Meet Alicia Skubick

Each week, we sit down with a marketing leader to learn more about their career, insights, and accomplishments. This week, that marketing leader is Alicia Skubick.

From her very first job in marketing to her current role in the C-suite of a global tech brand, Alicia has built a career on curiosity, empathy, and willingness to jump into the deep end.

Alicia joined Trustpilot in 2021 as Chief Marketing Officer. Her focus on customer obsession earned her the expanded role of Chief Customer Officer in 2024, where she oversees marketing, communications, and customer feedback, embedding insights into company-wide strategy and product decisions.

Here are the need-to-knows about Alicia:

• As CMO at Intuit UK, she grew the customer base by 10x and grew brand awareness from 2% to 60% in the general population.

• Alicia was recognized as one of Europe’s top 100 most influential B2B marketing leaders.

• She was working at Symantec at the time when they merged with Veritas, which was the largest merger and acquisition in the tech industry at the time. 

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An anthropological spark 

Alicia studied art history with a minor in anthropology, where she learned the art of ethnographic interviewing—aka sitting with people, asking questions, and transcribing notes. “It gave me a lifelong passion for understanding people’s point of view.”

This passion plays a critical role in Alicia’s career later. But leading up to that, her first job out of college was at a tiny tech-outsourcing company. “I did everything—sales calls, marketing newsletters, tech support. It really helped me learn what I liked and didn’t like,” she said. “What I liked was marketing. What I didn’t like was tech support (and I was very bad at it),” she laughed.

Alicia then landed a job at Symantec—a global corporation—where she was given the hefty responsibility of leading the global websites for the partner channel, which made up 80% of the business and spanned 20 languages. “It was a really incredible opportunity. I don’t know why they gave me the job but to this day I’m so grateful that I was able to do it.”

Within six months, she won a company award for her team contributions.

“As a recent graduate who had worked in a small company, moving to a big corporation can seem terrifying. I didn’t know how to ‘act corporate,’ so I just learned as I went, worked really hard, and cared deeply. And that’s really always been my mantra.”

Spotting the gaps

After the merger between Symantec and Veritas, Alicia’s team was tasked with merging the global partner programs. “It was a channel-based company so the majority of the sales were going through it. And we committed to launching a partner program within a certain amount of time.”

Alicia’s job at the time was running the websites, but she noticed that content was often lacking. But then an even bigger issue came into the picture. “When I met with the program owner, it became very clear to me that there wasn’t a program.”

“I was quite junior, but I had to break the news to our VP that we had nothing to launch,” she said. “We needed to do something about it so my boss and I sat at a table and started to build out a global program from scratch for our community of 40,000 partners in all the countries we served.”

The way Alicia showed up in that situation became an approach that she took throughout her career. “I remember sitting at that table and just thinking, ‘I don't know that I'm the qualified person but we did it.’ You get involved and you raise your hand when there’s nobody else.”

Going global (and local)

After nearly seven years at Symantec, Alicia moved into fintech with Western Union. This shifted her from a global program role to a UK-focused role largely based around lead gen. However, because of her global mindset, Alicia was quickly tapped to run global. “I loved getting that regional experience because it was really important for me. I learned so much from it.” 

Having experience with global strategy and local execution gave Alicia a valuable perspective on the nuances both sides face. “When you’re regional, you fight for autonomy. When you’re global, you push for scale.”

“One of the frameworks I’ve used is ‘fixed, flexible, free.’ Some things are going to be fixed that are global, some are flexed so you have a discussion, and some are totally free and global doesn’t get involved.”

That framework is one Alicia brought with her to Sage and Intuit, where she navigated market expansions, rebrands, and localization.

Building trust about trust

At Trustpilot, Alicia stepped into her first CMO role, later expanding into Chief Customer Officer. She now oversees marketing, customer experience, and external communications. “Going back to university and anthropology, I’ve always had this passion for customer insights and how they can drive great marketing. So it’s been really exciting to bring that to life at Trustpilot through things like NPS, customer journeys, etc.”

Alicia brings this customer focus to the company level by bringing customers onto Trustpilot’s all-hands meetings, responding to reviews, and fostering a mindset within the business. 

“Our CEO and the exec team actually respond to the reviews we get on Trustpilot’s own services. And when you do that, you see where improvements could be made in the product and how things could be done differently. It all ladders up to prioritizing the customer and making sure we’re learning from the experiences they have at a measured, company-wide level.” 

A standout campaign

One of Alicia’s proudest campaigns came at Intuit UK. With brand awareness stuck at 2%, she put together a proposal for a test on above-the-line marketing and scraped together £500k. “We took an old ad from the U.S. and reshot it to make it more British. We had three weeks of TV money and it was so hard to find an agency that would work with us because everyone said it wasn’t enough money.”

After having many doors shut in her face, Alicia eventually found an agency to do it and they ran three weeks of just television. “We just watched our numbers spike overnight. It was incredible.” 

“That really helped us to get a different type of budget and start building the brand up using fully integrated, digital, and nonlinear channels. Running a test that worked and then having the credibility to then try new things was crucial. It unlocked the ability to test new media and have that confidence of the execs to get the money to do that.”

Though the campaign was a bit of a moonshot, Alicia said the team did plenty of testing leading up to the TV run. “I think what I learned was to just do the research and try. Test and learn was the big mantra.”

Advice and takeaways

1)  Act like the owner.

Alicia consistently thinks beyond her immediate remit to understanding the whole business end-to-end. This mindset has helped her make better decisions, spot opportunities others missed, and earn trust across functions. 

To adopt this mindset, start by getting curious about areas outside your direct responsibility. Learn how different parts of the business operate, and consider the competitive landscape as if it were your own money at stake. This perspective can make your work more impactful and your ideas harder to ignore.

2) Look for what feels odd.

Some of Alicia’s biggest career leaps came from noticing when something didn’t make sense and having the courage to speak up. At Symantec, spotting that there was no program to launch led to her co-creating a global program for 40,000 partners. By asking “why” and offering a solution, Alicia consistently expanded her scope.

When you join a new company or project, take advantage of your fresh perspective. Ask why things are done a certain way, and don’t stop at identifying problems. Propose ways to fix them. You’ll quickly be seen as a problem-solver rather than just an observer.

3) Talk to customers.

As Chief Customer Officer, Alicia ensures the customer’s voice informs every decision at a company level. That mindset means actively seeking feedback, responding to Trustpilot’s own reviews, and bringing customers into all-hands meetings. These actions not only build trust externally but also create an internal culture that puts customers first.

Get as close to your customers as possible. Run interviews, read feedback, and spend time understanding their real challenges. Share those insights widely so they shape priorities across marketing, product, and beyond.

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