The Changemakers

Design leaders in tech don’t come much more visionary than this week’s Changemakers guest, Nando Costa. Nando is a Brazilian-American designer with an extensive background in visual design, branding, digital products and animation production. After spending the first part of his career in the agency world, Nando joined Microsoft in 2013, spending the next nine years working on projects such as the...

In these 'soundbite' episodes, we'll be sharing moments from our Changemakers podcast that have made us stop and think, and we think will be valuable to you. This is from Episode 24 and our chat with Alan Cohen. During our conversation, he talks about cybersecurity and gives his thoughts on what businesses can do to stand out and make an impact in a world where their target audience...

Heidi Joy Tretheway is one of those marketing leaders who, in her words, would “rather build a ship than sail it”. That’s why she’s always gravitated towards startups with huge growth potential. The challenge of creating a marketing function virtually from scratch, and turning that into a pipeline-building, the revenue-generating machine is one that Heidi Joy absolutely thrives on. It’s also a cha...

Being a CMO these days is not for the faint-hearted. It’s a role that is fraught with challenges. Yes, many have a seat at the top table, which certainly wasn’t the case a decade ago. But in return, the pressures on performance are enormous, even at the best of times - let alone in uncertain climates like this one. Some just aren’t cut out for it. But others thrive on those pressures because they...

In the second of our cybersecurity mini-series, Dave sits down with Mike O’Malley, seasoned tech marketing executive and recently-appointed CMO of API security specialists Noname Security. Mike joined Noname in the summer of 2022 to lead its marketing team into the next phase of the company’s rapid and impressive growth. Prior to that, he was Senior VP, Global Marketing at CyberArk, another pionee...

In the first episode of our cybersecurity mini-series, Dave chats with Donna Estrin, a PR and communications expert with vast experience at cyber firms large and small.  After cutting her comms teeth in the PR agency world, Donna moved into tech, beginning her cybersecurity career handling analyst relations for McAfee. She then helped Neustar transform from a traditional telecommunications company...

We’re in the midst of volatile times right now. So who better to provide a true perspective on what really matters, and how to focus on building for long-term success, than one of tech go-to-market’s most experienced and accomplished leaders? Alan Cohen has been at the forefront of game-changing tech GTM for over 30 years. During his early days at IBM and Cisco, he was pivotal to commercialising t...

Jessica Rosenberg is one of the most inspiring creative leaders that you’ll find in tech. Having cut her teeth as a creative in the ad agency world, she had a brief spell in startup-land before her career really took off through spells at Twitter, Cloudflare, Mural and now Webflow, where she leads the brand design team. Leading teams like Jessica’s has multiple challenges. How do you structure the...

It’s not every day that you get to chat with a creative leader like Melissa Rosenthal. Because there aren’t many in the business like her.  Melissa cut her creative teeth at Buzzfeed, perfecting the art of building a brand around content that entertains. Then she joined Cheddar, a live media company at the intersection of news and technology, as a founding member of the executive team.  It’s not o...

Demand generation is more than just a marketing function. It’s a craft. A mindset. A way of life honed and perfected by uber-talented practitioners.  Not only that, but with market conditions the way they are right now, effective demand gen is in demand. It’s invaluable to current and future revenues.  We touched on demand generation early in this series. But as it’s been a while, it felt right to...

How should marketing leaders approach the challenges of an economic downturn? It’s a big question, but one we put to Robin Daniels, our guest for this episode. If you’ve not come across Robin before, you’ll enjoy his enthusiasm and illuminating insight on marketing, leadership and growth. He’s worked at some amazing tech companies covering Salesforce, Box, LinkedIn, WeWork as well as being CMO of...

This episode is pretty special. It’s a story that is truly unique, and one that hopefully isn’t going to be repeated for a long time. We talk to Michael Jeter who is the Creative Director at Zapier. For those of you who don’t know, Zapier is a product that allows you to integrate web applications and automate workflows. Michael joined the business to spearhead a major rebrand. His team got crackin...

Ever wondered what it’s like to be a creative leader at a global tech company with over 70,000 employees? Well, so did we. So to find out, Dave speaks to Jessica Bognar, Creative Director – Brand at Salesforce. Salesforce is one of those iconic B2B brands, isn’t it? Less of a company, and more of an empire. Jessica joined the business in 2015, when they had a measly 10,000 staff. She came from an...

You know when you’re scrolling through LinkedIn and someone just makes you stop? Well Ling Koay, Chief Brand Officer at Oneflow, is one of those people. She has a wonderful way of thinking and is so good at articulating her thoughts. As well as being kick-ass at her job, she’s a wonderful advocate of diversity and equality. We simply had to have her on the pod for the final instalment of our three...

Welcome to the second of our three-part ‘Women in Creative Leadership’ special. This mini-series aims to gauge the temperature of gender equality and diversity within the creative and marketing sides of the B2B tech industry. Where are we in the fight for true equality? What more can be done, and how can we as an industry make sure that every talented female has the opportunity to climb the ranks...

Welcome to the first of our three-part ‘Women in Creative Leadership’ special. This mini-series aims to gauge the temperature of gender equality and diversity within the creative and marketing sides of the B2B tech industry. Where are we in the fight for true equality? What more can be done, and how can we as an industry make sure that every talented female has the opportunity to climb the ranks i...

Lindsey Selden is Creative Director, Brand at Sumo Logic - a SaaS analytics company on a mission to ensure its customers’ digital experiences are reliable and secure. Her role at the company encompasses brand, design, user experience, strategy, and marketing. There’s one thing that links all these together: people. Human beings with needs, feelings, and emotions that B2B tech brands so often fail...

Wei Kee is Client Services Director at…Shaped By of course! She leads our client services team (aka the beating heart of the agency) who look after the full lifecycle of our client projects. But there’s far more to client services than that. Onboarding new clients, making sure existing ones feel nurtured, supported, and valued, ensuring we deliver on all our promises to them…Wei and her team have...

Dmitry Shamis is Global Head of Creative at a company that really needs no introduction. But if you’re either from Mars or have been living under a rock for the past ten years, then HubSpot is a leading CRM platform that provides software for all kinds of businesses, from start-ups to enterprises. In his role as HubSpot’s Global Head of Creative, Dmitry leads a global in-house creative team of ove...

Lee is Director of Brand and Creative at Gong, a revenue intelligence platform used by over 2000 companies including Paychex, PayPal, Hubspot, LinkedIn, MuleSoft, Shopify, Slack, SproutSocial, Twilio, and Zillow. Our conversation comes at an exciting time creatively for Gong, having recently undergone a rebrand and ran a Super Bowl ad! We talk about the challenges and rewards of working in creativ...

In this episode, we speak to a man who has bravely crossed the divide between sales and marketing. So are there similarities? What makes each department tick? How can they get on better? Ben is EMEA Marketing Director at SailPoint, a market leader in identity security for the modern enterprise. He has over 30 years of experience in customer and partner success within the Cybersecurity and Enterpri...

Frida Ahrenby is CMO at GetAccept, a digital sales room platform on a mission to radically redefine the way companies run sales. In her role, she’s responsible for the company’s global marketing strategy and execution in all markets. Having grown the marketing team from three people to 25 over the past two and a half years, our chat with Frida comes at a really exciting time for GetAccept. It’s a...

Ardath is CEO & B2B Marketing Strategist at Marketing Interactions. She is a titan in the B2B marketing world with over 30 years of experience in business management and marketing as well the author of two books. It’s a journey that took her from starting as a consultant for her sister's marketing tech platform to now working with enterprise tech companies like Gong, Cisco Meraki and Dell...

Kathryn is Director of EMEA Marketing at Box. She has risen through the ranks in the marketing department at Box and has 10 years of experience working in tech marketing in the US and UK. Before joining Box, she worked at Dell EMC and also agency side as a B2B marketing specialist giving her a view of processes and areas she recreated at Box. Box is a Cloud Content Management company that can call...

Luke is the founder and managing director of OST Marketing, a B2B social media agency. With a wealth of experience, Luke is an expert B2B social media strategist. From creating an online community for people with epilepsy to launching his own social networks and even running conferences across the US and Europe, featuring many of the early leaders in social media - Luke is a leader in his field. O...