On the last day of his storied, four-decade career, marketing legend Antonio Lucio sat down with Brandweek attendees to share an impassioned lecture on leading with heart, vulnerability and dedication to craft.
Lucio announced last month that he was stepping down his role as global chief marketing officer for Facebook, a position he’s held since 2018, to focus fully on diversity, equity and inclusion efforts within the industry. Today is his last day at the social network.
Before Facebook, Lucio served as global CMO for both HP and Visa, and held senior marketing roles with Kraft and PepsiCo, where he worked for more than a decade.
But for 30 minutes this morning, Lucio synthesized that wealth of experience into a powerful call to arms for marketers—one that urged industry leaders to work from a place of empathy, self-awareness and understanding, citing powerful examples from his own life of what can go wrong when leaders neglect their emotional well-being and families.
“The business of business is the business of people. You exist to solve problems, and people’s problems are heavy on the heart,” said Lucio, issuing a warning to leaders. “Not dealing with the pressures of leadership can destroy your family, your career and even your life.”
Lucio impressed upon Brandweek attendees the importance of building diverse, equitable and inclusive teams—something that has been a constant through line over the course of his career, and will dominate his activities during retirement.
“There has never been a better time to build creative ecosystems, whether internally, externally or both,” Lucio said. “Diverse talent is everywhere. We just need to work harder to find it.”
Watch Lucio’s entire Masterclass here:
We’ll also post the full transcript of his talk so you can choose which bits to copy down into your notebook, post next your desk or tattoo onto your arm for the next time you need a reminder to re-center.
