While hearing the term STEM often brings specific fields to mind, such as pharmaceutical development or mechanical engineering, recent guest speaker Cheryl Krauss P'26 '27 offered a unique perspective for students in the Applied Science certificate program at Pennington. Krauss, who is Senior Vice President and Chief Communications and Marketing Officer for the Chubb Group, is responsible for the company’s global corporate communications and marketing functions. Among Cheryl’s areas of executive oversight are global brand marketing, corporate advertising, global media relations, financial communications, investor relations, global digital marketing, MarTech and employee communications. 

As Krauss shared with the students in the audience, all of marketing and communications is powered in some way now by technology and the digital world. She explained the different sides of marketing and communications: the “promote the business” piece is what many often think of when they consider the term marketing, but Krauss explained that another facet of her job is to “protect the business,” which is evident in cyber alert systems, for instance, and other areas which fall under the category of “negative monitoring.” Krauss also discussed the role that artificial intelligence is playing in the MarComm world, specifically with the ability to generate content for social media. “AI is still a big experiment for us,” said Krauss. 

Technology also plays an important role in management; Krauss oversees over 300 team members spread around the world, and she utilizes video and broadcast TV to keep communication flowing. While the benefits of technology are innumerable when it comes to keeping connected to her employees, Krauss still spends a great deal of time traveling.  “In a global role,” she said, “you need to hit the road. You need boots on the ground. You will never get the intelligence you need about other markets around the world if you’re just sitting in a fancy office in New York City.”

Krauss started her career as a journalist and photojournalist with ABC and NBC affiliates in Miami and West Palm Beach, Florida and CBS News in New York. She holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Miami in Communications with a major in broadcast/journalism and she studied art history at the University of Sydney.