Chris MacLaughlin

Chris MacLaughlin

Vice President Marketing, Communications and Development

IBM Global Financing
Chris is passionate about building brands with an enduring connection to their clients by optimizing each touchpoint with the brand and the delivery channels. She specializes in translating business strategies into marketing plans, and developing organizations and people to support those plans. Her experience spans advertising, marketing communications, marketing management, distribution channels management and communications.
She has been with IBM 18 years and has held a number of marketing positions including leading marketing for IBM’s Global Financing unit, the IBM PartnerWorld program serving +100,000 partners and Partner Marketing in Central and Eastern Europe as well as the Middle East and Africa when she was based in the United Arab Emirates.
In addition, Chris created a worldwide Brand Quality program to improve the output of IBM’s Demand System. As part of the program she provided hands-on training Brand Quality Training to +4,500 IBM Marketing & Communications professionals and Agency Partners. She also developed and delivered Brand Education to help recent hires understand the IBM Brand, how to represent it and how to reflect our Corporate Character.
Before joining IBM, Chris spent a dozen years in advertising at Ogilvy & Mather, Grey Advertising and William Esty Advertising where she focused on brand building advertising for global companies including American Express, General Foods, IBM, Nissan and Time Inc.
She is a native of Los Angeles, lives in New York City and has traveled to 54 countries so far and is counting on more!