How to build a beloved tech brand | Sheila Joglekar Vashee (CMO, Figma)

**Brett Berson** (0:05)
I thought we could start with what you think excellent marketing is in 2026

**Sheila Joglekar Vashee** (0:12)
What has always been true is that marketing sort of sits at the intersection of product, of revenue, of users and user perception, and for Figma, like community. The job of excellent marketing, which is more true now than ever, is making coherence across all those things, making all of that work together. So clarifying for what you're building, who are you building it for? Why should they care? Making sure that that translates to, how is it going to drive growth and revenue for the business? And then also circling back to users in the community and making sure that it resonates and it feels authentic and you're building a brand that they can also feel a part of. The only team that sits across all of those things is marketing. And it's the job of marketing to make sure that it all works together. And all of those touch points speak to each other because they represent your brand. And I think it's harder than ever in 2026 because everything is moving at just like insane warp speed, but the job is still the same.

**Brett Berson** (1:11)
For a bunch of the things that you outlined, there's multiple input drivers to them. Marketing being one of them, but it could be sales and sales effectiveness. In a lot of cases, it could be product or engineering. And so how do you think about disambiguating that when you think about either input drivers or accountability for those sort of things that are highly cross-functional?

**Sheila Joglekar Vashee** (1:30)
I think a trap a lot of companies get into is giving those different teams different goals. And it's easy to see why you get there actually, right? Because let's look at pipeline, for example. You could argue pipeline, there are multiple contributors to that. Some of it are the leads coming in and the quality of those leads and the volume of those leads. Some of it is the pickup rate. Some of it is the likelihood that you're able to close a deal and that spans multiple teams. And I think it's very easy to give marketing a goal for one stage of that process and sales a goal for another stage. I think that actually creates dysfunction between the teams. And you have to goal people on the end goal, knowing that there are inputs that different teams can have more influence on at each stage. But everyone has to be focused on the same end goal, otherwise you have adverse outcomes through the process. So goal on the same end goal, but give people a different sense of their impact on the inputs.

**Brett Berson** (2:24)
What's the decision you made in the role of CMO last year that you think was the single most important correct decision?

**Sheila Joglekar Vashee** (2:30)
Last year, we had a big push to continue building around the expanded definition of design. So if you look at Figma, two-thirds of people who build in Figma are non-designers, are engineers, are marketers.
And we did a push to bring those people in those functions closer to Figma while still staying committed to our core. And that is really hard from a brand perspective. But we see that working because we are expanding the definition of what design is. And we did a big push around that. And that was important for us because it's important that we build for the people who are using Figma every day. But we also have to stay committed to the community that made us, put us at the center of the product development process, which is design. And so I feel we were able to do both by expanding the definition of who participates in the design process.

**Brett Berson** (3:23)
So how did you do that?

**Sheila Joglekar Vashee** (3:25)
We did that through a big campaign on the marketing side. So like, for example, we launched Figma Make last year, and that was a product that brought more people into the design process. It made it more accessible for PMs and others to participate in the process of building prototypes and putting them into Figma and working in the product. And we did a big push to bring those people together. We held events, we did campaigns, we did a lot of thought leadership, and had moments with people on the ground. And that was really successful in building awareness of that product, but then also bringing Figma to more audiences in a way that felt authentic. And we plan to do more of that.

**Brett Berson** (4:05)
What do you think is the difference between a VP or SVP of marketing and a CMO?