The Thread Podcast

Kicking off our fintech and financial services season, Justin sits down with Michelle Lewis , a compliance leader who has spent her career writing the rules for payment networks. Michelle started as a corporate lawyer in New York before spending more than a decade at American Express running global network governance and operating rules (including getting the network ready for Apple Pay). She then...

Caleb Avery started in payments at nineteen, knocking on doors in Greenville, South Carolina, selling terminals to small business owners. That run, followed by years of consulting and angel investing in vertical software, led him to found Tilled , the PayFac as a Service platform that gives software companies the economics and brand control of a payment facilitator without the registration, underw...

Kicking off our Future of Finance series ahead of Money20/20, Justin sits down with Michelle Beyo , founder and CEO of Finavator , president of Open Finance Network Canada, and author of the newly launched Mastering the Future of Finance. Michelle spent twenty years in telco, online shopping, and prepaid before running WeChat's first QR payment pilot in North America and realizing the future...

Hiring didn't break all at once. It broke one year at a time. This week on the Thread Podcast, Justin sits down with Euan Cameron, CEO and co-founder of Willo, the global candidate screening platform built to make hiring faster, fairer, and more human. Euan walks through the year-by-year evolution from 2019 to today: remote work upending where companies hire, AI handing candidates a resume ma...

Cold outreach is dying....so what replaces it? This week Justin sits down with Olivier Roth, co-founder & Chief Growth Officer of The Swarm, the go-to-network platform backed by HubSpot Ventures ($10M raised to date). The Swarm started as a network recruiting tool in 2021, but customers kept pulling it toward sales, and a category was born: go-to-network, using the combined relationships of yo...

Most voice AI startups today are thin wrappers on someone else's models. Ayooluwa Odemuyiwa went the opposite direction and built the entire stack. In this episode, Justin sits down with the CTO and co-founder of Aethex AI, who along with co-founder Mariama is building the voice layer for emerging markets across Africa and the Middle East. This is the AI that banks, call centers, and telcos u...

Catherine Blackmore has spent nearly two decades building the programs that wrap around technology, from the early days of customer success in 2007 to her current role as Group VP of Customer Programs and Employee Success at Oracle . In this episode she sits down with Justin to unpack what the discipline got right, what it got wrong, and what survives the shift to AI. Catherine makes the case that...

Andy Mowat has run RevOps at four unicorns, and between every role he's gone out and built something new. His latest is Whispered , an AI platform that helps top GTM execs build their careers through shared insights, warm introductions, and access to the roles that never get posted. In this episode, Andy and Justin get into why the entire GTM tech stack is heading for a two-year rebuild, what...

Justin sits down with Nils Vinje , business growth guide and longtime customer success leader, to talk about the single biggest thing holding most growing companies back: everything still depends on the CEO. Nils spent the early part of his career on the leading edge of the customer success movement — convincing his first employer to ditch the "account manager" title back in 2011 — and h...

Justin sits down with Sanjay Pal , Worldwide VP of Professional Services at IBM, to explore what it really takes to lead services at global scale and why the role is more strategically important now than ever before. Sanjay draws on his journey from Cisco to Accenture to IBM to break down what has fundamentally changed about services delivery in the AI era, and what has stayed the same. He shares...

Justin sits down with Jessica Chiew , Global Head of GTM Strategy and Operations at Canva , to unpack what it really takes to evolve from a beloved PLG product into a full-fledged enterprise sales machine without breaking what made it great. Jessica shares how Canva navigates the complexity of multiple handoffs across a PLG-to-SLG journey, why time to value is everyone's job (not just CS), an...

Justin sits down with Allison Skidmore , Chief Customer Officer at Optimizely , the world's first operating system for marketing teams. Allison brings a rich perspective shaped by stints at Adobe, Stackla, Gigya, and SAP across Asia Pacific before landing in the US to lead customer success at Optimizely. This episode explores how AI is fundamentally reshaping the marketer's daily workflo...

Brent Krempges , Chief Customer Officer at Gainsight , joins the show to unpack the next evolution of Customer Success in an AI-first world. After 12+ years at Gainsight, from implementation to global pre-sales to CCO,  Brent shares how CS is shifting from seat-based software to outcome-driven operating models. We dive into AI-driven health scores, renewal agents, sentiment analysis, and the loomi...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast, Justin Vandehey sits down with Elizabeth Herbst-Brady , Chief Revenue Officer of Condé Nast , to explore how one of the world’s most iconic media companies is navigating transformation in the age of AI. Elizabeth shares lessons from her career spanning media, advertising, and technology, including leadership roles at Yahoo, Snap, and Viacom, and explains why...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast, host Justin Vandehey sits down with Neal McCoy , VP of Customer Success and Professional Services at BigCommerce , to unpack where customer value most often breaks down after a deal is closed — and how companies can fix it. Neal shares insights from nearly a decade building CS and PS at BigCommerce, explaining why customers don’t buy software to “solve proble...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast, Justin Vandehey sits down with Jared Myatt , Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Integrate , to explore what it really takes to scale RevOps over time. Jared shares his journey from early employee to RevOps leader, reflecting on key inflection points including acquisitions, private equity ownership, and enterprise growth. They discuss how the definition...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast, Justin Vandehey interviews Benjamin Roach , Director of Revenue Operations at Optio Incentives , to explore what it takes to build RevOps in the equity compensation and incentives space. Ben shares his “traditional” path from sales into RevOps, why he deliberately took a step back into a junior ops role, and how getting technical became a career unlock. They...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast , Justin talks with Tyler Will , VP of GTM Strategy & Ops at Intercom , about how modern revenue organizations are evolving in an era defined by AI, PLG-to-enterprise transitions, and go-to-market speed. Tyler shares his journey from economic consulting and Bain, to GTM leadership at LinkedIn, to now scaling RevOps at Intercom. He breaks down the key diffe...

Episode Summary In this episode of the Thread Podcast , host Justin Vandehey sits down with John Queally , Senior Director of Revenue Operations at Clari , to explore how RevOps is evolving in the age of AI, and what it really means to build a data-driven go-to-market organization. John’s career spans consulting, analytics at JP Morgan , leadership roles at American Express and Qualtrics , and now...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast , host Justin Vandehey sits down with Max Mozes , Director of Revenue Operations at Walmart for Business , to unpack what it takes to build a world-class B2B motion inside one of the world’s largest retail organizations. Before joining Walmart, Max carried a quota as a seller, scaled local business teams at LevelUp (acquired by Grubhub for $400M), and held key...

In this episode, Chantel Hirschel, Director of Revenue Operations at Sana, discusses the unique challenges and opportunities in the healthcare industry, particularly in revenue operations.  She shares insights on transitioning from traditional B2B SaaS to healthcare, the importance of HIPAA compliance, and the role of AI in rev ops. Chantel also offers advice for aspiring leaders in the field, emp...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast, host Justin Vandehey speaks with Larry Peters, the Chief Revenue Officer of World of Dance.  They discuss Larry's extensive background in sales and marketing within the sports and entertainment industries, emphasizing the importance of understanding customer needs and the role of practice in sales.  Justin and Larry explores the integration of AI in sale...

Summary In this episode of the Thread Podcast, host Justin Vandehey speaks with Kara Brown, founder and CRO of Lead Coverage, about her journey in the supply chain industry, the importance of go-to-market strategies, and the impact of AI on sales technology. Kara shares insights from her book, 'The Revenue Engine,' and discusses the challenges faced by women entrepreneurs in achieving si...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast, host Justin Vandehey speaks with Karan Singh, SVP of Go-to-Market Strategy and Operations at LaunchDarkly. They discuss Karan's extensive background in various tech companies, the evolving role of AI in sales, and the importance of human connection in go-to-market strategies.  Karan emphasizes the need for productivity over leanness in sales organization...

In this episode of the Thread Podcast, host Justin Vandehey introduces his co-founders Jeremy Vandehey and Samuel Kenney as they discuss their journey in building Thread, a company focused on enhancing the go-to-market strategy for sales teams. The conversation explores the challenges of acquiring the first customer, aligning sales operations, and the importance of technology in sales. They delve...