How Build-A-Bear’s Sharon Price John Made the CMO to CEO Jump Flawlessly

From $0 confidence to CEO of one of the most well-known brands in the world, Build-A-Bear CEO Sharon Price John’s story is nothing short of inspiring.

In this episode of Marketing Vanguard, recorded on the Brandweek 2025 stage in Atlanta, Sharon reveals her unconventional career journey and how that evolution directly shaped the turnaround and reimagining of an iconic experiential brand.

What you’ll learn:

How to transition from functional expertise to CEO-level thinking
Why CMOs must adopt a “business-first” mindset to advance
The confidence gap that holds high-potential women back from applying for stretch roles
How to unlock brand equity by understanding feeling over function
The critical role of authentic leadership in driving organizational transformation
How to pivot a single-location retail concept into an IP-driven, multi-vertical business

Sharon Price John is the President and CEO of Build-A-Bear Workshop, bringing over three decades of experience in brand building, business transformation, and experiential retail. With a background spanning advertising (DDB Needham), product management (Mattel’s Barbie division), toy industry leadership (Hasbro), and vertical retail (Stride Rite), Sharon has developed a distinctive expertise in turning around underperforming brands and businesses while scaling profitable growth.

At Build-A-Bear, she has transformed the iconic 30-year-old company from a struggling mall-based retailer into a diversified intellectual property enterprise, expanding digital commerce to 40% of sales and positioning the brand for global expansion.

Her insights on authentic leadership, business strategy, and the emotional core of brand equity make her an invaluable voice for CMOs and executives seeking to balance heart-centered brand building with rigorous business fundamentals.

Introducing: Frontier CMO

In an era where the marketing playbook is being rewritten daily, how can brands stay ahead? Joshua Spanier, Google’s VP of AI and Marketing Strategy, pulls back the curtain in Frontier CMO, his new podcast and weekly insights letter featuring the marketers, thought leaders, and industry pioneers who are reinventing marketing.

Josh previews the tough questions and unfiltered conversations featured on Frontier CMO, including:

AI as a leadership test: exploring the “human” side of the AI revolution. As technology and tools advance the challenge becomes equipping marketing teams to leverage these technologies
Brand relevance and connection: writing the next playbook for brand relevance by showing up as a main character in the places and spaces that connect with your audience
Agentic Commerce: understanding the transition from “speed vs. certainty” to a world where shopping is fast and smart
The new marketing organization: knowing where AI makes work faster and smarter and restructuring teams to keep up. Redefining agency partnerships to elevate insights and creativity in real time

Each episode of Frontier CMO features tactical, practical steps all leaders can take to navigate the future of marketing. Find it wherever you get your podcasts: YouTube | Apple | Spotify

Episode Highlights:

[07:51] Business Acumen > Marketing Expertise in the Race to the C-Suite — Sharon emphasizes that aspiring CMOs and marketing leaders must intentionally build quantitative and financial skills to become credible C-suite executives, not just marketing specialists. She deliberately pursued an MBA from a quantitative school rather than a marketing-focused program, forcing herself to master accounting, finance and business operations alongside her marketing expertise. This challenge is essential because CEOs expect executives at the leadership table to think in terms of profitable growth and business problem-solving, not campaign management—an evolution that is essential to compete for CEO roles.

[08:52] Reframe Self-Limiting Beliefs into Learning Opportunities — Sharon addresses a critical confidence gap, particularly among women in business, noting that many professionals won’t apply for leadership roles unless they meet 90-100% of stated qualifications, while male counterparts apply at 50-60% match rates. She learned from a 360 review that she had already exceeded CEO performance metrics on every measure, despite never having intended to pursue that role. The key insight here is that CEO positions require leading unfamiliar functional areas. You cannot and should not expect to be an expert in everything before applying. Instead of viewing gaps as disqualifications, reframe them as opportunities to demonstrate learning agility and problem-solving capability.

[13:32] Vulnerability and Authentic Heart are Key for Transformation — Sharon reveals a counterintuitive leadership insight: Turning around struggling brands and organizations requires softness, emotional authenticity and vulnerability rather than command-and-control authority or projecting invulnerability. She describes her personal journey of letting down her guard—moving away from the defensive guardedness that often accompanies being the only female energy in leadership spaces—to create genuine trust with teams during difficult turnarounds. This authenticity is non-negotiable for consumer-facing brands because employees intuitively sense whether leadership is truly aligned with the brand promise from the inside out.

[20:32] Your Brand’s Emotional Core Is the Only Thing That Drives Sustainable Growth — Sharon articulates a critical distinction: Successful brands are defined by feelings, not products, and this emotional foundation unlocks unlimited expansion potential across categories and demographics. She emphasizes that Build-A-Bear is not fundamentally about teddy bears—it’s about creating memories, expressing creativity, and experiencing family connection, which enabled expansion into adults, teens, multiple product categories and international markets without brand dilution. For CMOs, the immediate action is to move beyond product specifications and push past obvious emotional benefits until identifying the deepest, most universal feeling your brand creates.