The Peerbound Podcast

Trinity Nguyen, the VP of Marketing at UserGems, shares the founding journey of UserGems, starting from its initial idea as a tool for identifying micro-influencers to pivoting towards leveraging job changes for B2B sales and marketing, a space with stronger market potential. Trinity highlights the value of tracking job changes for sales teams, explaining the theory behind targeting individuals fa...

Paola Johnson, the Director of Community and Customer Advocacy at ThoughtSpot, shares her journey from a sales background to her current role leading community and advocacy. Paola discusses the benefits of social selling, the importance of customer engagement through community programs, her approach to matching motivations and rewards, and her personal experience as a Latina in the tech industry....

In this episode of the Peerbound Podcast, we hear from Jane Menyo, the Head of Customer Marketing at Gong, to discuss her career journey and insights into customer marketing. Jane shares her initial skepticism towards marketing, her diverse experience across multiple marketing roles, and how she fell into marketing at a startup before leading customer marketing initiatives at On24 and Gong. She hi...

Sara Steffen, Senior Director of Customer Marketing at Databricks, shares her journey from roles at Cisco and Nutanix to her current position at Databricks, emphasizing the value of storytelling, relationship building, and strategic customer engagement. She reveals her approach to balancing business needs with fostering genuine connections with customers, including being mindful of the frequency a...

With over 40 years in the industry, including significant contributions at Braze and Bazaarvoice, Sarah Spivey brings a wealth of experience and insights into the evolution of marketing technology, the crucial soft skills for success, and strategies for building effective teams. She emphasizes the importance of the CEO-CMO relationship, the role of customer marketing, and offers valuable advice fo...

In this episode, we hear from Thao Ngo, the SVP of Marketing at Uptempo, a marketing planning software company. Thao discusses her unique path to marketing (she actually went to school for it!) and subsequent career in B2B marketing. She highlights her demanding approach as a leader at Uptempo. She also talks about her strong background in communications, her hiring values, and her day-to-day oper...

In this episode, Caroline Solis Wright, the VP of Marketing at 360Learning, discusses her career trajectory from an initial interest in politics to a fulfilling career in marketing. Navigation through a dynamic tech landscape, specifically the 3D printing boom at MakerBot, has helped her hone her skills and focus on operational efficiency and excellence as a team leader. Caroline emphasizes the im...

In this episode, Mike Molinet, co-founder of tech companies Branch and Thena shares his journey from early career days as a mechanical engineer at 3M to a successful software entrepreneur, along with insights into starting a company in 2023 vs. 2014. He discusses the concept of the 'three C's' (context, communication, and collaboration) as crucial factors in effective team dynamics, and reflects o...

In this episode, Jillian Bejtlich, Community Lead at Calendly, discusses her journey towards community management, which began in an engineering-focused household. Describing her path as non-traditional, she emphasizes the importance of flexibility and adaptability in community management strategies. Jillian shares her experiences working in different industries, including engineering software and...

In this episode, we hear from Nisha Baxi, the Head of Community and Digital Customer Success at Gong. Nisha shares her experiences developing programs for world-class software companies like IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce, and Facebook. She describes her journey from her first job at IBM to creating Gong's 'Visioneers' community, customer ecosystems, and her approach to Digital Customer Success. She a...

In this episode, Toby Coulthard, the Chief Product Officer of Phrasee, shares his unique insights on marketing technology, given his blend of deep technical knowledge, commercial strategy, and executive product management. He shares how Phrasee is disrupting content creation with its blend of computational linguistics, data science, and robust experimental designs. The conversation also delves int...

Junan Pang is the head of customer success at Slack, experienced in helping tech companies optimize their customer relationships and deliver world class customer experience. Drawn to a blend of technology and business, Junan entered the software industry working at Accenture, later transitioning into customer success roles. During his tenure at Optimizely, he led multiple customer success teams an...

In this episode of The Peerbound Podcast: Chief, Chandar and Sunny delve into topics such as leadership, marketing strategies, team building, and the dynamics of the C-suite. Chandar shares his experiences, philosophies, and valuable insights gained from his illustrious career in strategic marketing and management consulting. He discusses the importance of empathy, outcome-driven approaches, and t...

In this episode of the Peerbound Podcast, host Sunny Manivannan is joined by Alison Bukowski, the incoming Vice President of Customer Experience at Point of Reference. Alison discusses her journey from content marketing to customer marketing and advocacy, and eventually to leading a marketing team. She talks about the importance of continually evolving marketing strategies and placing the customer...

In this episode of the Peerbound Podcast, we hear from Evan Hamilton, the Director of Community at HubSpot. As an experienced community and customer experience professional, Hamilton shares his insights into the evolution of the internet and how it has affected community building. He stresses the importance of communities being used for creating intention, driving a specific purpose, and amplifyin...

In this episode, Leslie Patterson, the VP of Customer Advocacy and Engagement at BMC Software, shares insights from her more than two decades of experience in the software industry. Leslie shares her journey into customer advocacy starting from her days in advertising to her tenure at Computer Associates. She discusses her successful career in building and reinventing advocacy programs for promine...

In this episode, Dave Hansen, the Global Advocacy Marketing Director at LRN, shares his unique journey from driving the Red Bull van in college to his current role building advocacy and community within the business world. He highlights his strategies for nurturing customer relationships, his perspective on the importance of customer sentiment through Net Promoter Score and CSAT, and the value of...

In this episode, Katie shares insights about her dynamic approach to customer marketing, noting her focus on adopting programs that closely align with what customers want and need. At Iterable, she oversees different teams, including Brand, Community, Partner, and Corporate Event Marketing, all which leverage and benefit from using the voice of the customer. Katie discusses the importance of build...

Discover the evolution of Customer Advocacy and Engagement as Bill Lee shares his personal journey, beginning with his unique career trajectory, his experiences in different industries, and his transition to focusing on customer relationships in the tech industry. In this episode, Bill shares insights about the concept of customer-led growth, the necessity of building and maintaining strong relati...

In this episode, we delve into Nicole's journey in community management and explore the strategies she employed to transform Zendesk's community from a Q&A section to a cross-functional powerhouse. We discuss the importance of breaking down workplace silos and identifying collaborative opportunities to bring the customer's voice into various projects without "shipping the org chart." Measuring com...

Explore the evolving landscape of B2B customer marketing with Lauren Turner, Director of Customer Marketing at Alyce. With prior career experience in product management and product marketing, Lauren brings a deep understanding and passion for the importance of the voice of the customer in guiding how to build products and programs. From the impact of budget cuts to the power of customer advocacy,...

Join us as Kevin Lau, Senior Director of Global Customer Engagement at F5, shares thoughts on the evolving landscape of customer marketing. Discover how to set and align priorities with executive leadership, how to source and distribute customer feedback, and strategies for building a robust customer engagement tech stack. In this episode, Sunny and Kevin explore:  (00:53) Kevin's journey from his...

Join us for an insightful discussion with John Gleeson, Founder & Managing Partner at Success Venture Partners and a pioneer in the world of Customer Success. Discover the strategic significance of Customer Success in early stage startups and how it serves as a vital bridge between customers and growth-focused teams as a company scales. John and Sunny’s conversation covers: (01:05) John's journey...

Join us in this insightful episode with Hillary Curran, the Senior Director of Customer Voice & Implementation Strategy at Guru, as she shares her mission of integrating the customer's voice into strategic business decisions to drive growth. Discover how Guru leverages deep customer insights to prioritize their roadmap and sharpen messaging, all while empowering teams to achieve exceptional result...

In this episode, we dive deep with Will Crocker Hay, the VP of Customer & Partner Education at Braze, to explore various aspects of building and scaling successful customer-facing functions. Will shares insights gleaned from over a decade of experience developing critical customer-facing functions such as customer success, customer marketing, and customer education, along with valuable career less...