Executive: Jessica “Jess” Alpert, Chief Marketing Officer
Company: EPM (Equity Prime Mortgage), Atlanta
Industry: Wholesale B2B mortgage lending
Company Snapshot: Mid-sized U.S. lender serving independent brokers nationwide
Format: CMO Journeys Interview
In This Article
- Why It Matters
- Their Path, in Short
- Big Themes From the Conversation
- How They Choose the Right Agency Partners
- What Stood Out
- The Inside Scoop
Why It Matters
Jessica “Jess” Alpert has taken one of the most unconventional routes into a CMO role you’ll ever hear. She built a fashion brand, ran a creative agency, helped steer major tech marketing, and rebuilt her entire skill set to master data-driven marketing. Her journey is a reminder that high-impact leaders aren’t always shaped by traditional paths. They’re shaped by curiosity, grit, and the willingness to reinvent. For agencies, her perspective offers rare clarity on what truly earns a CMO’s attention.
Their Path, in Short
Jess began her career by watching people — literally sitting in Nordstrom and observing what customers bought, what they ignored, and how they behaved. That curiosity led her to create an accessories brand built around functional, one-size-fits-all pieces. The business grew fast, expanding into a New York showroom and gaining traction through word of mouth and smart positioning.
When she eventually shifted out of fashion, she didn’t go looking for stability. She built her own creative agency, helping brands identify their real pain points and crafting activations that turned heads. One of her most memorable projects was for Faber-Castell, where she created a trade show experience so engaging that attendees clogged the aisle to get a closer look.
Her agency work put her on Samsung’s radar, and she soon found herself inside a global tech operation where creativity met data. That’s where she noticed a shift happening. The marketing world wasn’t running on “I feel” anymore. It was running on dashboards and analytics. Instead of resisting it, Jess made one of the boldest moves of her career: she stepped backward in title so she could learn modern marketing from the inside out.
She embraced CRM systems, segmentation techniques, analytics, lifecycle thinking — everything that would make her a hybrid leader who could blend creative instinct with measurable results. That hybrid mindset now guides her leadership approach.
Big Themes From the Conversation
Creativity as a mindset, not a department.
Jess doesn’t see creativity as something reserved for copywriters or designers. To her, it shows up in segmentation, user journeys, and every interaction that shapes the customer experience.
Curiosity drives everything.
She’s always scanning the market, listening for pain points, and asking what people actually need. That instinct powered her early fashion success and still guides her marketing decisions today.
Leadership means listening and then moving.
Jess listens to her teams, absorbs ideas quickly, and then chooses a direction. She categorizes ideas fast: run with this, refine this, parking lot that. It gives people clarity and builds momentum.
She values authenticity over polish.
Whether she’s talking about brand tone, internal culture, or agency relationships, she wants work that feels real, not overproduced or overly safe.
Execution beats theory.
One of her core beliefs: “A brainstorm without execution is just fluff.” It summarizes her entire career philosophy.
Watch CMO Journey Interview
How They Choose the Right Agency Partners
When I asked Jess how she finds and evaluates agency partners, she didn’t hesitate. She values energy, preparation, and genuine connection above everything else.
She often discovers agencies at events, where she can meet people face-to-face and get a feel for how they think. She pays attention to the ones who show enthusiasm, bring smart ideas to the table, and genuinely care about the work. If someone lights up when talking about a concept, she notices. If they nitpick retainers and nickel-and-dime hours, she notices that too — and not in a good way.
Jess gravitates toward partners who “grow tentacles,” as she put it. Those are the agencies that take a project and expand it with creativity, fresh thinking, and a proactive mindset. They don’t wait to be told what to do. They come with ideas that stretch beyond the assignment. Over time, they integrate so naturally into the team that at an event someone might mistake them for internal staff.
Thought leadership also plays a role, but not in the way most agencies expect. Jess doesn’t spend time scanning trade publications. She’s not combing through Ad Age or Adweek looking for clues about agencies. What actually catches her attention is useful, recurring, educational content. She shared an example of an agency that hosts a weekly AI webinar. It was so relevant and so timely that she immediately asked to be added to the list. She loved the idea of a certification tied to it, even envisioning badges people could list on LinkedIn.
LinkedIn is her primary discovery platform. Not for resume scanning, but for seeing how agencies talk about their work. She’s drawn to people inside agencies: creative directors, strategists, and team leads who show the process behind a project. She wants to see what the initial pain point was, how the team solved it, and what changed along the way. That transparency tells her more about an agency’s capabilities than any award submission ever could.
Awards, for her, are nice, but not persuasive. They give a stamp of approval, sure, but she wants to know what the award was for and whether the thinking behind it was truly fresh. She’s unimpressed by cookie-cutter agencies that do the same work for every client. She wants partners who take risks, think tactically, and deliver ideas no one else is bringing.
And when it comes to outreach, she has a clear preference: show up prepared. She dislikes it when agencies use the first meeting to learn about the company. She wants partners who walk in already understanding the business, its customers, and the challenges it faces — not as an agency, but as a consumer. That level of preparation instantly separates the people she wants to work with from those she doesn’t.
What Stood Out
Jess’s career reflects a rare blend of speed, intuition, and willingness to reinvent. She’s never been afraid to shift directions, from fashion to agency life to tech to financial services, if it meant learning something new or making a bigger impact. Her stories reveal someone who acts fast, listens deeply, and leads with a mix of heart and practicality.
One insight captures her approach perfectly: the best ideas don’t live in decks. They live in execution. It’s the through-line of her entire journey, and a challenge to anyone who works with her: don’t overthink it. Build it. Test it. Improve it. Move.
The Inside Scoop
This article focuses on the journey, the leadership philosophy, and how this CMO works with agency partners.
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