Podcasts about Cros

In this episode of Molecule to Market, you'll go inside the outsourcing space of the global drug development sector with Jeanne Taylor Hecht, Chief Executive Officer and Chairwoman at Lexitas. Your host, Raman Sehgal, discusses the pharmaceutical and biotechnology supply chain with Jeanne, covering: How Jeanne's various roles have equipped her to become a more rounded CEO and board member. How a stint in Asia led Jeanne to develop her strategy playbook, including the importance of the client's voice. Jeanne's journey, taking on eight different boards and becoming a serial investor and advisor... and how that did not happen by accident. She said that having a strong relationship with a PE firm and missing the hands-on, day-to-day role of being a CEO led her back to the hot seat. Understanding why has being a specialist ophthalmology CRO given Lexitas traction with small to medium biotechs, and what is the future in store for CROS? Jeanne's industry career spanned over twenty-five years as a Board member and Chief Executive Officer of multiple companies, including CEO at Ora and Senior Executive at Median Technologies, IQVIA, Decision Biomarkers, and the UNC Oncology Protocol Office. Jeanne also launched and expanded a Life Sciences consulting practice that supported companies with sales, marketing, and market growth strategies and advisory and board work. She is primarily motivated by helping to bring relief to patients.  Jeanne is an active Advisory Board Member for the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Kenan-Flagler's Business School and Lecturer at the business school. She contributed to the creation of Wake Forest University's master's in clinical research program and remains an active industry advisor to the school. She holds a Bachelor of Science from the University of Michigan and a Master of Business Administration from the university's Ross School of Business. Please subscribe, tell your industry colleagues and join us in celebrating and promoting the value and importance of the global life science outsourcing space. We'd also appreciate a positive rating!  Molecule to Market is also sponsored and funded by ramarketing, an international marketing, design, digital and content agency helping companies differentiate, get noticed and grow in life sciences.

Send us a textAI promises to revolutionize clinical trials and reshape regulatory oversight. But is the pharma industry ready? And can the FDA keep pace with the technology? In this episode of the HealthBiz Podcast, host David Williams is joined by Tom Doyle, Chief Technology Officer of Medidata, to discuss the promises and potential pitfalls of AI in clinical trials.

In this episode, Bryan unpacks what makes a truly effective sales playbook - and why now is the time for sales leaders to get serious about it. He shares the key components every playbook must include: a foundational philosophy, planning elements, defined processes, contingency plans, and accountability mechanisms. Bryan spotlights the Blind Zebra Sales Operating System (BZSOS), a comprehensive set of procedures, tasks and scoreboards, with 10 guiding principles that help sales teams achieve clarity, consistency, and success. He also invites sales leaders to two powerful opportunities: certification classes designed to help teams master BZSOS (ahead of Q4), and Huddle, a sales leader-only event on October 30 in Indianapolis where VPs of Sales and CROs from across the country will gather for a day of learning, motivation, and inspiration. Don't let Q4 sneak up on you. Tune in and get your playbook in order! Advanced Selling Podcast Listeners save $200 on Huddle tickets purchased in July 2025 with discount code SANTA: https://wl.seetickets.us/event/Huddle-Sales-Leadership-Summit-Connect-25/628954?afflky=HuddleSalesSummit Curious about certification in the Blind Zebra Sales Operating System? Learn more here. And if you haven't already, make sure you join the Advanced Selling Podcast LinkedIn group: http://advancedsellingpodcast.com/linkedin.

This week on Revenue Rehab, Brandi Starr is joined by Sherry Grote, creator of the Harmony Hero framework and a B2B marketing leader with 25+ years transforming brands and driving revenue. Sherry believes marketing and HR hold untapped power as revenue accelerators—but only if their voices are amplified beyond traditional roles and given real influence in the boardroom. Challenging the status quo that sidelines these functions, Sherry argues that true revenue growth hinges on aligning people, brand, and culture—not just products and pipelines. If you're ready to rethink where brand power really drives the bottom line, tune in—and decide if Sherry's perspective changes your mind.  Episode Type: Problem Solving - Industry analysts, consultants, and founders take a bold stance on critical revenue challenges, offering insights you won't hear anywhere else. These episodes explore common industry challenges and potential solutions through expert insights and varied perspectives.  Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers: Topic #1: Marketing & HR—The Undervalued Revenue Drivers [04:44]  Sherry Grote boldly argues that marketing and HR are essential drivers of revenue and brand but are consistently marginalized in executive decision-making. She challenges the conventional belief that marketing is a “faucet you can just turn on” and spotlights how HR's influence on culture is chronically overlooked—particularly damaging “in an artificial everything world.” Brandi Starr echoes the misalignment, noting most companies pigeonhole this partnership as “marketing giving HR tchotchkes,” prompting a debate on the true strategic potential of these functions when united.  Topic #2: Boardroom Influence—Turning Up the Volume on Brand Voices [07:14]  Sherry argues that the boardroom routinely sidelines marketing and HR, relegating them to after-thought status in favor of sales, finance, and product updates. “HR, we really don't have time for you to talk, so just put your slide in there and we'll just make sure that the board has that.” She proposes a radical change: marketing and HR should proactively demonstrate their impact on revenue, culture, and pipeline to win advocates among CFOs, CROs, and CPOs—shifting from self-promotion to integrated business influence.  Topic #3: Rethinking Compensation and Collaboration for Revenue Alignment [17:50]  Sherry challenges revenue leaders to recognize compensation misalignment as a core driver of inefficiency and discord between marketing, sales, and HR. She critiques the “rip and replace” approach to CMOs, tying it to systemic incentive problems: “It's often the head of marketing that really sees this breakdown and challenge and having that real relationship with HR could be an opportunity to help to influence that.” Brandi pushes for actionable solutions, leading to a discussion about moving BDRs into marketing and partnering with HR to overhaul incentive structures for true revenue team alignment.  The Wrong Approach vs. Smarter Alternative  The Wrong Approach: “A leader before they've had a time to actually make an impact in the business.” – Sherry Grote  Why It Fails: Swapping out marketing or HR leaders too quickly disrupts momentum and undermines strategic initiatives before they can take hold. This short-sighted turnover prevents teams from making the incremental changes necessary for lasting impact and damages organizational culture and continuity.  The Smarter Alternative: Instead of jumping to leadership changes, companies should focus on building strong alignment and rapport between sales, marketing, and HR, giving leaders the space and support needed to drive meaningful, long-term business results.  The Most Damaging Myth  The Myth: “Marketing is a faucet that you can just turn on and you will get instant results.” – Sherry Grote  Why It's Wrong: This belief leads organizations to expect immediate impact from marketing efforts, creating unrealistic timelines and frustration when quick results don't materialize. As Sherry explains, marketing is actually more like a well that requires consistent pumping—building effective campaigns takes time, ongoing effort, and a systems approach. When companies operate under the “faucet” myth, they make disruptive changes or swap out talent prematurely, undermining long-term progress and ROI.  What Companies Should Do Instead: Treat marketing as an engine that needs sustained investment and incremental improvement. Allow marketing leaders time to build momentum, focus on developing processes, and foster strong cross-departmental relationships—especially with HR—to build a people-first culture that supports brand and revenue growth.  The Rapid-Fire Round  Finish this sentence: If your company has this problem, the first thing you should do is _ “Ensure that you have built rapport with sales, marketing and HR to be in total alignment.” – Sherry Grote  What's one red flag that signals a company has this problem—but might not realize it yet? “If your employees don't have psychological safety, then you do not have a culture that is going to have a positive brand influence.”  What's the most common mistake people make when trying to fix this? “Changing out a leader before they've had time to actually make an impact in the business.”  What's the fastest action someone can take today to make progress? “Know what your 5% is—be clear on what makes you different from everyone else doing your type of job, whether you're in HR, marketing, finance, or sales.”  Buzzword Banishment: Sherry's buzzword to banish is "amplify." She dislikes this term because in today's environment—where it's applied to everything—the word has been overused and lost its impact and meaning. Sherry notes that while "amplify" once described increasing awareness or engagement in a meaningful way, its ubiquity now renders it ineffective and even frustrating to encounter.  Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sherrygrote/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theharmonyhero  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/people/The-Harmony-Hero/61568386591394  Website: https://www.theharmonyhero.com  Subscribe, listen, and rate/review Revenue Rehab Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts , Amazon Music, or iHeart Radio and find more episodes on our website RevenueRehab.live  

Problematic stakeholders could be convinced if they... just got data. Right? Nope. Sometimes it's deeper than that. You gotta understand what makes them tick. Is it data? Is it optics? Maybe you should be running heuristic audits on your stakeholders instead of your website...In the second time EVER, someone else has changed my mind on something. Leave it to "Kingpin" Finn McKenty, who's apparently gone from Punk Rock MBA to Finn McKenty PhD, to change my mind.We got into:- How YouTubers are more data driven than your own CEO (lol)- Why you should be running heuristic audits not JUST on your website, but on the stakeholders you interact with (and tips to do so effectively)- Finn gives some general life advice on learning to let go (important when many product and CROs don't have autonomy to actually impact anything)Timestamps:00:00 Episode Start2:46  The analogy of CRO and "Gym" goes so deep6:25 Even YouTubers are data driven11:20 People who don't buy into “experimentation” just optimize for different metrics than you14:28 Psychology of UXers vs. Product/CRO (Finn low key is a psychologist now)20:01 Running heuristic audits on… stakeholders? (yes - it's a good idea)25:07 Optimization sometimes means optimizing for ‘helping people' (not metrics)30:16 Sometimes, CROs gotta play the politics game35:13 Finn offers sage advice in learning how to let go (CROs need to hear this)49:06 Preach: Samuele MazzantiGo follow Finn McKenty on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/finnmckenty/ And go subscribe to his newsletter:https://finnmckenty.beehiiv.com/ Go check out Samuele Mazzanti's post too: https://tinyurl.com/FromAtoB-SamueleAlso go follow Shiva Manjunath on LinkedIn: ⁠https://www.linkedin.com/in/shiva-manjunath/⁠Subscribe to our newsletter for more memes, clips, and awesome content! https://fromatob.beehiiv.com/And go get your free ticket for the Women in Experimentation - you might even be entered to win some From A to B merch! : https://tinyurl.com/FromAtoB-WIE

When sales targets are missed, most leaders look at the pipeline, process, or personnel. But what if the real issue is a lack of psychological safety? In this episode of Coach to Scale, host Matt Benelli sits down with John Walston, author, entrepreneur, and founder of the Keep On Movement, to explore how vulnerability, empathy, and consistency in leadership can transform sales outcomes. Walston shares how personal adversity reshaped his leadership style, making him a more effective coach and culture builder.This episode is a must-listen for CROs, VPs of Sales, and frontline managers navigating burnout, underperformance, or high turnover. You'll walk away with tactical ways to shift from transactional management to human-centered leadership, without sacrificing accountability. Topics include managing anxiety in high-pressure environments, turning 1:1s into developmental moments, and why “get over it” is the fastest way to lose trust and performance. If you lead teams, this conversation will challenge how you measure success and show how culture is a quota strategy.Takeaways 1. “Just stop it” doesn't work, especially in sales leadership.Telling someone to push through stress or anxiety without support not only fails, but it also damages trust and culture.2. You can't lead people effectively if you don't understand what they're carrying.Empathy isn't a soft skill; it's a leadership multiplier that directly impacts motivation and consistency.3. Physical movement drives mental clarity and performance.Exercise helped Walston recover from a personal crisis, and research shows it's as effective as medication for many mental health issues.4. Positivity isn't the same as being happy.Leaders can model resilience by moving forward with optimism, even while acknowledging discomfort or hardship.5. Your team won't grow if your 1:1s are just pipeline inspections.Coaching conversations should go beyond deal reviews to include skill development and personal connection.6. Culture is built in the moments between numbers.Asking your reps about their weekend and remembering what they said builds trust that translates into accountability.7. Positive self-talk is a skill leaders must model and teach.Verbalizing functional thoughts (especially out loud) has a 10x psychological effect compared to internal dialogue.8. Gratitude changes how you lead and how people follow.Being grateful for struggle, not just outcomes, shifts the mindset and allows leaders to better support their teams.9. Even one moment of connection can shift someone's trajectory.Whether it's a smile, a T-shirt slogan, or a question at the right time, leaders have the power to influence more than they realize.10. “Easy is not best,” and your reps need to hear that.High standards, not hand-holding, are what help people rise. But they must be delivered with belief and support.

Chris Degnan is one of the most legendary CROs of this generation. He joined Snowflake as employee #13 and the 1st sales hire. He scaled the sales org from 0 to over $3B in ARR, spanned four CEOs, and retired as CRO after 11 years. In his first podcast post-retirement, Chris opened his CRO playbook, from early enablement to hiring rigor and fending off threats from competitors. He also reflects on lessons from working with leaders like Frank Slootman, John McMahon, and Sridhar Ramaswamy. If you're a founder or running sales at a startup, this one is for you. (00:00) Introduction to Chris's Journey at Snowflake (01:47) Navigating Leadership Changes (04:39) The Importance of Sales Methodology and Enablement (10:22) Near-Death Experiences and Company Resilience (13:39) Building a Strong Sales Organization (27:25) Hiring and Scaling the Sales Team (34:52) Board Dynamics and Mentorship (44:29) The Influence of John McMahon (46:22) Leadership Styles and Intuition (46:56) Launching Snowflake Japan (49:39) Learning from Leaders (55:10) The Importance of Competitive Moats (59:12) Snowflake vs. Databricks (01:07:45) Public vs. Private Markets (01:14:03) Sales and Marketing Synergy (01:26:17) Final Thoughts and Future Plans Executive Producer: Rashad Assir Producer: Leah Clapper Mixing and editing: Justin Hrabovsky Check out Unsupervised Learning, Redpoint's AI Podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@UCUl-s_Vp-Kkk_XVyDylNwLA

Maria Artunduaga is the founder & CEO of Samay, the winner of the 2024 MedTech Innovator accelerator, as well as a groundbreaking physician, scientist, and inventor. Maria discusses her inspiring journey from a small town in Columbia to leading a top MedTech company in the US. After pivoting away from plastic surgery training, she channeled her efforts into creating Sylvee, an AI wearable sensor for COPD patients. Maria shares her relentless determination, innovative problem-solving strategies, and the creation of a company culture that emphasizes learning and diversity.    Guest links: https://www.samayhealth.com/home | https://www.linkedin.com/in/drartunduaga/  Charity supported: ASPCA Interested in being a guest on the show or have feedback to share? Email us at theleadingdifference@velentium.com.  PRODUCTION CREDITS Host: Lindsey Dinneen Editing: Marketing Wise Producer: Velentium   EPISODE TRANSCRIPT Episode 057 - Maria Artunduaga [00:00:00] Lindsey Dinneen: Hi, I'm Lindsey and I'm talking with MedTech industry leaders on how they change lives for a better world. [00:00:09] Diane Bouis: The inventions and technologies are fascinating and so are the people who work with them. [00:00:15] Frank Jaskulke: There was a period of time where I realized, fundamentally, my job was to go hang out with really smart people that are saving lives and then do work that would help them save more lives. [00:00:28] Diane Bouis: I got into the business to save lives and it is incredibly motivating to work with people who are in that same business, saving or improving lives. [00:00:38] Duane Mancini: What better industry than where I get to wake up every day and just save people's lives. [00:00:42] Lindsey Dinneen: These are extraordinary people doing extraordinary work, and this is The Leading Difference. Hello, and welcome back to another episode of The Leading Difference podcast. I'm your host Lindsey, and I am delighted to welcome as my guest today, Maria Artunduaga. Maria is a physician, scientist, and inventor with 60 plus prizes, including becoming the first woman to lead a US LATAM company to win MedTech Innovator, the world's most competitive accelerator for medical technology surpassing over 1300 global companies. A top 1% student in Columbia, her country of birth, she relocated to the US to pursue plastic surgery training, but abandoned it to dedicate herself to solve the problem that killed her grandmother-- a lack of home technologies that can detect COPD exasperations early. Maria has raised 5.2 million, almost 60% in non-dilutive capital from NSF and NIH to build Sylvee, an AI wearable sensor that can provide COPD patients with continuous data on pulmonary functions similar to what continuous glucose monitoring sensors do for diabetic patients. Her invention has been featured by a hundred plus media outlets, including Forbes, TechCrunch, Bloomberg, Fierce Healthcare, and more. Before Samay, Maria completed postdoctoral studies in human genetics at Harvard Medical School, started a plastic surgery residency at the University of Chicago, and completed two master's degrees, one in global public health at the University of Washington, and another in translational medicine at the University of California at Berkeley and San Francisco. She lives in Mountain View, California with her husband, 2-year-old daughter, and four pets. In her free time, she enjoys flamenco dancing, bolero singing, traveling the world, and fostering diversity in and outside the workplace by mentoring underrepresented scientists and entrepreneurs. All right. Well, thank you so much for being here, Maria. I'm so excited to finally get a chance to speak with you. I'd love if you would share a little bit about your background and your career trajectory. What led you to MedTech? [00:02:40] Maria Artunduaga: Sure. So it's gonna be a little long and I'm gonna tell you everything about my life because the personal history is very important to me and for my company too. So, as you have noticed, I have an accent. So, I grew up in Columbia in a very small town in the southern part of the country. My parents were both doctors and I'm the oldest of four kids and two of us followed their lead. So my life in my city was pretty chill. Everyone knew everyone. I spent most of my days at a Catholic school studying very hard on weekends where I usually spent tagging along my parents to doctor events. One of the things that I really like to tell, it's how my parents work as entrepreneurs really shaped my life. They were real pioneers. They built in my hometown the first big clinic back in the eighties and the nineties. And my mom was the only woman in that group, and she actually was the CEO for a while, which was a big deal. She was the only woman in a partnership of 10 people. And watching them build that clinic, that hospital really taught me a lot about dealing with uncertainty and finding solutions. Every day we'll have supper or lunch and I'll just hear all of these challenges and stories, their struggles and how they solve things. Something that was, that is definitely super helpful in what I do now, right? So, and then I was 16 and after high school I moved to Bogota, the capital, which is up in the mountains, it's very cold. I got a scholarship 'cause I was always a very good student. You know, career I spent my last year, I spent nine months in the US. Honestly, coming to the US blew my mind. The technology that I got to see, the speed, effects on science, it was nothing like I've ever seen before, and that was true inspiration for me. So I knew that I had to come to the US. I needed to come back to learn from the best, of course. And it's interesting because my parents didn't want me to relocate to the US. I was the oldest. I was supposed to follow into their footsteps and obviously, like inherited that clinic, right? That hospital, we call it clinic, it's actually a hospital. And I was a very contrarian. I didn't listen to them. I told them, you know, I really wanna be where the best people are. And what I did was that I, it took me three years to save the money to come to the US, to get Harvard to actually sponsor me my visa because they wouldn't pay me for the first year. So I remember I had to save $30,000, which in pesos is significant. So back in 2007, so many years ago, I made it to Boston, and the original idea was that I wanted to become a pediatric plastic surgeon and bring that level of care back to Columbia. I spent four years of researching a genetic ear condition that's called microtia. And with that work, I was able to land a plastic surgery residency spot or position at the University of Chicago. And I shared this with a lot of people. I actually had a really negative experience. Things didn't go as planned. I actually faced discrimination. I eventually, you know, had to leave and I made the top choice to never ever go back into clinical practice. And I changed paths. I was 32 years old and yeah I decided to switch gears. I retrained into public health and tech. And then in 2016, I moved to the Bay Area where I am right now. And I got another scholarship to finish master's in translational medicine at UC Berkeley and UCSF. And during the courses that I took, some of them with business class etc., etc., I decided to found Samay in 2018. I really wanted to build something that would really make a difference in respiratory medicine. And this is where my grandmother comes. So my, the grandmother, my abuela, her name was Sylvia and she had Chronic Obstruct Pulmonary Disease or COPD and she's the reason behind my company. So, she often couldn't tell when her symptoms were getting worse. That's a huge problem. Catching the respiratory attacks, exacerbations is definitely key to keeping people outside of the hospitals, and obviously feeling their best to have a better quality of life. So, that's what we are trying to solve with a company, right? If we are able to catch those exacerbations even with a day or two notice in advance, right, that we can all make a difference. And so by missing these exacerbations, we are having really high expenses in hospitalizations and ER visits and the problem we trying to solve is that today technologies that are adequate enough to be used outside of the hospital because the ones that are considered to be the gold standard, they are very expensive. They are confined to their hospitals and they are very difficult to complete for the patient, especially when they're exacerbating. They need to blow out forcefully for about 10 seconds, 21 times. So what we are doing is, we are developing a sensor that makes it super simple for people to use it at home to track their lung function without doing those forceful maneuvers and ideally in the future to warm them, right? Like to let them know when things are starting to go south or obviously, you know, not going very well, and that's what it's all about. I mean, that's what we do with Sylvee right here. And it's wearable sensor and we have done significantly well over the past couple of years. We actually just won MedTech Innovator. [00:08:04] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Significantly well over the last few years. Yes. So congratulations on that, and I want to dive into all of those exciting milestones in just a second. But I am, first of all, so inspired by your story. Thank you for just sharing that your resilience and your grit and your determination are really admirable. So thank you for sticking with something that was not easy, not an easy path. [00:08:29] Maria Artunduaga: I know. I know. [00:08:31] Lindsey Dinneen: It continues not to be, ironically, as we've kind of touched on before, but just going backward a little bit in your story. So I, it sounds to me like getting the opportunity to watch your parents have this incredible impact on their community and the healthcare and the opportunity is just so valuable for you. And even just learning about how your mom was the CEO and those kinds of things, did that help shape the idea for you that not only is entrepreneurship possible, is innovation and healthcare possible, but you can also be this in incredible leader as a woman in whatever capacity? I would just love to dive into that. [00:09:13] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, it's super interesting, right? My mom really taught me a lot about leadership. She's a surgeon, so you can imagine how good of a leader she is in the operating room at home, everywhere, right? I mean, she's definitely the general, that's how I call her. And I honestly, I try to replicate, so my leadership and styles pretty much shaped by her. So I always call her my best role model whenever somebody asks me about the question, right? So I'm just like her. I lead from the front. I like setting the pace by working the hardest. So I really like to lead by example and I also, just like she did, and obviously because of her surgical training, I hold myself to a really high standard, and I expect everyone on my team to do the same. So people in my company know that I'm very strict, I'm very disciplined, and they know that from the beginning. It's so funny because when I interview all of them, at the final interviews with me, and I actually do the anti sale to join Samay. It's like, this is, these are all the reasons why you shouldn't join. I start describing myself as a very intense, obsessed CEO with insomnia, which I still have, because I really wanna make this work, right? So, yeah, I, ask them, and most of them say yes. I really like, I attract people that like challenges, especially intellectual challenges. So, yeah, to this point, most of them say yes. Some of them have obviously, you know, because probably too much. But at the same time, I tell them, "Look, this is going to be very hard in terms of the deliverables, the things that we're expecting from you." But at the same time, my goal is to not only help people with respiratory problems, I try to sell the company as a company where everyone that gets hired can be themselves and thrive. So, so for example, I tell them," Look, I'm trying to be the boss that I never had." And this goes obviously very tied to the very negative experience that I had during my surgical residency and even before, right? So, I never had a boss that really supported me, who recognize my true self and those characteristics as good things, right? So they always try to tone me down. I'm very energetic, as you can notice, and I'm also super ambitious. I'm really ambitious. I wanna do all of these great things. And they always thought that I was aiming for too much, especially for a woman. It's like, " You need to lean in, Maria. You need to behave." So I remember my residency, they were criticizing like, "Why are you behaving like this, Maria? Why are you asking so many questions? You're asking too many questions. You look more as an internal medicine doctor. Why are you always smiling, Maria? Why are you so happy?" So now, with everyone that I hire, what I try to do is that I focus on understanding their dreams and I try to figure out how this job is gonna help them get there. So if they wanna become a top engineer, maybe they wanna learn managerial skills, or they wanna run operations, or they eventually wanna become a founder themselves. So I try to create a partnership with them where they obviously help me succeed with the company, build Samay, but at the same time they get to do this personal growth. So it's extremely important that they get to place where they wanna be. [00:12:32] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, that's wonderful. And such a gift to your employees. And I also honestly, that sort of anti interview or whatever technique is brilliant because you do want it to be a fit for everyone, and it's so much better to have aligned expectations from the start. So, oh my goodness, that's so interesting. So, okay, so then. Speaking into that, how do you develop a company culture for yourself? You've learned from some pretty negative experiences, so obviously that's what not to do, but you know, as you're crafting your own company culture now, what kinds of things are sort of your core values, other than of course, your hard work and your excellence and holding yourself and others to high standards, but what kinds of things do have you developed that make it special to be where you are? [00:13:19] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, I mean, that's a really good question. I'm very true to myself, and one of the things that I wanna do with Samay, it's I wanna create legacy. If you go to my WhatsApp, that's exactly the little logo or the slogan that's below my name: I'm creating or building my life's legacy. That's how I pitch myself. So I really wanna be remembered as someone that made healthcare more accessible, especially for the people that get left behind. So growing up in Columbia, I saw firsthand how unfair things will be and I wanted to change that. So that's how the values of Samay go, people first. I think legacy, it's extremely important, right? It's about getting those life changing tools and opportunities into the hands of people who really need them. And again, it's not necessarily, the group that we're building. It's the own experience of building a company with me, learning from the company, from the people that are working with. I really wanna make it accessible for people. And I wanna also be obviously a source of inspiration. You don't necessarily need to be this perfect person to be a CEO. You know, life is a struggle and that's totally fine. Just be very passionate about building legacy, right, your work and how you're impacting other people. And especially for me, I do a lot of work with women and minorities. I really wanna empower them to chase their dreams in science and technology. I really care about people. I don't know, I'm selfless about me. It's all about the others and creating legacy and being remembered. So, yeah, that's how I, that's how I roll. [00:14:59] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. I love that. So speaking of you embracing the CEO role, when you first started your company, did you feel ready to step into this kind of position? Or was it something where you just were like, "You know what? I see the need. I know I can make a difference in this field. I'm gonna do it and I'll learn along the way." [00:15:19] Maria Artunduaga: No, not at all. And let, so there's a very good anecdote that I'm sharing. Again, back to all of these life changing experiences. I got into medtech because of, I don't know, somehow the planets got aligned, right? So I was doing a master's in public health because I thought that was going to be my real call, working for Gates in Seattle, because that's where I actually lived for about two years. Then I came to realize that it was very bureaucratic. It's very, was very slow. I have a type A personality. I really like to fix things very quick. I like to implement stuff. So I decided to do a second master's degree, and as I mentioned, here in Berkeley, I decided to join one of Atma METs minority programs for students, right? It's called SMDP. And I remember that was back in 2016, and they sent me to Minneapolis for the big conference. And that's where I got my first real taste of MedTech. And I remember watching the MedTech Innovator finals with Paul Grand. He was introducing the program, the finalist. I remember clearly seeing all of his pitches and how Green Sun Medical CEO won, and it was a game changer to me because when I saw them pitch, it was very exciting. You know, all these technologies, the many millions of people they could definitely impact, I saw that, and it clicked. I could turn the scientific ideas into something that helps millions in a way, the way how I would practice medicine, but in a more impactful way. So interesting story though. So the other thing that was very inspiring or at least that motivated me, I was the only person in the room who looked like me and spoke with an accent from South America, from Latin America. So it was like two reasons behind it. For me, it was I wanna be a medtech entrepreneur, but at the same time I wanna be able to break the glass ceiling, right? The first Latina physician CEO building a company that has hardware, software, and AI, this is what we actually do. And yeah, so it, it's mainly that. I really like challenges and I'm very motivated to show people that I can do things that might seem impossible or too difficult. So I really like showing people that anything is possible with a lot of hard work and determination. So yeah, that's mainly it. [00:17:47] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Embracing those challenges, running full steam at them and having that, I don't know, that gumption is fantastic too. And the desire, like... [00:17:57] Maria Artunduaga: Thank you. [00:17:57] Lindsey Dinneen: ...you said, to break through those ceilings and to represent and say, "No, it is possible." It is, and I love that. So, excellent. Okay, so can you share a little bit about the journey that the company has gone under recently and some of the really exciting milestones? I know there have been bumps and whatnot, but maybe some of the exciting things that have been developing and what you're looking forward to as you continue down the road. [00:18:24] Maria Artunduaga: Sure. I mean, whew. There are so many things that have been happening for the last couple of months. So it's been a long journey. It's been six years so far. Initially, you know, I wanted to build a company with an idea that was inspired, obviously, by the fact that I lost my grandmother to exacerbation and also because, at the time, I didn't know what I wanted to build. When I was doing an interview with a pulmonologist, what I realized was that I could actually build a technology that could be inspired by consumer devices, so hearing aids for example. And funny story is that my husband who is also Columbian, and went to MIT, he's been working at Google for over a decade and he's an auto engineer. He does a lot of things. He's very smart and he's one of the main architects. What I decided to do back then was, let's repurpose hearing aid technology by sending signals through the chest, and let's use the physical principle of acoustic resonance to understand what's going on inside of the lungs. And that's exactly what we are doing. We have 10 granted patents so far. We have 20 more pending on pulmonary so far. So we've done a lot of things. So we've tested that device on 450 people almost. All of our numbers of accuracy are over 90. Sensitivities and specificities are also between 82 to 98. Right now we are starting to see changes a few days before an exacerbation is actually diagnosed by a physician, which is extremely exciting. We have data from two people. Obviously it's a small sample size. We are following eight of them, and we're aiming to finish at 60 to hundred people in the next year or so. So that's our main goal. We've raised 5.2 million, 60% of that money is coming from grants, federal grants, and we just submitted a breakthrough designation to the FDA about a week ago, so fingers crossed, though, we get it right? There are a lot of things in the pipeline, things that are very exciting. Right now I'm super excited 'cause those six years were very hard. I was running a science project with my nails, getting money from grants, help from people who have known me forever. It was very hard for me to recruit a full-time CTO. So my husband has been helping me with some hours here and there. And we have right now 12 people in Columbia. So for developers, designers, clinical researchers, we are running most of our operations in Latin America because it's extremely, well, obviously cost efficient, and more importantly, we have access to people that are patients especially that are, that exacerbate more often. So we are to leverage all the different angles that we can get. [00:21:04] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Wow. So lots of exciting things in the works and in the future, and oh my goodness, I'm so excited, can't wait to continue to celebrate all those wonderful accomplishments. So I'm curious, as you've taken this journey and even before with your other health experiences and finding this path, are there any moments all along the journey that really stand out to you as affirming, "Yes, I am in the right place at the right time, in the right industry." [00:21:31] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, beyond the MedTech Innovator, the experience eight years ago, I mean, every day I find that this is the perfect fit for me. I always tell people, "Look, entrepreneurship is not for everyone. It really needs to be a fit of personality." So when I talked to my parents, because at the beginning they weren't very agreeable with the idea of me becoming an entrepreneur 'cause physicians don't do this, right? I was sort of like a black sheep of a family, 'cause my sister, she's successful and she's a pediatric radiologist as she's working for an academic center in, in Dallas. So, my personality, I'm Type A. I'm very anxious. I really like doing things super fast. I really like to get things done, right? So, I dunno if I picked the wrong career, probably could have done a better job as an engineer, as a scientist myself. So at heart, I'm a true scientist. That's what I really enjoy. I like practicing medicine, sort of miss it a little bit, but I'm more in the quest of solving questions and discovering, right? That's what really excites me. And then, every day is a new day when you're building a company. And the challenges that I have every day, all of the problems I have to solve, I really enjoy the process of solving them. And this is a little crazy. Who gets excited with problems, right? So, I don't know, that's probably me. So I guess every day, the moment I go home or that I go to sleep, I say, "This is perfect. I don't think I'll be as happy as I am right now if I had stayed medicine. I don't think so." [00:23:10] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow. And that says a lot. And that just affirms to you on a daily basis, "Yeah. I am doing what I'm supposed to be doing. That's wonderful. [00:23:17] Maria Artunduaga: Exactly. Right. It's like, yeah, I'm good at this thing. You know? I like solving problems. I got, I really enjoy the fires. I really like them. I's like, I don't know. I'm, yeah. I'm addicted to them. [00:23:30] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Well, and that is unusual, and I'm curious, do you? But it's a great thing. No, it's a wonderful thing. Yeah, no, absolutely. I love that. So, so when you're at finding yourself up against a problem, do you start with any particular kind of established framework? Do you like to just brainstorm solutions? How do you approach problem solving? [00:23:53] Maria Artunduaga: Gosh, this is a really good question. It's like, you know, if I had to teach something, right? So I'm very good at solving problems, at connecting different disciplines, right, to solve those issues. So for example, the way how I go about them, first of all, I don't get frustrated or too anxious about it. I always try to think first, right? And then, yeah, I start brainstorming. I'm very quick at thinking, my mind goes super quick. I have a whiteboard right behind me. I do a lot brainstorming on my own. I ask a lot of questions too. So I rely on a lot of people, and I get a lot of feedback on the way, how I think a problem needs to be solved. And obviously with time and experience, the older that you get, the better you become, right? So yeah, honestly, every problem is different. I just like seeing it from different angles, right? I'm very good with social stuff. I'm very good with arts too. I really like doing science, learning a about engineering. I really like different ways of solving problems. For example, I remember that I we had this NIH grant and we were working collaboration with a big, famous academic center right here. And things weren't working very well. That was through during a pandemic and I was getting charged things that we actually didn't approve. So things were getting a little awkward. I decided to finalize that agreement. But then I got through this situation that I had no access to patients here in the States, and at the time, I didn't have my clinical site in Columbia opened up. So what I did was the craziest thing, which is what I did, was that I bought an $80,000 machine and I came into an agreement with a friend from medical school who has a pulmonary practice in South Florida, one of the largest pulmonary practices. He's a partner with nine other guys, and they see probably a hundred patients every day. Can you imagine that? So respiratory patients, and I told him, "Look, I don't have any money to pay your rent, but I'm gonna give you equity for that rent, and you're gonna use this machine from Monday through Thursday, and I'm going to test your patients from Friday to Saturday. And I'm going to bring people, I'm going to become my own CRO, right? So I'm gonna bring people, doctors, from Columbia on a J1 visa as a research scholar visa. I'm gonna train them and I'm gonna get them to do the recruitment, review everything, test the patients. We are going to become our own CROs, and we are going to do as many people as we can every single week." So we were able to do 430 people in a span of a probably a year and a half. Something that usually would cost us thousands of dollars. I dunno how much money I spend, probably just 300,000 to do everything. Can you imagine? I mean, that's significantly cheap compared to any other quote that I've been getting from an academic center. So, I sometimes go for the crazy idea, right? Like, what's the craziest thing that I could think of? I literally, I write it down, right? And then I just try to double check with my lawyer. "Am I doing something illegal here?" And I, yeah, I cross reference with other founders. " I'm thinking of doing this, how that's that sound?" And they're like, "This is pretty non-traditional, Maria, but I mean, if you can get it done..." I'm like, "Yeah, of course I can get it done." And I just get it done. I just don't take a no for an answer. I'm very good at also finding, convincing people to jump on board with the vision, the mission. This excitement, this energy, people really get very engaged with Samay and with me as a founder, and they love it. Most of these people either have invested in the company, they are helping me many more hours, pro bono, literally free, and we are building together. [00:27:43] Lindsey Dinneen: Wow, that is so cool. And what a fantastic story. Thank you for sharing that one as well. Oh my word. [00:27:50] Maria Artunduaga: I have way too many stories to share. This is the one I really like to, to tell people. [00:27:55] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that, and I love the willingness to come up with those crazy ideas. And it might be just so crazy that it works. So, hey, you never know until you try, and that's fantastic. Oh my gosh, I love that approach. Alright, so pivoting the conversation a little bit just for fun. Imagine you are to be offered a million dollars to teach a masterclass... I know! ...to teach a masterclass on anything you want. What would you choose to teach? [00:28:22] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah. So, good question. So, gosh, I, I tackle problem. So my, my brain again is very good at figuring stuff out. That plus the fact that I'm very stubborn. So if I'm into something, I don't give up easily. And now I'm gonna tell the story about our winning MedTech Innovator. We beat 65 companies globally, right? And I still like, sort of, I cannot process that we won. So the story goes like this, but a year ago, I tried to raise five millions, my very first institutional round, and I totally flopped. [00:28:55] Lindsey Dinneen: Oh. [00:28:56] Maria Artunduaga: I only got $200,000 because multiple funds that I was talking to, they wanted me to feel half of the round before weighing any money or signing anything. So you can imagine. So do I got, you know, chicken or the egg problem? I failed. And instead of crying or mopping, I thought, "Okay, wait. I got into Medtech Innovator. You know what? I'm just gonna win that competition, still $350,000." And why not? So obviously people, my advisors, my best friend, "Like, you're crazy. It's the most competitive thing ever. You're not established in the field. People know who you are, but it's not like you have exited a company or anything, right? You're not even an engineer, Maria." So what I did was, again I went back to my whiteboard. Again, I probably should have become an engineer before, I dunno. I'm really good at solving problems. So I was like, "You know, this is a problem. These are the different ways how I can tackle this." And more importantly, I'm very good at the studying stuff. I really like, again, knowing, wisdom, information. I just love that. I really love that. So what I did was, I treat it like a big project, and I talked to the past winners, anyone who had done or won any sort of like prize with MedTech Innovator, and I figure out their secret sauce. So I either talk to them, I studied every single video, every single pitch. I spend many hours studying everyone who had one or had done significantly well throughout the accelerator. So what I discovered was the accelerator was kind of a school, like a school. So the harder you work, the better you do. And one of the things that I realized was that mentors and reviewers were key players. So I focused on building those connections. I met with many of them. I probably spent about, I don't know, probably four to five hours meeting with mentors, anyone who I thought could help me somehow, obviously, for free, because a lot of the help that they give used for free. And I also spent a lot of time doing homework, the webinars, et cetera, et cetera. I ask a lot of people for advice. I really got people excited about Samay. I recruited my mentors and they got on board from day one. Because of that, I started building those relationships and it was authentic. I mean, don't get me wrong, this wasn't like, you know, I'm trying to play anybody. I really care about what they had to say, and I incorporate all that feedback into my company to this day. So the other thing is, I make sure to go to everywhere, every webinar, every event, everything. My camera was always on, because most people, when they do their webinars, they don't even turn on their cameras, right? So I was very engaged. I was asking questions, I was getting involved with everything. Same thing with the Slack channel that we have for MedTech Innovator. I was helping people, I was sharing stuff. I was even offering to make introductions. I really made sure that people knew who I was. And I obviously also asked the MedTech Innovator people, the staff, for help, feedback, right? Am I doing this right? What do you think I should do? Anything that you can share with me that you think. I was very clear with them. I wanna go to the, I wanna get to the finals. I told them, and I remember they telling me, "Oh, Maria, about getting to the finals, it's so hard. It depends on the strategics and the sponsors." And I was like, " I'm gonna get there. What do you think I should do?" So I literally ask a lot of people how I needed to get there. And with the finals, the way how they pick the finalist, it's actually the mentors who go in front of the strategics, and they sort of champion your company. And they really went to bat for us. They told them how committed I was, the many people that from my team were actually going for participating to the winner because I brought people from my team... [00:32:45] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. [00:32:46] Maria Artunduaga: You know, very few founders did that. I brought people from Colombia, obviously online, people who barely could understand English. But, I made them prepare questions. "You need to do this and that we need to be super engaged. We need to help other people." And they saw it was hard work. And at the end, we got into the finals and what I realized was, okay, so after the finals, I understood that the game was, obviously it changed. The way how the winner is chosen is that the audience votes, right, during The MedTech Conference. So what I did was, I went all in on social media. We made an awesome video for the best video competition. I remember that that was the first thing that I did back in June. I scheduled two weeks. I flew to Columbia. I hired right people. I made sure that I was perfect, so I was part of the creative team. I designed everything. Again, I really like arts, right? That's why, one of the reasons why I didn't, I was in pleasantry and that's why I really like dancing too, right? So I'm obsessive with everything that we do. I really am into the details and I supervise everything. And we also got into the finals for the best video competition. So I was going to this problem from every single angle. I didn't let anything up to chance. I, yeah, I'm a freak. I'm a control freak. That's what I did. I remember that even for the pitch, the four and a half minute pitch, I practiced, I don't know how many hours, but every single thing that I say that was obviously memorized, needed to be perfect. The way how I, let's go back to dancing since you're a dancer yourself, the way how I moved my hands, right? The way, how I walked on that stage, everything was rehearsed. So, yeah, I mean, I just I worked my ass off. I mean, everything was the way it needed to be and that's how we won. [00:34:39] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Wow. That's great. What a fantastic story. Yeah. Amazing. Yes. I love how it's so choreographed. Yeah, that's [00:34:48] Maria Artunduaga: great. It was choreographed, [00:34:50] Lindsey Dinneen: I love that. Excellent. Well, I know you have touched on the importance of legacy and how much that means to you, but how do you wish to be remembered after you leave this world? [00:35:03] Maria Artunduaga: Oh gosh. Yeah. I mean, so I have a little daughter, I want to some somehow replicate the same experience that I had with my mom. Maybe she doesn't even realize how much of the inspiration and the impact that she had on me. And again, leading by example, I don't spend a lot of hours with my daughter, right? I have a nanny for 12 hours. So my salary goes to her payment, right? Yeah, I wanna be remembered as somebody who tried very hard, who literally, instead of saying things, I walked the talk. The things that I said I was going to say. For example, I'm very opinionated with anything diversity and inclusion because, as I've said, I've experienced discrimination myself. So I walk the talk, I build a product, I build the change. I worked really hard. I impacted a lot of people. And more importantly, the world has changed somehow because I existed. So that's that. It's as simple as that. I wanna help other people get to fulfillment of their lives and their dreams. And yeah, and I obviously wanna be happy while I do all of these things. And more importantly, I wanna feel that I learned a lot. I really like learning. The process of learning every single day, learning a new thing makes me super happy. So if I don't learn something new, I consider day as, you know, as like a flop or something. So yeah, it's very simple. I'm actually a very simple person, I'm not that complicated. [00:36:30] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah. Okay. And then final question. What is one thing that makes you smile every time you see or think about it? [00:36:39] Maria Artunduaga: Oh, cute. I mean, obviously my daughter. So I'm a mom. I'm 44, well, almost 45, and I had her at 42. So just thinking about her makes me smile every single time. She's a miracle baby. She's, you know, after four years of IVF, eight retrievals, it finally happened. I finally had her, and having her in my life has turned my world upside down in the best way. She's determined, and she's only three. She's diving into doing all sorts of things. She's doing gymnastics, she's building Legos, she's doing engineering stuff. I really like that "I can do anything attitude" and obviously I'm sort of like reinforcing her to do anything she wants to try. So seeing her try all these new things, all this confidence that I, that she has. It's like, I don't know. I mean, that inspires me. That motivates me to be a better mom, a better CEO, and to do exactly the same thing with the people that I work with. So everyone in my company, I I tell them I'm a mom, right? So, remember that, and I try to do the same with them. It's like I tell them, what do you wanna do? What do you wanna learn this month? What do you need? Right? My work as a CEO is getting the resources and put out the fires. Just tell me, and this is your playground, so I'm trying to do exactly the same with my daughter too. But yeah, I'm very happy with her. [00:38:07] Lindsey Dinneen: Aw, that's wonderful. I'm so glad. Well, oh my goodness, this conversation has been amazing. I kind of wish it didn't have to end, but I also wanna respect your time 'cause obviously you have so much going on. But thank you so much for sharing about your story, your advice. You're so inspiring, and I know this is gonna inspire so many people to go for it, and not to have the fear, to have that problem solving mentality, and growth mindset and learning and, hey, look where curiosity got you. [00:38:37] Maria Artunduaga: Yeah, exactly. That's a perfect slogan. It's all about that curiosity and it gets you places. Look at me. [00:38:43] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And this is just the start. [00:38:47] Maria Artunduaga: Yes, of course. [00:38:48] Lindsey Dinneen: Indeed. So I just wanna say thank you again for your time today, and we just wish you the most continued success as you work to change lives for a better world. [00:38:58] Maria Artunduaga: Thank you so much and thank you again for invitation. I really enjoyed it. [00:39:02] Lindsey Dinneen: Yeah, absolutely. Me too. And we are honored to be making a donation on your behalf as a thank you for your time today to the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is dedicated to preventing animal cruelty in the United States. We really appreciate you choosing that organization to support and thank you just again, so very much for your time here today. Yeah, and holy cannoli, thank you so much to our listeners for tuning in, and if you're feeling as inspired as I am right now, I'd love it if you'd share this episode with a colleague or two, and we'll catch you next time. [00:39:44] Ben Trombold: The Leading Difference is brought to you by Velentium. Velentium is a full-service CDMO with 100% in-house capability to design, develop, and manufacture medical devices from class two wearables to class three active implantable medical devices. Velentium specializes in active implantables, leads, programmers, and accessories across a wide range of indications, such as neuromodulation, deep brain stimulation, cardiac management, and diabetes management. Velentium's core competencies include electrical, firmware, and mechanical design, mobile apps, embedded cybersecurity, human factors and usability, automated test systems, systems engineering, and contract manufacturing. Velentium works with clients worldwide, from startups seeking funding to established Fortune 100 companies. Visit velentium.com to explore your next step in medical device development.

Guest: Google's NotebookLMIn this special episode of SaaS Backwards, we handed the mic to AI.We took our newest ebook on reviving inbound marketing—coming soon for download—and ran it through Google's NotebookLM to see what kind of podcast it could generate. The result? A surprisingly sharp—if occasionally cheesy—take on how B2B SaaS companies can reimagine their go-to-market strategies for today's buyer. You be the judge.The episode explores why the traditional inbound playbook is falling short and what CROs and CMOs must do to adapt. From the collapse of predictable revenue models to the rise of buyer-centric marketing, we break down how to align sales and marketing, test messaging organically, and coordinate campaigns across email, ads, and outreach.Key Takeaways:The old predictable revenue model no longer works in today's B2B SaaS landscapeBuyers now do deep independent research before ever talking to salesMarketing and sales alignment must happen before the formal buying process beginsJobs to Be Done and qualitative ICPs help create relevance and resonanceOrganic testing (especially on LinkedIn) is essential before scaling paid campaignsEmail, ads, and SDR outreach must be tightly coordinated around buyer triggersIf you're a SaaS leader looking to modernize your inbound strategy and connect with today's buyer, this episode offers a bold, practical roadmap—created by AI, guided by strategy.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

Rachel Roberts is Chief Revenue Officer at Level Access, bringing deep leadership experience from global firms like Cisco, Adobe and high growth SaaS scaleups. With a proven record guiding organisations from tens of millions to enterprise scale, Rachel stands out for helping teams adapt and thrive through periods of major change. Her work covers industries from marketing technology to cybersecurity and always puts people at the centre of transformation.In this episode, Rachel explains how to bring teams with you when changing strategy, go to market or ways of working. She shares honest stories about what works and what fails and why process alone is never enough. You will learn why most teams resist change, how to unlock informal leaders and why trust is your most important asset in a transformation. Rachel reveals her approach for building buy in, using FOMO to drive new habits and setting a vision that stretches people but keeps them united. The conversation covers compensation mistakes, keeping teams productive through uncertainty and what to do when your first attempt does not land. There is advice for new CROs taking over in times of upheaval and guidance on setting a bold vision without losing clarity.00:00:00 Welcome and Rachel's journey from Cisco to Level Access00:02:10 Lessons learned leading change at Adobe and cybersecurity firms00:05:30 How to win hearts and minds before rolling out new ways of working00:09:15 The role of informal leaders and McKinsey research on successful transformations00:13:00 Building trust by owning mistakes and fixing compensation models00:17:30 Creating regular listening forums and why small cohorts beat big town halls00:21:00 Setting vision as an ongoing process and making sure it passes the 30-second test00:25:10 Helping high performers rise to a challenge while supporting those who struggle00:28:30 Advice for new CROs on balancing board demands and team needs00:31:50 Navigating constant change in growth companies and timing transformation work00:36:00 Final tips for resilient leadership and keeping teams together during turbulence

In this episode of “Moving Medicine Forward,” host Jeremy Strand sits down with Brian Lawrence, Chief Financial Officer at CTI, to explore how strategic financial planning is critical to advancing clinical trials, particularly in rare disease research. Brian shares insights on balancing profitability with purpose in one of the world's most highly regulated industries, reflecting on early career decisions, global expansion, trial funding challenges, and the growing influence of AI in finance. 00:36 Brian shares how early interests in math and accounting, along with a few great mentors, led him into finance and the clinical research space. 02:17 Why Brian opted for a smaller accounting firm over a Big Four company and how that decision shaped his career. 03:16 How his love for process improvement and early experiences with digital transformation prepared him for the dynamic contract research organization (CRO) environment. 04:03 Brian discusses CTI's evolution: growing four times in size, expanding globally, and staying true to its rare disease focus. 05:00 The challenge of maintaining profitability while upholding the highest standards in research and compliance. 06:00 Brian explains the hidden costs of operating globally, including banking, compliance, and cybersecurity.  07:10 Why financial planning is critical in biotech, where projects can be halted suddenly due to safety or funding concerns. 09:00How investment trends and economic shifts post-COVID have tightened budgets and forced CROs and sponsors to adapt. 10:00 Brian breaks down the financial implications of trial diversity, especially in rare diseases with complex study designs. 11:12 The role of AI and digital tools in modern CRO operations, and why CTI is taking a deliberate approach to adoption. 13:00 Brian sees technology as a way to eliminate low-value tasks and empower finance teams to focus on strategic insights. 14:00 Through initiatives like CTI Cares and “Mission Moments,” Brian explains how CTI connects internal teams to the bigger picture of patient impact. 

"Des dauphins, des puffins, des mérous... C'est une bulle de nature et pourtant on est entre Saint-Tropez et Marseille. Les gens disent que c'est un miracle", s'enthousiasme Sophie-Dorothée Duron, directrice du parc national de Port-Cros. Ici, navigation, pêche et autres activités humaines sont soit interdites soit strictement réglementées. Un modèle que de nombreux experts, à l'occasion de la Conférence des Nations unies sur l'océan à Nice du 9 au 13 juin, aimeraient voir étendu à toutes les aires marines protégées (AMP), souvent fustigées comme étant seulement "de papier". Créée en 1963 au large de Hyères en Méditerranée, Port-Cros est la plus ancienne aire marine protégée d'Europe. D'abord centrée sur l'île éponyme, elle englobe depuis 2012 sa voisine Porquerolles et s'étend sur 1.700 hectares terrestres et 2.900 hectares marins. Sur le Fil part à sa découverte, avec sur le terrain Viken Kantarci, journaliste à l'AFPRVRéalisation : Michaëla Cancela-KiefferInvitée : Sandrine Ruitton, enseignante-chercheuse en océanologie à l'université d'Aix-Marseille et plongeusePour en savoir plus sur les enjeux de la Conférence des Nations Unies sur les grands enjeux océaniques de Nice: écoutez l'épisode d'Emmanuelle Baillon Sur le Fil est le podcast quotidien de l'AFP. Vous avez des commentaires ? Ecrivez-nous à podcast@afp.com. Vous pouvez aussi nous envoyer une note vocale par Whatsapp au + 33 6 79 77 38 45. Si vous aimez, abonnez-vous, parlez de nous autour de vous et laissez-nous plein d'étoiles sur votre plateforme de podcasts préférée pour mieux faire connaître notre programme Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

Welcome to RIMScast. Your host is Justin Smulison, Business Content Manager at RIMS, the Risk and Insurance Management Society.   Justin interviews James Lam about the evolving role of the CRO since the pandemic, vital competencies for today's CROs, risk appetite frameworks, and a case study of E*Trade and how they succeeded with a strong risk appetite framework. They continue the discussion with an examination of James's upcoming six-module virtual course, the RIMS-CRO Certificate in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management. James concludes with his vision of the future of ERM using AI as an enabling tool. Listen to learn more about successful strategies CROs can apply to their ERM programs.   Key Takeaways: [:01] About RIMS and RIMScast. [:17] About this episode of RIMScast. Our guest is one of the great thought leaders in risk management, James Lam. He returns to RIMScast today to talk about ERM and a new bi-weekly virtual course he'll be teaching for RIMS that begins in July. [:48] RIMS-CRMP Workshops! Register by July 1st for the next RIMS-CRMP Virtual Workshop, which will be co-led by Parima. That course will be held on July 8th and 9th. [1:04] The next RIMS-CRMP-FED virtual workshop will be led by Joseph Mayo on July 17th and 18th. Register by July 16th. Links to these courses can be found on the Certification Page of RIMS.org and through this episode's show notes. [1:23] RIMS Webinars! The next RIMS Webinar will be held on June 17th. It will be presented by Origami Risk. It's titled “Strategic Risk Financing in an Unstable Economy: Leveraging Technology for Efficiency and Cost Reduction”. Register today through RIMS.org/Webinars [1:43] RIMS Virtual Workshops! On June 12th, Pat Saporito will host “Managing Data for ERM”, and she will return on June 26th to present the very popular new course, “Generative AI for Risk Management”. [2:00] A link to the full schedule of virtual workshops can be found on the RIMS.org/education and RIMS.org/education/online-learning pages. A link is also in this episode's show notes. [2:12] Mark your calendars for November 17th and 18th for the RIMS ERM Conference 2025 in Seattle, Washington. The agenda is being built. Soon, we will distribute a Call for Nominations for the ERM Award of Distinction. I'll update this episode's show notes when that link is ready. [2:35] Think about your organization's ERM program or one that you know of, and how it has generated value. We will have more on that in the coming weeks. [2:43] On with the show! Our guest today is a risk management trailblazer who is widely considered the world's first Chief Risk Officer. I'm talking about James Lam. [2:54] Starting on July 16th, James will host a six-module course for RIMS, The RIMS-CRO Certificate in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management. It's a bi-weekly course that will run through Wednesday, September 24th. Registration closes on July 9th. [3:14] James is here to discuss and share his ERM philosophies, how the practice has changed in the past five years since he was last on the show, and to give us a preview of what the upcoming course will be like and how it could boost your risk career. [3:31] Interview! James Lam, welcome back to RIMScast! [3:37] James was a guest on RIMScast in the Fall of 2020. We've gone through a lot in the last five years! We've lived through a pandemic, and companies realized the importance of operational resilience and strategic risk management. [4:14] James says today we are facing unprecedented geopolitical risk. We are also facing AI risks and opportunities. Some Chief Risk Officers have stayed relevant and elevated their careers and skills, while others have failed in their organization's ERM programs. [5:01] James tells what may cause a CRO to fail. Applying a “check the box” approach or a compliance approach, without staying relevant with the evolving risk landscape. [5:29] Speaking of successful CROs, James said one CRO he worked with went from being a treasurer reporting to the CFO, to becoming the CRO, then the CFO, and eventually the CEO, all within eight years. [5:58] He and other successful CROs had learned how to add strategic value and be relevant to key decision-makers at the board level and the executive level. [6:15] A key competence is applying risk analytics to quantify and minimize unexpected earnings, helping companies maintain sustainable, predictable profitability. [6:40] Then, evolving that to understanding capital management to optimize capital allocation, dividend policies, and risk transfer strategies, ultimately, applying the same risk analytics to support corporate and business decisions. [7:05] Being able to add strategic value is the most important competence for a Chief Risk Officer today. [7:26] Management and corporate directors are concerned about the unexpected. As CROs, how do we connect our work with things that are the most meaningful to the decision-makers and key internal stakeholders? All boards, CEOs, and CFOs are concerned about earnings. [7:53] Unexpected earnings variance and guidance are things that they are concerned about. CROs can help them with predictable profitability, long-term capital management, and value creation. [8:10] How does a CRO support the leaders' decision-making at the corporate level, where there's M&A or new products, and at the business level, in terms of risk-based pricing and risk transfer decisions? [8:43] James thinks the risk appetite framework is one of the most important processes and capabilities for advanced enterprise risk management. [9:01] Frameworks that don't do well tend to be mostly or entirely qualitative. They tend to be static, maybe updated once a year, with very little change. [9:15] The frameworks that are more strategic and add more value to companies tend to be a combination of quantitative and qualitative. [9:42] Successful risk appetite frameworks also consider risk capacity in terms of capital resources, earnings, and liquidity, relative to our risk management capability and track record. [10:01] Successful risk appetite frameworks look at opportunities. What is the opportunity for profitability, growth, and innovation, relative to risk? If the opportunity is high, then we should be willing to take on more risk. [10:19] Successful risk appetite frameworks tend to be more dynamic in a way that allows the company to reduce risk when it is appropriate but also to take more risk when it is appropriate. [10:31] James says a good risk appetite framework would guide organizations to take more risk, on a selective basis. [10:57] James uses E*Trade as a case study. James was on the board of E*Trade and chaired its risk committee. This case study is in the RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management. [11:28] James will invite E*Trade's CRO, the head of ERM, and one of the regulators, to provide first-hand experiences and lessons learned. [11:41] James gives examples of how ERM improved E*Trade's business outcomes and profitability. Based on a robust risk appetite framework, E*Trade thought it needed to take more risk in new product innovation and shorten the time to market dramatically. [12:21] Because of that, E*Trade was the first company to offer retail investors the capability to trade stocks and mutual funds on their Apple Watch. It was a very important business opportunity as the Apple Watch was hugely popular. [12:49] This tied into E*Trade's founding as the first internet company to allow retail investors to trade on the internet. It was a proud moment for E*Trade. It shows how a robust ERM program and risk appetite framework can support innovation and business growth. [13:16] In the eight years James was on E*Trade's board until it was sold, its stock went from $8 to $59 a share. It went from B to BBB, from losing money to making money, and from a weak capital position to buying back over $1 billion in stock and offering its first-ever dividend. [13:52] In addition to the E*Trade case study, the course will look into other case studies, good and bad. We will learn from organizations that didn't manage risks effectively and what we could learn from them to prevent that for our organizations. [14:13] We will learn from best-practice companies in the energy and healthcare space. [14:30] Plug Time! The very first RIMS Texas Regional Conference will be held from August 4th through the 6th in San Antonio at the Henry B. González Convention Center. Public Registration is open here. [14:43] Hotel cut-off for the discounted rate is available through July 7th. The full Conference Agenda is now live, so you can start planning your experience. Don't miss the post-conference workshop, the RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep Course, available onsite. [14:59] Any chapter member can attend. Links are in this episode's show notes. [15:14] You can also visit the Events Page of RIMS.org for more information. We look forward to seeing you in Texas! [15:21 Just a month later, we will be up North for the RIMS Canada Conference 2025, from September 14th through 17th in Calgary. Registration opened today. Visit RIMSCanadaConference.CA and lock in favorable rates. We look forward to seeing you there! [15:42] Let's Return to My Interview with James Lam!  [16:00] Starting on July 16th, there will be a new course that James is leading. It's the RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management. If you're listening to this on the week of publication, you've got about a month to register. Registration closes on July 9th. [16:22] James is one of our favorite collaborators! [16:27] James tells what led to the launch of this program. He's very excited to be partnering with RIMS! His motivation for doing this program is that he has worked in risk management for over 40 years. He has been a management consultant working with over 100 companies. [17:10] James has been an eight-time board member, chairing the risk committee, chairing the audit committee, and overseeing risk management, not day-to-day but from a board perspective. [17:22] What James wants to do in this program is to share the lessons he has learned and some of the best practices in a very practical way. He also wants to invite other risk experts to share from their different domains. James has had this idea for over three years. [17:56] He met with the RIMS board members and the Professional Development Team to talk about this. They got an agreement in place, and within a few weeks, they got the outline and the website up. James tells of the team that helped him put it together in bi-weekly meetings. [18:31] The program came together within weeks. The early registrations are above expectations. The market reception has been strong. James says this course will provide an amazing learning experience for the participants. [18:54] It's a six-module, bi-weekly course with four-hour live virtual sessions, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Eastern Time, starting July 16th and running through September 24th. There will also be self-study with James's book, other articles, and research papers. [19:24] We've got the link in this episode's show notes. A brief description of each of the six modules is on the website. Module 4 is The Role of the Chief Risk Officer and Risk Appetite Statement. That's the James Lam wheelhouse! [19:44] The CRO, the risk appetite statement, and ERM will be critical topics. Other important topics are the role of the board, how risk professionals should not only serve the board but also leverage the board, and strategic decision-making. [20:13] Before the pandemic, teaching virtually was not James's favorite method. He enjoys interacting with participants. Since the pandemic, we've all learned how to learn and to teach in a virtual environment. James says we can make it dynamic and interactive, with a lot of sharing.  [22:53] James thinks they will get into individualized problem-solving. Participants can highlight challenges or opportunities they're facing. Collectively, the group will help with individualized problem-solving. [21:12] James will bring in guest speakers. He has a strong network of excellent board directors and experts with backgrounds in AI, cybersecurity, and ERM. These include former or current CROs with stories to share. He believes all that will make the program relevant and dynamic. [21:45] Plug Time! Let me tell you about the Spencer Educational Foundation. Spencer's goal to help build a talent pipeline of risk management and insurance professionals is achieved, in part, by its collaboration with risk management and insurance educators across the U.S. and Canada. [22:05] Since 2010, Spencer has awarded over $3.3 million in General Grants to support over 130 student-centered experiential learning initiatives at universities and RMI non-profits. Spencer's 2026 application process is now open through July 30th, 2025. [22:27] General Grant awardees are typically notified at the end of October. Learn more about Spencer's General Grants through the Programs tab of SpencerEd.org. Be sure to check out Spencer's Monthly Virtual Campus.  [22:41] On Thursday, June 12th, we will have Reinsurance 101, hosted by Lee Vuu, Founder and President of the MRIA. A link is in this episode's show notes. Register today! [22:53] Let's Conclude Our Interview with James Lam! [23:22] James says the future is bright. AI and risk analytics are going to change our careers and our lives. In the next five years, we're going to see some interesting dynamics with AI and we're going to have some unintended consequences. There will be risks and opportunities. [23:54] For risk professionals, being able to help our organizations and address the risks, whether it's privacy, model risks such as hallucination, or data governance, all those are going to be in our wheelhouse, and we could add a lot of value.  [24:11] James thinks AI could create opportunities to enhance enterprise risk management by tapping into structured and unstructured data and help us minimize unexpected earnings variance, optimize capital structure, and support corporate and business-level decisions. [24:47] A basic question that any AI model asks is, “What would an expert do?” What would an expert driver do in terms of an autonomous car? What would an expert doctor do in this specific situation? In risk management, the senior risk professionals and CROs are the experts. [25:12] James says the CROs have an opportunity to design the training data that would train these AI agents. They would have an impact on training these AI agents directly in terms of being part of the feedback loop. [25:32] James is very excited about where ERM is going to be in the next three to five years. AI will become a very important tool. He doesn't think it will replace risk practitioners. [25:49] The expertise, judgment, governance, and perspective that risk practitioners bring to the table will be valuable. AI will be a huge enabler. [26:11] Looking forward 10 years, James asks, using AI, how do we help with scenario planning and scenario analysis? Regarding many of the emerging and disruptive risks that we face today, we don't have a lot of data or models, so scenario analysis is going to be a critical tool. [26:48] The ultimate level of enterprise risk management would be to create a digital twin of our organization's overall risk profile, including our strategic, financial, operational, compliance, and reputational risks, and run scenarios to stress-test that system with AI. That's not far off. [27:25] James, it has been such a pleasure to reconnect with you. I have a great feeling about the RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management. Remember, everyone, you have until July 9th, 2025, to register. Virtual seats are filling up! Check out the link! [27:43] I have a good feeling that we're going to be hearing more and seeing more from James in 2025 and beyond, here at RIMS. James, we value you very much. That's why you're here! [28:11] Special thanks again to James Lam. Register now for the RIMS CRO Certificate Program in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management. It is a bi-weekly course that starts on July 16th. Virtual seats are filling up fast, so register by July 7th. The link is in this episode's show notes. [28:32] Plug Time! You can sponsor a RIMScast episode for this, our weekly show, or a dedicated episode. Links to sponsored episodes are in the show notes. [29:00] RIMScast has a global audience of risk and insurance professionals, legal professionals, students, business leaders, C-Suite executives, and more. Let's collaborate and help you reach them! Contact pd@rims.org for more information. [29:18] Become a RIMS member and get access to the tools, thought leadership, and network you need to succeed. Visit RIMS.org/membership or email membershipdept@RIMS.org for more information. [29:35] Risk Knowledge is the RIMS searchable content library that provides relevant information for today's risk professionals. Materials include RIMS executive reports, survey findings, contributed articles, industry research, benchmarking data, and more. [29:52] For the best reporting on the profession of risk management, read Risk Management Magazine at RMMagazine.com. It is written and published by the best minds in risk management. [30:06] Justin Smulison is the Business Content Manager at RIMS. You can email Justin at Content@RIMS.org. [30:14] Thank you all for your continued support and engagement on social media channels! We appreciate all your kind words. Listen every week! Stay safe!   Links: RIMS-CRO Certificate in Advanced Enterprise Risk Management — Featuring Instructor James Lam! Register by July 7. | Bi-weekly course begins July 16. RIMS Texas Regional 2025 — August 3‒5 | Registration now open. RIMS Canada 2025 — Sept. 14‒17 | Registration now open! RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMS Risk Management magazine RIMS Now The Strategic and Enterprise Risk Center Spencer Education Foundation — General Grants 2026 — Application Deadline July 30, 2025 Spencer Virtual Campus — Next Course on June 12 RIMS ERM Conference 2025 — Nov 17‒18 in Seattle! [Save the Date!] James Lam & Associates RIMS Webinars: RIMS.org/Webinars “Strategic Risk Financing in an Unstable Economy: Leveraging Technology for Efficiency and Cost Reduction” | Sponsored by Origami Risk | June 17, 2025   Upcoming RIMS-CRMP Prep Virtual Workshops: RIMS-CRMP Exam Prep Virtual Workshop — July 8‒9, 2025 | Presented by RIMS and PARIMA RIMS-CRMP-FED Exam Prep Virtual Workshop — July 17‒18 Full RIMS-CRMP Prep Course Schedule “Managing Data for ERM” | June 12 | Instructor: Pat Saporito  “Generative AI for Risk Management” | June 26 | Instructor: Pat Saporito See the full calendar of RIMS Virtual Workshops RIMS-CRMP Prep Workshops   Related RIMScast Episodes: “AI Risks and Compliance with Chris Maguire” “RIMS 2025 Risk Manager of the Year, Jennifer Pack” “ERM, Retail, and Risk with Jeff Strege” “Collateral Benefits Of Pre-Mortem Analysis” “ERMotivation with Carrie Frandsen, RIMS-CRMP” “Live from the ERM Conference 2024 in Boston!”   Sponsored RIMScast Episodes: “The New Reality of Risk Engineering: From Code Compliance to Resilience” | Sponsored by AXA XL (New!) “Change Management: AI's Role in Loss Control and Property Insurance” | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company “Demystifying Multinational Fronting Insurance Programs” | Sponsored by Zurich “Understanding Third-Party Litigation Funding” | Sponsored by Zurich “What Risk Managers Can Learn From School Shootings” | Sponsored by Merrill Herzog “Simplifying the Challenges of OSHA Recordkeeping” | Sponsored by Medcor “Risk Management in a Changing World: A Deep Dive into AXA's 2024 Future Risks Report” | Sponsored by AXA XL “How Insurance Builds Resilience Against An Active Assailant Attack” | Sponsored by Merrill Herzog “Third-Party and Cyber Risk Management Tips” | Sponsored by Alliant “RMIS Innovation with Archer” | Sponsored by Archer “Navigating Commercial Property Risks with Captives” | Sponsored by Zurich “Breaking Down Silos: AXA XL's New Approach to Casualty Insurance” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Weathering Today's Property Claims Management Challenges” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Storm Prep 2024: The Growing Impact of Convective Storms and Hail” | Sponsored by Global Risk Consultants, a TÜV SÜD Company “Partnering Against Cyberrisk” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Harnessing the Power of Data and Analytics for Effective Risk Management” | Sponsored by Marsh “Accident Prevention — The Winning Formula For Construction and Insurance” | Sponsored by Otoos “Platinum Protection: Underwriting and Risk Engineering's Role in Protecting Commercial Properties” | Sponsored by AXA XL “Elevating RMIS — The Archer Way” | Sponsored by Archer   RIMS Publications, Content, and Links: RIMS Membership — Whether you are a new member or need to transition, be a part of the global risk management community! RIMS Virtual Workshops On-Demand Webinars RIMS-Certified Risk Management Professional (RIMS-CRMP) RISK PAC | RIMS Advocacy RIMS Strategic & Enterprise Risk Center RIMS-CRMP Stories — Featuring RIMS President Kristen Peed!   RIMS Events, Education, and Services: RIMS Risk Maturity Model®   Sponsor RIMScast: Contact sales@rims.org or pd@rims.org for more information.   Want to Learn More? Keep up with the podcast on RIMS.org, and listen on Spotify and Apple Podcasts.   Have a question or suggestion? Email: Content@rims.org.   Join the Conversation! Follow @RIMSorg on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn.   About our guest: James Lam, Founder, James Lam & Associates   Production and engineering provided by Podfly.  

In this special episode (#34) of BioTalk Unzipped, recorded live at the AAPS NBC conference in Boston, Gregory Austin and Dr. Chad Briscoe sit down with AAPS President Dr. Russ Weiner for an unfiltered look inside AAPS NBC, at the state of rare disease research, the evolution of therapeutic modalities, and the human stories that drive scientific innovation.From navigating the emotional weight of personal loss to watching his son experience the field firsthand, Russ shares not only his scientific insights but the heart behind his leadership. The conversation spans topics like the rising promise of AI diagnostics, challenges with biomarker sampling logistics, the role of CROs in rare disease trials, and the future of autologous vs. allogeneic therapies.Dr. Weiner also offers an inspiring vision of industry collaboration, sharing how organizations like AAPS are becoming conduits for progress across low- and middle-income countries, underrepresented diseases, and emerging biotechnologies. Whether you're in the lab, the boardroom, or on the frontlines of clinical trials, this episode will reignite your sense of purpose in this field.00:00 Preview & Intro01:22 What is conference life like as AAPS President02:27 Mentoring & Fatherhood at AAPS03:54 Setting up the Meeting Season for AAPS05:43 Life back in the Rare Disease Space - a Passion10:58 The different costs of pharmaceutical & biotech research12:59 The generosity of Rare Disease Patients14:41 Dr. Chad Briscoe asks Russ what can we do to help advance Rare Disease efforts19:57 Rare Disease conversations happening at AAPS and global reach22:37 Broad use of new technologies, including Olink24:10 Biggest change expected in Pharma in 10 yearsDr. Russ Weinerhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/russellweiner/ AAPS - https://www.aaps.org/home Dr. Chad Briscoehttps://www.linkedin.com/in/chadbriscoe/ Celerion - https://www.celerion.com/ Gregory Austinhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/gregoryaustin1/ Celerion - https://www.celerion.com/ Takeaways:Treating rare diseases early is not only life-saving—it's economically sound. Gene and cell therapies may carry high price tags, but they dramatically reduce long-term costs.The diagnostic delay for rare diseases—often 4 to 7 years—remains one of the biggest barriers to treatment. AI-powered diagnostics and data integration could change that.Dr. Russ Weiner shares how personal loss fueled his career in science and how mentoring the next generation, including his son, brings it full circle.The shift toward allogeneic cell therapies and in vivo CAR-T treatments will be key to driving down costs and increasing global accessibility.CROs must evolve: future-ready organizations will localize biomarker analysis and forge relationships with rare disease investigators to improve site performance.Technologies like Olink are revolutionizing biomarker discovery, enabling cost-effective, high-resolution multiplexing that was previously out of...

Why are so many SaaS executives struggling to get hired?In this episode, Raul and Toni dive deep into the surprising stat that 25% of Pavilion members—many of them seasoned SaaS execs—are currently “on the bench.” We explore what's really going on in the market, how layoffs and short stints are damaging even top-tier CVs, and why CROs are applying for AE roles just to stay in the game. We also talk mental health, the rise of “consulting” as a placeholder, and whether now might be the time to walk away from SaaS altogether. If you're a founder, CRO, or GTM leader, this one's for you. Never miss a new episode! join our newsletter at revenueformula.substack.com (00:00) - Introduction (02:18) - 25% of Pavilion execs "on the bench" (03:41) - The SaaS recession (09:08) - Job hunting and mental health issues (13:48) - Going into consulting (18:26) - Leave tech behind? (22:01) - Private equity and VC roles (24:48) - Rethinking CV evaluations (28:09) - Conclusion (29:31) - Up next: Jacco's new playbook

In the latest collaboration between ACRO and TransCelerate BioPharma, Cris McDavid (Senior Director, Global Clinical Operations, Parexel) and Tashan Mistree (Senior Director, Business Operations, Office of Chief Medical Officer, GSK) join this week's episode to discuss the impact of ICH E6(R3) from their different vantage points in the clinical research industry. They dive deeper into their experiences implementing the new guidance at their respective companies, the new opportunities that R3 has created in the partnership between CROs and sponsors, and how they envision the future state of R3 once industry has fully embraced the guidance. FIND ACRO & TRANSCELERATE'S ICH E6(R3) TOOLS & RESOURCES HERE: https://www.acrohealth.org/initiatives-hub/interpreting-ich-e6r3/ 

Show Notes: Alex Lugosch and Ilya Druzhnikov, founders of True PMF, explain that True PMF is a rapid prototyping and discovery service for startups and established companies who are releasing a new product or testing a new market and don't have the tools or six to eight months to try new experiments for product market fit. The firm uses cold calling tools to test out different ideas and pitches to potential clients, focusing on understanding the reactions of potential buyers. Ilya explains how their tool saves time and money by improving the cold call process. First Steps in a Cold Call Strategy Alex and Ilya work with a founder to identify their target audience and use tools like ZoomInfo to gather a list of people that fit that profile. They then use cold calling tool to test out different ideas and iterate different pitches to potential clients. They also train the founder to do cold calls, helping them understand the process and find what resonates with potential buyers. The firm often stacks rank lists of 20 audiences to test in the next 20 days, with each experiment taking about two sessions of an hour each. At a certain point, they do turnover, where the founder takes over to learn how to do the process. They use several list building services, data validation services, and dialers to build tight lists, accessing many people at the C-suite that most founders can only dream of contacting. Within one or two calls, they find that those people are picking up on their pitches and talking to them, which is a significant improvement from the traditional six-month process of trying to determine if something is a product market fit. The Cold Call Conversation and Analysis Ilya explains the process, beginning from when they contact the founder, building the initial list, finding direct phone numbers for 80-100 people, and loading them into their enterprise-grade tech stack that few startups can afford.  He goes on to explain how they start the conversation.  They try to make the pitch relevant to the founder and explain that their solution could save time and money while having a positive impact on the bottom line. After the call, the transcript goes directly into the AI model, which produces an analysis of the conversation and offers recommendations on how to proceed. The next step is to determine the outcome of the call. In a typical calling session, there are sometimes upwards of 14 or 15 connects. As the conversation gets closer to the target, the conversations become more rich, with more follow-up emails, scheduled demos, and referrals. It's an iterative process until discovering the audience is interested in the topic and/or the call can be referred to the right person. Cold Calling Techniques The conversation turns to the importance of effective cold pitching techniques. They mention the importance of recognizing what's currently relevant to the client. They also discuss the concept of partnering one person to take a pitch and then alternate to the other person without giving feedback. The key to getting better at cold pitching is focusing on the elements that work in the previous pitch. This technique can be applied to other situations as well, such as listening to each other's tone of voice and understanding their preferences. Alex emphasizes that these techniques are not meant to scale sales but to provide relevant information about messaging and product features that can be used in outbound campaigns that are scalable, such as emails, LinkedIn messages, or conferences. Ilya and Alex give an impromptu example of an opening conversation with mid-market private equity owned portfolio companies. Ilya explains that their informs more effective marketing strategies. This approach helps clients narrow down their ideas about the persona, develop stronger content that connects with their target market(s),  and ensures that their marketing efforts are highly effective. Cost of SDRs Cold Calling The discussion revolves around the cost of cold calling sales development representatives (SDRs) and their effectiveness in B2B product spaces. Emphasis is placed on understanding the messaging and the potential for managing costs. They mention a company with 400 clients across Europe that raised over $50 million and had six SDRs, but none of them were effective. They also mention that a multinational tech startup with a large B2B sales team cannot afford six CROs to run their sales team. They advise against giving cold calls to unskilled SDRs, as they may not be adaptable enough to handle complex situations. However, cold calling is a good prototyping tool, as it allows companies to reach a wider audience, gain insights and understanding of their market, and potentially increase their revenue. Examples of How TruePMF Serves Clients Alex and Ilya initially focused on high-growth e-commerce brands, but later discovered that they needed to target established e-commerce brands looking for margin expansion. They created a new list of these brands and tested it with CTOs, which proved more relevant. Then, they called private equity partners, specifically tech stack operating partners, to expand their reach. This allowed them to sell their solution across multiple brands. Another example is a smaller company with 20 clients, all big enterprise clients, looking to sell to private equity firms. Ilya also discusses the process of selling a product before building it, and emphasizes the importance of honesty and transparency in the sales process.   About the Founders of TruePMF.com Alex Lugosch, a FinTech founder and executive at a wholesale, e-commerce company, and the B2B credit space, and Ilya Druzhnikov, a serial entrepreneur and angel investor, have both been working with founders and CEOs to help them understand Product Market Fit. They have worked in various industries, including B2B wholesale, e-commerce, and angel investing. The website, Pmf.com, is by referral only, and they have a bias for working with serious people who are serious about their business. They require founders to attend every call, including the CEO, Chief Revenue Officer, and Head of Sales. The company has sold their product to 400 companies across Europe and is coming to the United States. Timestamps: 00:02: Introduction to True PMF and Their Unique Approach 03:28: Explaining the True PMF Service  06:35: Detailed Walkthrough of the Process 10:47: Iterative Improvement and Audience Targeting  16:29: The Role of Cold Calling in Business Development  34:04: Client Examples and Success Stories  40:23: Background of Alex and Ilya  Links:  Website: https://truepmf.com/ Unleashed is produced by Umbrex, which has a mission of connecting independent management consultants with one another, creating opportunities for members to meet, build relationships, and share lessons learned. Learn more at www.umbrex.com.

Saudi Arabia's modern healthcare system, diverse patient population, and research-savvy healthcare professionals make it a great place to conduct clinical trials. To learn more about the clinical trial requirements in Saudi Arabia, I invited Professor Majed Al Jeraisy on the show.   Dr. Al Jeraisy is an Associate Professor of Pharmacy Practice, College of Pharmacy, King Saud Ben Abdulaziz University for Health Sciences and Pediatric Clinical Pharmacy Consultant in King Abdullah Specialized Children Hospital. He was appointed as the chairman of the research office at King Abdullah International Medical Research Center (KAIMRC) in 2007 and was appointed as the Director of Clinical Trial Services in 2018.  Please join me in welcoming Professor Majed Al Jeraisy on the Clinical Trial Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Slope. Slope drives operational excellence for highly complex, sample-intensive, early-phase clinical trials. The platform transforms chaotic clinical trial supply chains into protocol-specific operational workflows for sponsors, CROs, clinical research sites and labs. Learn more at https://www.slopeclinical.com/ This podcast is brought to you by Florence Healthcare. Florence eliminates chaotic workflows in clinical research operations with remote access and digital workflow platforms. More than 12,000 study sites, sponsors, and CROs in 45 countries trust them to accelerate their operations. To learn more, visit https://florencehc.com 

This week on Revenue Rehab, Brandi Starr is joined by Maddie Bell, CEO and Co-founder of Scheduler AI, who believes “the real risk isn't in the dark funnel—it's failing to deliver when the buyer finally raises their hand.” In this episode, Maddie challenges the industry's obsession with “speed to lead,” urging revenue leaders to prioritize “speed to first conversation” with AI-driven, buyer-centric engagement. She warns that outdated playbooks and one-way automation are leaving revenue on the table, while today's buyers self-educate and expect immediate, meaningful interaction. Will Maddie's call for rethinking the moment of engagement change your strategy—or change your mind?  Episode Type: Problem Solving  Industry analysts, consultants, and founders take a bold stance on critical revenue challenges, offering insights you won't hear anywhere else. These episodes explore common industry challenges and potential solutions through expert insights and varied perspectives.  Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers:  Topic #1: Dark Funnel Obsession—Are Revenue Teams Focusing on the Wrong Problem? [01:10]  Maddie Bell argues that while the industry is fixated on the challenges of the dark funnel and invisible buyer research, the true risk lies elsewhere: "The real risk isn't what you can't see, it's what you fail to act on when the buyer finally makes themselves known." She challenges CMOs and CROs to shift resources away from just uncovering hidden intent and instead ensure their processes and tech are ready for the critical moment buyers raise their hand. Brandi aligns with this shift, probing what readiness really entails and how companies can retrain their focus accordingly.  Topic #2: Personalization at Scale—Why Automation Isn't Enough [13:36]  Maddie claims that traditional personalization methods—triggered email sequences and static nurture paths—have reached their limits due to the sheer number of signals and permutations needed. She challenges the industry to move beyond guessing with automation: "It's just really hard to personalize for a person without asking them about themselves again, without starting a two-way conversation." The discussion centers on the need for AI-driven, dynamic conversations to achieve true personalization, not just more sophisticated drip campaigns.  Topic #3: AI as the Connector—Transforming Handoffs and Sales Structure [28:38]  Maddie boldly asserts that AI agents are poised to revolutionize not just engagement, but the very structure of sales teams and revenue processes. She explains, "If you have the AI routing, you can create intelligent loops that essentially solve the leak across the pipeline..." prompting leaders to rethink their approach to sales specialization, handoff rigor, and marketing-sales alignment. Brandi challenges the scalability and organizational implications, sparking discussion on how revenue leaders should sequence process improvement before layering on AI.  The Wrong Approach vs. Smarter Alternative  The Wrong Approach: “I think they look for solutions to new things rather than solving problems that again, they already have. Right. Because at the end of the day, if we're already making buyers wait hours, days, if we follow up at all, just solving that in the near term is going to get you a measurable pipeline win now without having to re redo and try all this new stuff that you don't really know where it's going to go.” – Maddie Bell  Why It Fails: Chasing after new, untested solutions distracts teams from addressing the core issues already affecting buyer engagement. If companies ignore existing process gaps—like long response times—they miss out on immediate revenue gains and risk investing in initiatives that may not address their current challenges.  The Smarter Alternative: Focus first on quantifying and solving existing friction points in the buyer journey, such as reducing wait times and ensuring prompt follow-up. By tackling these proven problems, organizations can unlock measurable wins and lay a stronger foundation before experimenting with new tools or strategies.  The Most Damaging Myth  The Myth: “The moment they raise their hand visibly is the start of the process.” – Maddie Bell  Why It's Wrong: Many go-to-market teams treat the buyer's visible hand-raise—like filling out a form—as the beginning of engagement. But as Maddie points out, buyers actually start their process much earlier, often spending significant time researching and self-educating long before giving up their information. This myth leads companies to ignore the vast majority of prospects who never fill out a form (97%), missing opportunities to start conversations earlier and losing out on pipeline growth.  What Companies Should Do Instead: Recognize that the buying journey begins well before formal hand-raising. Invest in strategies and technologies that identify and engage buyers earlier—well before they submit a form—by leveraging intent signals, enabling frictionless conversations, and reducing reliance on traditional gates. This proactive approach captures more of the market and improves the probability of converting ready buyers.  The Rapid-Fire Round  Finish this sentence: If your company has this problem, the first thing you should do is _ “Measure it. Find out how many balls are getting dropped. Quantify the problem so you can actually solve it and measure success.” — Maddie Bell What's one red flag that signals a company has this problem—but might not realize it yet? “You're pushing out a lot of one-way communication, and buyers aren't converting—or when they finally respond, you're too slow to engage. If buyers ignore your outreach or you fail to respond within 1–2 minutes, that's a big sign.”  What's the most common mistake people make when trying to fix this? “Chasing new cool solutions instead of fixing today's problems—like slow or missing follow-up. Start by solving existing gaps to create quick pipeline wins before adding new tools.”  What's the fastest action someone can take today to make progress? “Start more conversations—and use AI for fair, objective, helpful buyer interactions that move them to the next step, ideally a team meeting. But don't rush the process; let AI qualify and route effectively.”   Buzzword Banishment  Buzzword Banishment: Maddie's buzzword to banish is "speed to lead." She dislikes this term because, in her view, it has become disconnected from what buyers actually want. Maddie argues that organizations have reduced "speed to lead" to a KPI or automated process—like quickly assigning a lead to a rep or sending out email sequences—rather than prioritizing a meaningful, timely first conversation that aligns with the buyer's needs and expectations. She advocates replacing it with "speed to first conversation" to ensure engagement is genuinely valuable to the buyer.  Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/maddiebell/  Podcast: https://www.scheduler.ai/nextgen-gtm-podcast  Business: https://www.scheduler.ai  Subscribe, listen, and rate/review Revenue Rehab Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts , Amazon Music, or iHeart Radio and find more episodes on our website RevenueRehab.live  

In this episode of CRO Spotlight, host Warren Zenna welcomes Emma Clayton, C-Suite Strategic & Commercial Leadership Consultant at Be Brilliant Consultancy. With 27 years in marketing, Emma reveals the origin of her provocative LinkedIn musing on B2B marketing's fragmentation and leadership vacuum. She shares why she left a prominent community, how her spontaneous critique went viral, and its implications for today's revenue leaders.Emma dives into her ongoing “Who Shot Marketing?” narrative, personifying the profession's decline through the suspects: VCs treating CMOs as disposable, CFOs overlooking marketing's strategic role, and recruitment firms fueling tactical specialization. She argues that marketing's erosion stems from professionals losing their strategic identity and defaulting to siloed, short-term tactics instead of holistic business leadership.Warren and Emma explore the Chief Revenue Officer role as a remedy for fragmented revenue functions. They debate why CMOs often switch to CRO titles for prestige and survival, and how genuine CRO leadership demands a business-centric mindset that integrates marketing, sales, and customer success. Highlighting cross-functional alignment and strategic vision, they offer a blueprint for CROs to unify teams and develop the competencies needed for a coherent revenue engine.In closing, Emma urges listeners to channel their expertise into shaping the next era of marketing and revenue leadership. She calls on CEOs and aspiring CROs to end silos and collaboratively redefine marketing's role within the revenue engine. Listeners are encouraged to share insights and drive positive change. This episode equips leaders with fresh perspectives on strategic marketing, revenue alignment, and building resilient organizations ready for tomorrow's challenges.

Jeff Keplar, former sales executive at Oracle, MapR, and Google, joins Coach2Scale to challenge one of today's loudest narratives in SaaS: that product-led growth has made traditional selling obsolete. In this candid, no-nonsense conversation with Matt Benelli, Jeff lays out why complex, high-stakes enterprise deals still demand skilled sellers, strong managers, and real leadership in the field, not just slick UX and freemium funnels. He explains why sales-led growth is often poorly executed, not outdated, and how the caricature of the “golf-playing rep” is holding companies back from serious revenue performance.This episode is a must-listen for CROs, VPs, and FLMs navigating the blurred lines between coaching, leadership, and execution. Jeff unpacks what makes a sales leader worth following, why frontline managers often fail (and how to fix it), and how real coaching, not just pipeline reviews, builds resilient teams. From scaling at Oracle to advising modern startups, Jeff shares lessons that cut through the noise and help leaders build teams that win the right way.Key Takeaways 1. Leadership isn't granted by title, it's earned in the fieldSales managers gain real influence by showing up with their team, facing the same pressure, and modeling accountability, not by hiding behind their job title.2. Sales-led growth isn't outdated, it's just misunderstood.Many critics confuse poor execution with obsolescence; in reality, complex sales still require human insight, coaching, and influence that product-led strategies alone can't deliver.3. Stop promoting 'super reps' and expecting them to be great managersThe skill set that drives individual performance often lacks what's needed to coach, develop, and retain a team, especially in high-growth or enterprise contexts.4. Great sales leaders don't kiss up and kick down, they build teams that follow them anywhereThe mark of strong leadership is not upward politics but whether former team members would choose to work with you again.5. Salespeople need coaching beyond the deal.Too many 1:1s are just pipeline checks; true coaching focuses on skills, behaviors, and long-term development that compound over time.6. In enterprise sales, the product doesn't close the deal; people doUnlike self-serve SaaS tools, enterprise software buyers need trust, consultation, and risk mitigation that only a well-prepared rep can deliver.7. When reps are treated like resources, they leaveHigh attrition often traces back to poor or absent development; reps stay when they feel seen, supported, and challenged.8. Managers must be the rep's advocate, even when it costs political capitalDefending your team when it's hard is the kind of leadership people remember and rally around, especially in performance management decisions.9. Friendship and leadership aren't mutually exclusive.While being “one of the crew” can backfire, relationships built on trust and mutual respect lead to better coaching conversations and loyalty.10. Coaching is influence, not control.The goal is to shape behavior through insight and conversation, not compliance, which is also what great selling looks like.

In this episode of Culture & Quota, we get brutally honest about what happens when psychological safety issues fester inside your sales and product orgs. We walk you through a practical, no-BS process: how to first admit the problem, measure the financial and productivity drag it causes, and finally—how to decide when and how leadership will address it.We'll break down:Early warning signs from your AE floor and product sprintsHow to quantify the hidden cost of fear-based silenceInternal audit strategies to surface what's not being saidTiming and frameworks for executive interventionProven tactics to rebuild safety without fluff—think trust contracts, fail-forward systems, and leadership modeling vulnerabilityThis one's for CROs, CPOs, Heads of People, and founders who know culture isn't just vibes—it's velocity.

What do you do when the market crashes and your team starts to panic? ZoomInfo's CRO James Roth has one rule: don't lower the bar.In this episode, James opens the playbook on what it really takes to lead a high-performing sales org through chaos. No buzzwords. No theory. Just the hard truths, decisions, and systems that keep ZoomInfo's revenue engine running—even when headlines scream panic.▶ From stock market volatility to sales team psychology, from discipline under pressure to the revolutionary impact of AI—this episode goes deep.James shares:Why most sales leaders get downturns completely wrong.The exact moment leaders lose control of their team's culture—and how to prevent it.What a real CRO's morning routine looks like (and why it starts at 4:30 a.m.).How ZoomInfo's AI instantly surfaces insights, empowering every rep to sell like a top performer.Why lowering quotas in tough times is never the answer.The precise leadership mindset that turns pressure into your strongest advantage.This is the episode to share with your VP, your board, or your top performers who are questioning how to navigate market uncertainty.It's a candid, behind-the-scenes conversation with one of the most respected go-to-market leaders in SaaS.Watch until the end—James reveals the single most damaging mistake sales leaders make when markets tank (and it's not what you think).About the ShowWhat does it really take to grow a B2B business today? We ask the people doing it.The Belkins Podcast dives deep into the strategies, decisions, and behind-the-scenes insights driving real growth at top B2B companies. Each episode features candid conversations with industry heavyweights—CROs, CMOs, founders, and seasoned operators—who've navigated market downturns, scaled teams, and mastered the realities of revenue growth.You'll hear hard truths, unfiltered insights, and actionable tactics directly from leaders who've actually done the work.

In this episode of the Global Regulatory Update podcast, we host Stu Doyle, U.S. Insurance Risk & Regulation Leader at EY, to discuss findings from the second annual IIF/EY Global Insurance Risk Management Survey. Drawing from insights from over 80 institutions across the insurance sector, the 2025 survey reveals that cybersecurity and geopolitical risks continue to intensify while organizations increasingly prioritize third-party risk management, AI governance, and regulatory compliance. Our conversation explores this year's key findings and how they've evolved since the inaugural 2024 survey. We examine the expanding role of Chief Risk Officers (CROs) as they drive organizational transformation and embed risk culture throughout their institutions. Stu also contrasts the insurance survey results with findings from the Global Bank Risk Management Survey, highlighting sector-specific risk priorities. The discussion covers how CROs are navigating emerging technologies like machine learning and artificial intelligence, balancing innovation with risk management while preparing their organizations for unforeseen challenges ahead. The full IIF/EY Global Insurance Risk Management Survey can be found here.

How Can Fearless GTM Strategy Unite Sales and Marketing for Scalable Growth?In this episode of The Hard Corps Marketing Show, I sat down with Nicole Burns, Go-To-Market Strategic Advisor at SpringDB. Nicole brings decades of experience across sales, marketing, and go-to-market leadership, and she shares why true growth starts with aligning people, processes, and data.Nicole breaks down the long-standing tension between sales and marketing and how better alignment, especially between CMOs and CROs, is changing that dynamic for the better. She explores the role of Revenue Operations (RevOps) in creating cohesive strategies and how today's tech stack, powered by tools like AI and customer data platforms, can enhance collaboration and lead quality.In this episode, we cover:Why sales and marketing tension still exists, and how to fix itHow RevOps bridges the gap between teams for better executionThe role of data, AI, and tech platforms in GTM successIf you're looking to align your teams, optimize your tech stack, and build a fearless, forward-thinking go-to-market strategy, this episode is packed with practical insights you don't want to miss!

durée : 00:55:56 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Philippe Garbit - Par Serge Jouhet - Réalisation Georges Gravier - réalisation : Virginie Mourthé

Matt Benelli sits down with sales veteran and Calm Ocean Sales founder Mike Muhlfelder for a no-BS conversation every CRO and sales leader needs to hear. With three decades of experience at companies like Oracle, IBM, and Jitterbit, Mike shares his unfiltered perspective on what's gone wrong in modern B2B sales from bloated pipelines and broken qualification processes to tech stacks that mask, rather than solve, performance problems. If you're relying on BANT and 4x pipeline math to hit your number, Mike says it's time to wake up.Listeners will learn why great reps don't always make great leaders, how to use the “Four W's” to qualify real opportunities, and why many teams are scaling mediocrity with automation. Mike also offers hard-won advice for CROs under boardroom pressure, and a stark reminder to protect your health and values as you chase performance. It's part strategy, part therapy, and all signal, no noise.Top Takeaways 1. Great salespeople don't always make great sales leaders.Mike challenges the myth that success as a rep naturally translates to leadership, emphasizing that leading a team requires a completely different skillset.2. Stop promoting outsiders into sales leadership roles.Bringing in non-sales professionals to run sales teams often fails because they lack the experiential knowledge and empathy to lead sellers effectively.3. Sales is a profession and must be treated like one.Like finance or engineering, sales requires continuous training, discipline, and a commitment to mastery, not just charisma or improvisation.4. Outdated qualification methods like BANT hurt your deals.BANT is adversarial and obsolete; it leads to mistrust and surface-level qualification instead of real discovery.5. Use the ‘Four W's' to qualify deals more accurately.Mike's framework: What happened? Why now? Who owns the project? When do they need to be live? Creates human-centered, business-grounded qualification.6. The pipeline problem is systemic, not just executional.Teams rely on inflated pipelines and 4–5x coverage ratios because poor qualification and forecasting have become normalized.7. Most sales tech stacks enable mediocrity at scale.Without sound fundamentals, even the best tools just help teams do the wrong things faster.8. Sales math still matters: maximize yield, minimize waste.Effective revenue leaders think like manufacturers, optimizing the fewest inputs (leads) for the highest output (closed deals).9. Salespeople must take ownership of their own development.With unlimited learning resources available, Mike urges reps to stop waiting for enablement and start taking personal accountability.10. CROs must prioritize clarity, courage, and communication.From cleansing the pipeline to resetting board expectations, Mike says leadership means telling hard truths and doing the right thing even when it's unpopular.11. Burnout is real, and it's not worth it.He ends with a human message: no job is worth sacrificing your health, family, or identity, no matter how big the number.

Guest: Jim Curry, CoFounder at BuildGroupIs AI really transforming your SaaS business—or just adding noise?In this week's episode, Jim Curry, co-founder of BuildGroup and former Rackspace exec, discusses how AI is transforming both the products and operations of SaaS businesses—and why most companies are missing the opportunity.Jim shares how BuildGroup's operator-first, long-term approach to investing gives them an edge when helping SaaS companies scale, especially in today's AI-first environment. He explains why AI should be seen as an infrastructure wave (not just a flashy product feature), and how CROs and CMOs can practically apply it to go-to-market execution.We cover:Why AI gives incumbents an advantage (if they act fast)How to use AI to reduce CAC and improve GTM speedWhere traditional SaaS GTM playbooks break down in an AI-native worldWhy demos and SDR workflows are ripe for automationHow BuildGroup partners deeply with founders post-investmentIf you're a SaaS executive thinking about where to apply AI for real impact—without waiting for a full replatform—this conversation is packed with insight.---Not Getting Enough Demos? Your messaging could be turning buyers away before you even get a chance to pitch.

In this episode of the Revenue Builders Podcast, hosts John McMahon and John Kaplan are joined by George Mogannam, CRO at Celigo. George shares insights from his extensive experience in scaling high-growth businesses and leading world-class sales organizations. The discussion delves into the common challenges startups face as they grow, highlighting the importance of establishing the right hiring profiles, formal onboarding and training, key performance indicators (KPIs), and an operating rhythm to drive sustainable growth. The episode offers practical advice for CROs on building high-performing revenue teams, ensuring effective communication, and integrating sales processes across various departments to maintain a competitive edge in today's market. George emphasizes the need for continuous enablement, cultural cohesion, and the pivotal role of the CRO in fostering an accountable and disciplined sales environment.ADDITIONAL RESOURCESLearn more about George Mogannam:https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgemogannam/Read Force Management's Guide to Embedding AI In Your B2B Sales Organization: https://hubs.li/Q03ldrzD0Download the CRO Strategy Checklist: https://hubs.li/Q03f8LmX0Enjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0HERE ARE SOME KEY SECTIONS TO CHECK OUT[00:02:05] The Importance of Process in Scaling Startups[00:02:40] Common Challenges in Sales Organizations[00:03:43] Hiring the Right Salespeople[00:04:46] The Role of Sales Enablement[00:06:53] Defining Sales Terminology[00:09:11] Adapting Hiring Profiles for Growth[00:23:44] Onboarding and Training New Hires[00:32:03] Leveraging Tools and Metrics for Success[00:37:59] Understanding the Five Quarter Report[00:40:06] Implementing Sales Disciplines Across Departments[00:44:15] The Role of the CRO in Organizational Growth[00:48:26] The Importance of Operating Rhythms[00:52:44] Challenges in Sales Processes and Technology[00:57:02] The Impact of Remote Work on Sales Teams[01:00:00] The Criticality of Efficient Hiring ProcessesHIGHLIGHT QUOTES"When you implement these disciplines, it helps pull the rest of the company along.""You must have the right people on the bus executing in the direction we need to go.""A common language and definitions become critical as part of the enablement.""Everybody loves to be in an environment where they can be led to a place they couldn't get to on their own.""Creating a hiring profile that evolves with the company is essential; what works at one stage may not work at another.""It's critical to have the tools and metrics in place to provide direction and identify gaps in the sales process."

In this episode of CRO Spotlight, Warren Zenna sits down with Joe Gravino, Principal at Falcon Partners. They explore how private equity–backed firms identify and deploy revenue leaders. Joe explains Falcon's boutique search approach focusing on aligning go-to-market teams with strategic objectives. Together, they pinpoint key markers of organizational readiness for a Chief Revenue Officer. They discuss timing hires to maximize growth.Warren and Joe tackle confusion between the CRO role and sales leadership and why it should follow dedicated sales, marketing, and customer success structures. Joe outlines how to educate investors on sequencing leadership hires and building foundational infrastructure. They emphasize defining scope clearly and fostering cross-team collaboration to unite go-to-market functions under a cohesive revenue strategy.Conversation turns to key competencies for standout CROs. Joe highlights revenue operations expertise and data fluency as essential. He illustrates how boardroom vision must pair with front-line execution to translate insights into results. They touch on leadership styles that balance strategy with hands-on coaching. Warren and Joe discuss traits of urgency and adaptability needed under investor-driven expectations.Finally, Warren and Joe share best practices to prepare the organization and CRO for success. They explore establishing robust processes, integrating tech stacks, and building transparent reporting frameworks. They emphasize executive sponsorship and cross-functional alignment to empower a revenue leader. Listeners receive actionable advice for creating an environment where a CRO can diagnose gaps and drive sustainable growth.

Revenue is the result—but what drives it? That's the question Aj Vaughan, host of The E1B2 Collective Podcast, dares to explore in this powerful new series built specifically for sales leaders, sales teams, and the people who enable them.Culture Over Quota goes beyond the tactics of prospecting, closing, and pipeline management. It's a deep dive into the human systems that make sales organizations sustainable, resilient, and built to scale. Aj brings his workforce strategy roots to the high-stakes world of sales, unpacking what most ignore: the leadership gaps, cultural blind spots, and team dynamics that quietly shape performance.Through unscripted conversations with CROs, enablement leaders, sales managers, and people-first operators, this series explores:How to recruit and onboard in ways that build belonging, not burnoutHow team dynamics and internal communication shape execution more than any scriptHow trust, feedback, and psychological safety become true competitive advantagesHow leaders can build cultures that hold both people and performance accountableWhy the best sales orgs treat enablement, coaching, and leadership development as revenue drivers—not HR's side projectIf you believe sales is more than numbers on a dashboard—if you believe real success is built in the conversations inside your team long before they ever reach a prospect—this series is for you.Welcome to Culture Over Quota. Where human-centered leadership meets high-performance sales.

In this episode of B2B Sales Trends, Harry Kendlbacher reconnects with Sachin Wadhawan, who first appeared on the podcast as a sales engineering leader—and now returns with fresh insights from his role as Chief Revenue Officer at a fast-growing startup. Harry and Sachin dive into the challenges of standing out in crowded markets, why a technical sales background can be a hidden advantage for CROs, and how early-stage companies can build trust and credibility when competing against bigger, better-funded players. Sachin also shares practical lessons from launching an ambassador program, leveraging AI in both product and sales processes, and the evolving role of sales engineers in driving growth. This conversation is packed with valuable insights for sales leaders navigating complex B2B environments, especially those in the SaaS and tech space.

  This week on Revenue Rehab, Brandi Starr is joined by Rita Richa, a B2B podcast strategist and executive producer with a track record of turning conversations into revenue. Together, they break down how Lenovo overcame lackluster event ROI by transforming traditional conference sponsorships into a pipeline-driving “pop up podcast” experience—turning fleeting booth traffic into meaningful, mid-funnel conversations and a year's worth of content in days. They discuss the end-to-end playbook for integrating real-time podcast activations, coordinated sales efforts, and data-driven storytelling to accelerate deals and maximize event impact. If you're looking to turn event spend into measurable pipeline momentum, this episode is for you.  Episode Type: Case Study  Revenue leaders who've been in the trenches share how they tackled real challenges—what worked, what didn't, and what you can apply to your own strategy. These episodes go beyond theory, breaking down real-world implementation stories with concrete examples, step-by-step insights, and measurable outcomes.  Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers:  Topic #1: Transforming Event Sponsorship With Pop Up Podcasts [06:04] Rita Richa identifies the inefficiency of traditional event sponsorships—“Too many CMOs are dropping six figures on conference booths only to walk away with bad scans, vague brand awareness, and no clear ROI.” She discusses how introducing a structured popup podcast experience enabled B2B brands to turn event conversations into revenue by “creating content with your ideal, you know, business targets, your ICP, your prospects...in real time at the event.” This shift made event investments directly tied to pipeline acceleration and measurable impact.  Topic #2: Driving Pipeline and Content Scale Through Experiential Coordination [09:18] Rita describes the end-to-end activation of Lenovo's popup podcast, detailing coordinated touchpoints that move prospects from coffee sponsorship to booth engagement, culminating in short, strategic interviews rooted in case studies. “It's the entire collective experience of getting your customer from point A to point B to actually even want to come to your booth and have those conversations.” By enabling sales teams as ‘super fans' and centering content on relevant industry reports, the team achieved 15+ high-value interviews in two days, batching a full year's content while accelerating deal movement.  Topic #3: Measuring and Maximizing Event ROI Beyond Brand Awareness [22:29] The discussion shifts to the trackable business outcomes derived from the popup podcast approach. Rita shares, “They were able to book like really significant follow up meetings and close a couple of, you know, deals because of this activation that if it were not to happen, like they wouldn't have an easy way to like follow up with these people essentially.” Brandi Starr highlights the benefit of activating both top-funnel and middle-funnel prospects at events, increasing velocity for deals already in the pipeline, and providing actionable methods to improve event ROI for CMOs and CROs.  Key Learning If you had to do it all over again, what's one thing you would do differently?  Rita would focus on incorporating public relations from the start to boost exposure—think reaching out to event journalists or organizers ahead of time and making the pop-up podcast an event in itself. Treating the brand like a media entity, she'd look for ways to gamify and engage the audience even more, ensuring content is compelling enough that people want to stop, watch, and share.  The Big Win  By transforming a traditional event sponsorship into a targeted pop-up podcast activation, Rita Richa enabled Lenovo to batch a full season's worth of high-quality prospect interviews in just two days, accelerate pipeline engagement with key decision-makers, and directly drive follow-up meetings and deal progression that would not have happened through conventional event tactics.  Buzzword Banishment  Rita's buzzword to banish is "just another day in paradise." She dislikes this phrase because it projects a disengaged, apathetic mindset in workplace interactions and can unintentionally define someone's personal brand as indifferent or uninspired. Rita argues that being real and genuine in responses fosters better human connection and avoids falling into autopilot, noncommittal communication habits.  Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ritaricha/details/experience/  Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/_ritaricha/  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/rita.richa  Podcast: https://bippityboppitybiz.com/  YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@bippityboppitybusiness  Subscribe, listen, and rate/review Revenue Rehab Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts , Amazon Music, or iHeart Radio and find more episodes on our website RevenueRehab.live  

Hiring the right Chief Revenue Officer can make or break a company's growth trajectory. In this episode, Warren Zenna and Wayne Starritt unpack the systemic issues behind CRO hiring failures—and why fixing the hiring process itself is critical to long-term success. They reveal how many companies unknowingly sabotage CROs before day one.Wayne shares lessons from working with PE-backed SaaS firms, highlighting why hiring a CRO isn't like hiring a CFO or CMO. He and Warren dig into why short-term problem solving often trumps strategic vision—and how that dynamic must change if companies want sustainable revenue leadership.The conversation dives deep into why misaligned expectations between CEOs, boards, and CROs create chaos, and how leaders can proactively design CRO roles that align with true business needs. Wayne also shares real-world stories of when bad hiring processes led to good CROs failing unnecessarily.If you're a CEO preparing to hire a CRO, a current CRO aiming to thrive, or an aspiring CRO planning your next move, this episode is packed with tactical advice. Learn how to recognize warning signs, ask the right questions during interviews, and structure your next CRO appointment for real impact.

In this episode of Coach to Scale, sales trainer and former Olympic trials athlete Neil Wood joins Matt Bonelli to challenge one of the most pervasive mistakes CROs and sales leaders make: reserving coaching only for the bottom performers. Drawing from decades of real-world experience and high-performance athletics, Neil makes the case for why top sales reps need consistent, skill-based coaching just as much as, if not more than, struggling reps.From tactical strategies to improve frontline manager execution to the psychological traps that stall rep development, Neil and Matt explore why most sales training fails to stick, what a real coaching culture looks like, and how reinforcement (not rah-rah) builds consistent revenue teams. If you're serious about sales performance, this episode breaks down what separates good teams from elite ones and why your top talent should be the first to get coached.Key Takeaways 1. Training without reinforcement is a waste of money. Neil argues that without structured follow-up, most sales training is forgotten within days and never translates to behavior change2. Coaching should start with your top performers, not your bottom 20%. Investing in your best reps delivers the highest ROI and accelerates performance gains that actually move the revenue needle.3. Frontline managers aren't equipped — or supported — to coach well. Most FLMs were great reps, not trained coaches, and they're overwhelmed with data, admin tasks, and deal reviews that crowd out skill development.4. The sales profession suffers from a lack of real coaching. Neil defines true coaching as helping reps develop long-term skills, not just managing pipelines or offering encouragement.5. Consistency matters more than intensity. Regular coaching conversations — even 30 minutes every two weeks — drive more lasting impact than sporadic bursts of inspiration or annual sales kickoffs.6. Behavior change happens through accountability and shared success. Neil's approach includes peer story sharing post-training to reinforce skills and inspire adoption through social proof, not just instruction.7. You can't improve what you don't inspect. Many managers accept rep narratives at face value; Neil stresses the importance of inspecting behaviors, not just outcomes, to drive improvement.8. Coaching isn't a sign of weakness — it's what elite performers seek. From Olympic athletes to UFC champions, Neil reminds us that the best in the world all have coaches — and they invest in sharpening their edge.9. A good 1:1 isn't a therapy session or a deal inspection — it's a coaching moment. Neil reframes 1:1s as intentional moments for skill growth, not check-the-box meetings or emotional downloads.10. Similarities don't sell — differences do. Sales reps must stand out with a differentiated value proposition, and so must sales organizations when it comes to coaching their teams.Ways to Tune In:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Yb1wPzUxyrfR0Dx35ym1A Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-build-a-coaching-culture/id1699901434 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2NvYWNoMnNjYWxlLWhvdy1tb2Rlcm4tbGVhZGVycy1idWlsZC1hLWNvYWNoaW5nLWN1bHR1cmU Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fd188af6-7c17-4b2e-a0b2-196ecd6fdf77 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-5419703 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Coach2Scale CoachEm™ is the first Coaching Execution Platform that integrates deep learning technology to proactively analyze patterns, highlight the "why" behind the data with root causes, and identify the actions that will ultimately improve business results going forward.  These practical coaching recommendations for managers will help their teams drive more deals, bigger deals, faster deals, and loyal customers. Built with decades of go-to-market experience, world-renowned data scientists, and advanced causal AI/ML technology, CoachEm™ leverages your existing tech stack to increase rep productivity, increase retention, and replicate best practices across your team.Learn more at coachem.io

The CEO's Strategic Growth Edge: A Go-To-Market System That Scales“You don't need more leads—you need clarity. Clarity on where your business can grow the most, the fastest, and at the highest margin. That's what a real go-to-market system delivers. It's not about volume anymore—it's about alignment, focus, and making sure every team—marketing, sales, and customer success—is executing toward the same outcome. That's how CEOs scale with confidence.” That's a quote from Sangram Vajre, and a sneak peek at today's episode.Welcome to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast. I'm your host, Kerry Curran—revenue growth expert, industry analyst, and relentless advocate for turning marketing into a revenue engine. Each episode, we bring you the strategies, insights, and conversations that help drive your revenue growth. So search for Revenue Boost in your favorite podcast directory and hit subscribe to stay ahead of the game.In The CEO's Strategic Growth Edge: A Go-to-Market System That Scales, I'm joined by bestselling author and GTM expert Sangram Vajre to discuss why go-to-market isn't a marketing tactic—it's a CEO-level growth system. In this episode, you'll learn the three phases every business must navigate to scale, why alignment beats activity in every growth stage, how CEOs can drive clarity, trust, and margin-focused decisions across teams, and why AI is only a threat if you're still riding the demand-gen horse.If you're a growth-minded CEO or exec, this episode gives you the roadmap and the mindset to scale faster, smarter, and stronger. Be sure to listen through to the end, where Sangram shares three key tips—his ultimate advice for any leader ready to level up their go-to-market strategy. Let's go!Kerry Curran, RBMA (00:00.77)So welcome, Sangram. Please introduce yourself and share a bit about your background and expertise.Sangram Vajre (00:06.992)Well, at the highest level, I feel like I've had the opportunity to be in the B2B space for the last two decades and have had a front-row seat to categories that have shaped how we think about go-to-market. I ran marketing at Pardot. We were acquired by ExactTarget and then Salesforce—that was a $2.7 billion acquisition. It was a huge shift in mindset, going from a $10 million company to a $10 billion one, and I learned a lot.I became a student of go-to-market, if you will. That was in the marketing automation space. Then I launched a company called Terminus, which has been acquired twice now. Along the way, I've written three books. The one we're going to talk a lot about is MOVE, which became a Wall Street Journal bestseller. That book has created a lot of opportunities and work for us.I walked into writing this book, Kerry, thinking I knew go-to-market because I had two $100M+ exits. But I walked out of the process a student of go-to-market because I learned so much. Writing it forced me to talk to folks like Brian Halligan, the CEO of HubSpot, and partners at VC firms who have seen 200 exits—not just the three I've experienced.It really expanded my vision. Now I lead a company called Go-To-Market Partners. We're a research and advisory firm focused on helping companies understand who owns go-to-market and how to run it at a transformational level. Our clients are primarily CEOs and executive teams. That's our focus.Kerry Curran, RBMA (01:46.094)Excellent. Well, I'm very excited to dive in. I first saw you speak at Inbound last fall, and what really resonated with me was the shift from just an ABM program to a company-wide GTM program—one that includes everything from problem-market fit all the way to customer success, loyalty, and retention. Really making GTM the core of revenue growth.So I'd love for you to dive in and share that framework and background.Sangram Vajre (02:23.224)Yeah. And by the way, for people who've never attended Inbound—you should. I've spoken there for eight years straight and always try to bring new ideas. Each year, they keep giving me more opportunities—from main stage to workshops. I think you attended the 90-minute workshop, right? Hopefully it wasn't boring!Kerry Curran, RBMA (02:48.61)Yeah, it was excellent. I love this stuff, so I was taking lots of notes.Sangram Vajre (02:52.814)That was fun. The whole idea was: how can you build your entire go-to-market strategy on a single slide? Now, people might think, “There's no way—you need way more detail.” But it's not about making it complete; it's about making it clear.So everyone can be aligned. For example, in the operating system we've developed, we write research about it every Monday in a newsletter called GTM Monday, read by 175,000 people. The eight pillars are based on the most important questions. And Kerry, I don't know if you'll agree, but I think I've done a disservice for two decades by asking the wrong question.Like, I used to ask, “Where can we grow?”—which sounds smart but is actually foolish. The better question is, “Where can we grow the most, the fastest, the best, at the highest margin?” That's the true business perspective. So the operating system is built around these eight essential questions.If every executive team can align on these—not with certainty, but with clarity—then they can gain a clear understanding of what they're doing, where they're going, who their ICP is, what bets they're making, and which motions to pursue. I've done this over a thousand times with executive teams, helping them build their entire go-to-market strategy on a single slide. And it's like a lightbulb moment for them: “Okay, now I know what bets we're making and how my team is aligned.” It's a beautiful thing.Kerry Curran, RBMA (04:50.988)Yeah, because that's one of the hardest challenges across business strategy and growth: where to invest, where to lean in. So bring us through the questions and framework.Sangram Vajre (05:01.688)Yeah. So the first one is “Where can you grow the most?” The second one is really about what we call the Market Investment Map. I'll give you maybe three or four so people can get an idea. The Market Investment Map is especially useful for companies with more than one product or more than one segment. This is the least used but most valuable framework companies should be using.You might remember from the Inbound talk—I used HubSpot as an example since I was speaking at Inbound. It's interesting because at my last company, Terminus, we acquired five companies in eight years. So we had to learn this process. The Market Investment Map is about matching your best segments to the best products to create the highest-margin offering.If your entire business focuses only on pipeline and revenue—which sounds right—you're actually focused on the wrong things. You may have seen people post on LinkedIn saying, “I generated $10 million in pipeline,” and then a month later, they're laid off. Why? Because that pipeline didn't matter. It might have been general pipeline, but if you looked at pipeline within your ICP—the customers your company really needs to close, retain, and expand—it might have only been half a million. That's not enough to sustain growth or justify your role.So, understanding the business is critical. It's not just about understanding marketing skills like demand gen, content, or design. Those are table stakes. You need to understand the business of marketing—how the financials work, how to drive revenue, and how to say, “Yeah, we generated $10 million in pipeline, but only half a million was within ICP, so it won't convert or drive the margin we need.” That level of EQ and IQ is what leaders need today.Our go-to-market operating system goes deep into areas like this.Kerry Curran, RBMA (07:31.022)And I love the alignment with the ICP. I'm sure you'll get deeper into that. I also know you talk about getting rid of MQLs because the real focus should be on getting closer to the ICP—on who's actually going to drive revenue.Sangram Vajre (07:45.892)Yeah. John Miller, a good friend who co-founded Marketo, has been writing about this too. I was the CMO of Pardot. Then we both built ABM companies—I built Terminus; he built Engagio, which is now part of Demandbase. We've been evangelizing the idea of efficient marketing machines for the last two decades.We're coming full circle now. That approach made sense in the “growth at all costs” era. But in this “efficient growth” era, everything can be measured. The dark funnel is real. AI can now accelerate your team's output and throughput. So we have to go back to first principles—what do your customers really want?I was in a discussion yesterday with executives and middle managers, and the topic of AI came up. Some were worried it would take their jobs. And I said, “Yes, it absolutely will—and it should.” I gave the example I wrote about recently: imagine you were the best horseman, with saddles, barns, and a generational business built around horses. Then Henry Ford comes along with four wheels. You just lost your job—not because you were bad, but because you got infatuated with the horse, not with your customer's need to get from point A to point B.Horses did that—it was better than walking. But then came cars, trains, airplanes. Business evolves. If you focus on your customers' needs—better, faster, cheaper—you'll always be excited about innovation rather than afraid of it. So yes, AI will replace anyone who stays on their horse. If you're riding the demand gen horse or relying only on content creation, a lot is going to change. Get off the horse, refocus on customer needs, and figure out how to move your business forward.Kerry Curran, RBMA (10:21.708)Yeah. So talk a bit about honing in on the ICP. I know in one of the sessions you asked, “Who's your target audience?” And of course, there was one guy in the front row who said, “Everyone,” and we all laughed. But I still hear that all the time. Talk about how important it is, to your point, to know your customer and get obsessed with what they need.Sangram Vajre (10:45.56)Yeah. So the first pillar of the go-to-market operating system is called TRM, or Total Relevant Market. We introduced that in the book MOVE for the first time. It's a departure from TAM—Total Addressable Market—which is what that guy in the front row was referring to during that session. It was epic, and I think he was a sales leader, so it was even funnier in a room full of marketers.But it's true—and real. He was being honest, and I appreciated that. The reality is, we've all been conditioned to focus on more and more—bigger and bigger markets. That makes sense if you have unlimited funds and can raise money. It makes sense if the market is huge and you're just trying to get in and have more people doing outbound.As a matter of fact, a few weeks ago, we did a session where someone said something profound that I'll never forget. He said, “The whole SDR function is a feature bug in the VC model.” That was fascinating—because the whole SDR model was built to get as many leads as possible, assign 22-year-olds to make cold calls, and push them to AEs.We built this because it worked on a spreadsheet. If we generate 1,000 leads, we need 50 callers to convert them. It's math. But nobody really tried to improve it because we had the money. Now we're in a different world. We have clients doing $10–15 million in revenue with five-person teams automating so much.People don't read as many automated emails. My phone filters out robocalls, so I never pick up unless it's someone I know. Non-personalized emails go into a folder I never open. Yet people keep sending thousands of them, thinking it works.For example, I send our GTM Monday newsletter via Substack. It's free for readers, and it's free for me to send—even to 175,000 people. Meanwhile, marketers spend thousands every time they email their list using legacy tools. Why? Because these people haven't opted in to be part of the journey the way Substack subscribers have.The market has changed. Buying big marketing automation tools for $100,000 is going to change drastically. Fractional leaders and agencies will thrive because what CEOs really need is people like you—and frameworks like a go-to-market operating system—to guide them. You and I have the gray hair and battle scars to prove it. What matters now is using a modern framework, implementing it, and measuring outcomes differently.Kerry Curran, RBMA (14:08.11)Yeah, you bring up such a valid point. In so many of my conversations, I see the same thing. It's been a sales-led growth strategy for years. Investments went to sales—more BDRs, more cold emails, more tech stack partners.Even as I was starting my consultancy, I'd talk to partners or prospects who'd say, “Well, we just hired more salespeople. We want to see how that goes.” But to your point, without the foundational framework—without targeting the right audience—you're just spinning your wheels on volume.Sangram Vajre (15:06.318)Exactly. One area we emphasize in our go-to-market operating system is differentiation. Everyone's doing the same thing. Let me give you an example. Last week, I looked at a startup's email tool that reads your emails and drafts responses automatically. Super interesting. I use Superhuman for email.Two days later, Superhuman sent an email saying they'd launched the exact same feature. So this startup spent time and money building a feature, and Superhuman—already with a huge user base—replicated and launched it instantly. That startup is out of business.With AI, product development is lightning fast. So product is no longer your differentiator. Your differentiation now is how you tell your story, how quickly you grab attention, how well you build and maintain a community. That becomes your moat. Those first principles matter more than ever. Product is just table stakes now.Kerry Curran, RBMA (16:33.878)Right. And connecting that to your marketing strategy, your communication, your messaging—it also sets up your sales team to close faster. By the time a prospect talks to a rep, your marketing has already educated them on your differentiation. So talk more about the stages and what companies need to keep in mind when applying your go-to-market framework.Sangram Vajre (17:07.482)One of the things we mention in the book—and go really deep into in our operating system—is this 3P format: Problem-Market Fit, Product-Market Fit, and Platform-Market Fit. We believe these are the three core stages of a business. I experienced them firsthand at Pardot, Salesforce, and Terminus through multiple acquisitions.If you remember, I always talk about the “squiggly line,” because no company grows up and to the right in a straight line. If you look at daily, weekly, or monthly insights, there are dips—just like a stock market chart. So the squiggly line shows you can go from Problem to Product, but you'll experience a dip. That's normal and natural. Same thing when you go from Product to Platform—you hit a dip. Those dips are what we call the “valleys of death.”Some companies overcome those valleys and cross the chasm, and others don't. Why? Because at those points, they discover they can market and sell, but they can't deliver. Or maybe they can deliver, but they can't renew. Or maybe they can renew but not expand. Each gap becomes a value to fix in the system.And it's hard. I've gone from $5 million to $10 million to $15 million, all the way to $100 million in revenue—and every 5 to 10 million increment brings a new set of challenges. You think you've got it figured out, and then you don't—because everything else has to change with scale.I'll never forget one company I was on the board of—unfortunately, it didn't make it. The CEO was upset because they were doing $20 million in revenue but didn't get the valuation they wanted. Meanwhile, a competitor doing only $5 million in revenue in the same space got a $500 million valuation. Why? Because the $20M company was doing tons of customization—still stuck in Problem-Market Fit. The $5M company had reached Product-Market Fit and was far more efficient. Their operational costs were lower, and their NRR was over 120%.If you've read some of my research, you know I'm all in on NRR—Net Revenue Retention—as the #1 metric. If you get NRR above 120%, you'll double your revenue in 3.8 years without adding a single new customer. That's what executives should focus on.That's why we say the CEO owns go-to-market. All our research shows that if the CEO doesn't own it, you'll have a really hard time scaling.Kerry Curran, RBMA (20:23.992)That makes so much sense, because everything you're talking about—while it includes marketing functions—is really business strategy. It needs to be driven top-down. It has to be the North Star the whole company is paddling toward.I've been in organizations where that's not the case. And as you said, leadership has to have the knowledge and strategic awareness to navigate those pivots—those valleys of death. So talk about how hard it is to bring new frameworks into an organization and the change management that comes with that. As you evangelize the idea that the CEO owns GTM, what's resonating most with them?Sangram Vajre (21:26.456)Great question. First of all, CEOs who get it—they love it. The people who struggle most are actually CMOs and CROs because they feel like they should be the ones owning go-to-market. And while their input is critical, they can't own it entirely.In all our advisory work, Kerry, we mandate two things:The CEO must be in the room. We won't do an engagement without that. The executive team must be involved. We don't do one-on-one coaching—because transformation happens in teams.People often get it wrong. They think, “We need better ICP targeting, so that's marketing's job.” Or, “We need pipeline acceleration—let sales figure that out.” Or, “We have a retention issue—fire the CS team.” No. The problem isn't a department issue—it's a process and team issue.The CEO is the most incentivized person to bring clarity, alignment, and trust—the three pillars of our GTM operating system. They're the ones sitting in all the one-on-one meetings, burning out from the lack of alignment. The challenge is most CEOs don't know what it means to own GTM. It feels overwhelming.So we help them reframe that. Owning doesn't mean running GTM. It means orchestrating clarity, alignment, and trust. Every meeting they lead should advance one of those. That's the job. When the ICP is agreed upon, marketing should be excited to generate leads for it. Sales should be eager to follow up. CS should be relieved they're not getting misaligned customers. That's leadership. And there's no one more suited—or incentivized—to lead that than the CEO.Kerry Curran, RBMA (24:08.11)Absolutely. And the CFO plays a key role too—holding the purse strings, understanding where the investments should go.Sangram Vajre (24:20.622)Yes. In fact, in the book and in our research, we emphasize the importance of RevOps—especially once a company reaches Product-Market Fit and moves toward Platform-Market Fit.If you're operating across multiple products, segments, geographies, or using multiple GTM motions, the RevOps leader—who often reports to the CFO or CEO—becomes critical. I'd say they're the second most important person in the company from a strategy standpoint.Why? Because they're the only ones who can look at the whole picture and say, “We don't need to spend more on marketing; we need to fix the sales process.” A marketing leader won't say that. A sales leader won't say that. You need someone who can objectively assess where the real bottleneck is.Kerry Curran, RBMA (25:17.836)Yeah, that definitely makes so much sense. Are there other areas—maybe below the executive team—that help educate the company from a change management perspective to gain buy-in? Or is it really a company-wide change?Sangram Vajre (25:33.742)Yeah, you mentioned ABM earlier. Having written a few books on ABM and building Terminus, we've seen thousands of companies go through transformation. We now have over 70,000 students who've gone through our courses. I love getting feedback.What's interesting is that ABM has been great for aligning sales and marketing—but it hasn't transformed the company. Go-to-market is not a marketing or sales strategy. It's a business strategy. It has to bring in CS, product, finance—everyone.Where companies often fail is by looking at go-to-market too narrowly—like it's just a product launch or a sales campaign. That's way too myopic. Those companies burn a lot of cash.At the layer below the executive team, it gets harder because GTM is fundamentally a leadership-driven initiative. An SDR, AE, or director of marketing typically doesn't have the incentive—or business context—to drive GTM change. But they should get familiar with it.That's why we created the GTM Operating System certification. Hundreds of professionals have gone through it—including you! And now people are bringing those frameworks into leadership meetings.They'll say, “Hey, let's pull up the 15 GTM problems and see where we're stuck.” Or, “Let's revisit the 3 Ps—where are we today?” Or use one of the assessments. It's pretty cool to see it in action.Kerry Curran, RBMA (27:35.758)Yeah, and it's extremely valuable. I love that it's a tool that helps drive company-wide buy-in and educates the people responsible for the actions. So you've shared so many great frameworks and recommendations. For those listening, what's the first step to get started? What would you recommend to someone who's thinking, “Okay, I love all of this—I need to start shifting my organization”?Sangram Vajre (28:09.082)First, you have to really understand the definition of go-to-market. It's a transformational process—not a one-and-done. It's not something you define at an offsite and then forget. It's not owned by pirates. It's iterative. It happens every day.Second, the CEO has to be fully bought in. If they don't own it, GTM will run them. If you're a CEO and you feel overwhelmed, that's usually why—you're running go-to-market, not owning it.Third, business transformation happens in teams. If you try to build a GTM strategy in a silo—as a marketer, for example—it will fail. The best strategies never see the light of day because the team isn't behind them. In GTM, alignment matters more than being right.Kerry Curran, RBMA (29:27.982)Excellent. I love this so much. Thank you! How can people find you and learn more about the GTM Partners certification and your book?Sangram Vajre (29:37.476)You can go to gtmpartners.com to get the certification. Thousands of people are going through it, and we're constantly adding new content. We're about to launch Go-To-Market University to add even more courses.We also created the MOVE Book Companion, because we're actually selling more books now than when it first came out three years ago—which is crazy!Then there's GTM Monday, our research newsletter that 175,000 people read every week. Our goal is to keep building new frameworks and sharing what's possible. Things are changing so fast—AI, GTM tech, everything. But first principles still apply. That's why frameworks matter more than ever.You can't just ask ChatGPT to “give me a go-to-market strategy” and expect it to work. It might give you something beautifully written, but it won't help you make money. You need frameworks, team alignment, and process discipline.And I post about this every day on LinkedIn—so follow me there too!Kerry Curran, RBMA (30:54.988)Excellent. Well, thank you so much. This has been a great conversation, and I highly recommend the book and the certification to everyone. We'll include all the links in the show notes.Thank you, Sangram, for joining us today!Sangram Vajre (31:09.284)Kerry, you're a fantastic host. Thank you for having me.Kerry Curran, RBMA (31:11.854)Thank you very much.Thanks for tuning in to Revenue Boost: A Marketing Podcast. I hope today's conversation sparked some new ideas and challenged the way you think about how your organization approaches go-to-market and revenue growth strategy. If you're serious about turning marketing into a true revenue driver, this is just the beginning. We've got more insightful conversations, expert guests, and actionable strategies coming your way—so search for us in your favorite podcast directory and hit subscribe.And hey, if this episode brought you value, please share it with a colleague or leave a quick review. It helps more revenue-minded leaders like you find our show. Until next time, I'm Kerry Curran—helping you connect marketing to growth, one episode at a time. See you soon.

Today, our guest on The PARTNERNOMICS® Show is Chris Allen, Chief Revenue Officer at Intrado. Chris has over 25 years of experience in high-tech and SaaS sales. He excels in developing scalable processes and driving significant revenue growth while leading high-performance teams. Chris has successfully introduced new products and expanded customer reach throughout his career, notably at Oseberg, TNS Technology, and early at Intrado, where he built the Enterprise and Carrier sales teams. His leadership has cultivated a culture of excellence and innovation. Key Insights: 1. Cultivating Relationships for Long-term Success: Relationships function similarly to seeds; early investment in them can yield substantial, enduring returns in both personal and professional realms. 2. Leveraging Strategic Partnerships for Scalable Growth: Chris underscores the critical importance of channel partners in achieving efficient scalability. Tapping into their existing networks can provide a more sustainable growth strategy than significantly expanding a traditional sales force. 3. Transitioning Leadership Dynamics: The discussion highlights the evolving roles within sales leadership, specifically contrasting the functions of a VP of Sales and a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). This underscores the need to shift from tactical execution to strategic foresight to drive company progression. 4. Embracing Humble Curiosity: Chris advocates for the value of humility and continuous learning at the executive level, stressing that CROs should seek knowledge from partners and acknowledge areas of uncertainty. Chris's experiences and insights reinforce the notion that impactful leadership often stems from a willingness to learn, adapt, and cultivate meaningful relationships. ********* Are you a partnering professional wanting to earn industry certifications and badges to showcase on LinkedIn? We will give you the first course and certification for FREE ($595 value)!

In this Starr-Led solo episode of Revenue Rehab, Brandi Starr brings a But How perspective to the widespread practice of handing qualified leads from marketing to SDRs and BDRs. Challenging the assumption that sales pressure is the next logical step, Brandi argues that most buyers are actually looking for guidance—not a hard sell—during the critical middle of the funnel. She introduces the vital, often-overlooked role of Marketing Development Reps (MDRs) and offers a blueprint for structuring this function to accelerate revenue. CMOs and CROs will find a compelling case for rethinking funnel strategy to close the costly gap between marketing and sales.  Episode Type: Starr-Led   Brandi Starr cuts through industry noise with bold, unfiltered insights on revenue growth. These solo episodes challenge outdated advice, debunk myths, and break down industry reports to reveal what really drives results. Expect sharp commentary, data-backed analysis, and actionable strategies to refine your marketing and sales approach.  Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers:  Topic #1: Middle of the Funnel Is the New Battleground [03:31]  Brandi spotlights a massive structural gap in the revenue funnel, arguing that 95% of the buying journey now happens before a buyer ever engages with sales. She insists that traditional automation and nurture flows can only take buyers so far—leaving them stuck, overwhelmed, and underserved. Her message is clear: CMOs and CROs must prioritize MoFu strategies and stop letting this “messy middle” bleed potential revenue.  Topic #2: Marketing Development Reps (MDRs) are Essential, Not Optional [05:43]  Brandi challenges the notion that sales development roles (SDRs/BDRs) can handle the middle-funnel gap, claiming they are “chasing meetings and demos” rather than nurturing. She makes a bold case for MDRs—empathetic, insight-driven professionals who guide engaged but not-yet-ready buyers—arguing that organizations without them are leaving high-value leads to stall. Her advice: pilot or reassign resources now, and build MDR compensation and measurement around MoFu KPIs rather than pipeline quotas.  Topic #3: Rethink Buying Committee Support and Buyer Experience [14:54]  Brandi exposes how complex sales cycles with large committees need a strategic MoFu resource to guide and enable all stakeholders—not just the lead contact. She advocates for a shift from automation-focused nurturing to human-led support that's “not pushy, not looking for a quota”—arguing that this trust-driven approach becomes a competitive differentiator. Her test: if your deals are complex and require consultative education, then building this role is overdue.   Why Should Revenue Leaders Stop Ignoring This Problem Right Now?  Because you're wasting millions generating leads only to watch 60% vanish into a black hole between marketing and sales. Brandi makes it clear: this isn't a lead quality issue—it's a structural gap where overwhelmed buyers stall out, SDRs get misused, and revenue opportunities die in the messy middle. Ignoring it means you're losing deals not due to weak campaigns, but because nobody is actively guiding buyers through their biggest hurdles before they're ready to talk to sales.  What's the First Action Someone Should Take to Apply This Insight Today?  Brandi says: shift your mindset to focus on the middle of the funnel—stop obsessing over top-of-funnel leads or bottom-of-funnel closes, and interrogate what your buyers actually need between those points so you can design support that accelerates their internal decision process. If you're not prioritizing MoFu strategy, that's your urgency—start now.  Takeaway  Brandi challenges revenue leaders to fundamentally rethink the buying journey, pointing out that most of the action—and friction—now happens in the messy middle of the funnel, not at the top or bottom. She urges leaders to shift their mindset away from traditional sales and marketing silos, and start prioritizing buyer enablement and support during that critical middle stage. The key move? Stop neglecting the middle of the funnel—design roles, strategies, and resources specifically to guide buyers through this phase, ensuring you become their go-to partner, not just another vendor pushing a quota.  Subscribe, listen, and rate/review Revenue Rehab Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts , Amazon Music, or iHeart Radio and find more episodes on our website RevenueRehab.live  

The future of selling. We cover AI-copilots for sales, forecasting engines for CROs, real-time procurement layers, and the future of revenue intelligence. Guiding us will be Andy Byrne CEO of Clari, the #1 Enterprise Revenue Platform trusted by over 1,500 companies managing more than $4 trillion in revenue. From pipeline to close, renewal to expansion, Clari brings end-to-end visibility, control, and predictability to every revenue-critical function in the enterprise. The company has raised $520 million in funding from top-tier investors including Blackstone, Silver Lake, Sequoia Capital, Bain Capital Ventures, and Sapphire Ventures. Recognized as a 2024 Deloitte Technology Fast 500™ winner and growing at 227% over three years, Clari is leading a movement to modernize how businesses run their revenue process — transforming it from siloed and reactive to unified, intelligent, and data-driven. Andy is a defining voice in the future of revenue operations. A serial entrepreneur and two-time CEO, Clari marks the fourth company he’s helped build with backing from Sequoia Capital — a rare feat that speaks to his track record and long-term vision. Known for being thoughtful, resilient, and a true builder, Byrne has helped scale Clari into a global platform used by the world’s most sophisticated sales and finance teams. Sign up for new podcasts and our newsletter, and email me on danieldarling@focal.vcSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Dennis and Brady talk about the weekend that was, including wins from St Clair, Almont, Marine City and others, Cros-Lex and Algonac bring home baseball tournament crowns, league races rev up this week and more!

What's the real difference between a CFO and a COO? Can you do both roles simultaneously? And which title is more desirable from a career perspective? Today's guest, Colin Sims, who is currently the CFO of Hunters but has held both titles multiple times, joins CJ to answer these questions and to talk about channel sales. They discuss what it takes to build a successful channel sales model and how companies need to “feed the channels" before expecting them to feed the company in return. You'll hear about winning sales motions, what to look for in a CRO, and why transparency trumps democracy when it comes to business decisions.If you're looking for an ERP, head to NetSuite: https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning.—SPONSORS:Planful is a financial performance management platform designed to streamline financial tasks for businesses. It helps with budgeting, closing the books, and financial reporting, all on a cloud-based platform. By improving the efficiency and accuracy of these processes, Planful allows businesses to make better financial decisions. Find out more at www.planful.com/metrics.Subscript is a modern billing and revenue recognition platform designed for SaaS finance teams that need flexibility and accuracy. From automated invoicing and dunning to compliant, transparent revenue recognition and real-time analytics, Subscript eliminates manual work, reduces errors, and gives you a single source of truth for all your financial data. Book a free demo at subscript.com.Rippling Spend is a spend management solution that handles your entire company's spending in one unified system. It enables you to bring your corporate cards, expense management, bill pay, and more into one place to achieve real-time visibility and uniquely granular control with automated policy controls across every type of spend. Get a demo to see how much time your org would save at rippling.com/metrics.Vanta's trust management platform takes the manual work out of your security and compliance process and replaces it with continuous automation. Over 9000 businesses use it to automate compliance needs across over 35 frameworks like SOC 2 and ISO 27001. Centralize security workflows, complete questionnaires up to five times faster, and proactively manage vendor risk. For a limited time, get $1,000 off Vanta at vanta.com/metrics.Tropic is an intelligent spend management solution that consolidates your spend data and processes into one unified offering, enabling insights and decisive action. From spotting hidden optimization opportunities to automating painful procurement workflows and giving you the best market data to turn vendor negotiations in your favor, Tropic combines smart insights with real human expertise to keep you ahead of the curve. Visit tropicapp.io/mostlymetrics to learn how.NetSuite provides financial software for all your business needs. More than 40,000 companies have already upgraded to NetSuite, gaining visibility and control over their financials, inventory, HR, eCommerce, and more. If you're looking for an ERP platform, head to NetSuite https://netsuite.com/metrics and get the CFO's Guide to AI and Machine Learning.—LINKS:Colin Sims: https://www.linkedin.com/in/colinjsims/Hunters: https://www.hunters.security/CJ on X (@cjgustafson222): https://x.com/cjgustafson222Mostly metrics: http://mostlymetrics.com—TIMESTAMPS:(00:00) Preview and Intro(02:35) Sponsor – Planful | Subscript | Rippling Spend(06:39) The Real Difference Between a CFO and a COO(12:58) Why CFOs Are in Greater Demand Than COOs(16:48) Sponsor – Vanta | Tropic | NetSuite(22:21) The CFO-COO Hybrid Role(23:39) Skills To Be a Good COO(26:21) A Winning Sales Motion and the CRO(32:07) Intellectual Curiosity and the Ability To Learn and Adapt(34:48) CROs for Different Stages(36:32) Channel Sales Models That Rely on Partners(41:14) The Predicability of Channel Models(44:24) Where Channel Sales Go Wrong(47:05) The Different Types of Channels(49:03) Transparency Works, Democracy Doesn't(54:27) Long-Ass Lightning Round: Hiring Mistakes(55:56) Finance Software Stack(58:02) Craziest Expense Story Get full access to Mostly metrics at www.mostlymetrics.com/subscribe

Ram's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ramyala/Inato: https://go.inato.com/3VnSro6CRIO: http://www.clinicalresearch.ioMy PatientACE recruitment company: https://patientace.com/Join me at my conference! http://www.saveoursites.comText Me: (949) 415-6256Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/7JF6FNvoLnBpfIrLNCcg7aGET THE BOOK! https://www.amazon.com/Comprehensive-Guide-Clinical-Research-Practical/dp/1090349521/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Dan+Sfera&qid=1691974540&s=audible&sr=1-1-catcorrText "guru" to 855-942-5288 to join VIP list!My blog: http://www.TheClinicalTrialsGuru.comMy CRO and Site Network: http://www.DSCScro.comMy CRA Academy: http://www.TheCRAacademy.comMy CRC Academy: http://www.TheCRCacademy.comLatinos In Clinical Research: http://www.LatinosinClinicalResearch.comThe University Of Clinical Research: https://www.theuniversityofclinicalresearch.com/My TikTok: DanSfera

Is your Revenue Operations function truly strategic, or stuck reacting to tactical demands? Elevate your approach and drive predictable, scalable growth.This episode features insights from Brett Honerkamp (CEO with over 20 years of CRO and sales leadership experience) on building a high-impact RevOps engine. This is a must-listen for CROs, PE Operating Partners, and leaders focused on maximizing revenue efficiency and value creation.Learn Brett Honerkamp's strategies for:+ Implementing  core principles for RevOps success.+ Designing optimal and adaptive sales team structures.+ Transforming  operational data into strategic growth drivers.+ Effectively justifying RevOps investment and understanding its ROI.+ Building proactive operations that prevent fires, not just fight them.Ready to implement these strategies?Visit our website at revsearch.io/readiness for a free 20-question assessment to evaluate your current state of RevOps.Timestamps:(00:00) Intro (1:43) Brett Honerkamp's Background and RevOps Principles (6:01) Optimal Team Structure Insights (11:11) Personal Connections and Team Enablement(16:38) Justifying RevOps Investment (ROI) (22:20) Moving the Middle and Skill Development (29:44) Revenue Growth and Strategic VisionConnect with Brett Honerkamp:LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/in/bretthonerkamp/Learn More & Connect with Us:Our Website: www.revsearch.io/Free RevOps Assessment: www.revsearch.io/readinessRevSearch - https://revsearch.io/LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/company/revsearch-revops-recruiting/

Send us a textIn this powerhouse episode of Mastering Modern Selling, Brandon Lee, Tom Burton, and Carson Heady are joined by JD Miller, a seasoned sales executive turned private equity advisor. With six successful exits under his belt, JD brings a rare blend of operational insight and boardroom savvy. The discussion centers on how private equity firms evaluate and scale their portfolio companies—especially in the sales and marketing domains—and what sales leaders can do today to thrive in that high-expectation environment.Repeatability Is the Foundation of Scale JD highlights that scaling isn't just about hiring more reps, it's about implementing repeatable, measurable systems. When transitioning from a founder-led sales model to a broader team, companies need to get critical knowledge out of leaders' heads and into structured playbooks. This is essential when growing from five sellers to two hundred. Without repeatable processes, scale isn't sustainable.Sales Leadership Must Be Fluent in Data Today's top CROs are expected to lead with data. Whether through deep CRM analysis, conversation intelligence, or funnel metrics, modern sales leaders need to understand how to break down growth targets into tactical, trackable levers. JD emphasized the need for CROs to either personally embrace analytics or work closely with RevOps to translate insights into strategy.“SMarketing”: Sales and Marketing as a Single Engine JD introduced the concept of "SMarketing", a true merger of sales and marketing into one go-to-market function. He shared real-world examples of aligning revenue goals with both teams' activities and discussed how metrics like sales velocity can guide joint decision-making.Bi-weekly check-ins and shared accountability are critical to keeping both teams rowing in the same direction.Messaging for the Modern Buyer Buyers today expect a well-informed, highly personalized approach. JD stressed the importance of showing up with a point of view rooted in research, data, and empathy. In a volatile economy, messaging must pivot from “growth at all costs” to helping buyers reduce risk and improve efficiency. Sales and marketing alignment ensures these themes are consistent across every touchpoint.Performance Plans: Tools for Growth, Not Punishment In JD's view, performance improvement plans should be part of every employee's journey, not a disciplinary action. He advocates for quarterly development conversations that blend short-term performance goals with long-term career aspirations. JD Miller's episode is a masterclass in bridging strategy and execution in modern selling. Whether you're a CRO in a high-growth startup, a founder looking for investment, or a marketer working closely with sales, the principles JD shares can redefine how you scale. By focusing on repeatable systems, cross-functional alignment, and buyer-centric messaging, you can transform your sales motion into an engine that attracts not only customers, but also investors. Don't miss out—your next big idea could be just one episode away! This Show is sponsored by Fist BumpYour prospecting partner to authentically fill your pipeline with ideal customers. Check out our Live Show Events here: Mastering Modern Selling Live ShowSubscribe to our Newsletter: Mastering Modern Selling Newsletter

This week on Revenue Rehab, Brandi Starr is joined by Brittany Hansen, a seasoned SaaS executive and marketing leader who believes that most revenue issues aren't caused by structure or strategy, but by broken internal communication—and she's ready to prove it. In this episode, Brittany challenges the common industry belief that misalignments can be solved with org charts, OKRs, or new tools, arguing instead that clarity, consistency, and honest feedback loops are what truly drive alignment and results. She unpacks why CMOs and CROs must address communication breakdowns at every level to build trust, avoid costly silos, and deliver on their brand promises. Ready to confront the real root of disruption—or do you think she's got it wrong?  Episode Type: Problem Solving  Industry analysts, consultants, and founders take a bold stance on critical revenue challenges, offering insights you won't hear anywhere else. These episodes explore common industry challenges and potential solutions through expert insights and varied perspectives.  Bullet Points of Key Topics + Chapter Markers:  Topic #1: Alignment Isn't a Math Problem—It's a Messaging Problem [04:49]  Brittany Hansen asserts that “revenue is like a math problem” is a damaging myth, and pushes back on the idea that public-facing alignment is all that matters. She explains, “when you don't have internal alignment on who you are and what your messaging is, that's reflected to everybody.” Brandi challenges this view by asking why traditional alignment efforts miss the mark, provoking a debate about the centrality of message consistency across all functions.  Topic #2: Post-Mortem Meetings Are Non-Negotiable for Sustained Growth [13:24]  Brittany fiercely advocates for regular, honest post-mortem meetings and structured feedback loops, countering the “move fast, skip reflection” mindset common in high-growth companies. She emphasizes that without these rituals, “communication is just a bunch of fluff...learning after the fact creates that full circle for any business.” Brandi questions the practicality of these meetings, especially in busy organizations, sparking a conversation about how leaders can operationalize these rituals without falling into over-engineering.  Topic #3: Curiosity and Psychological Safety Drive Alignment [25:22]  Brittany challenges the assumption that pushback against alignment processes comes from difficult employees, arguing instead that resistance is a critical signal leaders should embrace. She urges executives to “get curious” and make it safe for team members to voice concerns, stating, “so rarely in life is there somebody who is just an anarchist and wants to burn your company down for the sake of watching it burn.” The conversation explores how psychological safety and curiosity—not heavy-handed enforcement—are the real levers for creating alignment and surfacing valuable organizational insights.  The Wrong Approach vs. Smarter Alternative  The Wrong Approach: “Getting forceful about it and demanding answers.” – Brittany Hansen  Why It Fails: Approaching alignment issues with force or by demanding compliance breeds resistance and shuts down open dialogue. This top-down approach discourages honesty, creates fear, and leads to toxic positivity, where real problems remain unaddressed because employees don't feel safe speaking up.  The Smarter Alternative: Instead, leaders should “get curious.” This means making it safe for employees to voice concerns, asking open questions to understand root causes, and fostering a culture where candid feedback is welcomed. By encouraging honest conversations and establishing regular feedback loops, organizations can uncover misalignments and address them collaboratively for lasting improvement.  The Most Damaging Myth  The Myth: “Revenue is like a math problem. Right. And I think the other is that we are. We are who we display publicly and that's all there is to it.” – Brittany Hansen  Why It's Wrong: According to Brittany, treating revenue purely as a math or structural issue ignores the critical role of internal communication and alignment. When companies focus solely on external appearances or metrics without ensuring everyone internally shares a unified understanding and message, misalignment seeps into every customer interaction. This disconnect is visible to consumers, undermining trust and revealing issues beneath the surface.  What Companies Should Do Instead: Leaders must prioritize internal alignment on company identity, messaging, and goals—going beyond surface-level metrics or outward branding. Invest in transparent, consistent communication across all departments to ensure everyone can accurately articulate what the company does and stands for. This unified internal clarity creates trust with customers and eliminates damaging surprises.  The Rapid-Fire Round  Finish this sentence: If your company has this problem, the first thing you should do is _  “Get curious.” – Brittany Hansen Take immediate action by asking questions and seeking to understand where misalignment or communication gaps exist within your organization.  What's one red flag that signals a company has this problem—but might not realize it yet?  “There's so many silos and silent, silent conversations... when nobody's showing up on Slack and there's elephants in the room and you can feel it.” Watch for a lack of open communication, silos between teams, and unspoken issues—these often signal deeper alignment problems.  What's the most common mistake people make when trying to fix this?  “Getting forceful about it and demanding answers.” Don't try to mandate alignment through top-down force or pressure. Forcing answers undermines trust and discourages honest communication.  What's the fastest action someone can take today to make progress?  “Have a conversation. Ask someone the questions.” Start by deliberately opening a conversation—reach out directly to team members and ask about their understanding, concerns, and viewpoints right now.  Immediate Takeaway for Revenue Leaders:  Foster curiosity, break silos with direct dialogue, avoid a forceful approach, and take fast action by simply starting honest conversations—these are the first steps to resolving alignment and communication issues within your revenue organization.  Buzzword Banishment  Brittany's buzzword to banish is "viral." She dislikes this term because while everyone wants to go viral for exposure, they rarely consider whether their message is reaching the right audience or whether it authentically represents their brand. Brittany argues that virality does not guarantee meaningful impact and that brands should focus on niche relevance and knowing their audience, rather than chasing unpredictable, hollow visibility.  Links:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brittany-a-hansen/  Website: Viiision.com  Subscribe, listen, and rate/review Revenue Rehab Podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts , Amazon Music, or iHeart Radio and find more episodes on our website RevenueRehab.live    

Tom Young, VP of Sales at BMC Software, joins Matt Benelli to challenge outdated assumptions about how enterprise sales should work. Drawing on decades of experience and a recent moment on the other side of a buying decision, Tom reveals how sellers often leave buyers to navigate complex purchasing decisions alone, leading to stalled deals, weak adoption, and low rep confidence. The problem isn't buyer intent. It's a lack of structure, coaching, and guidance.This conversation gets tactical and strategic. Tom breaks down the myth that buyers know how to buy, why seller-led engagement models outperform passive following, and how high-performing FLMs simplify complexity through coaching, not control. CROs and sales leaders will appreciate the clear through line: when managers teach reps how to lead a buying journey, not just chase a number, sales cycles shorten, win rates improve, and performance becomes repeatable. If you're building a scalable sales org, this is a must-listen.Top TakeawaysEnterprise buyers often don't know how to buy software Despite assumptions, many buyers lack a defined decision process, which means sellers must guide, not follow, their journey.The best salespeople act as guides, not followers When sellers proactively lead buyers through a structured engagement model, the experience improves and adoption increases.Mutual Action Plans need to go beyond the PO date Ending your plan at "PO received" signals self-interest; the real impact comes from aligning with the customer's go-live and success milestones.Effective FLMs sell the engagement model, not the product first Top-performing managers train reps to win by selling how the decision will be made, not just what to buy.Sellers must ask the questions buyers should be asking themselves High-quality discovery isn't just fact-finding; it helps buyers clarify their own thinking, build confidence, and reduce internal friction.Sales cycles fail when reps abdicate process control Letting the buyer “drive” often results in delays, missed stakeholders, and no decision; a structured engagement keeps momentum.Managers must balance pressure with coaching Pushing deals without guiding reps through skills and behavior leads to burnout and underperformance.You can't outsource coaching and rep development Even strong enablement and RevOps support can't replace the day-to-day behavioral coaching frontline managers must deliver.One-on-ones are not for pipeline inspection—they're for skill development Coaching isn't about the forecast; it's about improving rep effectiveness so the forecast becomes more predictable.Every manager needs a consistent, inspectable operating rhythm Without structured 1:1s and repeatable frameworks, rep development becomes ad hoc, and performance becomes unpredictable.Ways to Tune In:Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0Yb1wPzUxyrfR0Dx35ym1A Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-build-a-coaching-culture/id1699901434 Google Podcasts: https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0cHM6Ly9mZWVkcy50cmFuc2lzdG9yLmZtL2NvYWNoMnNjYWxlLWhvdy1tb2Rlcm4tbGVhZGVycy1idWlsZC1hLWNvYWNoaW5nLWN1bHR1cmU Amazon Music: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/fd188af6-7c17-4b2e-a0b2-196ecd6fdf77 Podchaser: https://www.podchaser.com/podcasts/coach2scale-how-modern-leaders-5419703 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@Coach2Scale CoachEm™ is the first Coaching Execution Platform that integrates deep learning technology to proactively analyze patterns, highlight the "why" behind the data with root causes, and identify the actions that will ultimately improve business results going forward.  These practical coaching recommendations for managers will help their teams drive more deals, bigger deals, faster deals, and loyal customers. Built with decades of go-to-market experience, world-renowned data scientists, and advanced causal AI/ML technology, CoachEm™ leverages your existing tech stack to increase rep productivity, increase retention, and replicate best practices across your team.Learn more at coachem.io

Send us a textWhen evaluating the top ERP systems for the pharmaceutical industry, it's crucial to recognize that this list focuses solely on the ERP solutions themselves—not the vendors behind them—and spans organizations of all sizes, from emerging biotech startups to large-scale pharmaceutical manufacturers. Since ERP needs vary widely across the pharma value chain, the accompanying commentary offers essential guidance on which systems best serve specific market segments. The industry encompasses a wide array of business models, including traditional pharma companies, biotech firms, cannabis producers, nutraceutical manufacturers, CROs, and R&D consultancies—each with distinct regulatory, operational, and supply chain demands. For instance, a contract research organization may require robust data integrity and clinical compliance tools, whereas a nutraceutical producer might prioritize batch traceability and rapid production scalability. These differences underscore the importance of selecting an ERP system that not only supports compliance but also aligns with a company's core processes and growth trajectory.In this episode, our host Sam Gupta discusses the top 10 pharma ERP systems in 2025. He also discusses several variables that influence the rankings of these pharma ERP systems. Finally, he shares the pros and cons of each pharma ERP system.Background Soundtrack: Away From You – Mauro SommFor more information on growth strategies for SMBs using ERP and digital transformation, visit our community at wbs. rocks or elevatiq.com. To ensure that you never miss an episode of the WBS podcast, subscribe on your favorite podcasting platform. 

Would you like access to our advanced agency training for FREE? https://www.agencymastery360.com/training What truly makes clients choose one agency over another? What are the essential qualities that elevate an agency from service provider to trusted partner? Today's featured guest brings a rare 360-degree perspective to these crucial questions. As a fractional CMO with extensive experience on both sides of the relationship, our guest provides unique insights into the dynamics of successful agency-client partnerships. Tune in for actionable insights that will help agencies strengthen their client relationships, refine their service approach, and position themselves as indispensable strategic partners. Alex Hultgren is a seasoned fractional CMO with extensive experience in both client and agency roles. He shares his journey through the marketing landscape, from starting at Ford Motor Company and leading marketing efforts at Polaris to transitioning to agency life at Hayworth and later starting his own business. Alex discusses the expectations that brands have when working with agencies, what he used to look for in an ideal agency partner, and the reason he kept his business boutique and has chose to work with contractors. In this episode, we'll discuss: Learning to forge deep agency partnerships in corporate marketing. Elements of effective agency relationships. Why he chose to prioritize autonomy over growth. Subscribe Apple | Spotify | iHeart Radio Sponsors and Resources Wix: Today's episode of the Smart Agency Masterclass is sponsored by Wix Studio, the all-in-one platform designed to help agencies scale without the headaches. With intuitive tools, robust native business solutions, and low maintenance, Wix Studio lets your team focus on what matters most—delivering exceptional value to your clients. Ready to take your agency to the next level? Visit wix.com/studio and discover how Wix Studio can transform your workflow, boost profits, and strengthen client relationships. Forging Deep Agency Partnerships in Corporate Marketing Alex's professional trajectory spanned both corporate and agency environments before culminating in entrepreneurship. He started his career working at Ford Motor Company, as part of their marketing leadership program for fourteen years, and then running marketing for Victory Motorcycle as part of Polaris. He then went on to work on the agency side as one of the three leads of Walmart's media accounts at Hayworth. In 2021 he decided to take all that experience to build his own business. During his time at Ford, Alex only ever worked with one agency team, the team at JTW. Although large corporations normally have many agencies working at different projects at a time, Ford preferred to maintain an exclusive agency partnership and, even when digital marketing started to be an important part of their strategy, they only used other agencies as contractors for limited periods. On one hand, this meant there weren't many options if he didn't like the work, other than asking them to go back to the drawing board. On the other hand, it also meant they formed a deeply integrated partnership, as they were more of an extension of his team than merely external service providers. By contrast, at Polaris he had a fraction of the budget but found himself coordinating multiple specialized agencies handling different aspects of the business, which proved to be considerable demanding. However, in both cases he always saw agencies as partners and part of his team. The Foundation of Effective Agency Partnerships In choosing agencies, one of the major problems Alex encountered was agencies that promised they could deliver on something when they clearly couldn't. For him, it came down to Could they be trusted to do the work? Did they know what they were doing? Most clients are looking for agencies that can alleviate their burdens by providing solutions without requiring micromanagement. Hence, an ideal agency partner should be able to take a problem, devise a solution, and communicate progress effectively. However, trust is not enough when communication is lacking and one of the major hurdles Alex faced working on the client side was getting enough clarity from the company on what they wanted from the agency. To bridge this gap, agencies must take the initiative to foster open lines of communication. This includes asking the right questions to extract meaningful feedback from clients and internal stakeholders. Finally, Alex also believes an agency should be able to take calculated risks because innovative ideas can sometimes face resistance from traditional corporate structures. The ability to push through skepticism and advocate for creative solutions is a testament to the trust that exists within a strong agency-client relationship. To address this client skepticism about design or content choices, Alex suggests AB testing the material and see how customers behave. This approach shifts the conversation from subjective preferences to measurable customer behavior—the ultimate metric for evaluating marketing effectiveness. Prioritizing Autonomy Over Growth Even after successfully scaling his agency, Alex made a deliberate choice to maintain a lean operation, preferring to collaborate with contractors rather than building a traditional team structure. To him, the more traditional style seemed like an option that would take away the flexibility and freedom he hoped to obtain by building his business. Right now, he has the ultimate authority regarding what work and clients he takes on, and it's not something he would give up. While operating as a small agency might seem limiting, Alex is part of a group that provides him with extensive capabilities without sacrificing independence. This federation—called the Chameleon Collective, is comprised of 40-50 fractional executives (CMOs, CROs, and CTOs) alongside approximately ninety specialized marketing experts and enables a modular approach to team building. This model also addresses a problem that plagues big organizations: meeting waste. From his time working at Ford Alex remembers the frustration of back-to-back meetings that yield little value. He sees a need to reevaluate the purpose of meetings, advocating for a shift away from status updates that could be conveyed via email to more focused discussions aimed at problem-solving, as well as scheduling 15-minute meetings instead of defaulting to longer time blocks and empowering team members to opt out of meetings that do not pertain to their roles. Ultimately, Alex has prioritized an agency model that prioritizes effectiveness, strategic alignment, and adaptability—values that directly contrast with the rigid structures he experienced in his corporate career. Do You Want to Transform Your Agency from a Liability to an Asset? Looking to dig deeper into your agency's potential? Check out our Agency Blueprint. Designed for agency owners like you, our Agency Blueprint helps you uncover growth opportunities, tackle obstacles, and craft a customized blueprint for your agency's success.

In this short segment of the Revenue Builders Podcast, we revisit the discussion with Bob Ranadli of FTV Capital to unpack the delicate dynamics between CROs, CEOs, and board members. From managing expectations to avoiding pitfalls of dysfunction, this conversation dives deep into how CROs can approach board interactions with strategy, self-awareness, and alignment. Perfect for revenue leaders who want to strengthen executive relationships and drive healthy boardroom collaboration.KEY TAKEAWAYS[00:00:35] Understand the Board's Purpose: CROs must recognize the board's role in needs analysis and bringing strategic value—not just oversight[00:01:10] Diversify Board Experience: Great boards consist of varied backgrounds and expertise; avoid redundancy in experience sets[00:01:45] Root Cause vs. Surface Complaints: Before raising issues with the board, ensure the CRO and CEO have sought resolution together.[00:02:15] Bring Solutions, Not Just Problems: Leaders must shift from venting to proactive solution-building[00:02:50] Avoid Commiserating with Board Members: CROs should direct internal concerns to CEOs first, not the board—keep relationships clear and constructive.[00:03:30] Align Board Expertise with Department Needs: Strong boards mirror company functions, acting as mentors to department leaders when the CEO is confident and secure.QUOTES[00:00:55] "The board needs to do a needs analysis… making sure you don't have redundancy in experience is really important."[00:02:00] "If you've got a problem and you're not thinking about a solution, then you've got to look in the mirror."[00:02:50] "If you're bringing something to me that looks like you don't have a solution, you're just complaining."[00:03:50] "The really good CEOs bring in board members who can act as mentors aligned to each function.[00:04:15] "For that to work, the CEO must be very secure in their job."Listen to the full conversation through the link below. https://revenue-builders.simplecast.com/episodes/understanding-the-nuances-of-the-cro-ceo-relationshipEnjoying the podcast? Sign up to receive new episodes straight to your inbox: https://hubs.li/Q02R10xN0Check out John McMahon's book here: Amazon Link: https://a.co/d/1K7DDC4Check out Force Management's Ascender platform here: https://my.ascender.co/Ascender/Force Management is hiring for a Sales Director. Apply here: https://hubs.li/Q02Zb8WG0Read Force Management's eBook: https://www.forcemanagement.com/roi-of-sales-messaging

Laurent Ruquier et les Grosses Têtes attendent toujours d'être invités dans la résidence de Gaël Tchakaloff, sur l'île de Port-Cros... Retrouvez tous les jours le meilleur des Grosses Têtes en podcast sur RTL.fr et l'application RTL.Distribué par Audiomeans. Visitez audiomeans.fr/politique-de-confidentialite pour plus d'informations.