It's one thing to get your CFO's attention and a marketing budget approved. It's another to deploy that investment in a way that builds your brand and delivers on boardroom promises. In a break from our typical interview format, The Media Leader team wanted to bring you one further discussion held at last month's Future of Media Manchester event. To close the day, The Media Leader's content director James Longhurst hosted a panel on the challenges clients and agencies face throughout the year as they seek to meet and exceed boardroom expectations. How do you optimise for business KPIs? How do you balance short-term demands with long-term brand building when every pound spent is being scrutinised? How do you build the case for bigger media budgets during a business downturn? All these questions and more were tackled by: Neil Jones, head of performance media at Boots UK; Laura Kell, chief data and product officer at Havas Media Network UK; Stu Lunn, group managing director at Kinesso; and Rob Linton, managing director, regions at MiQ. The discussion will continue next month, when The Future of Media returns 4-5 November in London. Register here to attend. Highlights: 2:16: The start of the budgeting year — how to make the CFO see marketing as an investment 8:05: Why AI is being used to drive cost savings 21:57: Balancing short-term KPIs and long-term needs 34:45: How do you know you've kept your promises to the boardroom? Related articles: How brands can truly ensure their CEO, CFO and CMO work together How to bridge the CEO-CMO gap? Marketers must take an ‘investor mindset’, McKinsey advises Ad industry positioned as key sector for driving economic growth --- Visit The Media Leader for the most authoritative news analysis and comment on what's happening in commercial media.  LinkedIn: The Media Leader YouTube: The Media Leader