Executive: Chris Moloney, Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Digital Officer
Company: Cordell & Cordell
Industry: Legal services (family law, expanding into estate planning)
Company Snapshot: A nationwide family law firm focused on divorce, custody, and family law matters, expanding into estate planning while modernizing how marketing and client experience work together.
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
Chris Moloney didn’t grow up dreaming about legal marketing. He grew into it—one chapter at a time—by following a simple obsession: clearer communication. Today he leads marketing and digital experience at Cordell & Cordell, where the work is high-stakes and deeply human. His story matters because he’s lived on both sides of the table: creative, marketer, and even CEO. And for agencies, his viewpoint is a practical guide to what actually earns attention—and what gets ignored.
Their Path, in Short
Chris traces his marketing origin story to a surprisingly specific moment: his parents bought him a Mac in high school. He didn’t just use it. He fell for it. The design tools pulled him into graphic arts, and graphic arts pulled him into a bigger idea—how visuals and words can educate people and open their eyes.
Here’s the twist: in college, he was pre-law. He laughs about the irony now—working in a law office without being a lawyer. But that early interest still fits. His career has always been about helping people understand complicated things.
He started as a creative. He worked as a creative director and a creative writer. He was “totally embedded” in the agency world. Then he moved into database marketing and digital marketing. Over time, he became the kind of leader who can talk about brand storytelling and spreadsheets in the same breath—and mean both.
Along the way, he bounced between worlds that marketers often treat like opposites: big companies with deep resources and smaller companies that move fast. In his view, the best marketers learn both languages. They understand how slow systems think—and they keep their agile instincts alive.
One of his biggest leaps came when he left a massive company to become the CEO of a tech firm that specialized in digital marketing and social media. The move shocked his system. But it taught him something he still carries: when you own the whole business, you don’t get to protect your budget just because you believe in it. You have to balance it. At one point, he even had to cut marketing spend—painful, he says, because marketing used to be the thing he defended most. That experience gave him a rare gift: empathy for the CFO and CEO mindset, not just the CMO’s.
He also points to a lesson from his time leading marketing at Scottrade: the most powerful ally in marketing isn’t always the loudest person in the room. Sometimes it’s the CFO. When Chris could show measurable returns—using tools like Google Analytics and Google AdWords—his budget stopped being a fight and became a function. In his words, the question shifted to: How many new customers did you acquire, and what did it cost? That’s when marketing moved from “expense” to “engine.”
Big Themes From the Conversation
Chris keeps coming back to one idea: marketing is education. In legal services, he says, the industry is “filled with a lot of jargon” that confuses the average person. So the opportunity isn’t just to sell. It’s to make people feel more comfortable about whatever legal matter they’re facing.
He also thinks deeply about speed—but not the reckless kind. He’s worked in regulated industries where moving too fast can create real risk. So his approach is to stay educated on what’s coming (especially in digital technology and AI), then apply it in low-risk areas first. He calls it being a “fast follower,” not a reckless pioneer.
Another theme: respect the human. Chris has worked in industries where phone conversations built the entire category—finance, mortgage, legal. In those spaces, he doesn’t believe humans will vanish. People still want a person. They want reassurance. They want a real conversation. Which leads to one of his strongest beliefs: the digital experience should enhance human-to-human connection, not replace it.
And then there’s his view of leadership through translation. He has lived the creative life and the finance reality. He’s been the one asking for budget—and the one cutting it. So he speaks like someone who has crossed a bridge and kept the map. His advice to marketers is blunt: learn how finance thinks. Learn what the CFO’s spreadsheets measure. Help them hit their goals. That’s how you stop being “the marketing person” and start being a business leader.
Watch CMO Journeys Interview
How They Choose the Right Agency Partners
When I asked Chris how he finds agency partners, he didn’t start with a directory. He started with people.
He leans on CMO groups and networks where marketing leaders trade notes. He also mentions organizations connected to Gartner, Forbes, and The Wall Street Journal, and he makes time for events where he can hear what other CMOs are working through. He’s picked up some of his best ideas there. For him, events aren’t just networking. They’re a live feed of what’s changing—and what’s actually working.
But Chris is also clear: agencies can get on his radar directly. The catch is how they show up.
He gets a lot of outreach. Too much, honestly. And most of it doesn’t work—especially the kind that swaps in his name and title, or references something shallow like a press mention. That’s not homework. That’s mail merge.
What works is personalized effort that proves a real point. He says the most compelling outreach is when an agency takes its “strongest suit”—its “superpower”—and shows a small taste of it applied to his business. Not a full strategy deck. Not a giant pitch. Just enough to demonstrate thinking, craft, and relevance. The message is: We understand what you do, and we can help in a specific way.
Then comes the part most agencies get wrong: trying to be everything at once. Chris doesn’t trust it. He’s been on the agency side and the consultancy side, and he uses a phrase common in consulting: “land and expand.” In plain English: start with what you do best, prove it, earn trust, and then grow the relationship.
If an agency comes in claiming five superpowers, he sees two problems. First, it’s hard to believe. Second, it’s overwhelming for the buyer to bet that much at once. He’d rather see focus: one clear strength, delivered well, with a path to more.
Even awards fit into this same logic. Chris says awards can add value, especially in creative. He’s enjoyed the perks of that world—he jokes that he’s always interested if an award comes with a trip to the south of France. But he doesn’t treat trophies as proof. For him, the real value is the case study behind the award. What did the agency do? What changed for the client? How did it drive the business? That’s what earns credibility.
In other words: don’t lead with shine. Lead with impact.
What Stood Out
What stuck with me most was how consistently Chris comes back to the human side of change. He doesn’t talk about digital as a replacement for people. He talks about it as a way to help people show up better—faster answers, clearer guidance, fewer blind spots. That mindset is rare in any industry, and it’s even rarer in a category where stress is part of the customer’s daily life.
And then there’s the line that captures his leadership in plain language: “Multiply the human.” It’s not a slogan. It’s a filter. It explains why he cares so much about clarity, why he values measurable outcomes, and why he expects partners to prove impact instead of selling shine.
Inside Scoop
This article focuses on the journey, the leadership philosophy, and how this CMO works with agency partners. To access the exclusive analysis, including priorities, initiatives, and opportunities, become a Next Big Win Pro member.
