Hello and welcome to Modern CEO! Im Stephanie Mehta, CEO and chief content officer of Mansueto Ventures. Each week this newsletter explores inclusive approaches to leadership drawn from conversations with executives and entrepreneurs, and from the pages ofInc.andFast Company. If you received this newsletter from a friend, you cansign up to get it yourselfevery Monday morning.During his prolific acting career, Idris Elba has played a homicide detective, a drug lord, an all-seeing Marvel superhero, and anti-apartheid activist Nelson Mandela. But the British actor, who also runs a production company and has cofounded a creative agency and a skincare line, appears particularly at ease playing a CEO in a new marketing campaign for ServiceNow, the cloud-based software company.A new commercial, debuting on Christmas Day, features Elba as a fictional chief executive walking through his company, highlighting all the different ways ServiceNows artificial intelligence (AI) technology is supporting employees in human resources, IT, and customer service. The campaign is the latest product to come out of a partnership Elba has forged with the tech company and CEO Bill McDermott, which also includes a commitment to work together to bring energy and clean water resources to Sherbro Island off the coast of Sierra Leone.From introduction to actionIn an interview with Modern CEO, Elba underscored that hes not merely a spokesperson for the product. When the [ServiceNow] team came to my offices, I said, I need to use the product, he recalls. I have a small workforce across various different verticals. And I needed to understand the product so that I can be a part of a genuine partnership. So, Im integrating it into IE7 and the Akuna Group, which are my parent companies, so that when Im in these commercials I have a much better sense of what Im saying and why Im saying it.[Photo: ServiceNow]The collaboration between Elba and ServiceNow reflects the changing nature of the relationship between celebrities and brands. Actors, athletes, and even influencers dont just endorse products, they are frequently customers and shareholders in the brands they representand they often seek support from those brands for their charitable endeavors. LeBron James was an early role model, investing in bicycle maker Cannondale in 2007 and securing donated bikes for an annual charity bikeathon. Travis Kelce is an investor in Kodiak and joined forces with the food company to donate meals to school children in Kansas City.Aligned in purposeElba and ServiceNows McDermott quickly bonded over Elbas work to develop Sherbro Island in West Africa as an eco-friendly, self-sustaining community. The Elba Hope Foundation has announced plans to build a wind farm on the island to provide electricity and collect data to support additional renewable energy projects. The project aligns with ServiceNows efforts to bring infrastructure to parts of Africa in the hope of stoking economic development. ServiceNow also has a partnership with GivePower, a sustainable energy nonprofit, which aims to provide clean water to up to 600,000 Kenyans for 20 years. Its like magic when were together, McDermott says of spending time with Elba. Were both purpose-driven people, and ServiceNow is a purpose-led company. Bill McDermott [Photo: ServiceNow]The new marketing campaign attempts to bring to life McDermotts push to turn ServiceNow into the control tower for AI transformation from its humble roots as an IT service management company. The ads featuring Elba highlight ServiceNows AI agents, which use generative AI to identify and automatically solve problems. ServiceNow, which integrates with major AI players such as Google and Microsoft, promises to help AI agents collaborate across departments.A life-changing golf gameMcDermott was a surprise pick to run ServiceNow in 2019 after a 17-year career at software giant SAP. (ServiceNows annual sales at the time were $3.5 billion, compared to SAPs 2019 annual revenue of about $27.5 billion.) McDermott recalls playing golf with ServiceNows then-CEO John Donahoe, who asked if hed ever leave SAP. Donahoe subsequently announced that he was becoming CEO of Nike, and ServiceNow named McDermott as Donahoes successor. (Donahoe retired from Nike in October after a rocky tenure at the sporting gear maker.)After he was approached for the ServiceNow job, McDermott put together a five-year plan for the company. He recently celebrated his five-year anniversary in the role. The plan I shared is the plan weve executed, he says. Analysts expect the company to report 2024 revenue of nearly $11 billion, and the companys market capitalization of about $220 billion makes it the second most valuable software-as-a-service company, behind Salesforce.McDermott says Elba, who has long been a fan favorite to play the next James Bond, is the ideal person to be the face of ServiceNows AI latest initiative. Its his presence and his persona, he says. Hes our secret agent man.Your brand as a personWho personifies your brand? What marketing campaigns have done a good job communicating another companys products as well as its values? Send your favorite spots to me at stephaniemehta@mansueto.com. Id love to feature your top picks in a future newsletter.Read more: beyond celebrity endorsementsMeet the L.A. investor advising LeBron James and Billie EilishHow Shaquille ONeal made himself bigger than everKim Kardashians Skims is an Inc. 5000 company