Growth Department

This week's episode: cool people doing cool shit at cool companies. Chelsey sits down with Jillian Als, CMO at Leadfeeder, where she runs brand, demand, and revenue at a global scale. After nearly 20 years in B2B SaaS, Jillian has done the demand gen CMO playbook and is now leaning hard into brand as the moat. Jillian breaks down how she rebranded Dealfront back to Leadfeeder in 90 days, why...

This week's episode: cool people doing cool shit at cool companies. Chelsey sits down with Danielle Spinelli, AKA "Fraud Girl," Director of Partnerships at GenLogs, host of the Tell Me Everything podcast, and 2024 Women in Logistics Award winner. After 8 years as a carrier sales broker handling high-value freight like copper and electrical wire, Danielle became one of the most trust...

Ed Hayes has spent 20+ years designing brands, and he's watching something flip. While the rest of the world races toward frictionless, AI-streamlined everything, the smartest brands are doing the opposite. They're adding friction on purpose. Chelsey and Ed get into the analog revival happening across categories: Birkenstocks, Le Labo, A24, and a taco shop in NYC that refuses to translat...

Why brands aren't just hosting experiences anymore. They're charging for them. In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Chelsey sits down with Tom Gray, Chief Strategy Officer at Imagination Group, the global experience design consultancy that helps brands build game-changing strategies and experiences for customers, employees, and stakeholders. Tom has spent his career designin...

The era of the Instagrammable photo backdrop is over. So what's next? In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Chelsey sits down with Diana Zwetzich, experiential designer and founder of guest-centered brand activations, to talk about why most brand experiences are falling flat and what separates a forgettable pop-up from an activation people actually remember. Diana built her career...

In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Chelsey sits down with Jennie Malafarina, founder of Virago Marketing and 12-year B2B marketing executive, to talk about what's actually working in AI-powered demand generation, pipeline growth, and go-to-market strategy for SaaS and tech companies right now. Jennie breaks down her full AI stack: ChatGPT for brainstorming, Claude for writing,...

Andre Ankri built a trades business from the ground up, and then rebuilt how it runs with AI. As CEO of UTS Group, he's automated everything from tender reviews to project manager matching, cut a process that used to take days down to under 30 minutes, and built a system that gets smarter on its own. But the real story is how he got there: through ADHD, hard lessons, and a wartime CEO mindset...

Let's go for a stroll and chat about AI. Chelsey gets honest about where she actually is on her AI journey, and why 10 months went by without making real progress. In this solo episode, she breaks down the 7 risks of AI adoption that keep business leaders up at night, from environmental impact and geopolitical supply chain exposure to deepfake security breaches, agentic AI governance gaps, an...

What does it take to move from AI experimentation to an organization where agents are woven into every workflow? Dr. Pawan Anand has spent 15 years leading enterprise technological and AI transformations across communications, media, and technology. In this episode, Pawan breaks down the concepts he's been writing about on Forbes: digital colleagues, the agent web, AgentOps, and what he calls...

Most founders building with AI agents are thinking about one thing: functionality. Can it do the thing? Can I automate this? Can I scale that? What they're not thinking about is what happens when it goes wrong. Logan Kelly is the CEO of Waxell AI; a governance and observability platform built to control agents running in production. He's an operator turned founder who learned firsthand t...

Cien Solon bootstrapped Launch Lemonade with 1.5 people, reached 150 countries and 7,000 users without a single dollar of funding, and just closed her pre-seed round with 8,000 experts already building on her platform. She did it by doing exactly what she teaches: scaling with AI agents instead of headcount. As an AI founder, Techstars mentor, trainer, and investor, Cien is on a mission to make su...

Most business owners think growth means more top line revenue. More revenue means more salespeople. More salespeople means more problems. Greg Stanley has spent over 30 years watching that equation fail. With strategy and revenue responsibility for over $325 million at PwC, and now as founder of Accelerant Consultants and adjunct professor of sales leadership at Butler University, Greg has seen wh...

What if your next hire wasn't a "Human Employee"? After two B2B exits, Amos Bar-Joseph is done with the "growth at all cost" playbook. The one that has you raising millions before you know who you're selling to, scaling headcount before you have product-market fit, and building a B2B company too bloated to maneuver when the market shifts. Now, as Co-Founder & CEO...

When your messaging is unclear, it shows up everywhere. In sales calls. In hiring. In customer churn. In this episode, Chelsey sits down with Amanda Rabideau, messaging expert and Founder and CEO of Promanda, to break down the difference between positioning and messaging, why unclear messaging creates internal friction, and how it quietly costs companies customers after the sale.  With two decades...

Marketing is shifting faster than most teams can process. AI is automating the mechanics. Performance channels are more crowded than ever. And founders are asking the same question: what actually creates durable advantage now? In this episode, Chelsey sits down with Anthony Kennada to unpack what he learned building the Customer Success category at Gainsight, why category creation is harder than p...

Even world-class products can struggle when buyers don’t know where to place them. In this episode, Chelsey Reynolds sits down with globally renowned positioning expert, April Dunford, to unpack why great products get ignored and how positioning, when done well, sets the context that makes value instantly obvious. April shares how she defines positioning, why it’s more than messaging, and how misa...

Category design shows up in a lot of founder conversations, but few teams understand how to actually use it. In this episode, Chelsey Reynolds sits down with Jason Wellcome to define what category design is, why it matters, and how it helps companies shape markets instead of competing inside them. Jason brings nearly two decades of experience working with global brands, high-growth startups, and c...

We started this podcast in July 2025 with a bold goal:  Hit 50 episodes by the end of the year Why? Ambitious goals can help you figure things out faster. I had to learn how to Do. The. Thing. and not let my fear or shyness get in the way.  The purpose of the podcast is to bring true, trusted, vetted business advice and leadership advice to the world, where more and more ai slop and hype messaging...

Consistency is rarely flashy. It's little actions you take again and again (even if boring or hard), and finally... momentum clicks.  In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Chelsey Reynolds sits down again with Dee Henry, founder of The Sales Loft and creator of Boundaries, to unpack what actually happened after her layoff story went viral. Dee returns to share how “The Great Lock...

Successful growth depends on more than new technology or big initiatives. It depends on people.  In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Chelsey Reynolds sits down with Scott Sheinbaum, Founder and Senior Managing Partner at Anthros Partners, to unpack what truly drives adoption and ROI during organizational change. Scott brings nearly three decades of consulting experience, having led t...

Strong leadership does not start in the boardroom. It starts at home, with the personal systems that create clarity, confidence, and calm.  Are you taking care of yourself first? In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Chelsey Reynolds sits down with financial advisor Jessica Scola, CFP®, to talk about the five personal finance systems every leader needs in place. This conversation is pr...

Get ready to rethink how you lead, hire, and scale for remote businesses.  On this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Dennis “DM” Meador returns to share the mindset and systems that helped him grow the Legal Podcast Network to nearly 60 remote team members in under two years. Dennis is the founder of The Legal Podcast Network and a nationally recognized expert in legal marketing. With more...

Culture can feel fuzzy and unimportant until it starts to cost you growth, people, and momentum.  In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, we turn culture into something you can actually design, measure, and manage. Strategic growth and M&A executive Matthew Person returns to unpack his concept of constrained independence and his Square Management System, a practical way to align stru...

The creative world is evolving fast, and the leaders who know how to blend branding, culture, and strategic thinking are the ones shaping what comes next.  In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Chelsey sits down with Jesse Vuona, a multi versed digital creative director and cofounder of Fresh , a boutique agency trusted by brands like Adidas, New Balance, Converse, Panera, Foxwoods, NC...

Leaders everywhere are rethinking how they show up for their teams. This conversation with Julia Rock brings clarity to what modern leadership really requires.  Her philosophy is simple: Leadership isn’t complicated, it’s just hard, and small daily actions create the culture your people feel every day. In this episode of the Growth Department podcast, Julia shares how clarity, consistency, connect...