Meet a Member: Stacy Dreher

JUST THE FACTS

• Name: Stacy Dreher
• Title: Chief Growth Officer
• Years of Experience: 20
• College Name & Degree(s): Bethel University, B.S. Biology
• Firm Name: James Moore & Co.
• Firm City & State: Gainesville, FL
• Firm Size: 275 employees, $55M
• Email Address: [email protected]
• LinkedIn Profile: /in/stacydreher

 

GETTING TO KNOW YOU

This month’s issue is all about technology and digital transformation. You presented recently at the AAM Summit on using AI to build a scalable growth engine. Can you tell us how you’ve done that, and how it transformed your department?

We built an AI-powered content and growth system designed to help our relatively small marketing team compete at a much larger scale. The system identifies relevant topics and search opportunities, generates content using our brand, audience and service-line guidance, routes it to subject matter experts for review, and automates much of the workflow through WordPress staging. We’re also using AI for social listening, Reddit monitoring and content intelligence to help shape what we create across search, social, email and PR.

The bigger transformation has been in how our department operates. We are trying to move away from a model where team members spend most of their time manually producing deliverables and toward one where we build AI skills and projects to do the work and we manage systems and review outputs.

It has also changed the skills we need. We need to be strong problem-solvers who can train and manage AI tools, evaluate outputs, improve workflows and connect content activity to business goals. In some cases, that has required redefining roles, shifting responsibilities and reconsidering what work should remain in-house versus being outsourced. The result is a more scalable department that can produce more, move faster and support a broader range of growth priorities without simply adding people for every new need.

 

What resistance or challenges have you faced internally when introducing new technology, and how did you overcome them?

The biggest challenges aren’t really about the technology itself. They’re about capacity, buy-in, skills and change management. With our first big AI project, we underestimated the time required to train the team, refine the systems and maintain quality while still managing the day-to-day demands of the department. Early AI outputs were inconsistent, which made adoption more difficult and caused people to fall back on familiar ways of working.

There were also concerns about how AI and outsourcing would affect individual roles. I addressed those concerns by being transparent that the work was changing, not disappearing. Most recently, I’ve been focusing on upskilling, realigning responsibilities and moving people toward work that requires more judgment, relationship-building and strategic thinking.

With any new technology or innovation project, I’ve learned to socialize it early, involve leadership and IT sooner, build a clear business case and use external expertise when you don’t have the capacity or specialized skills internally.

The most important lesson with any new technology (AI or otherwise) is that adoption can’t be forced through a single training session. It requires ongoing support, repetition and training.

 

Looking ahead 2–3 years, what do you think will fundamentally change about how accounting marketing teams operate because of AI and automation?

I think accounting marketing teams will be able to accomplish significantly more without increasing headcount at the same rate. Many repetitive production and coordination tasks such as research, first drafts, content repurposing, workflow routing, reporting and basic campaign execution will increasingly be handled by AI and automation.

As a result, marketers will become operators and orchestrators of AI systems over time. They will need to know how to give systems the right context, evaluate outputs and manage workflows. The most valuable skills will shift toward judgment, curiosity, problem-solving, data interpretation, relationship-building and the ability to turn subject matter expertise into differentiated market insight.

I also think department structures will become less specialized around individual production tasks. Roles may become broader and more industry- or audience-focused, with marketers responsible for coordinating campaigns across content, events, social, digital and business development. The teams that succeed will not be the ones using the most AI tools. They will be the ones who redesign how work gets done and combine AI efficiency with strong human expertise and judgment.

 

What is the structure of your marketing department?

Senior Manager, Marketing Growth

Senior Manager, Marketing Operations

Marketing Specialist

Creative Solutions Specialist

Proposal Specialist

Marketing Operations Coordinator

Business Development Representative

 

What is a “must know” for new accounting marketers?

Build your network early, especially through the Association for Accounting Marketing, and don’t be afraid to ask more experienced professionals for help. This community is generous with its knowledge, and having trusted people to call for perspective, advice and support is invaluable.

Beyond that, learn to think like a business owner. Understand how the firm makes money, how decisions get made and how marketing supports growth. Socialize ideas before making a major ask, find internal champions who can help strengthen your case and be willing to test new approaches. Some ideas will fail, but that is often where the best learning happens.

 

What is the biggest project you are working on right now?

The two largest projects I’m currently leading are the AI transformation of our marketing department and a firmwide client experience initiative focused on creating a more proactive, consistent and personalized experience for our clients.

 

What books have you read recently that you feel would be beneficial to other AAM members?

From a business perspective, I’m a big fan of Blinkist because it allows me to explore a wide range of topics without reading an entire book. However, I did recently read The Activator Advantage in full, which is extremely relevant to our industry, and I highly recommend it.

 

What blogs/social feeds do you subscribe to that are helpful?

I like podcasts:

• Frontier CMO
• Marketing Against the Grain
• How To Succeed
• The Artificial Intelligence Show
• The Dave Gerhardt Show
• HBR on Leadership and HBR IdeaCast