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In this edition of our interview series, Shivani Priyadarshini, Head of SEA Field Marketing at Akamai Technologies, reflects on nearly two decades of experience navigating the evolving world of B2B marketing. From an unexpected transition out of sales to leading field marketing across Southeast Asia, Shivani's journey highlights the power of curiosity, resilience, and customer obsession. Her perspective offers a timely reminder that while technology, buyer behavior, and go-to-market motions continue to evolve, the fundamentals of sustainable growth remain unchanged: understand customers, build trust, and execute with purpose.

Key Lessons and Insights

One of Shivani's strongest messages is that field marketing sits where strategy meets reality. Great campaigns and compelling messaging only matter if they resonate with customers and help advance meaningful sales conversations. In increasingly complex buying environments, field marketers play a crucial role in bridging the gap between customers, sales teams, and the broader business. She also advocates for simplifying go-to-market strategies. Rather than relying on elaborate frameworks, successful GTM execution starts with answering a few fundamental questions: Who are we serving? What problem are we solving? Why does it matter? Alignment across marketing, sales, product, and customer success is equally critical to delivering a consistent customer experience.

Shivani notes that modern buyers are more informed, selective, and demanding than ever before. Generic outreach no longer works. Customers expect relevance, authenticity, and an understanding of their unique challenges. Peer recommendations, customer stories, and community-driven conversations have become more influential because people trust people more than polished brand messages.

Another key takeaway is that customer relationships do not end at the point of sale. Retention and expansion are built through continuous value creation, ongoing dialogue, and helping customers achieve the outcomes they were promised. When organizations focus on customer success first, advocacy and growth naturally follow. For aspiring marketing leaders, Shivani encourages developing a commercial mindset, embracing discomfort, investing in relationships, and staying relentlessly curious. Leadership, she believes, is less about authority and more about influence, adaptability, and a willingness to keep learning.

Conclusion

Shivani's journey demonstrates that exceptional marketing isn't defined by flashy campaigns or complex strategies. It's built through empathy, trust, disciplined execution, and genuine partnerships. In a world of changing technologies and rising customer expectations, marketers who remain focused on helping customers succeed will continue to create lasting business impact.

In this edition of our interview series, Shivani Priyadarshini, Head of SEA Field Marketing at Akamai Technologies, reflects on nearly two decades of experience navigating the evolving world of B2B marketing. From an unexpected transition out of sales to leading field marketing across Southeast Asia, Shivani's journey highlights the power of curiosity, resilience, and customer obsession. Her perspective offers a timely reminder that while technology, buyer behavior, and go-to-market motions continue to evolve, the fundamentals of sustainable growth remain unchanged: understand customers, build trust, and execute with purpose.

Key Lessons and Insights

One of Shivani's strongest messages is that field marketing sits where strategy meets reality. Great campaigns and compelling messaging only matter if they resonate with customers and help advance meaningful sales conversations. In increasingly complex buying environments, field marketers play a crucial role in bridging the gap between customers, sales teams, and the broader business. She also advocates for simplifying go-to-market strategies. Rather than relying on elaborate frameworks, successful GTM execution starts with answering a few fundamental questions: Who are we serving? What problem are we solving? Why does it matter? Alignment across marketing, sales, product, and customer success is equally critical to delivering a consistent customer experience.

Shivani notes that modern buyers are more informed, selective, and demanding than ever before. Generic outreach no longer works. Customers expect relevance, authenticity, and an understanding of their unique challenges. Peer recommendations, customer stories, and community-driven conversations have become more influential because people trust people more than polished brand messages.

Another key takeaway is that customer relationships do not end at the point of sale. Retention and expansion are built through continuous value creation, ongoing dialogue, and helping customers achieve the outcomes they were promised. When organizations focus on customer success first, advocacy and growth naturally follow. For aspiring marketing leaders, Shivani encourages developing a commercial mindset, embracing discomfort, investing in relationships, and staying relentlessly curious. Leadership, she believes, is less about authority and more about influence, adaptability, and a willingness to keep learning.

Conclusion

Shivani's journey demonstrates that exceptional marketing isn't defined by flashy campaigns or complex strategies. It's built through empathy, trust, disciplined execution, and genuine partnerships. In a world of changing technologies and rising customer expectations, marketers who remain focused on helping customers succeed will continue to create lasting business impact.

In this exclusive interview, Nicki Wells, Senior Director of International Field and Channel Marketing at Absolute Security, shares valuable perspectives from nearly two decades in enterprise marketing. With leadership experience spanning EMEA, LATAM, and APJ, Nicki offers insights into the evolving role of marketing, the growing importance of commercial accountability, and the transformative impact of AI on go-to-market strategies.

Key Lessons and Insights

One of the strongest themes throughout the conversation is the importance of aligning marketing with business outcomes. Nicki’s early experience in sales shaped her belief that marketing should contribute directly to measurable growth, pipeline generation, and revenue impact. Today, marketing leaders are expected to demonstrate clear business value rather than focus solely on activity metrics.

Nicki also highlights the challenge of balancing global consistency with regional relevance. While organizations need a unified brand narrative and strategic framework, successful international marketing requires a deep understanding of local cultures, buyer behaviors, and market dynamics. Effective localization goes far beyond simple translation—it involves tailoring engagement strategies to resonate with regional audiences.

Another significant shift is the way enterprise leaders approach technology purchasing decisions. Buyers are increasingly focused on operational resilience, business continuity, risk reduction, and measurable ROI. As buying committees become larger and more complex, vendors must communicate value in business terms rather than relying solely on technical messaging.

The evolution of field marketing is another key takeaway. Once centered primarily on events and lead generation, field marketing has become a strategic, account-based function that works closely with sales, SDRs, customer success teams, and leadership to drive revenue outcomes. This shift reflects the broader trend toward integrated go-to-market execution.

Nicki also emphasizes the growing influence of AI. From content creation and personalization to data analysis and campaign scalability, AI is helping marketing teams operate more efficiently. However, she stresses that AI’s greatest value lies in enhancing human creativity, strategic thinking, and customer engagement—not replacing them.

Conclusion

Looking ahead, Nicki predicts a future defined by greater commercial accountability, deeper alignment across go-to-market teams, and increased adoption of AI-driven processes. Her insights serve as a powerful reminder that the most successful marketing organizations will be those that combine data-driven execution, customer-centric strategies, and authentic human connection to drive sustainable growth.

In this exclusive interview, Nicki Wells, Senior Director of International Field and Channel Marketing at Absolute Security, shares valuable perspectives from nearly two decades in enterprise marketing. With leadership experience spanning EMEA, LATAM, and APJ, Nicki offers insights into the evolving role of marketing, the growing importance of commercial accountability, and the transformative impact of AI on go-to-market strategies.

Key Lessons and Insights

One of the strongest themes throughout the conversation is the importance of aligning marketing with business outcomes. Nicki’s early experience in sales shaped her belief that marketing should contribute directly to measurable growth, pipeline generation, and revenue impact. Today, marketing leaders are expected to demonstrate clear business value rather than focus solely on activity metrics.

Nicki also highlights the challenge of balancing global consistency with regional relevance. While organizations need a unified brand narrative and strategic framework, successful international marketing requires a deep understanding of local cultures, buyer behaviors, and market dynamics. Effective localization goes far beyond simple translation—it involves tailoring engagement strategies to resonate with regional audiences.

Another significant shift is the way enterprise leaders approach technology purchasing decisions. Buyers are increasingly focused on operational resilience, business continuity, risk reduction, and measurable ROI. As buying committees become larger and more complex, vendors must communicate value in business terms rather than relying solely on technical messaging.

The evolution of field marketing is another key takeaway. Once centered primarily on events and lead generation, field marketing has become a strategic, account-based function that works closely with sales, SDRs, customer success teams, and leadership to drive revenue outcomes. This shift reflects the broader trend toward integrated go-to-market execution.

Nicki also emphasizes the growing influence of AI. From content creation and personalization to data analysis and campaign scalability, AI is helping marketing teams operate more efficiently. However, she stresses that AI’s greatest value lies in enhancing human creativity, strategic thinking, and customer engagement—not replacing them.

Conclusion

Looking ahead, Nicki predicts a future defined by greater commercial accountability, deeper alignment across go-to-market teams, and increased adoption of AI-driven processes. Her insights serve as a powerful reminder that the most successful marketing organizations will be those that combine data-driven execution, customer-centric strategies, and authentic human connection to drive sustainable growth.

Modern B2B marketing requires more than channel expertise or campaign execution. It demands audience understanding, strategic alignment across the funnel, and the ability to balance creativity with data-driven decision-making. In this interview, Alisa Hammond, Senior Marketing Manager at Deltek, shares valuable insights on full-funnel marketing, AI adoption, collaboration, and building innovative marketing cultures that drive sustainable growth.

Key Insights and Lessons:

One of the strongest themes throughout Alisa’s conversation is the importance of audience-centric marketing. She explains that successful full-funnel strategies begin with understanding the buyer’s mindset at every stage of the journey. A prospect discovering a brand for the first time requires a completely different experience than a buyer who has spent months engaging with nurture programs. This is where alignment between brand awareness, demand generation, and conversion becomes critical.

At the top of the funnel, Alisa emphasizes the role of SEO- and AEO-driven thought leadership, organic social, ungated content, and community engagement in driving visibility and discovery. As buyers move deeper into the funnel, strategies shift toward high-intent tactics such as retargeting, paid search, email nurture programs, and conversion rate optimization. What connects every stage, however, is measurement. Tracking how awareness initiatives influence mid-funnel engagement and pipeline performance ensures marketing efforts contribute to meaningful business outcomes rather than isolated vanity metrics.

Another important insight is Alisa’s perspective on AI and automation. She views AI as a powerful enabler for repetitive and process-driven work, including bid optimization, forecasting, automated reporting, SEO optimization, and content reviews. By automating operational tasks, marketers gain more time to focus on strategy, creativity, storytelling, and experimentation. At the same time, she stresses the importance of protecting authenticity and brand trust. While AI can accelerate production and optimization, it cannot fully replicate human context, emotional intelligence, or genuine audience understanding.

Alisa also highlights the growing importance of collaboration and psychological safety within marketing teams. As organizations adopt more AI-driven workflows, maintaining strong human connections and open communication becomes even more essential. She believes innovation thrives when teams feel safe experimenting, taking calculated risks, and learning from failures rather than fearing them.

Conclusion:

Alisa’s insights reinforce a critical lesson for modern marketers: sustainable growth comes from balancing technology with human creativity, aligning every stage of the customer journey, and building collaborative environments where innovation can thrive over the long term.

In modern B2B organizations, sustainable growth depends on far more than campaigns and technology. It requires strong alignment across teams, data-driven decision-making, and leadership that connects strategy with execution. In this interview, Melanie Morris, Senior Director of Marketing, North America at Backbase, shares valuable insights on scaling GTM systems, improving pipeline performance, and preparing marketing teams for an AI-driven future.

Key Lessons and Insights:

One of the strongest themes throughout Melanie’s conversation is that scaling growth is fundamentally an alignment challenge rather than a tooling problem. Organizations often struggle when Marketing, Sales, Product, and Customer teams operate independently instead of around shared business objectives. According to Melanie, high-performing GTM organizations create transparency, communication, and accountability across functions to reduce friction for both internal teams and buyers.

Sales and marketing alignment is another major focus. Melanie emphasizes that marketers must speak the language of Sales by focusing on pipeline impact, buyer signals, and account prioritization. When marketing teams provide actionable engagement insights and connect campaign activity to revenue progression, they evolve from lead generators into strategic business partners. Continuous feedback loops with Sales and customers also help improve targeting, messaging, and campaign effectiveness over time.

The interview also highlights the importance of balancing global consistency with regional flexibility. Successful international campaigns begin with a strong brand narrative and centralized messaging framework, while regional teams adapt execution for local market realities. Early collaboration between global and regional teams ensures campaigns remain both scalable and relevant.

Another key lesson is the growing impact of AI on modern GTM systems. Melanie explains how AI-powered signal engines can unify intent data, buyer engagement, and CRM insights to improve account prioritization and personalized outreach at scale. She also notes that AI tools are becoming increasingly accessible, enabling organizations to build intelligent workflows without massive infrastructure investments.

Beyond systems and technology, Melanie strongly advocates for leadership development and personal growth. She encourages marketers to focus on solving meaningful business problems, building strong relationships, and embracing stretch opportunities that create visibility and long-term career growth.

Conclusion:

Melanie’s perspective reinforces that successful B2B marketing leaders are not just pipeline drivers. They are builders of alignment, collaboration, scalable systems, and future-ready teams.

In today’s evolving B2B landscape, successful marketing requires far more than generating awareness or increasing lead volume. It demands alignment across teams, audience-focused execution, and the ability to connect global strategy with regional impact. In this interview, Natasha Koskenniemi, Senior Global B2B Marketing Leader, shares valuable insights on modern GTM execution, funnel optimization, AI adoption, and the importance of commercial alignment across organizations.

Key Lessons and Insights:

One of the strongest lessons from Natasha’s journey is the importance of combining strategic thinking with executional experience. Having worked hands-on across campaigns, channels, operations, and analytics early in her career, she developed a deep understanding of how marketing systems and teams function together. That operational fluency later became a major advantage in large enterprise environments where scalable execution depends heavily on collaboration, automation, and process alignment.

Natasha also highlights how effective global GTM strategies are built through early collaboration with regional teams, sales, and field marketing. Rather than simply distributing campaigns from the top down, successful organizations create flexible frameworks that allow regional adaptation while maintaining strategic consistency. Her “heart monitor” analogy perfectly captures modern campaign execution — a steady rhythm of always-on engagement supported by major campaign spikes such as launches or events.

Another key insight is her focus on the often-overlooked middle of the funnel. Natasha explains that many organizations over-prioritize awareness metrics or the late-stage pipelines while neglecting the engagement stage, where real buying intent develops. Her philosophy centers around a simple but powerful question: “Why should the audience care?” By improving persona-level targeting, aligning SDR outreach, and building multi-touch nurture programs, she helped drive stronger MQL-to-SQL conversion and meaningful pipeline growth.

Conclusion: Natasha’s perspective reinforces a critical truth: modern B2B marketing succeeds when strategy, execution, data, and human insight work together toward shared commercial outcomes. The conversation also explores AI’s growing role in marketing. Natasha believes AI should enhance scale and efficiency without replacing human judgment, creativity, or critical thinking. As AI-generated content becomes increasingly common, marketers who maintain a unique point of view and audience understanding will stand out most.

Introduction B2B marketing is undergoing a fundamental shift, from generating leads to directly driving revenue. In a recent conversation, Aravind Rajagopalan, Associate Vice President of Marketing at Indium, shares how modern marketing teams are evolving into revenue engines. With nearly a decade of experience across Zoho, Locus, Kissflow, and Indium, Aravind brings a strong field and outbound marketing perspective focused on one outcome: a pipeline that converts. His approach reflects a broader transformation in B2B SaaS, where marketing, sales, and customer success operate as one connected system.

Key Lessons

One of the strongest themes from Aravind’s journey is the shift toward revenue accountability. Marketing is no longer measured by activity or leads but by its ability to influence pipeline, accelerate deals, and contribute to revenue outcomes. This requires tighter alignment with sales and a deep understanding of how deals actually move. He emphasizes that true alignment is not a process. While many organizations struggle with siloed goals and disconnected execution, successful teams maintain continuity across the buyer journey. When alignment works, marketing creates context early, and sales builds on it without restarting the conversation. Keeping an account-centric view across teams is key to making this work.

Aravind also highlights the difference between high-activity ABM and impact-driven ABM. Many programs look successful on dashboards but fail to move deals forward. Real enterprise impact comes from depth, understanding stakeholder priorities, tailoring engagement, and focusing on a small set of high-value accounts rather than broad activity metrics. In field marketing, he outlines a clear playbook: identify the right accounts, map stakeholders, design integrated experiences, ensure sales alignment, and measure pipeline impact. The goal is not events or execution; it is creating moments that accelerate deals. Finally, AI is reshaping execution speed and personalization, but not replacing human judgment. While AI improves efficiency, creativity, and messaging, trust still depends on human insight.

Conclusion

Aravind Rajagopalan’s perspective reflects a clear reality of modern B2B marketing: success is no longer about generating demand in isolation but about building systems that consistently convert demand into revenue. The future belongs to teams that operate with alignment, think in accounts, measure what matters, and use technology without losing human context.

Introduction

Jonathan Griffiths, Senior Marketing Director for Venture Markets EMEA at Staffbase, brings over two decades of global marketing leadership experience across brands such as Precor, the Rugby World Cup 2019, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games, Pax8, and Acronis. His journey reflects a consistent focus on balancing brand and demand, building high-performing teams, and aligning marketing with revenue outcomes. At the heart of his philosophy is human-centered leadership—grounded in empathy, customer understanding, and disciplined, insight-led execution for sustainable growth.

Key Lessons

One of the most important principles Griffiths highlights is the need to balance brand and demand. He emphasizes that over-investing in one at the expense of the other creates long-term fragility—either weakening pipeline generation or eroding brand equity. Sustainable growth, he argues, comes from managing this tension intentionally.

Equally important is his approach to team building. The “Hungry, Humble, Smart” framework shapes how he hires and leads. Beyond skills, he looks for curiosity about customers, passion for the craft of marketing, and a willingness to challenge conventional B2B thinking. Just as critical is culture—creating psychologically safe environments where people can take risks, be honest, and grow.

Griffiths also reframes marketing as a customer journey rather than a linear funnel. He stresses relevance at every stage, allowing customers to enter and engage at multiple touchpoints rather than forcing them through a rigid path. This mindset extends to cross-functional collaboration, where marketing, sales, and customer success must operate as a unified system focused on revenue and experience.

When evaluating campaigns, he prioritizes strategic alignment, multi-channel execution, and customer-centric thinking. A strong idea, in his view, must work across integrated channels and genuinely support the customer’s progression, not just the organization’s agenda. He also stresses the importance of hypotheses before launching campaigns, ensuring data is interpreted meaningfully rather than reactively.

Finally, Griffiths underscores the importance of leadership during uncertainty. In fast-changing environments shaped by AI and organizational pressure, leaders must over-communicate with empathy, clarity, and consistency. People, he notes, need to feel led—not managed.

Conclusion

Jonathan Griffiths’ approach to marketing leadership blends strategic discipline with deep humanity. His insights reinforce that high performance is not driven solely by data, tools, or processes but by people who are empowered, aligned, and connected to purpose. In an era of constant change, his philosophy offers a clear reminder: sustainable marketing success comes from balancing commercial rigor with human-centered leadership.

Introduction Mihaela Gogota, Global Marketing Campaign Manager at UiPath, brings over a decade of experience in B2B marketing across enterprise tech. Her journey spans email marketing, marketing automation, and global campaign leadership. What stands out in her approach is not complexity, but clarity—learning by doing, staying close to execution, and continuously adapting to shifting buyer behavior and evolving channels. For Mihaela, marketing is never a finished process; it is a constant cycle of testing, learning, and refining. This mindset shapes how she approaches global campaigns, alignment, and performance at scale.

Key Insights One of Mihaela’s core principles in global campaigns is maintaining a balance between consistency and flexibility. She emphasizes that brand identity, values, and messaging should remain consistent across regions, while execution should adapt to local markets. Over-centralization can disconnect campaigns from reality, while excessive freedom can create fragmentation. The effective middle ground is clear direction paired with regional trust.

On cross-functional alignment, she highlights the importance of early collaboration. Marketing, sales, and product teams must align at the strategy stage, not after execution begins. A shift from focusing on leads to pipeline and revenue helps unify teams around shared business outcomes. Even simple, consistent communication often outperforms complex frameworks.

In ABM and segmentation, Mihaela stresses starting with strong data foundations. Without clean, reliable data, personalization loses value. She also notes that relevance matters more than excessive personalization—clear messaging often outperforms overly complex targeting. When evaluating performance, she prioritizes pipeline contribution and deal progression over surface-level engagement metrics. For her, leadership needs clarity: whether marketing is directly contributing to growth. Regarding MarTech, she advises simplicity. A strong stack should enable faster execution, reliable data, and active usage. If tools create friction instead of efficiency, the system likely needs to be simplified.

Conclusion Mihaela Gogota’s perspective reinforces a grounded view of modern B2B marketing: keep strategies simple, stay close to execution, and align everything to business outcomes. Whether working on global campaigns, ABM, or MarTech stacks, her approach consistently favors clarity over complexity and adaptability over rigid planning. For aspiring marketers, her advice is clear—understand the business, stay data-literate, collaborate early, and never drift too far from hands-on experience.

Nitin Bhargava, Senior Director of Marketing at SAP, shares how modern marketing is evolving beyond traditional demand generation to become a true revenue-driving engine. Drawing from over 20 years across India and APAC, he emphasizes that marketing’s value lies in its ability to influence outcomes, not just run campaigns.

Key Insights: Nitin Bhargava emphasizes that modern marketing must operate as a business function first, not just a communications or demand-generation activity. His journey from sales to alliances to marketing leadership taught him the importance of understanding customer problems, budgets, and decision-making processes to design campaigns that truly move the business.

Effective enterprise marketing bridges technology and business value by focusing on transformation rather than features, structuring campaigns around a business-first narrative, a clear transformation pathway, and technology as the enabler. High-performing teams are built on real alignment with sales, shared accountability, and ownership of outcomes rather than mere activities, while regional autonomy ensures strategies are relevant across diverse APAC markets.

Marketing today is accountable for revenue, influencing deals, progressing pipelines, expanding stakeholder engagement, and shortening decision cycles. AI is a powerful enabler for efficiency and signal detection but must complement, not replace, human judgment. Nitin underscores that the most impactful marketers combine insight, adaptability, and operator thinking to drive predictable business outcomes.

Conclusion: Nitin’s advice for aspiring marketing leaders is clear: stop thinking like a marketer—think like a business operator. Build commercial understanding, get close to sales and customers, and focus on outcomes over activity. You earn leadership by demonstrating that marketing is indispensable to business growth.

“Don’t aim to be a better marketer. Aim to be someone the business cannot operate without.”

Introduction

In today’s digital-first world, B2B marketing is no longer just about reach—it’s about relevance and relationships. In this edition of iTechSeries Unplugged Interview, Jessica Jackson, Field Marketing Manager at Harness, shares how combining digital strategy with human connection can transform demand generation. With experience across industries and marketing disciplines, Jessica highlights the importance of integrating data, personalization, events, and ecosystem partnerships to create meaningful engagement. Her approach underscores a key shift in modern marketing: success lies in blending digital precision with real-world interaction to build trust, accelerate pipeline growth, and drive revenue impact.

Key Lessons

One of the biggest takeaways from Jessica’s insights is the power of balancing digital and field marketing. While digital channels are essential for scale and reach, in-person interactions add a human touch that builds trust and strengthens relationships. This combination leads to more meaningful engagement and higher conversion rates. Using data and intent signals strategically is another important lesson. By analyzing user behavior, engagement patterns, and role-specific pain points, marketers can deliver highly personalized experiences. This improves targeting and ensures that prospects receive relevant content at the right time, moving them efficiently through the buyer journey.

Jessica also emphasizes the importance of prioritizing events and ecosystem marketing. Events create opportunities for direct interaction, while partnerships enhance credibility and open doors to new accounts. Together, they amplify marketing impact beyond traditional digital efforts. Equally critical is alignment between marketing and sales. Regular communication, shared KPIs, and collaborative planning ensure that marketing initiatives directly contribute to pipeline growth and revenue outcomes. Finally, she points out how to balance global consistency with local relevance, adapting campaigns to regional market dynamics while maintaining a unified brand message.

Conclusion

Jessica Jackson’s perspective reinforces that effective B2B marketing is not about choosing between digital and human interaction—it’s about integrating both. By leveraging data, embracing personalization, investing in events, and aligning closely with sales, marketers can build stronger relationships and drive measurable business results. In an increasingly competitive landscape, those who prioritize human-centric, integrated strategies will be best positioned to create lasting impact and sustainable growth.

Introduction In today’s competitive cybersecurity landscape, marketing leaders must go beyond campaigns to drive measurable business impact. In this interview, Vinny Sharma, Senior Director—Global Field & Channel Marketing at Securonix, shares her unconventional journey from commerce graduate to global marketing leader. Her story reflects the evolution of marketing into a strategic, data-driven function focused on pipeline growth, customer value, and cross-functional collaboration.

Key Insights and Lessons

Vinny underscores that robust cross-functional alignment forms the foundation of successful go-to-market (GTM) strategies. When sales, marketing, product, and customer success operate with shared goals and accountability, organizations see improved conversion rates, faster sales cycles, and stronger pipeline outcomes. She also highlights the importance of differentiation in a crowded market. At Securonix, the focus is on delivering real outcomes through innovation, such as AI-driven solutions that reduce noise and empower analysts to focus on critical decisions. This clarity and transparency help build trust and long-term customer relationships.

Another key insight is the integration of marketing channels. Paid media, SEO, content, and automation must work as a unified system—combining data, insights, and execution to move beyond vanity metrics and drive tangible revenue impact. One of the most powerful lessons from Vinny’s journey is the value of building marketing functions from the ground up. By aligning closely with sales and understanding customer challenges, marketing becomes a true business enabler rather than a support function.

Her experience launching the Securonix SPARK platform illustrates the value of customer-centricity. By creating a space for open dialogue with customers, partners, and industry leaders, she transformed product challenges into opportunities for trust-building and engagement. Vinny also stresses the role of AI as a co-pilot, not a replacement. A “human-in-the-loop” approach ensures that while AI enhances speed and insights, human judgment drives strategy and creativity. Finally, she reinforces that marketing success must be measured by business outcomes—pipeline contribution, revenue growth, deal velocity, and customer acquisition cost—not just engagement metrics.

Conclusion Vinny Sharma’s journey highlights a critical shift in modern marketing: from execution-focused roles to strategic leadership that drives business growth. By fostering alignment, leveraging AI responsibly, and staying deeply connected to customer needs, marketers can create scalable, high-impact GTM strategies that stand out in even the most competitive industries.

Introduction In today’s rapidly evolving B2B landscape, success depends on more than campaigns; it requires resilient systems. Julie Liu, Senior Vice President of Strategic Initiatives at AvePoint, exemplifies this shift. With a background in consulting and market research, she brings a systems-thinking approach to marketing, focusing on how decisions compound over time. Her journey reflects a broader transformation in marketing, from isolated functions to interconnected, adaptive growth engines.

Key Insights & Lessons

Strategy as a Living System Julie reframes strategy not as a fixed plan but as a dynamic operating system anchored by a clear North Star. In fast-moving markets, alignment sometimes requires a “downshift”—a moment of recalibration that enables stronger, more intentional acceleration later. This mindset allows organizations to stay agile without losing long-term direction.

From Functional Silos to Connected Revenue Systems Modern GTM success lies in integration. Marketing, sales, product, and customer success must function as a continuous loop rather than isolated units. Product insights shape messaging, messaging drives pipeline quality, and customer success fuels retention and expansion. When these connections are intentional, organizations unlock predictable and scalable growth.

Data as a Strategic Foundation At the enterprise level, data management is no longer a backend function—it’s a growth enabler. As AI and personalization scale, trusted and well-governed data becomes critical. Without it, even the most advanced tools fail. Julie emphasizes that strong data governance enables both speed and discipline, allowing organizations to innovate without increasing risk.

Balancing Global Consistency with Local Relevance True brand consistency doesn’t mean uniform messaging—it means meaningful resonance. Julie advocates for focusing on a few scalable global campaigns that can be deeply localized. This approach ensures that messaging connects with regional audiences while maintaining a unified brand identity.

AI and Human Creativity as a Feedback Loop Rather than drawing a hard line between AI and human input, Julie sees them as complementary forces. AI drives scale, speed, and insights, while humans bring judgment, emotion, and storytelling. The most impactful marketing emerges when both work together—AI builds the foundation, and humans create meaning.

Conclusion Julie Liu’s approach highlights a critical shift in modern marketing: from execution to orchestration. Building resilient GTM systems requires alignment, integration, and a strong data foundation—supported by both AI and human creativity. Organizations that embrace this systems-first mindset are better equipped to adapt, scale, and lead in uncertain markets.

Introduction In today’s global B2B environment, marketing is no longer just about awareness—it’s about driving measurable business outcomes. In this interview, Alexandra Williams, Director of Marketing Campaigns at Precisely, shares how modern campaign strategy is evolving into a data-driven growth engine. With an international background and deep experience in B2B technology, Alexandra brings a unique perspective on aligning global consistency with local relevance while leveraging AI and data to deliver real pipeline impact.

Key Insights

One of Alexandra’s core principles is balancing global strategy with regional execution. A strong foundation—clear messaging, positioning, and objectives—ensures brand consistency. However, true campaign success comes from empowering regional teams to adapt delivery based on local insights, cultural nuances, and market dynamics. This balance of structure and flexibility enables campaigns to resonate across diverse markets.

Data plays a central role in decision-making. Performance metrics like pipeline contribution, ROI, and lead quality influence how budgets are allocated and campaigns are planned. Rather than focusing solely on activity, marketing investments are aligned with revenue potential and long-term growth opportunities. Another major shift is marketing’s increasing accountability within the go-to-market (GTM) strategy. Marketing is now expected to influence the entire customer journey—from awareness to conversion and beyond. AI is accelerating this transformation by enabling faster insights, smarter personalization, and real-time optimization. From identifying market trends to refining messaging and predicting outcomes, AI enhances both speed and precision.

However, Alexandra emphasizes that AI is most effective when paired with human judgment and strong strategic direction. Clean data, clear goals, and critical thinking remain essential to unlocking its full potential. She also highlights the importance of a test-and-learn mindset. Campaign setbacks are inevitable, but they provide valuable insights. By continuously analyzing performance and adapting strategies, marketers can build more resilient and effective programs over time.

Conclusion Alexandra Williams’ approach reflects the evolution of marketing into a fully integrated, data-driven growth function. By aligning global strategies with local needs, using AI wisely, and concentrating on measurable results, marketers can go beyond old ways of measuring success to create real business value. In a rapidly changing landscape, success belongs to those who stay adaptable, data-focused, and committed to continuous learning.

In a rapidly evolving B2B landscape, marketing is no longer a support function; it is a strategic growth driver. In the iTech Series Fireside Chat, Patricia Harris shares how marketing has transformed into a core component of the go-to-market (GTM) engine. With buyers increasingly controlling their journeys and preferring self-service experiences, organizations must rethink how they engage, influence, and convert prospects across complex touchpoints.

Key Insights and Lessons

One of the most significant shifts highlighted is marketing’s expanded role. It now influences market selection, positioning, and revenue growth, rather than just communication or demand generation. With nearly 75% of B2B buyers preferring rep-free experiences, marketing often shapes perceptions long before sales engagement begins.

Equally important is the rise of non-linear buyer journeys. Today’s decisions involve multiple stakeholders, often six to eight personas, each at different stages. This complexity requires marketers to move beyond linear funnels and instead orchestrate consistent, personalized experiences across the entire lifecycle.

The traditional divide between brand and demand marketing is also fading. Since over 90% of buyers are not actively in-market, continuous brand-building is essential. Modern strategies blend awareness with actionable engagement, ensuring brands remain relevant when buyers are ready.

AI emerges as a powerful enabler, not just for automation but for scale. It allows teams to deliver hyper-personalized campaigns efficiently, unlocking better engagement and ROI without exponential cost increases. However, technology alone is not enough; leaders must foster a culture of experimentation, where testing, learning, and even failure are normalized.

Finally, Harris emphasizes a mindset shift for marketers: from execution-focused roles to strategic leadership. Today’s marketing leaders must think like business operators, aligning closely with revenue goals, understanding technology, and driving cross-functional impact.

Conclusion

The future of marketing lies in integration, adaptability, and strategic influence. As Patricia Harris illustrates, success depends on embracing non-linear journeys, leveraging AI for scale, and cultivating a culture of continuous experimentation. Ultimately, marketing leaders who think beyond campaigns and act as growth drivers will shape the next era of go-to-market excellence.

Enterprise marketing is undergoing a fundamental transformation. As buying environments become more complex and decision-making involves larger stakeholder ecosystems, marketing leaders are being called to play a more strategic role in driving business growth. In this conversation, Suraj Atreya, Enterprise Marketing and Go-To-Market Leader, shares how modern marketing organizations are evolving beyond traditional campaign execution to become architects of enterprise growth systems. Drawing from over fifteen years of experience across global enterprise technology and regulated industries, Suraj highlights how marketing can align strategy, insights, and execution to create predictable revenue outcomes.

Key Insights

Marketing as a Growth Architecture According to Suraj, effective marketing today goes far beyond campaigns and channels. Modern organizations must operate through unified marketing engines built around four key elements: narrative, insight, activation, and revenue accountability. A clear narrative helps define the company’s value in a changing market, while insights drawn from customer behavior and ecosystem signals guide strategy. Activation ensures coordinated execution across teams such as sales, partners, and customer success, while revenue accountability connects marketing activity directly to pipeline and business outcomes.

Aligning Short-Term Pipeline with Long-Term Brand Many marketing leaders struggle to balance immediate pipeline targets with long-term brand development. Suraj explains that these are not opposing priorities but two timelines of the same system. Enterprise buyers ultimately purchase outcomes—such as regulatory readiness, operational resilience, or faster adoption of AI—not products alone. When marketing translates those outcomes into a clear narrative that guides both positioning and account engagement, it creates consistent momentum across the funnel.

Turning Customer Insights into Strategy Customer insight remains one of the most underutilized resources in marketing organizations. Signals from sales conversations, industry analysts, partner ecosystems, and product usage often reveal shifts in buyer priorities. Organizations that translate these insights quickly into strategic messaging and go-to-market adjustments gain a competitive advantage. In Suraj’s experience, even subtle shifts in narrative can dramatically improve account engagement and pipeline conversion.

Marketing’s Growing Revenue Accountability Marketing is increasingly expected to contribute directly to business outcomes. Beyond awareness and lead volume, success is now measured through metrics such as pipeline velocity, ecosystem influence, and long-term customer value. This shift requires marketing leaders to act as orchestrators—aligning multiple teams and partners toward shared commercial objectives.

Conclusion

As enterprise buying continues to evolve, marketing’s role is shifting from activity generation to growth orchestration. By building unified systems that connect narrative, data, and execution, marketing leaders can create stronger alignment across the organization and drive more predictable business results.