makes them move. Is it colour, framing, timing, or the words we use? That exploration never stops.”
How did a 100-page brochure lead to a “Moment of Clarity” in marketing?
Snyman reflects on the psychological power of copywriting and why marketing is ultimately the business of changing human behavior.
“I fell in love with the craft before metrics. As a copywriter at a tour operator, I created 100-page glossy brochures. I remember staring at a blank page and realising I had to make someone in a high-rise office feel the sand between their toes. That was my moment of clarity. Marketing does not describe products. We describe feelings.
Later, working on loyalty programmes for BoE’s wealth clients, I realised we were not there to make things beautiful. We were there to change behaviour. Creativity and commerce are inseparable. People do not choose the best option. They choose what feels familiar, credible, and least risky.”
How do you reclaim market share by shifting the narrative?
Drawing from a defining moment in her career, Snyman shares how listening to customers resulted in a 14-fold improvement in conversion.
“At one organisation, we were losing significant market share. The immediate reaction from leadership was to change the advertising. That is often the easiest decision, and usually the wrong one. Our deep dive discovered that our communications were speaking at customers, not with them.
We changed everything: letters, websites, commercials. We appointed a brand ambassador who spoke their language and featured real customers. The result was a 20 per cent gain in market share and a 14-fold improvement in conversion. When people feel familiarity and credibility, they respond.”
Why must women in leadership choose respect over palatability?
Snyman addresses the double standards in the boardroom and offers a bold mandate for the next generation of women marketing leaders.
“Women are expected to be strategically credible and emotionally palatable. Men are expected to be strategic leaders. Women are expected to be strategic and likeable. That is unfair. Managing other people’s comfort is not my job. I will be clear, respectful, and direct.
I would rather be respected than liked. If I am both, that is a bonus. I have been passed over for promotions and called difficult, but results speak louder than critics. To young women, I say this: Your job is to create value. Build systems. Deliver outcomes. The rest is noise.”
Why is joy a non-negotiable component of high-performance B2B?
Through an immersive VR campaign at Tricentis, Snyman demonstrates how psychological safety and “fun” lead to measurable lead generation.
“Marketers have forgotten to have fun because they’ve been forced to be commercially driven at all costs. I believe joy and performance are correlated. At Tricentis, we created a virtual reality campaign for trade shows where visitors played a ‘Space Baron’ game to experience our product portfolio.
We doubled booth visitors. Three-quarters booked meetings. The key was psychological safety. When you strip joy away, you get technically competent but emotionally flat marketing. Flat marketing does not move enterprise buyers.”
How does a leader build the “Golden Goose” of Tech Marketing?
In her upcoming book, The Golden Goose of Tech Marketing, Snyman argues that leaders must unlearn the obsession with tactics and focus on building resilient systems.
“Marketing value does not come from working harder. Complexity does not equal sophistication. More tools in your martech stack do not make you better; they often create noise. Build the golden goose. The systems that produce consistent outcomes. Move from activity to outcome.
A marketing leader today is a lynchpin. A lynchpin is a small pin that holds an entire wheel together. It is not the flashiest part, but without it, nothing moves. We connect brand with demand, strategy with execution, and insight with commercial outcome. We hold the system together and make it work.”
Join the Conversation: The Ortus Club’s Executive Network
Mariette Snyman’s philosophy centers on the idea that high-level strategy requires ‘space to think.’ But at the executive level, that space is rarely created in isolation. It is shaped through conversation. Pressure-testing ideas, challenging assumptions, and learning how peers are navigating similar complexity. This is exactly where forums like The Ortus Club become critical. Not as events, but as environments where senior leaders step away from execution and into the kind of dialogue that sharpens decision-making.
Our events facilitate the cross-functional collaboration Mariette identifies as essential for creating “new frontiers.” If you’re building your own ‘Golden Goose,’ the question isn’t whether you need more tactics. It’s whether you’re in the right conversations to build something that lasts.
FAQs Section
Q: What does it mean to be a strategic builder in marketing?
A: It refers to a leader who specialises in the zero-to-one phase, creating the content systems, campaign frameworks, and ABM programs that did not exist before, then handing them off to be scaled.
Q: How does Mariette Snyman balance brand and demand?
A: She views them under one umbrella. Consistently nurturing the total addressable market (TAM) across the top, middle, and bottom of the funnel can lead to 20% compound growth over three years.
Q: What is the core message of The Golden Goose of Tech Marketing?
A: The book argues that marketers must stop chasing individual tactics (the golden eggs) and focus on building the organisational systems (the goose) that reliably generate pipeline and revenue.
Are you ready to share your perspective with a global network of peers?
More Interviews
