The only regional forum where the industry gathers to judge campaigns against a common standard.
Each year, the question of who truly moves markets finds a more rigorous answer in Adlatina Group's Crema MKT study, now in its fifth edition. Rather than honoring reputation or longevity, the ranking measures Chilean marketing leaders by the campaigns they steered to victory across Latin America's Effie Awards circuit in 2025—a methodology that treats effectiveness as something earned in the arena, not assumed from a title. The resulting list of ten executives, drawn from banking, consumer goods, retail, and agribusiness, offers a rare empirical portrait of where marketing excellence is being forged in Chile today.
- In an industry where influence is often self-declared, Adlatina's weighted scoring system—awarding up to 48 points for a Grand Prix and multiplying regional wins tenfold—creates real stakes and real separations between leaders.
- The top three spots belong to Cristián Franco of BCI, Chantal Goldschmidt of Unilever, and María Beatriz Parodi of Banco de Chile, signaling that banking and consumer goods are driving Chile's most effective campaigns.
- Seven more executives from Capel, Nestlé, AB InBev, Falabella, Cencosud, Mallplaza, and Sodimac round out the list, reflecting how broadly marketing ambition is distributed across Chile's largest industries.
- The methodology deliberately credits the executive who held final responsibility for each winning campaign, even if they have since moved on—anchoring the ranking in accountability rather than current prestige.
- The complete three-tier study, covering regional CMOs, thirty Latin American managers, and country-level top tens, is set to publish in Marketers Magazine in June 2026, raising the stakes for the broader regional conversation.
Adlatina Group's fifth annual Crema MKT study arrives as one of the few attempts in Latin American marketing to replace reputation with evidence. Drawing on the full results of the 2025 Effie Awards Latin America competition and eleven national Effie chapters, the research team identified which executives led winning campaigns, then scored them through a weighted formula: Grand Prix victories earn 48 points, bronze medals earn 6, and regional competition results are multiplied tenfold against local ones. The result is a ranking that rewards breadth of success and the prestige of the stages on which it was won.
Leading Chile's list is Cristián Franco, who joined Banco BCI as marketing manager in 2022 after a decade in telecommunications, and holds advanced credentials from Adolfo Ibáñez, Kellogg, and Cambridge. Second is Chantal Goldschmidt, an Argentine executive with thirty-one years at Unilever who now oversees sales and marketing across eight personal care and household subcategories in Chile. Third is María Beatriz Parodi of Banco de Chile, who manages advertising and corporate image after nearly eight years at the institution and a prior decade at Santander.
The remaining seven executives span the country's largest consumer and retail enterprises. Juan Staudt of Capel holds an MBA from Harvard and brings experience across agribusiness and food. Cristina Iturralde returned to Nestlé Chile in early 2025 after nine years leading the company's Ecuador operations. Camila Plass has spent nearly twelve years at AB InBev since entering through a global internship program. Tatiana Riesle Rudolphy joined Falabella in late 2024, carrying experience from supermarket chain SMU and a teaching role in consumer behavior. Luiz Fernando de Rizzo manages supermarket marketing at Cencosud after studies at São Paulo and Stanford. Pilar Barriga returned to Mallplaza in November 2024 following five years at Ripley. Renzo Denegri rounds out the list at Sodimac, where he has spent nearly a decade and holds a Kellogg MBA.
Adlatina excluded nonprofits and industry associations from the scoring and credited executives with final campaign responsibility regardless of whether they have since changed roles. The full study—including regional CMO rankings and a thirty-person Latin American list—will appear in Marketers Magazine in June 2026, extending the conversation about measurable excellence across the region.
Adlatina Group has released its fifth annual Crema MKT study, a ranking of Chile's most effective marketing leaders based on measurable campaign success across Latin America. The list emerges from a systematic analysis of the 2025 Effie Awards Latin America competition and eleven country-level Effie chapters—Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Mexico, Panama, Peru, and Uruguay. Rather than relying on reputation or tenure alone, the researchers tracked which marketing executives led the campaigns that won awards, then scored their performance using a weighted formula that rewards Grand Prix wins (48 points) more heavily than bronze medals (6 points), with regional competitions weighted ten times higher than local ones.
Topping the Chilean list is Cristián Franco, who joined Banco BCI as marketing manager in August 2022 after a decade in telecommunications and production. Franco holds degrees from the Catholic University of Chile, a master's from Adolfo Ibáñez, and specialized training from Northwestern's Kellogg School and Cambridge. Second is Chantal Goldschmidt, an Argentine who has spent thirty-one years at Unilever, arriving in Chile in 2011 after managing the company's Argentine operations. She oversees sales and marketing across eight product subcategories in personal care and household goods. Third is María Beatriz Parodi, who manages advertising and corporate image at Banco de Chile after nearly eight years with the institution, having previously spent more than nine years as a senior product manager at Santander.
The remaining seven executives represent the country's largest consumer and retail enterprises. Juan Staudt, chief marketing and communications officer at Capel, holds an MBA from Harvard and has worked across agribusiness, food, and retail before joining the agricultural cooperative in 2020. Cristina Iturralde, head of communications and marketing at Nestlé, is a food engineer who returned to the company's Chile operations in March 2025 after nine years in Ecuador. Camila Plass, director of marketing at AB InBev, has spent nearly twelve years with the brewer since joining through a global internship program in 2014. Tatiana Riesle Rudolphy arrived at Falabella in November 2024 as marketing manager, bringing more than three years in the same role at supermarket chain SMU and teaching consumer behavior at Adolfo Ibáñez.
Luiz Fernando de Rizzo, who manages supermarket marketing at Cencosud, studied at the University of São Paulo and Stanford's Graduate School of Business before joining the Chilean retail giant two years ago. Pilar Barriga, regional marketing and experience manager at Mallplaza, returned to the shopping center operator in November 2024 after a five-year stint at Ripley, where she reached the marketing directorship. Renzo Denegri, customer strategy and marketing manager at Sodimac, has spent nearly a decade with the hardware retailer and holds an MBA from Northwestern's Kellogg School.
The methodology reflects a deliberate effort to measure effectiveness rather than guess at it. Adlatina's research team collected all public award results from the Effie competitions, then investigated which marketing executives led those winning campaigns. The firm applied a three-tier analysis: a top ten of regional chief marketing officers, a top thirty of Latin American managers, and a top ten per country. To qualify for the regional CMO list, a marketer must lead the function across more than five markets and have won awards in at least two of them. The scoring system awards points based on medal level, then multiplies regional Effie results by ten and local results by seven, creating a weighted ranking that reflects both breadth of success and the prestige of the competitions won.
Adlatina excluded points from nonprofits and industry associations without a defined marketing function, and credited the executive with final responsibility for each winning campaign even if they have since moved to another company. The full study—including the regional CMO rankings, the thirty-person Latin American list, and country-specific top tens—will appear in Marketers Magazine in June 2026. The research aims to recognize professionals advancing the industry through measurable marketing and communications excellence.
Citações Notáveis
Effie is the only forum in Latin America where industry players gather to analyze and distinguish the most effective and successful cases of the year.— Adlatina Group methodology statement
I lead and mobilize teams and motivate them toward achieving the objectives and strategy we've designed.— Pilar Barriga, Mallplaza, from LinkedIn profile
A Conversa do Hearth Outra perspectiva sobre a história
Why measure marketing effectiveness through Effie Awards specifically? Couldn't you just ask peers or look at company growth?
Effie is the only regional forum where the industry gathers to judge campaigns against a common standard. It's public, it's competitive, and it's based on actual results—not opinion.
So these ten people won awards. Does that mean they're better marketers, or just that they work for companies with bigger budgets?
Both matter, but the methodology tracks who led the winning work. A marketer at a smaller company who wins gold is scored the same as one at a multinational. What matters is the campaign's effectiveness, not the company's size.
I notice several of these executives came from other countries—Goldschmidt from Argentina, Iturralde from Ecuador. Does that pattern mean anything?
It suggests that Latin American companies are recruiting experienced talent across borders. These aren't newcomers; they're people with deep regional experience who've proven themselves elsewhere and are now leading in Chile.
The scoring system seems complex—multiplying by ten for regional awards, by seven for local ones. Why those numbers?
It's arbitrary, but intentional. Regional competitions are harder to win because you're competing against the best work across eleven countries. The multiplier reflects that difficulty. Local wins still count, but they're weighted lower.
What happens to a marketer who wins big one year but nothing the next?
They drop. This is a snapshot of 2025 performance. The study will be updated annually, so it's a living ranking, not a lifetime achievement award.
Does this list tell us anything about what actually works in marketing right now?
Not directly—the study measures who led effective campaigns, not what made them effective. But you could argue that if these ten people keep winning, their approaches are worth studying.