CMO Interview: Corinne Aaron, Einride

Meet Tesla’s former Head of Marketing EMEA, Corinne Aaron, an executive marketing leader who capitalised on the unique opportunity to work in the electric vehicle industry.

Corinne Aaron is the CMO of Stockholm-based freight mobility company Einride, which specialises in digital, electric and autonomous transportation. Its manifesto is to: “Create a more desirable version of the future, one that is aligned with human-centric values and the ecological necessities of our planet.”

Describing her marketing career as “pioneering”, Corinne explained that: “Over the past 10 years, I've definitely been working with products or services that we're really going to market as groundbreaking solutions.” It all started with an advertisement, sparking what would become a new and innovative career change.

Corinne Aaron: an overview

• A snapshot of Corinne Aaron’s career
• The path to marketing: from the Caribbean to Europe
• Adapting to the rollercoaster of change
• Autonomous trucks and the Einride ecosystem
• Advising the next generation

A snapshot of Corinne Aaron’s career

As a Pan European Account Marketing Manager with the Adidas Group, Corinne was involved in and oversaw the creation, development and implementation of seasonal marketing campaigns for Reebok. After two years of working for the organisation, Corinne was struck by a realisation.

The motivation she needed to change her career came in one smooth electric glide. “One day I saw an advertisement for a job at Tesla… and I thought, who is this American company launching a sleek looking electric car?” 

After applying for the job, she became concerned about her lack of knowledge in the electric vehicle industry. That all changed dramatically on what seemed to be a typical Monday when she received the call informing her she had secured the interview.

“I had always had a desire to work for something that was more sustainability-focused and I felt like it was a good opportunity to work on something that was brand new technology, a beautiful product and design and sort of build something new from the ground up.”

And so her six-year tenure at Tesla began. In her role as Head of Marketing, she led a team of 40 marketers across 18 countries in the EMEA region. Corinne and her team leveraged their digital and experiential marketing knowledge and worked with Tesla’s marketing team to create unique campaigns.

The path to marketing: from the Caribbean to Europe

After connecting the dots, she came to the conclusion that: “I think that marketing was sort of the juxtaposition of three things: solving a business need, design and storytelling.”

The common thread between all these career moves was the energy and culture these companies possessed—which is what helped Corinne “thrive”. Her knack for flourishing in fast–paced environments would prove essential later on in her career. In her view, the way that we communicate and consume media has shifted significantly over the past couple of years. 

“When I was growing up, we had one television channel. Everyone was exposed to the same messaging, same opinions and news over and over every day. And now we're all bombarded with an incessant flow of information all day.”

Drawing from some of the common narratives today, the Royal Family and the Israel-Gaza war in the Middle East for example, she outlined a shift in the power of these narratives. When marketing and communications are both aligned, she argued that they have the potential to be tools for change: “To use innovation and storytelling to ensure multiple voices are heard and empowered.”

The path to marketing was something Corinne planned for and expected from the start. Leadership proved to be an entirely different journey altogether, it was something she hadn't anticipated: 

“I think the way that I've grown into the leadership role is by trying as much as possible to understand the work that my team does. That means being in the trenches alongside them and then being adaptable and open to learning—continuous learning.”

Adapting to the rollercoaster of change

“Change is really the only constant… in leadership you need to have that ability to really adapt.”

Thinking back to the pandemic, Corinne noted the series of changes and challenges this caused, resulting in what she described as a “turbulent” time. Corinne outlined the importance of a resilient stance in these situations—something equally as important is the ability to be proactive in adapting to these changes, rather than treating this as a “one-time job”.

Another blip in Corinne’s marketing radar is the idea that leaders who can navigate the newer social media channels, the integration of shiny new technologies and shifting AI algorithms will stay in the game; “it ultimately means for leaders that multi-skilled individuals are probably the ones that can best navigate the landscape and create impact in the future.”

Given the rate and scale of this change, there are numerous proactive steps leaders can take today to remain at the forefront of the curve, staying on top of the latest trends in the marketing world.

She believes that leaders should cultivate a network beyond their workplace for a fresh and diverse perspective. Corinne herself engages with several groups on both personal and professional levels outside the company exchanging ideas and recommending different sources for fostering continuous learning.

“I would suggest to upcoming marketing leaders to attend conferences or client events, network, listen to the real challenges and solutions for the companies that may be in the room and just remain curious.”

Autonomous trucks and the Einride ecosystem

Upon first joining Einride, one of the main priorities on Corinne’s agenda was getting a grasp on the company’s ecosystem. 

On the one hand, Einride is helping their B2B customers “transform their business” by meeting sustainability goals using electric and autonomous trucks. This is supported by their Einride Saga operating system, which optimises routes, reduces energy consumption, maximises battery life and time, tracks emissions reductions and minimises transportation costs. 

To complement this ecosystem, the company opened their first ever Smartcharger Station in Rosersberg, Sweden, back in November 2023 in collaboration with Polar Structure, a Swedish infrastructure developer and investor. 

“You need the infrastructure to support the business model. You can put a lot of electric trucks on the road but if they can't charge then it makes it quite difficult.”

Understanding the customer base and market positioning is another critical aspect of the job; especially in the world of autonomous vehicles. “It's something that people haven't seen before. They think it's a product for the future, but it's available now.” 

For Corinne, a big part of the job in the marketing and communications teams is helping their biggest customers—an impressive line-up including Mars, Heineken and Maersk—transition to electric transportation. “This transition to electric is already happening now, and much of our work is focused on showcasing this traction, as well as sharing the same story for autonomous.”

Advising the next generation 

It is not easy to figure out how to begin the journey to executive leadership—every now and then we need someone to guide us in the right direction. Corinne listed some of the advice that has helped her navigate challenges and contribute to the successes in her career.

Listen to your intuition

“I think we've all been in that situation where if something doesn't feel right, you're usually correct when you look back, right? When you look back at every so-called bad call you've made in your life, most of the time you will see that your gut knew it before your brain did.”

Take a chance

Speaking of chances—her second point revolved around the idea that even if you are not qualified enough, whether it is a difficult task or a job that requires specific skills: “you can always learn new skills and work on yourself, build up on yourself, but it all starts with taking a chance.” Corinne’s core principle is this: life is just too short for safety and comfortability.

“Every single success I've had in my life personally and career-wise was born out of this principle, even when people told me, ‘don't do it’.”

Representation and visibility matter

“Brands need to really pay attention to culture and what people are doing and saying and these views are not necessarily the same as ours or the people sitting in the boardrooms or making decisions. I think there's real power in who sits where and who's making the decisions.” 

***

Corinne discussed a time where she used her intuition, combined with insights from data, to turn a dire situation into one of her biggest strategic marketing achievements at Tesla. Upon joining the company, Corinne followed Tesla’s US marketing strategy for the European market. After observing the cultural differences during a summer in Europe, she quickly realised that the strategy did not quite fit.

“I was like, OK, we're going to do a road tour and we're going to go to South of France and Italy and Spain… we're going to take the cars where the people are.”

Despite lacking data to support their decision, they went ahead with the road tour during the summer months, where people were more likely to be vacationing. This initiative, which they named the ‘fully charged summer tour,’ involved stopping at over 40 locations across Europe to allow people to test drive Tesla cars while on vacation. Despite initial scepticism, the tour turned out to be a huge success.

“It gave me credibility to do the next few things that I needed to do to change what we were doing to make Tesla successful in Europe.”

Quick fire questions 🔥

• Dream job growing up? Artist
• What keeps you up at night? Worrying about how very messy everything is in the world today, and how I can through my daily work be a part of the solution, not the problem
• What excites you about the next 12 months? Seeing my children grow into young adults and how interesting their lives are
• What do you do outside of work? Amateur painting; cooking (trialling all the Ottolenghi recipes) and travelling
• Best advice you've ever received? 9 out of 10 times, it's not about you, so don't take it personally

CMO interview: Check out our line-up of HotTopics Leader's Corner and Profile Interviews.

HotTopics produces interviews with a diverse array of leaders, C-suite marketing and technology leaders. These take place in-person during our much-anticipated flagship event, The Studio, and virtually with leaders based all over the world. Learn more about what makes these leaders tick, and their experiences and expertise that have supported them in their careers so far.