Gradial today announced the launch of Foundry, an invitation only community of leading enterprise CMOs coming together to help shape the future of marketing in the age of AI.

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Foundry starts with a simple belief: AI should unlock marketers’ creative potential, not add more complexity around it.

Marketing teams have more technology, data, and ways to create than ever before. Yet too much time is still consumed by handoffs, approvals, systems, agencies, governance, and the work required to turn a great idea into something a customer experiences.

Foundry brings together leaders across the industry to rethink that model, share what is working, challenge assumptions, and help define what a marketer led, AI orchestrated organization should look like.

“We have spent years working alongside some of the world’s largest marketing organizations and building technology for this moment,” said Doug Tallmadge, CEO and cofounder of Gradial. “We feel a responsibility to give back to the industry. Foundry creates a space for the leaders navigating this change to learn from one another, challenge the old assumptions, and help shape what comes next. It also gives us an incredible opportunity to listen and make sure the future we are building reflects what marketers need.”

The group will be chaired by Stephanie Ferguson, former CVP of Marketing at Microsoft, and will include marketing leaders from Fortune 500 brands and enterprises.

For Vikas Kamran, President of Gradial, Foundry builds on years spent creating and growing an agency and working alongside marketing organizations through periods of significant change.

“One of the greatest lessons I took from building an agency was that the best ideas rarely come from one person or one discipline,” said Kamran. “You create the space to remove bias, flare before you focus, and bring different perspectives together to think differently about the problem. And you lead with empathy because transformation only works when you bring the broader organization with you. That is what we want Foundry to be. A place where incredible marketers help one another think bigger, learn faster, and ultimately unlock more of their creative potential.”

Foundry will convene quarterly, with Foundry Labs, original research, a podcast, and shared frameworks extending the work to the broader marketing community.

The group will explore the new marketing operating model, how AI changes the relationship between people, agencies and technology, new approaches to governance and measurement, and how marketing can bring CIO, data, legal, finance and other cross functional partners into the conversation earlier to build what comes next together.

“AI cannot simply be layered onto yesterday’s operating model and called transformation,” said Ferguson. “We have an opportunity to redesign how marketing works, and marketers themselves should lead that conversation.”

Foundry reflects a core belief at Gradial: the future of marketing should create more space for marketers to imagine, experiment, create, and compound on the work they love doing.

To learn more about Gradial Foundry, join the newsletter, or inquire about participation, visit gradial.com or contact bart@gradial.com.

About Gradial Foundry

Gradial Foundry is a community of enterprise marketing leaders working together to shape the future of marketing in an AI native world. Through executive gatherings, Foundry Labs, research, and shared frameworks, the community is focused on helping marketers unlock their creative potential and build what comes next.

About Gradial

Gradial is the agentic marketing operations platform built to help enterprise marketers turn ideas into outcomes. Gradial works across the systems teams already use to orchestrate and execute marketing at enterprise scale, creating more freedom for marketers to imagine, create, and move.

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