Tara de Nicolas

CMO | Global Demand Generation & Pipeline Growth | AI Brand Transformation & AI-Powered Marketing

Atlanta Metropolitan Area

About

I build demand engines that convert positioning into measurable pipeline and revenue. Across Aircall, Elastic, Yext, and Amazon/AWS, I have owned global pipeline targets, managed $25M+ in annual marketing investment, and led globally distributed teams of 70+ through high-growth and AI transformation chapters. At Aircall, as CMO, I repositioned the company from a cloud telephony provider to an AI customer communications platform; resetting the brand narrative, rebuilding visual identity, realigning GTM across regions, and embedding AI into marketing operations to scale content, campaigns, and creative production. I delivered against global pipeline targets, improved cost per qualified pipeline by 60%, drove significant net new ARR growth, and rebuilt the global marketing organization in 12 months to align to AI monetization and pipeline accountability. At Yext ($300M to $400M ARR), I built the company’s first global demand generation organization and pipeline attribution framework, growing marketing-contributed pipeline from 0% to 36% in 12 months, with 50% of sales-closed opportunities originating from marketing in FY24. At Elastic ($240M to $380M ARR), I led global campaign demand generation across AMER, APJ, EMEA, and Public Sector, driving 25% quarter-over-quarter pipeline growth. At Amazon and AWS, I operated across both B2C and B2B at scale. On the B2C side at Amazon, I led brand and growth marketing across 350+ annual GTM campaign launches globally spanning merchandising, paid media, influencer, and PR, managing global budgets and delivering 50% YoY growth for three consecutive years. On the B2B side at AWS, I led 62+ marketers supporting a $51B+ cloud business, delivering 40%+ YoY pipeline growth and growing the marketable database 130%. I am a demand-generation-first CMO who operates with board-level financial discipline, builds high-performing teams, and connects marketing strategy directly to ARR. 2025: Pavilion “50 CMOs to Watch” and MarTech View “Women Driving Impact in Technology.”

Experience

  • Chief Marketing Officer at Aircall
    Nov 2024 - May 2026 · 1 yr 7 mos

    Led Aircall’s transformation from a voice-only business phone provider into a multi-product, AI-powered customer communications platform. Repositioned the brand, rebuild the global marketing organization, and establish scalable, measurable go-to-market programs tied to demand creation, product adoption, and long-term category leadership. -Defined an AI-first narrative and refreshed brand identity to support a multi-product platform strategy while preserving core demand. -Built and scaled an integrated global marketing organization spanning brand, demand generation, product marketing, content, SEO and AI search, partner marketing, field marketing, and customer advocacy. -Established operating rhythms and accountability models that align marketing execution to revenue, adoption, and efficiency outcomes. -Launched integrated global campaigns and lifecycle programs that drive consistent demand and accelerate adoption across regions. -Deployed an AI-enabled content and localization engine to increase speed, consistency, and scale without sacrificing quality. -Served as a core member of the executive leadership team, shaping company strategy, GTM priorities, and long-term growth plans; regularly brief the Board of Directors on brand, demand, and growth performance.

  • Yext (2 yrs)
    • Vice President, Demand Generation Marketing
      Dec 2022 - Nov 2024 · 2 yrs

      - Leading the global demand generation teams (global campaigns, events, email marketing, paid media, content, organic social, data insights, and NA field marketing), along with EMEA marketing and customer marketing. - August - January 2024, acted as the interim leader of the communication and brand teams (brand, AR, PR, communications, creative).

    • Vice President Marketing
      Dec 2022 - Nov 2024 · 2 yrs

  • Elastic (1 yr 8 mos)
    • Sr. Director, Growth Marketing
      Sep 2022 - Dec 2022 · 4 mos

      Lead cross-functional collaboration across all of marketing to deliver multi-channel strategies to drive efficiencies and growth.

    • Senior Director of Marketing
      Jun 2021 - Dec 2022 · 1 yr 7 mos

    • Sr. Director, Demand Generation
      May 2021 - Oct 2022 · 1 yr 6 mos

      -Lead the Demand Generation Global Campaigns and virtual events teams. -Develop, coach and hire team of high performing campaign, content and event managers across AMER, APJ, EMEA and Public Sector in support of scaling global marketing for a $500M search business -Led the development and launch of a new optimized global campaigns, paid media and global events strategy to align under 4 global campaign themes with targeted personas and journeys driving a 25% increase Q/Q since launch -Led the creation of a programmatic and thematic global DG virtual events strategy and the supporting processes/mechanisms to drive toward business goals with a 35% increase Q/Q since launch

  • Amazon (5 yrs 6 mos)
    • Head of AWS Americas Marketing Digital Marketing, Campaigns, Paid Media and Events
      Aug 2019 - Jun 2021 · 1 yr 11 mos

      -Led, hired and coached a multi-layered high performing team across the Americas of 50+ digital marketing managers, campaign managers, paid media mangers, and event managers in support of a $51B+ cloud services business -Oversaw all virtual and live events (~300) in Americas to meet KPIs and drive toward organizational goals -Drove execution to acquire new customers, accelerate migrations, and deliver pipeline to support growth objectives with an omni-channel approach across owned and paid marketing *Scope expanded to lead Americas Marketing Digital Marketing, Campaigns, and Paid Media, in addition to all AMER Field Events in Q4 2020. -Led the AMER Field Events team to define the strategy and drive the planning process to execute ~300 large-scale live and virtual events in the Americas. - Led the development and continued optimization of first-ever executive event and executive event content strategy - Hiring bar raiser in training (BRIT)

    • Sr. Public Relations Manager
      Feb 2019 - Aug 2019 · 7 mos

      Led PR across three verticals to develop and drive PR strategies for proactive media placements and handled reactive inquires

    • Head of Author Marketing and Branding
      Jul 2016 - Feb 2019 · 2 yrs 8 mos

      -Led the marketing/branding transformation strategy to increase brand awareness, drive book launch sales (print/Kindle/Audio) and increase engagement for Amazon Publishing and Kindle reading programs -Hired/developed/coached high performing large team of marketing managers on 350+ go-to-market and branding campaigns per year across a variety of channels for both owned (email, apps, website merchandising), influencers and paid media -Developed multi-touch attribution models on brand performance, PR hits, digital, social media and influencer marketing (results enabled 20% Y/Y budget increases) -Launched first-ever branded Amazon Publishing global social media channels and evolved strategy to grow social media followers and increase engagement -Led the first-ever influencer marketing strategy to drive brand awareness and book sales, while also building attribution model to properly track and attribute the impact paid influencers were having on each campaign -Developed brand voice and messaging/creative strategy to engage both industry and consumers, overseeing the implementation of that voice across creative/copy, merchandising, social media, influencer marketing and website -Oversaw creative team across assets and copy on all digital, print and social media campaigns -Developed and oversaw worldwide book festival brand activation events strategy and budget -Managed worldwide budget with results that drove 50% Y/Y budget growth for three years in a row Select Accomplishments: Bizbash Magazine's 2018 Top 500 People in Events in North America

  • Amazon Web Services (AWS) (5 yrs 6 mos)
    • Head of Digital Marketing
      Jul 2016 - Jun 2021 · 5 yrs

    • Senior Public Relations Manager
      2016 - 2017 · 1 yr