Executive: Kristin Agnelli, Chief Marketing Officer and SVP of Communications
Company: ESO
Industry: Healthcare and Emergency Response Technology
Company Snapshot: ESO helps EMS, fire departments, hospitals, and government agencies share data, improve coordination, and support better outcomes across emergency response and healthcare.
Format: CMO Journeys Interview
Why It Matters
Kristin Agnelli’s path to the CMO seat did not begin with a tidy marketing plan. It began with a would-be lawyer, a hard lesson, and a career that kept pulling her closer to customers, revenue, and story. Her journey is useful because she came up through sales development, demand generation, field marketing, and revenue alignment before leading brand and communications. For agencies, her perspective is sharp because she understands both the number and the narrative.
Their Path, in Short
At 18, Kristin thought she might become a lawyer. She was outgoing, athletic, and drawn to the idea of law. Then an internship changed the picture.
While attending Salem College in North Carolina, she worked with an attorney who was a family friend. He introduced her to a judge, and Kristin sat in on a murder trial for the better part of a week. She sat near the father of the man being tried. The experience was intense and clarifying. She left knowing she did not want that weight in her daily work.
Her career then moved into sales and marketing. Her first job out of school was at a Caterpillar dealership, where she was a sales coordinator, trained to operate forklifts, and handled marketing work like direct mail and golf tournaments. It gave her a front-row view of how sales and marketing fit together.
That blend became her foundation. Kristin later moved into software as a BDR selling to marketers. She was sitting in sales, speaking to marketers, and falling in love with marketing at the same time. She liked chasing a number. She also liked writing, launching ideas, and helping teams move in the same direction.
Her broader leadership path happened organically. She came up through sales development, demand generation, field marketing, events, and the growth engine of marketing. At Apptio, she took on a corporate marketing role and later stepped into a larger leadership role across a complex marketing team.
Big Themes From the Conversation
One big theme in Kristin’s story is the bridge. She has spent much of her career between teams: sales and marketing, product and brand, internal alignment and external story. She sees marketing as a function that helps the company sing from the same song sheet.
She also brings a rare mix of competitiveness and creativity. Kristin grew up around sales, played sports, studied English, and minored in creative writing. She cares about the number, but she also cares about words, clarity, and story.
Clarity is another thread. Kristin talked about removing jargon and making ESO’s story easier to understand. ESO serves audiences with different jobs, different language, and real-world stakes. For her, marketing is not about making things sound bigger. It is about making them clearer.
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How They Choose the Right Agency Partners
Kristin’s view of agencies is practical. She believes companies should build in-house skills for the work they need every day. But she also sees real value in agencies when they bring market relationships, deep expertise, or outside perspective for major projects.
ESO is not an easy business to learn. Fire, EMS, hospitals, and government stakeholders do not all speak the same language. So her team teaches the business, shares materials, and brings subject matter experts into the process. But she does not just watch whether an agency listens. She watches what they do next.
When I asked her how she knows whether an agency really understands the business, her answer came down to output. After the discovery calls and briefings, what comes back? Can the agency summarize what it heard? Can it see the nuance? Can it avoid treating ESO like generic healthcare or generic tech? That first draft tells her a lot.
Her preferred way for an agency to learn is simple: go straight to the source. Talk to customers. Hear the language from the people who live it. That is how an outside partner starts to understand what words mean inside the market.
The best agencies, in Kristin’s experience, do more than complete the assignment. They bring a perspective that makes the internal team pause and say, “We did not think about it that way.” That is the outside view she values: fresh, grounded, and true to the business.
Cold outreach, though, has to feel human. Kristin said people can see through messages that try too hard to sound clever. She has received nearly identical LinkedIn notes from agencies saying her company is on their top list of clients to win. Once the message feels copied, it loses trust.
Her advice is simple: be authentic, be human first, and do the research. She has said publicly that she does not answer her phone, but she will reply on LinkedIn. If someone finds that detail and reaches out there, it shows they listened. Email alone may never land. The answer is not to blast harder. It is to pay closer attention.
What Stood Out
The most revealing moment came early in Kristin’s story. She thought she wanted to be a lawyer, sat through a murder trial, and had the honesty to say, “This is not for me.” That is not a detour. That is clarity. And clarity keeps showing up in how she leads.
What also stood out is how often Kristin returns to people. Even when talking about data, tools, automation, or AI, she comes back to the human layer.
Inside Scoop
This article focuses on the journey, the leadership philosophy, and how this CMO works with agency partners.
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