Emma Chatwin has worked in Marketing roles for over three decades, but she still lights up when she talks about her career and her recent recognition in the Women in Marketing awards.  

Emma works for Fujitsu, a global technology company with over 100,000 employees. Having spent over 25 years at the brand, her deep understanding of the business positioned her to bring diverse international teams together, successfully embedding marketing with sales across eight countries, to support business goals.

Emma is also a living example that a career journey can still be squiggly, even if you are working for the same organisation. Sharing that she has worked many different working patterns, from job shares to three-day or four-day weeks, she urges women to be kind to themselves and cautions against being rigid in expecting to reach certain goals by specific ages. “I have made conscious choices to step back at certain times, but I don’t regret it because in the end the outcome is the same and I learned along the way. Sometimes it’s just about timing,” she says.

Her impact was reflected by the Women in Marketing Awards, where she picked up a Highly Commended in the Best Leader in Marketing, Brand category. Chatwin is talking to Creativebrief as part of the Women in Marketing interview series, designed to highlight the role models making a real difference in marketing today and tomorrow.

Championing change

Successfully championing change involves making clear choices about what matters to you as a marketing leader. Chatwin’s leadership style evokes the approach of author Clayton M Christensen, who writes: “Decide what you stand for. And then stand for it all the time.”

Sounds so simple in theory, but the reality of modern marketing leadership is rooted in the tough reality of making choices, when seemingly everything is critical or important. “You have to choose your battles wisely,” shares Chatwin.

Her advice for marketing leaders is to be clear on what you represent. She explains: “If you are going to champion something, make it a manageable number of achievable things and be clear on the outcomes you will deliver. Make sure you can always connect those to business strategy and customers.”

“If you try to be too many things to too many people, you really dilute your impact,” she continues. For Chatwin, her agenda has been laser-focused on sales and marketing integration, being strategic about shared agendas, and removing barriers and friction points. Consistency has been key, as well as being transparent with shared objectives and key performance indicators to create impetus and motivation.  

Her passion for blending the disciplines is clear. “For marketers who really want to be seen as adding value to the business, it's vital to align marketing and sales,” she explains. “This means empathy and respect on both sides for each professional discipline, walking in each other’s shoes from time to time and working hard on equality and trust, with the customer at the centre of it all.”

The year of age

In an industry often criticised for ageism, Chatwin’s success and impact underline the importance of deep understanding and longevity in building a successful and sustainable career.

With data from Major Players showing that 120,000 women left the creative industries over the past two years, it is a longevity that is important to champion and pay attention to. Gendered ageism still thrives in the creative industries, a truth that makes it all the more important to celebrate the women building long-term career paths and making it possible for others to do so too.

It is what made Ade Onilude, the Founder of Women in Marketing Community Interest Company, in such clear alignment with Chatwin’s own outlook. As she explains: “The theme of the year of age really spoke to me.”

For Chatwin, there are many different interpretations of ‘age’, but what is clear is the importance of respecting and recognising the long-term contributions of women and supporting them through each stage of their careers. The Women in Marketing ‘year of age’ perfectly represented the efforts women have put in to ensure they can stay the course through life events and the juggling that so often falls to them.

“Ade is so impactful and I love what she is doing building a movement for women in marketing and celebrating their experience and commitment over time. She stands for community, empathy and mutual support, and that aligns well with my values,” Chatwin adds.

Supporting employees through important life moments

Emma believes that the experience people have at critical life moments dictates their decision to commit to a company. If these moments are handled with care and respect, it is good for both the individual and the organisation. 

Whether returning to work after an absence, bereavement or ill health, Chatwin is dedicated to ensuring that employees are supported through those challenging times. “What happens during critical life events is often what defines how people feel about their careers. It often makes their decision between staying or leaving a business.”

“If a company shows up for you at a time of need, it impacts how you feel about going the extra mile when it’s needed,” says Chatwin.

“At the end of the day, it is a value exchange. The discretionary effort people put in when they feel supported drives a business forward, and they will put that effort in if they feel there is a balanced and fair exchange,” says Chatwin.

It is a full circle approach to leadership that means Chatwin takes as much pride in supporting her team through those important milestones in their lives as she does in successfully transforming the marketing function. She believes you can’t do one without the other.

Making multigenerational workplaces work: The AI advantage

2025 was a milestone year for Chatwin, marking 30 years since she graduated; it means she can look beyond any hype cycle and think deeply about the waves of innovation that come and go, and what they might leave behind. She has reflected on the AI shift.

“It is almost no coincidence that the AI narrative and the hype around it has coincided with not just an ageing workforce, but one that is very much multigenerational,” explains Chatwin. “We have to coexist and collaborate with colleagues of all ages and with diverse approaches and there is something wonderfully unifying about AI coming in at this moment, so that we are all learning at the same time.”

Eschewing the traditional narrative that has so often equated youth with innovation, Chatwin points to Fujitsu’s research into the use of GenAI at work, which revealed that people in executive roles are embracing AI because of its power in supporting decision-making and underpinning strategic choices at pace. Where it was first expected that younger generations of knowledge workers would grasp GenAI at work and would be the early adopters, it’s actually the older generation that stole a march in the early phases.    

“AI can produce all the data in the world, but it takes experience to interpret it, enrich it and share it with depth and relevance,” she explains.

According to Fujitsu’s research, the way older generations and younger generations use AI-powered productivity gains are very different. “I think older generations of workers are more pragmatic about AI, having seen waves of innovation over the years and learned to position each one in the context of value and purpose,” explains Chatwin.

At a time when many marketers plan to work for much longer than previous generations, playing the long game has never been more important.

Chatwin emphasises the importance of understanding the experience of Gen Z employees. “It is always interesting to hear all generations’ perspectives and as leaders we have to understand the full picture and how people are adapting so that we can make decisions that work for all” she explains.

Navigating the art of saying no

For marketers in the ‘messy middle’ of their careers, the ability to scale their personal brands and their careers with such a singular focus may at times feel out of reach. The simple truth is that the competing demands of different business functions and focus areas can easily detract from core agendas.

“I was in the messy middle for a very long time, and I can remember it clearly,” explains Chatwin. She continues: “The challenges are real. I am conscious I am speaking about choosing battles wisely, saying no, and standing for a small number of things, but that’s not easy to do when you are spinning a thousand plates. I don’t want to oversimplify the picture.”

Yet saying no is a skill that can be refined. Chatwin shares: “Just make sure that when you say no, it is backed by serious business rationale and a clear argument and feels more like a negotiation than a refusal.”

Setting a sustainable pace

In an industry that always wants to go faster, Women in Marketing’s focus on age reflects the truth that in order to go further as organisations and individuals, we must take greater responsibility for setting a sustainable pace, because careers are now longer than ever. Managing work-life integration/balance, navigating life events, and finding time for self-development are all crucial for leaders to monitor.

“At Fujitsu, we survey our employees twice a year and ask people about manager trust and their ability to manage their work and their lives, so I always have a good handle on how people are. We have really great policies to make this real,” adds Chatwin.

Yet she is equally clear that there is no perfect answer to every problem. For women in marketing, the ever-elusive work-life balance may well be a complete myth. “From my perspective, I prefer the term work-life integration,” shares Chatwin.

She continues: “I won’t pretend that I don’t work long hours, but I have a family, so I understand the juggle.”

Never be afraid to ask the silly question

“One of the best pieces of advice for young marketers is never be afraid to ask the ‘silly question’,” explains Chatwin. “It’s the only way to truly learn and to exercise the ‘curiosity muscle’”.

You can accelerate this even further by pushing yourself into new spaces to ask those questions; “Don’t be afraid to join a meeting when you are out of your comfort zone,” says Chatwin. She believes it is important not to equate feeling out of your depth with feeling like you don’t deserve a seat at the table. Step forward.

At Fujitsu in her European team, Emma creates opportunities for young talent to pitch new ideas to shake things up a little. She explains: “We build in opportunities for talent to pitch for investment to innovate. We're currently piloting a new channel to market that has never been used before, and will allow us to learn about AI-usage amongst tech buyers, and respond to their needs in a really relevant way; it was an idea sparked by our Gen Z cohort and we are excited to see where it leads.”

And returning to the point about upskilling teams around AI, Chatwin’s European team also recently ran a high energy AI escape room challenge where marketers from across eight countries participated in an online experience to learn together. “Remember that it is important to ‘go rogue’ occasionally with learning and development, using disruptive techniques makes learning memorable and exciting – and it sticks!”  

Cultural currency matters

As a Europhile at heart and having studied languages and literature, Emma’s sweet spot is working internationally, and her passion is evident. As an added dimension, getting to know Japan and Japanese culture has been a cultural highlight of her journey at Fujitsu.

“Since we’re talking about longevity, the most important thing is to keep moving, keep learning, and keep evolving, whilst staying true to some core values that are authentic to you, and will ground and stabilise you.”