Mastering CS: Candid Leader Insights

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Andrey Tirel , Senior Customer Success Manager at Jellyfish, a platform that helps engineering leaders see how their teams spend their time. Andrey has been in Customer Success for 10 years and has seen the function from every angle: early-stage startups, acquisitions, Snowflake before most people had heard...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Frances Dupree , Principal Customer Success Manager at Agiloft, a contract management platform for legal teams. Frances spent years inside legal operations before moving to the vendor side, and that experience of being the customer gives her a perspective that shapes everything about how she shows up for he...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Eric Mistry , Automation Strategist and AI and Automation Transformation Lead at Zapier, the automation platform that connects apps and workflows. Eric's role sits at the intersection of customer success and automation strategy. He shares what the Automation Strategist title actually means, what he automate...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Rachel Weller , Head of Customer Success for the Americas at Canary Technologies, a guest management platform for hotels. Rachel shares what it looks like to build a CS team from scratch in a new region, why doing messy, unscalable things first is one of the most important habits in CS, and how she thinks a...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Kevin Andrews , Product Engagement Manager at BombBomb, a video messaging platform. Kevin spent eight months leading CS and support earlier this year, having previously worked across sales, CS, and product over nearly 10 years at the company. He shares what it was like to step into an interim CS leadership...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Daniel Hyre , Customer Success Manager at ScreenCloud, a digital signage platform for managing screens across offices and locations. Daniel's path into CS is anything but conventional: fine wine, estate planning, carbon trading, and now digital signage. His background in industries where you can never push...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Donia Hesham , Senior Customer Success Specialist at WalaPlus, an employee loyalty and rewards platform serving organizations across the Middle East. With a background in investment management and banking, Donia brings a unique perspective to Customer Success and managing complex account portfolios. She sha...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Konstantin Kleemann , Senior Customer Success Manager at SAP Taulia, a working capital platform that helps companies pay suppliers faster while freeing up cash. With years of experience structuring working capital deals for corporate treasury teams at UniCredit, Konstantin brings a unique perspective on the...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Noémie Tosser , Customer Success Manager at Simundia, a digital coaching platform helping organizations move from ambition to action. Noémie works in a world where customer success can't be measured through clicks or logins. She shares how she evaluates whether a coaching journey is truly working, the chall...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Freddie Franklin , Head of Customer Success at zeroheight, a platform that helps design and engineering teams build and manage their design systems. Freddie shares how he structured a team of five CSMs, how zeroheight uses Claude as a reasoning layer across its tool stack, and what AI agents the team has bu...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Pratiksha Tewari , Senior Customer Success Manager at Tars, a platform for building conversational AI agents. With a background in field operations and Salesforce implementation, as well as experience as a certified Scrum Master, Pratiksha shares how she approaches Customer Success when every customer's...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Oksana Aloshyna , Strategic Customer Success Manager at ShortPoint. With more than eight years at the company, Oksana shares her journey from Support to strategic Customer Success and what she has learned about building effective CS infrastructure without overcomplicating it. She discusses personalized outr...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Lee-El Lewinsohn Primo , Head of Customer Success at LayerX (Akamai). Lee-El shares how she leads both Customer Success and Technical Support, why every company should adopt a customer-first mindset, how LayerX measures time to value, and how AI is reshaping the way Customer Success teams operate. What You’...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Evgeniya Ioffe , Head of Customer Success at Bites, a training and communication platform for frontline teams. As one of Bites' earliest employees, Evgeniya has worked across Customer Success, Product, Support, and Sales before stepping into her current leadership role. She shares how those experiences shap...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Juliette Marland , former Senior Customer Success Manager at Redis, a real-time data platform powering AI applications and agents, and a founding member of the Redis Customer Success team. Juliette shares what it was like to build a CS function from scratch, how Customer Success operates when your product s...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Erik Törnblom , Customer Success Manager at PLAYipp, a digital signage platform that helps organizations manage content across screens in multiple locations. Drawing on years of experience as both a football player and coach, Erik shares how that background shaped his approach to teamwork, problem-solving,...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Victor Romijn , Customer Success Manager at Runner.ai, an AI chatbot that helps hotels and holiday parks communicate with their guests. Victor brings a unique background in marketing, community management, and improv coaching to Customer Success. He shares what it's like being the sole CSM at a fast-growing...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Sarah Young , Customer Success Manager at Hoptroff, a precision timing platform for financial services and other regulated industries. Drawing on experience across Sales, go-to-market, Customer Success, and performance coaching, Sarah shares what CS looks like when your product operates invisibly behind cri...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Anastasia Veriga , Chief Customer Officer at VideoWise, a video commerce platform for e-commerce brands. With nearly a decade in Customer Success, Anastasia shares her journey from call center agent to CSM, Head of CS, and now Chief Customer Officer. She discusses what the transition into executive leadersh...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Kate Panasenko , Customer Success Manager at Raccoon Gang, a company that builds and customizes e-learning platforms. Kate's path into Customer Success is anything but conventional—from selling apples at a market at age eight to working in industrial sales before managing customer relationships across Asia,...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Patrick Ford , Customer Success Manager at Softr, a no-code platform for building apps and client portals. Patrick brings a background in education and instructional design, which shapes how he helps customers solve problems and build the software they need. He shares what onboarding looks like when custome...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Viola Marku , Head of Customer Success at WunderGraph, an open source platform that helps engineering teams manage their APIs at scale. Recently promoted from individual contributor to Head of CS, Viola shares what that transition really looks like, how her lean technical team uses AI to resolve issues fast...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Veronica Bianchini , Senior Strategy Customer Success Manager at Discuss, a qualitative research platform for enterprise insights teams. Veronica brings a unique blend of experience in political science, data science, research, and consulting across three countries and five languages. She shares why custome...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Katrin Loodus , Customer Success Manager in the cybersecurity space. After more than a decade with the same organization, Katrin shares how working across multiple roles shaped her approach to Customer Success, why deep product and organizational knowledge help her serve customers more effectively, and how...

In this episode of the podcast, Irina Cismas , Head of Marketing at Custify, sits down with Nir Kalish , VP of Customer Success at BlinkOps, an AI platform that helps security teams automate their operations at scale. Coming from a company where AI is the product itself, Nir offers a unique perspective on the future of Customer Success. He shares why white-glove CS cannot be replaced by AI agents,...