The finalists for WashingtonExec’s 2023 Pinnacle Awards were announced Sept. 25, and we’ll be highlighting some of them until the event takes place live, in-person Nov. 16.
Next is Helle Huxley, chief marketing officer at The Cadmus Group and finalist in the Marketing Executive of the Year, Private Company
(annual revenue less than $250M) category. Here, she shares recent key achievements and her primary focus areas going forward.
What key achievements did you have in 2023?
Cadmus made significant back-to-back acquisitions this year, acquiring The Wheelhouse Group and Nathan Associates — expanding Cadmus from 600 primarily U.S.-based employees to 1,000 employees globally. To lead the marketing and communications on these integrations was an incredible achievement for me and the Cadmus marketing team.
Focusing on scalability, we developed the Cadmus Integration Toolkit for Marketing & Communications to ensure integration excellence. The toolkit is focused on audience type — for press, partners, clients, and contract managers.
However, the aspects of the toolkit that resonate most with prospective companies are the features for their employees. From tailored Welcome to Cadmus presentations and custom SharePoint portals to messaging and templates on transitioning to the Cadmus brand, the toolkit provides a full life cycle of guidance and support for successful integrations.
One popular component in the toolkit is branded LinkedIn graphics and messaging for the employees of integrated firms to use when announcing the transaction. With these, employees are empowered to embrace the transaction publicly, and the market is presented with a unified message.
The toolkit also helps align and deploy ongoing strategies to keep Cadmus’ newest employees informed about upcoming trainings, operational resources, and other engagement opportunities with legacy Cadmus staff.
With Cadmus’ continued focus on inorganic growth, the Cadmus Marketing & Communications Toolkit proves vital to help with acquired employee retention and reinforces the market’s perception of Cadmus as a preferred acquirer.
What are your primary focus areas going forward, and why are those so important to the future of the nation?
Cadmus’ growth goals are driven by our mission to solve the world’s most critical problems. We are committed to developing the diverse capabilities and expertise needed in our challenging, increasingly complex, and interconnected world.
My focus going forward is to amplify Cadmus’ holistic, integrated solutions in areas including climate, energy, resilience, transportation, and public health. The nature of our work, with its wide-ranging effects on nearly every aspect of society, means Cadmus is intimately tied to the state of the world we live in. As a chief marketing officer, this is uniquely inspiring because it means my priorities as CMO of Cadmus align directly with my priorities as a citizen.
It is exciting and not really a given to be in marketing and be “doing good.” As a part of Cadmus, I feel great about amplifying what we do because we’re helping protect the natural environment, making people’s lives safer and healthier, and ensuring organizations become and remain resilient and thrive for the benefit of all stakeholders.