CMX’s hiring approach for the current and future state of retail media

In the increasingly crowded retail media space, hiring could be one strategy for networks to differentiate themselves from competitors.

“There’s definitely a budding need within the market for brands to fully and truly understand the difference between CMX and other retail media networks,” said Parbinder Dhariwal, vice president and general manager of CVS Media Exchange (CMX).

One of the key ways CMX achieves this is through its strategic approach to talent.

• Whether it’s product, operations, strategy, or insights, Dhariwal’s hiring plan closely aligns with the network’s core differentiators.
• Retail media networks should take note—team design should serve your strategic goals—not the other way around.

Talent management: At CMX, hiring decisions hinge on a pretty simple framework.

“We look really at three things,” said Dhariwal. “Does that person understand advertising? Does that person understand data insights? And... does that person understand retail or retail media? If you have two of those, you’re in really, really good shape. You have three of those, absolutely, let’s go.”

• Because retail media is a hybrid discipline, leaders should resist the temptation to hire only from within retail or media and instead focus on candidates with complementary strengths.

“We bring in talent from outside of retail, and that’s okay… we can help teach what retail is about,” said Dhariwal.

Culture is also key to attracting and retaining top performers.

• “We’ve done a really, really great job of building a culture at CMX,” Dhariwal said. “It’s a culture of transparency, it’s a culture of diversity, it’s a culture of commitment to bringing people along with humility.”
• A clear, authentic culture shapes internal collaboration and becomes a competitive advantage in the talent market and a signal of stability and vision to potential partners.

Looking ahead: Dhariwal sees growing demand for talent in data science, insights, and tech stack orchestration.

• “There’s more opportunity as we advance tooling,” he noted. “When we really start to think around ad tech and tech stacks… you do need to pull together the stack as a whole into one consolidated sell.”
• This complexity will require individual talent and integrated thinking across teams—crucial for organizations planning to scale.

CMX is also focused on the future potential of in-store, which could impact its hiring over the next few years.

“A vast majority of transactions for us are happening in the in-store environment,” Dhariwal said. “How do you engage that consumer… in a way that is pertinent to geographical location, or the patterns that we see certain spikes in health and wellness?”

But the network is also cautious about not taking on too many things at once.

“We don’t try to bite off more than we can chew,” Dhariwal. “We have a plan... a single-page document of this is what we’ve got to deliver. We keep it incredibly simple.”

This was originally featured in the Retail Daily newsletter. For more retail insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.