A brand storyteller, marketer, and experience builder, Alli Lathrope leads brand strategy and management at Kaiser Permanente, one of the nation’s leading health care providers and largest not-for-profit health plans. With more than 15 years of brand-side health care marketing and strategy experience, she is driven by curiosity and grounded in purpose, energized by the rapid shifts in consumer expectations, technology, and the evolving role of brands in people’s lives.
Named to our Marketers to Watch list, Lathrope shared her thoughts on curiosity as a leadership muscle, AI as a creative accelerator, and the shifting expectations redefining modern marketing.
What book or podcast do you recommend to marketing leaders?
I’m a regular listener of “The Happiness Lab” with Dr. Laurie Santos. The mix of behavioral science and practical insight challenges how I think about performance. I’m always reminded that caring for your own well-being and energy isn’t a luxury, it’s the job. Better inputs make for better decisions and leadership.
And for my team, it’s always a reminder that fun isn’t fluff, it’s fuel. When people feel energized and connected, the work (and the results) get better.
How are you and your team currently using AI?
We’re approaching AI with curiosity and a bias toward experimentation. Instead of chasing a single use case, we’re beginning to put it to work across the workflow to see where it earns its keep in driving efficiency, improving consistency, and even changing how we operate.
We’re using it to create space for deep thinking by lessening the busy work, tightening up brand consistency, speeding up creative cycles, testing ideas faster, and shrinking the gap between insight and execution.
What’s a prediction you have for marketing over the next few years?
Consumers are rewriting the rules of engagement and brands that don’t keep up will get left behind. People are more selective, more aware, and less willing to put up with generic campaigns. The brands that win in this context won’t just market to people, they’ll learn to “out-consumer” everyone else by anticipating needs, respecting boundaries, and showing up in ways that actually matter. In short, marketing will be about playing the consumer’s game better than anyone else.
What’s the most innovative or exciting project you’ve worked on recently?
It’s not every day a project crosses your desk and rekindles your sense of purpose and clarity. One of the most fun projects I’ve worked on recently was a claymation-based campaign designed to help our brand break out of the sea of sameness.
In a world of hyper-polished, algorithm-friendly content, we intentionally went the other direction, creating something tactile, imperfect, and impossible to scroll past. It gave us a distinctive visual world and, more importantly, permission to own our own identity and story.
Personally, it’s been a powerful reminder that, even after 15 years in an organization, there’s always more to imagine, more to contribute, and more impact to create in the world.
What leadership muscle is most important for marketers to exercise?
Curiosity, and not in the polite “I read an article about that” way but the real, roll-up-your-sleeves, ask-one-more-question type. Marketing is changing way too fast for anyone to be right for long. The best marketers in the long run won’t be the ones who have all the answers, they’ll be the marketers who stay curious enough to keep finding the next set of answers.
What’s the most game-changing piece of career advice you’ve ever received?
Stop treating “no” as the end of the road when the real answer is almost always “not yet.”
Every step in my career has started with raising my hand for something new, something scary, something outside my comfort zone. Had I said no, who knows where I’d be. The magic happens when you treat every “not yet” as an invitation to learn, experiment, and prove yourself. It turns fear of failure into momentum, and suddenly the doors that seemed closed start opening.
What gives you energy and inspiration outside of work?
My energy comes from stealing little moments of joy, which, as a mom of two small kids, is basically a superpower. Quiet coffee, living room dance parties, or watching them invent a new game together keep me inspired, curious, and armed with hilarity to carry me into the workday.
Marketers to Watch is a recognition series that spotlights highly innovative and forward-thinking marketing leaders in the community. If you have someone you’d like to nominate for the series, apply here.
