Jon Evans Leaves System1 to Build Uncensored CMO Full Time

By Jon Evans

Jon Evans is stepping away from marketing effectiveness company System1 to focus entirely on the Uncensored CMO podcast, the marketing show he created in 2019. His departure date is set for 7 March, according to Marketing Week, with System1 continuing on as the podcast's founding sponsor.

The move caps a run at System1 that began in 2019, when Jon joined as CMO before being promoted to Chief Customer Officer in 2022. Over that same period, the podcast he built alongside the role grew into a substantial media property in its own right. Uncensored CMO has now published over 200 episodes and accumulated more than 3 million downloads across 150 or more countries, and its work with System1 was recognised with the Excellence in B2B award at the 2025 Marketing Week Awards. The podcast also helped System1 grow new contacts by 174% in 2025.

Jon describes the ambition behind the decision in expansive terms. His vision, he says, is "to create the world's most influential marketing media that will inspire a generation of marketers to reach the top." Going full time gives him room to pursue that. He is planning to expand the Uncensored CMO brand into live events and sub-brands, building on live events already run in London that have featured figures including Scott Galloway and Rory Sutherland.

The podcast has become a natural home for Jon's own perspective on how advertising works. He argues that emotion in advertising is directly correlated with profit, and advocates for brands to bring more emotion into their campaigns. He also believes that roughly half of an advertising campaign's business outcome depends on the creative message, citing System1's analysis of campaigns.

Jon's own career gives that view some grounding. He started in marketing at Britvic, where he ran a Seed Brand Unit in conjunction with Pepsi, and later served as Marketing Director at Suntory on the Lucozade brand. With System1 remaining as founding sponsor and a slate of events and sub-brands ahead, Jon now has the runway to build Uncensored CMO into the marketing media platform he set out to create.